Curse

Yawgmoth · Mar 08, 2006, 04:31 AM // 04:31

I dont know if it's been talked about before but i haven't ever seen that even mentioned:
Randomized layout of some instanced areas!

(I know it would require significant upgrdes to the game engine, but it could be made a major feature for a future Campagin.)

Randomization was key to the success of Diablo games ( ex-Blizzard employees in ArenaNet have to know something about it) and is going to be the backbone of Hellgate:London aswell (proof it can work in 3D environmewnts aswell)

Imagine a high level instance, like the Underworld, where each time you enter it, a new semi-random setup of corridors, hallways, rooms, mobs is generated. And the exploration begins! Challenging every time you enter, unpredictable and fun. Certain elements would appear always somewhere (like Monuments of Grenth in UW) and some quests/areas/types of enemies/etc.. would be optional and may not appear. These areas would be impossible to be soloed and would require a flexible team build prepared for everything. You wont be able to just prepare and do a certain part of the zone or hunt a certain mob as you dont even know which way to go to find it. Of course the areas would need rewards for completing them (not completely clearing), rewards that UW and FoW lack. The idea of randomized areas would work perfectly for the realms of Lyssa, Dwayna and Melandru, which may be added in future chapters.

Doing the end-game areas nowadays is just repeating step-by-step the same moves and gets boring after several trips. Also, there are dominating builds used for farming them, like Barrage/pet teams for Tombs or the usual 5-man groups for SF. If you aren't one of the proffesions used there, you got a hard time finding a group. Unpredictable areas would change it.
GW:Factions went a different way to bring replayability, adding scoreboard-challenges, missions more than 1 team and lots of connections between PvE and PvP. But for simple 1-team exploring "dungeons" hunting bosses and searching treasures, no better improvement comes to my mind than making them different every time.

Don't you all think it would be cool?

Sorry four my bed English

BigTru · Mar 08, 2006, 05:01 AM // 05:01

I made a similiar suggestion a while back:

http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...90#post1031190

actionjack · Mar 08, 2006, 05:29 AM // 05:29

yes.. so did I

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=112576
(and there was one about PvPvE dungeon .. but search is not working)

however, I like you suggestion of a totally randomize zone. Think it would be great, assuming the technology allow it. Kudos and /sign.

Ken Dei · Mar 08, 2006, 06:17 AM // 06:17

"Signet of Massive Approval"

We need more underground dungeons and such anyway, not only randomize the layout, have a little randomization of the monsters too, as in skills an such, then make them drop much better then outside monsters.

Then people who want no challenge farming with minor rewards can do as they have always done, and those who want more reward for working in a team can do dungeon fighting.

pappayaponta · Mar 08, 2006, 06:35 AM // 06:35

/signed

We do also need ALOT more dungeons, like 5-9 more, then you laso have the ability to chose...

Soul Shaker · Mar 08, 2006, 07:21 AM // 07:21

Yeah, diablo is still pretty popular. I would like to see the UW and FoW like this, as well as new dungeons and the like designed especially for this. (oh come on, this game has not got a single decent dungeon crawl...)

Undivine · Mar 08, 2006, 09:02 AM // 09:02

As long as it's semi-random. The real key to this idea is randomizing the enemies more, as I've recently suggested.

I say it should only be semi-random because quite frankly I love the beautiful landscapes and layouts they make in this game, and fully randomized areas are very simplistic.

Now if you semi-randomize the enemies, then you have your replayablity. As I argued in my thread, forming a solid build that always works with an area would not be very feasable, forcing players to think on their toes more, and largely helps keep player interest. High-level areas should not become routine.

swordfisher · Mar 08, 2006, 09:50 AM // 09:50

I agree more with randomizing enemies than randomizing the actual terrain- like Undivine said, the areas they build are really nice, and no algorithm is going to be able to match that artistry. There are so many threads about making areas less predictable, Anet must someday take the cue.

Ken Dei · Mar 08, 2006, 06:31 PM // 18:31

I want to see randomization, but only in some areas, not all of them.

rezabm · Mar 08, 2006, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Randomization is okay as long as it doesn't suck like in the Divinity Coast Mission. In nine tries out of ten is one or more chosen ones overwhelmed by a randomly spawned group of mobs who kill him in two seconds and there is nothing a player can do to prevent it.

Minus Sign · Mar 08, 2006, 11:03 PM // 23:03

/not signed. While it works in other games, that is becuse those games were wrote to support such a feature. You're not talking about a simple skill balance or a changing mob placement here; you're asking Anet to rewrite the entire game and chnage the physics of its entire play style and layout. DSL users would take hours to zone into the new zones; Dial-up users would be waiting weeks to get in.

Thats too much, too late for a game that was intended for all users.

EDIT: I'm glad to see that there were other threads asking for something like this, though. Maybe we'll see it in Factions.

Yawgmoth · Mar 09, 2006, 05:03 AM // 05:03

Some people didn't read carefully...
I suggested only a handful of semi-random dungeon-like areas, not the usual explorables / missions.
There shouldn't be any bandwidth problems with it as the areas would be assembled from huge blocks, some as big as whole rooms. No pre-rendering required, all built up from contents that are already on our hard drives. And it wouldn't look any worse than usual areas, only the combination of corridors, hallways and maybe even secret places would be generated.
And its obvious that it would have to be balanced, not to have insane numbers of mobs spawn in one place leaving others empty. Other games do that easily so it shouldn't be a problem.

Undivine · Mar 09, 2006, 10:25 AM // 10:25

You know, now that I think about it, Minus Sign is right; it would take a lot of work to make random areas on an engine that's not designed for it. ANet likely wouldn't bother.

Semi-randomized enemies however is a different story. I think some level of randomization would help enormously.

Xenrath · Mar 09, 2006, 11:17 AM // 11:17

Think I suggested something similar ages back too; have semi-random outdoor places too (mobs appropriate to the region)

I think the engine/scripting should be capable of this, as I remember watching some beta event video where lots of Gwens popped up out of the ground in the catacombs i.e. presumably placed there by the devs. That would imply the ability to drop mobs of any time anywhere