Dynamic spawn vs static spawn: preference?

[Venkman]

Question of preference for you all, been wondering about for awhile.

Would you prefer a zone that dynamically generated spawn based on the size and configuration of your party (CoX, SWG, UO)? Or would you prefer static/canned content built as a quasi-puzzler to be figured out (Raids)?

I'm on the fence. I feel like I should want to have a new experience in an area depending on how I got to that area, what decisions I made, who I'm with, etc. But it needs to feel authentic, as in, I shouldn't be able to immediately tell something is different. This is the part that always bothered me about CoX's instances: you knew there wasn't a world there because it just changed itself to rise to your whim. SWG did the same thing, but I didn't care because most of the time I was only in the wilds because a Mission Terminal or quest sent me there, and the game didn't render those until you were close enough for them to spawn in anyway (because spawning them before you got close caused all sorts of early problems).

At the same time, the puzzler/Raid aspect is also rewarding, because you get a clear sense of mental progress over time. Even if you keep failing the overall encounter, as long as you and the team have been paying attention, you'll inch your way further to and through the final boss because it never changes. So you know even though you're going to fail this time, you'll have learned something that'll help you next time.

As a gamer, I feel like I should want the game to dynamically scale without being obvious about it. But as a former Raider, I feel like that would break the paradigm a lot for PvE Raids and therefore a sureshot way of retaining players.

Where do you fall?

[Ingmar]

I lean towards static. If a game came along with dynamic spawns that didn't also feel generic and computer generated then I could easily be swayed, I'm sure, but that isn't really the case right now. Particularly in the case of encounter design, the state of scripted encounters is years ahead of procedurally generated stuff right now. I'd rather fight, say, Van Cleef 5 times than random_Freakshow_boss twice, simply because not only is the encounter designed to actually work a particular way and thus reward particular skills, Van Cleef is an actual character with voice acting, etc. The same thing applies to a lesser degree with 'designed' instances with fixed patrols, little scenes with the guys standing around, etc.

The CoX style stuff has a long way to go to catch up with fully designed encounters as things stand.

[Lantyssa]

A mixture of both.

Hand tailoring spawns means some sanity checks and potentially interesting encounters.  Spawns which can present a challenge or change things up a bit are nice, too.  Many games have a system which handles both, however they keep things simple.  (I'll use WoW since it's the big one now, though it applies to many games.)

Take a generic sub-environment and there are two dozen spawn points which might spawn two or three types of mobs.  You have bunches of individual mobs that just wander in their little spots.  Occasionally you have a rare take one of their places.  Then you have a few 'story' mobs with fixed locations for quests.  It works, but it's not very exciting after you've been through the area once or twice.

With a dynamic system you can do things in a couple of ways.  Do you have mob difficulty scale ala CoX's boss mobs?  Do you just make larger/smaller spawns like what they do in instances?  It might provide a little more challenge, but it is still essentially the same.  A truly interesting dynamic system needs to come up with an entirely new population of mobs based on either environmental factors (Ryzom tried, but I don't know how it worked out since I didn't make it past the newbie island), party composition, or even just a more extensive pool of critters to draw from.  Can mobs reinforce themselves to build an encampment or cause infestations like Tabula Rasa and Conan were supposed to have?

AI and capabilities also plays a factor here.  MMO mob AI is dumb.  We can avoid the discussion about why that is, but suffice to say that an AI which can pull unexpected actions and cooperates with nearby creatures can make more static spawns seem dynamic.

Then all of that depends on your world.  Is it instanced?  Randomly generated or hand-crafted?  Wide open or constricting?  Level or skill-based?  Are you meant to take hordes of enemies or fight one-on-one?

[palmer_eldritch]

SWG and UO didn't generate spawn based on your party back in the olden days when old people like me played them. Maybe they've changed.

I like static spawn because I like worldy games more than theme park games, and I like to get to know what type of stuff is in which places, and where it's safe to go on my own and where it's not, instead of having it change around me. I like the idea that the world has a bit of a life of its own. I also prefer open worlds to instanced worlds, which I guess follows on.

If it changes over time, or randomly (within reason) or as a result of player actions then that's cool. The idea that it changes within half an hour because my party configuration changed doesn't appeal to me.

So I would say static content, or perhaps consistent is a better word for what I mean (but not raids particularly).

[Venkman]

I too think I lean static for big encounters and dyanmic (somewhat) for outdoors/non-critical encounters. Specfically because of what Ingmar notes: static can lead to more interesting encounters including fleshed-out characters with some sort of story. Things can change up within of course, but within a narrow set of variables.

SWG and UO didn't generate spawn based on your party back in the olden days when old people like me played them. Maybe they've changed.

To quibble: SWG always dynamically generated spawn, but only in outdoor environments. It was hard to notice but it was there (and they talked about it at some point, I believe in beta, with some name for it I can't recall). Basically, there was a mix of static lair spawns, lairs spawned by mission terminals, and lairs spawned by players being in the area in a certain configuration and numbers.

I think you're partly right about UO though. The only thing they dynamically spawned was those News Posts (rescue NPC X, capture point Y) that were basically mission terminals as well (same method: go to location X then the lair spawned).

[Trippy]

You are asking two different questions, or at least there's two different ways of interpreting your single question.

CoH has static spawn points (barring a few exceptions) but the makeup of that spawn can vary based on various factors. Because they are static you can learn/memorize those spots and adjust your strategy/tactics based on that knowledge just like you can in a game like EQ or WoW. You can even do a proper "dungeon crawl" in CoH if the map/mission is conducive to such a thing and you don't intentionally skip content. I used to love to lead trips through the Frostfire mission, for example. The dynamic composition of the static spawn points doesn't change that.

Most missions in CoH, however, aren't completely "hand crafted" in the same way EQ and WoW are. I don't think you'll find anybody here who doesn't prefer hand-crafted encounters/maps compared to the more "cookie cutter" form most CoH/CoV missions take.

There's no reason why you can't mix both concepts, however, (dynamic spawn composition + hand crafting) and CoH/CoV does have maps/missions like that.

I like being able to adjust the difficulty level of encounters personally. However that doesn't really change your sense of progression through a difficult encounter. As long as the difficulty level is held constant you can still track your progress. And even if it's not held constant you can still get a sense of your progression. E.g. in a game like EQ even though there wasn't an explicit difficulty slider you still had an implicit one which was who you were fighting with, and yet you were still able to progress and get better even as the people you were fighting with constantly shifted.

As a sidenote spawn points in UO were static when I played. In fact you used to be able to "trap" spawns inside your house if you happened to build right on top of one. The spawns felt "dynamic" cause the mobs moved around after appearing.

[Malakili]

Well, ideally I'd prefer a dynamic spawn that isn't based on my level/party, but on some sort of dynamic world system that keeps things changing/evolving/"alive." So, if I find an orc settlement, then I come back a couple days later and maybe a nearby dragon has taken it out or something.  Then maybe the orcs move back in and rebuild after a couple days, or maybe it isn't orcs at all, but some other group of NPCs that rebuild on that spot.  I guess that is technically dynamic, but it isn't really what you are asking I don't think.  Given the two options as you've described them, I guess I'll take the static.

[Trippy]

Well, ideally I'd prefer a dynamic spawn that isn't based on my level/party, but on some sort of dynamic world system that keeps things changing/evolving/"alive." So, if I find an orc settlement, then I come back a couple days later and maybe a nearby dragon has taken it out or something.  Then maybe the orcs move back in and rebuild after a couple days, or maybe it isn't orcs at all, but some other group of NPCs that rebuild on that spot.  I guess that is technically dynamic, but it isn't really what you are asking I don't think.  Given the two options as you've described them, I guess I'll take the static.

This sort of thing has been discussed since the MUD-days and Raph attempted to create a "virtual ecology" for UO with mixed results. You can read about UO's system here:

http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/03/uos-resource-system/
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/04/uos-resource-system-part-2/
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/05/uos-resource-system-part-3/

[Lantyssa]

SWG and UO didn't generate spawn based on your party back in the olden days when old people like me played them. Maybe they've changed.

As Darniaq said, SWG did have dynamic spawns based upon the players in the area.  When the system was working, it happened far enough away that you would never realize the table was weighted towards your level.  (It did not prevent the extremes though, so you could still get some of the incredibly rare spawns like Great Plains Stalkers.)

Unfortunately they got seriously borked at some point such that there were a limited number per planet and once spawned they never despawned.  People riding their bikes between points or to missions would cause the limit to be reached and that was it until someone took out a lair.

[Fordel]

Well, ideally I'd prefer a dynamic spawn that isn't based on my level/party, but on some sort of dynamic world system that keeps things changing/evolving/"alive." So, if I find an orc settlement, then I come back a couple days later and maybe a nearby dragon has taken it out or something.  Then maybe the orcs move back in and rebuild after a couple days, or maybe it isn't orcs at all, but some other group of NPCs that rebuild on that spot.  I guess that is technically dynamic, but it isn't really what you are asking I don't think.  Given the two options as you've described them, I guess I'll take the static.

That kind of thing is cool from a "I am wearing my world designer hat" perspective, but it doesn't really add anything to the gameplay. It probably messes with any kind of narrative you are developing for your game as well. Like, what fun would Duskwood be if it wasn't full of Zombies because the Orcs swept them clean? Part of the fun and development as a player is learning that there are Gnolls in the Hills, or the river is full of Murlocs and planning appropriately.

[Ratman_tf]

That kind of thing is cool from a "I am wearing my world designer hat" perspective, but it doesn't really add anything to the gameplay. It probably messes with any kind of narrative you are developing for your game as well. Like, what fun would Duskwood be if it wasn't full of Zombies because the Orcs swept them clean? Part of the fun and development as a player is learning that there are Gnolls in the Hills, or the river is full of Murlocs and planning appropriately.

True, but also a little bit of randomness or dynamism would be nice. WoW has the same exact mob spawning the the exact same spot, with the occasional patrols thrown in for atmosphere. But there's always going to be (Makes up an example) 3 naga on top of the rock in the cave. Always. Maybe mix up their classes, or have them spawn 5 feet to the left, or not spawn if the lever is pulled, some-goddamn-thing.

[Rendakor]

Most spawn points in WoW are already shared between several mobs. In your Naga example, each spawn location can spawn (for example) a melee Naga or a caster Naga.

[Fordel]

There is usually some variation in the sub-types too. You can have the frostbolt spamming Naga, or the sleep you then heal itself to full Naga.

[ezrast]

I definitely prefer the freedom of access that dynamic spawns allow (i.e. no team size/comp requirements). One thing that's important to note is that, much as I like CoX (the poster example of dynamically spawned content), there are a lot of bits and pieces of its execution that could be done better to address a lot of the problems people have with the systems.

For example, on villain side, it used to be that the conceptual reason behind the difficulty settings was that Arachnos was using its propaganda network to influence people's perceptions of your prowess, and could therefore control whether people gave you easy or hard missions. It was never a particularly strong justification, and it went away with the new difficulty system, but in the right game something similar could make sense - say, a sandboxy environment where your character chooses their own tasks rather then being funneled through a series of predetermined missions.

For a good mix of handcrafted set pieces into dynamically generated environments, just look to any decent roguelike or diablolike.

[Hoax]

Well, ideally I'd prefer a dynamic spawn that isn't based on my level/party, but on some sort of dynamic world system that keeps things changing/evolving/"alive." So, if I find an orc settlement, then I come back a couple days later and maybe a nearby dragon has taken it out or something.  Then maybe the orcs move back in and rebuild after a couple days, or maybe it isn't orcs at all, but some other group of NPCs that rebuild on that spot.  I guess that is technically dynamic, but it isn't really what you are asking I don't think.  Given the two options as you've described them, I guess I'll take the static.

This sort of thing has been discussed since the MUD-days and Raph attempted to create a "virtual ecology" for UO with mixed results. You can read about UO's system here:

http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/03/uos-resource-system/
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/04/uos-resource-system-part-2/
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/05/uos-resource-system-part-3/

This is always what I wanted or even better a world against the players system where the players can build out but the farther from some center of civilization they get the more the world tries to destroy what they have created.  There was a game waybackwhen that was trying to make pretty much my ideal MMO or close enough to it but it never got out of vaporware which is no surprise since they were aiming well past the moon dunno if the devs involved ever ended up making anything or being a part of anything.

http://www.rpgplanet.com/features/firstlooks/charr/

If Charr: The Grimm Fate lives up to half its potential, it will be a real benchmark in massively multiplayer online gaming. Stephan promises that Charr will set a lot of industry convention on its ear. "Well first of all, our NPCs fight back! (laughs maniacally) That's right, The Grimm don't just sit in their lairs waiting for players to come take their wallets -- they go to the players. We have pretty sweet plans for player-run cities, and these cities are going to be under attack constantly. It'll be WAR." Stephan went on to talk about the great strides made in Enemy AI for games like Age of Empires, "why can't enemies in MMORPGs fight like that too?"

Oh how silly and naive we were back in 2001!  *swoon* The whole interview is like that, imagining really cool sounding concepts that 9 years later we still have never seen.  This part made me sad.

The one thing Stephan absolutely wanted to convey to people reading this is: "We are going to ship -- it's that simple. You mentioned buzzwords earlier; the buzzword that chokes me is 'vaporware'. There seems to be a cottage community growing around watching people fail. In the light of this recent Ultima Worlds: Online thing-- You know I'm a fan too, and when all these games die on the vine it's bad for the industry as a whole. Plus, I was looking forward to that game. I know some people in the field look at UO2 and are happy they failed. Not me, I honestly feel that good solid competition is what's going to raise the bar, and make the games as a whole better."

[Ratman_tf]

Most spawn points in WoW are already shared between several mobs. In your Naga example, each spawn location can spawn (for example) a melee Naga or a caster Naga.

Ok. Let's go for a specific example that I'm familiar with. General Fangferror in Azshara. You've got the melee naga, the caster naga and the ghostie dudes. Pretty much all you're going to see there normally. But there are two rare spawns too. The lady (whatshername, I forget) who spawns like once an hour, and General Fangferror, who spawns once every 12 hours. That made it a little more interesting than the usual spawn point, because there was a chance that an unusual mob would be there. Maybe not earth shakingly different, but those two added a bit more interest.

[Malakili]

That kind of thing is cool from a "I am wearing my world designer hat" perspective, but it doesn't really add anything to the gameplay. It probably messes with any kind of narrative you are developing for your game as well. Like, what fun would Duskwood be if it wasn't full of Zombies because the Orcs swept them clean? Part of the fun and development as a player is learning that there are Gnolls in the Hills, or the river is full of Murlocs and planning appropriately.

Well, yes and no.  The sort of exploration I enjoy is really only possible once in such a case.    I mean, what you learn in my example, is that there is a good spot for a settlment at spot X.  You don't always know what is going to be there, but you know its probably going to be a spot of interest.   While knowing the world is nice, knowing the same spawns from 2005 when you head to Ashenvale, or whatever, makes the whole thing a lot less replayable as far as I am concerned.   As someone who really likes games where I can legitimately explore, I think that kind of system would make the game almost endlessly replayable.  Of course, the problem with exploration that I think rarely gets mentioned by people like me who enjoy it is that one of the important things about exploration is that it is possible to find nothing, and thats what, in the end, makes it more of a fringe gameplay style.

[palmer_eldritch]

SWG and UO didn't generate spawn based on your party back in the olden days when old people like me played them. Maybe they've changed.

As Darniaq said, SWG did have dynamic spawns based upon the players in the area.  When the system was working, it happened far enough away that you would never realize the table was weighted towards your level.  (It did not prevent the extremes though, so you could still get some of the incredibly rare spawns like Great Plains Stalkers.)

I guess I must have vaguely known how it worked when I played the game, but I forgot all about that. In theory it sounds like a pretty good system actually.

[Stormwaltz]

My preference depends on how you define "dynamic spawn."

One enemy for each player in the party? Yeah, for specific fights. The average crypt hallway spawns should be static, but final fight rooms would ideally sculpt themselves to challenge the party.

Mobs automatically scale up with you? No, with one very specific exception.

Content is designed for a level range. If I'm 40, I should blow through a 20 encounter like a god of war, and I should be curbstomped by a a 60 encounter. If you strip that out entirely, you get Oblivion, where you never feel like you're getting more powerful. I think I understand why they did that (constant challenge theoretically means a consistent level of fun), but I don't agree with it.

Bearing in mind my Asheron's Call roots, I feel an exception should be made for story dungeons. One of the frequent and legitimate complaints was that our monthly story patches were mostly designed for the content-hungry high-level crowd. The casual players and non-powerlevellers never had a chance to experience them. If I'd had something like CoX's giant monster code, I would have used that in the story dungeons, so a group of skillful level 20s would have the same chance to "change the world" as a group of skilled level 60s.

[Draegan]

I'm going to go with a mixture of both static and dynamic spawn population and static and dynamic spawn location.

My only experience is with creating MUDs using simple scripts for varying degrees of entertaining fun, but when you're creating a boss encounter or a cool dungeon sometimes you want to use a static spawn to be able to tell a story or create a very specific and defined environment/atmosphere.  However in a dungeon leading up to that boss I would like to use dynamic spawn locations so every trip through the dungeon is different.  I hate going through WOW dungeons and seeing the same trash packs over and over again.  It's dull and unimaginative. 

From the perspective of a designer I would say you would want to mix everything together to create a good blend of entertainment and keep the staleness factor down but you also don't want to create a dungeon where it becomes a pain in the ass to run.

As a player I like change, and I like things being a challenge each time I run through it.

Worst example now is WOW.  Same dungeon, same mechanics, same trash every single time.  It comes to a point where you just run through things.  Especially evident in the TBC dungeons where they were all just hallways connected to each other.  Grinding for badges now is annoying.  You clear trash, bludgeon through a boss script or some other event and keep going.  Eh.

You can start a whole new thread about dungeon design.  WOW's dungeon design has been shit since vanilla.  Dungeons like BRS and BRD, Scholomance and Strat have not been repeated.  Now it's just a one way street that you run THROUGH and not play IN.  Why can't we have a dead end, or a maze or something interesting?  Dynamic spawning would at least shake that up a little bit.

LOTRO's dungeon design is the best, I think, of all current games.  I only tried one WAR dungeon and it was kinda fun.  AOC's were all broken when I played.

Anyway, big tangent right there.  From what I've read, Trion's Heroes of Telara might be trying something like this.

[Lantyssa]

I really like the idea of story dungeons which adjust like that.

There are ways to handle the god-like or curbstomped aspects, too.  One is to let players choose their difficulty like CoX.  Another is to let mobs scale, but have the option to let them be fragile, weak, average, powerful, or godly.

Look at WoW again.  There is the option for regular and heroic dungeons.  It is a very primitive version of this in action, but limited to their instances.  There's no reason different parts of the world cannot be scaled to differing needs.

[tmp]

Oh how silly and naive we were back in 2001!  *swoon* The whole interview is like that, imagining really cool sounding concepts that 9 years later we still have never seen.  This part made me sad.

Some of them were tried and turned out the players simply hated them. The NPCs taking fight actively to the players sound fun until you have your players bitching on the forums the game did something they didn't feel like doing at the moment. Like ganked them while they were going to craft or just wanted to have a chat with another player while idling on a spot.

[Malakili]

  Now it's just a one way street that you run THROUGH and not play IN.  Why can't we have a dead end, or a maze or something interesting? 

Because the playerbase complains when 5man dungeons have complexity beyond "faceroll for epics."  Unfortunately, I think the hidden part of this conversation is that dynamic content is generally much more difficult, and difficulty leads to complaints from you "casual" playerbase, who are focusing on this content to begin with.   People like that they can go roll through knowing exactly where every trash pack is, etc.  Hell, I'll even admit that when I was playing WoW badge farming I mostly liked to see if I could run UK in 20 minutes and shave a minute of our run time.  

Anyway, I guess my point is that, to some degree, the general population has already spoken on this matter with the kinds of dungeons they've liked in WoW.

LOTRO's dungeon design is the best, I think, of all current games.  I only tried one WAR dungeon and it was kinda fun.  AOC's were all broken when I played.

Anyway, big tangent right there.  From what I've read, Trion's Heroes of Telara might be trying something like this.

I liked WAR dungeons as well, but specifically because they weren't instanced for just your party.  You could run into other parties in there, there were public quests that led to bosses, this is dramatically different in terms of both design and play experience than the standard 5man instance.  

They were still static though.


If I can make one last point here, its that one of the things about dynamic content, is that I think you have to have a player base that is sympathetic to that style of gameplay.  You have to have groups that enjoy not knowing, and I think the MMO population at large likes knowing, which is why sites like thottbot et al. are so popular.

[tazelbain]

Agree about WAR dungeons.  Dynamic Public Quests.  Instead of static step in the PQ, each step is evaluated and the next is chosen based on how well everyone is doing.  That way you have options for 1 dude to solo to a 100 man guild, but individual steps can be scripted and all the steps make sense story-wise and theme-wise.

[Hoax]

Oh how silly and naive we were back in 2001!  *swoon* The whole interview is like that, imagining really cool sounding concepts that 9 years later we still have never seen.  This part made me sad.

Some of them were tried and turned out the players simply hated them. The NPCs taking fight actively to the players sound fun until you have your players bitching on the forums the game did something they didn't feel like doing at the moment. Like ganked them while they were going to craft or just wanted to have a chat with another player while idling on a spot.

A game actually tried that?  I don't believe you.  Also player bitching comes from entitlement and expectation and the fact that this is the internet.  The fact that somebody somewhere might bitch about something doesn't mean its a bad idea quite the contrary really.

[Koyasha]

There are ways to handle the god-like or curbstomped aspects, too.  One is to let players choose their difficulty like CoX.  Another is to let mobs scale, but have the option to let them be fragile, weak, average, powerful, or godly.

Look at WoW again.  There is the option for regular and heroic dungeons.  It is a very primitive version of this in action, but limited to their instances.  There's no reason different parts of the world cannot be scaled to differing needs.

That doesn't really address the point of not feeling like you're growing.  If a group of mobs are 'average' and I go to that dungeon at level 20, get through it, and go on my merry way, then at level 40 return and those mobs are scaled to my level and still 'average' I don't feel as though I've grown in power at all.  If their power relative to me is always based on a difficulty level, again, I don't really feel as though I've grown in power.  So yeah, hard levels are important even in the small scale because it's more fun to be able to say 'I'll come back in 2 levels and this will be MUCH easier' or to say 'in 20 levels nothing here will be able to scratch me,' bwahah.

And having bosses scale is also not something I would ever advocate either, because that completely eliminates the 'go back and kill things with ever-decreasing numbers of people.'  One of my favorite things about EQ from the Velious Age all the way up to the point where they started making shit instanced and require X number of people because of one reason or another, was that as the years, levels, and expansions went by, I could go back to ever more difficult things with less people and defeat that which was once the greatest threats in Norrath.  Also important was the fact that the rewards for killing a lot of that stuff remained relevant for a long time (and good twink gear, especially).  That made things fun for a long time when I would otherwise have been bored and drifted away, so if a dynamic system takes that fun away, then I say it's no good for me.

So I suppose I'm strongly in favor of static spawns, but I also wish they would behave in a more dynamic fashion.  That is to say, if we have a fortress of enemies with scouts, lookouts, patrols, guard bunkers, etc, have these things react in a manner that makes sense to me. If the lookouts or patrols spot you approaching, the walls and entries get reinforced with additional troops, but if you get in without raising the alarm, you'll find a lot of the enemies in a weaker state (since they're unprepared) in their bunks (note they should absolutely give the same exp and drops even if they are weaker at this point).  Improving the AI of enemies so they behave more intelligently makes them much more interesting than having their spawn pattern adjust to your levels, and it achieves this being 'dynamic' in a way that doesn't feel silly.  The same sort of logic can be applied even to difficulty to some degree as well.  If you have to go through areas A, B, and C in order to reach area D, then what the enemies learn about you in areas A, B, and C can adjust area D to better cope with your group.  In this manner they can prepare themselves in ways to combat say, the classes in your group, in a way that again, makes sense.  If your group is heavily ranged, perhaps they will prepare themselves to counter that to a reasonable degree, thus increasing the challenge and difficulty simply by setting up the proper counters to your group's tactics.

[ezrast]

If I can make one last point here, its that one of the things about dynamic content, is that I think you have to have a player base that is sympathetic to that style of gameplay.  You have to have groups that enjoy not knowing, and I think the MMO population at large likes knowing, which is why sites like thottbot et al. are so popular.

I enjoy knowing what is possible to know. I'm a numbers person, totally willing to spend as much time looking up stats and calculating percentages as playing the actual game. So it really bothers me when, e.g., I have a +10 agi hat and a +8 str hat and the game doesn't provide me with the information to know which one is better to wear.

Thing is, you can always do optimization problems given whatever system is in place. If that system involves random dungeons spawning random bosses with random attacks that give random loot, that's fine - it's just more probabilities for the calculations to take into account. It doesn't hurt a player's abilities to min/max, it just forces them to go with *average* efficiency. So there's still plenty of room for Thottbott-ability in dynamic systems.

That might just be me though - I couldn't really give a crap whether the umpteenth hallway full of trash in Nexus bends to the left or the right, which is one reason I think I would be a bad tank. I would constantly lead my groups off cliffs and whatnot.

[tmp]

A game actually tried that?  I don't believe you.

Anarchy Online had their "alien" NPCs attack public cities as part of their story development before launch of game expansion. It was very short-lived due to player feedback. The expansion also adjusted to the player attitude and the "aliens" would only attack player-owned cities when the players pressed the "attack us" button rather than whenever they pleased as it was initially considered.

Also player bitching comes from entitlement and expectation and the fact that this is the internet.  The fact that somebody somewhere might bitch about something doesn't mean its a bad idea quite the contrary really.

Of course; negative feedback is a clear sign you're doing something right

[Draegan]

So I suppose I'm strongly in favor of static spawns, but I also wish they would behave in a more dynamic fashion.  That is to say, if we have a fortress of enemies with scouts, lookouts, patrols, guard bunkers, etc, have these things react in a manner that makes sense to me. If the lookouts or patrols spot you approaching, the walls and entries get reinforced with additional troops, but if you get in without raising the alarm, you'll find a lot of the enemies in a weaker state (since they're unprepared) in their bunks (note they should absolutely give the same exp and drops even if they are weaker at this point).  Improving the AI of enemies so they behave more intelligently makes them much more interesting than having their spawn pattern adjust to your levels, and it achieves this being 'dynamic' in a way that doesn't feel silly.  The same sort of logic can be applied even to difficulty to some degree as well.  If you have to go through areas A, B, and C in order to reach area D, then what the enemies learn about you in areas A, B, and C can adjust area D to better cope with your group.  In this manner they can prepare themselves in ways to combat say, the classes in your group, in a way that again, makes sense.  If your group is heavily ranged, perhaps they will prepare themselves to counter that to a reasonable degree, thus increasing the challenge and difficulty simply by setting up the proper counters to your group's tactics.

I also agree that mobs shouldn't scale to your level in different dungeons.  It would also be difficult to do in the same game space as other people unless it's instanced.  I enjoy non-instance events.  They can be more fun.

  Now it's just a one way street that you run THROUGH and not play IN.  Why can't we have a dead end, or a maze or something interesting?

Because the playerbase complains when 5man dungeons have complexity beyond "faceroll for epics."  Unfortunately, I think the hidden part of this conversation is that dynamic content is generally much more difficult, and difficulty leads to complaints from you "casual" playerbase, who are focusing on this content to begin with.   People like that they can go roll through knowing exactly where every trash pack is, etc.  Hell, I'll even admit that when I was playing WoW badge farming I mostly liked to see if I could run UK in 20 minutes and shave a minute of our run time. 

Anyway, I guess my point is that, to some degree, the general population has already spoken on this matter with the kinds of dungeons they've liked in WoW.

Most people want something right away that they don't have to commit a lot of time too.  Which is fine, but that doesn't mean you can't have multiple ways of doing things.  You can have dungeons that are large and complex and have different parts to rewards different things, like BRD.  A full clear takes a shit load of time, but you can also aim for specific bosses etc.

People want easier and faster things, and if you give it to them, then they'll want them even easier and faster.  It's human nature.  It's what Blizzard is doing now.  It's making boss fights easier and quicker in some of the older heroics.  I don't think there is anything wrong with it given their setup.  With a new game you can change that and the expectations of the playerbase.  I'd like to see a more dynamic game where you go in to play the game and not to play through the game for an eventual reward.

[Malakili]

I enjoy knowing what is possible to know.

I do too, but I think its more interesting if say are say, in some sort of dungeon/cave, if you want to know what is ahead of you, to have to send in a steath class, or some sort of mage with an invisibility spell, to you know, actually scout ahead and report back.   I think its also my preference for "in character" behavior.  I need to preference it by saying I don't necessarily mean "sitting around and chatting for 2 hours" which is generally what anything resembling RP means these days in MMOs.  Rather, the ideal MMO for me is one in which I don't meta game at all, nor do I have to.  While I am very much into the spreadsheeting etc when I play MMOs, I do it because its a survival trait, I'd much prefer a game where it doesn't matter (if there could ever be such a thing). 

I'm kind of getting way off topic here, but I guess I have in my mind some sort of "pure" RPG experience in my head in which the game world is alive, and players are there to "live" in that world, whether that means cleaning out a dungeon or making pies, and to me, there needs to be some sort of dynamic nature to a game like that, lest it be possible to simply look up everything you need to know about everything online.   It'll never happen, but eh, its always what I come back to when I get into these theoretical MMO discussions.

[Nebu]

... but I guess I have in my mind some sort of "pure" RPG experience in my head in which the game world is alive, and players are there to "live" in that world, whether that means cleaning out a dungeon or making pies, and to me, there needs to be some sort of dynamic nature to a game like that, lest it be possible to simply look up everything you need to know about everything online.   It'll never happen, but eh, its always what I come back to when I get into these theoretical MMO discussions.

This.  I'd love for content to be dynamic to the point that those visiting the hardcore enthusiast sites have little to no advantage over those that don't.  I want to figure out mechanics empirically.  I want balance to a point that trading items/stats/spells really does change the game without making me feel inferior.  

To answer the subject of the thread: Dynamic.  As much dynamic and random content as possible.  I don't want to have a plan for some quest loop or dungeon crawl.  I want to react to the world around me.

[Ingmar]

The complaints about the old world dungeons have nothing to do with difficulty and everything to do with the time they take to run. Don't confuse the two; some people *will* complain when they perceive things as too hard - see: heroic Halls of Reflection - but many, many more people will complain if you throw a 4 hour chunk of content in front of them. That's really too much for any game to ask people to commit in one sitting for its core small group activity.

[tazelbain]

Sounds boring as hell like realistic run speeds.

[Grimwell]

My answer uses a different word entirely, and draws from things a few have said before me in the thread.

I want my spawns to feel organic.

Please note the use of the word *feel* in there. I don't care if it's scripted and fixed, or if it's completely off the RNG, I want it to feel natural for the state of the game world. I am more of a "world" player than a "game" player when it comes to my MMO's; and want the world to feel plausible within it's own conditions. (Note, I didn't say I want a reality simulator, just plausibility. Suspend my willing disbelief in a consistent manner.)

If you have to script it, force it, or force a flexible version of it, I'm ok with that. If it's just a magical and well written RNG generator pulling from a series of tables, that's cool too. Keep all of that behind the curtain, I won't look! Just make sure it feels right.

[Draegan]

I've used the word organic in other forum threads in years passed.  Can we have an MMOG that you react to the world and not a static script?  Seems like a hefty endeavor.