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Val's zOMG! Musings

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The Basic Ideas The Primary Issue: The primary issue identified was that zOMG! endgame content is mingled in amongst areas that are already unlocked. This is done using the Suppression Feature, which despite being a major gameplay mechanic is left near unheard of within the standard quest system. The Secondary Issues Secondary issues include an absence of end-game content that is truly geared at End-Gamers. This generates boredom in the Post-Endgame crowd (because who want's to mindlessly repeat what they've already done time and time again right?) causing them to wander aimlessly about the early game area. Another issue that becomes apparent is that there is an over-abundance of "play my way" thinking. This is apparent in the soulbinding of rings as well as the severe restrictions on power levelling. The Primary Solution The solution to the primary problem is to introduce, or even enforce Suppression as a valuable game mechanic when returning to earlier areas. This can be done using quests which require you to suppress in order to complete them. This way, players learn to suppress when returning to earlier areas. It seems childish, but these are Gaians we're talking about. Additionally, more late-game content which provides lucrative Gold earning opportunities, to encourage players not to flood back into earlier areas. Clearly, since zOMG! is not a cash cow, this will require work to be done for the Gold. Finally: Player vs Player, despite my views on it, would be a -good- implementation to keep people from hanging around at full C.L. This can also serve to function as a Cash perk, or as a gold-sink because naturally it'll be run by Nicolae. The Secondary Solutions While I can accept that some restrictions must remain because of the way that zOMG! is constructed, I feel that there are certain ways in which it can be loosened to allow more freedom of gameplay while maintaining accomodation for zOMG!'s unique gameplay mechanisms. 1. The change of the quest system so that you can only gain credit if it cons at least blue. This means that if you want to complete KKD's quest, you must defeat her at a level where she cons blue. This also means, if you want a badge, you must kill them while they at least con blue. And yes, this does also apply to events. Though clearly, if it continues to be a problem, this update may have to be reversed. 2. Controversial! Loosening the restrictions on soulbinding, so that powerups and rings can be traded with certain conditions. * Rings are set as C.L. 1.0 when sold/traded/gifted. This prevents players powerlevelling, but still allows players to mix and match skills in a casual manner. * Powerups purchased -as of the introduction of this rule- can be sold, but not ones obtained in game. 3. Some re-analysis needs to be done. For example: Should players be forced to spend hours working on their ring collection? Should players be forced into a challenge if they don't want it? If I missed any points you guys thought were important, bring them up. Go nuts guys~

Posted by: Valheita Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 01:06am

User Comments: [18]

RAFAKUN MORRY
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Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 01:26am

suppression would be easily encourage if fighting yellow and red monsters meant double the chance of getting drops like in the past

also i can see how Q could use the ''even do the ring is cl 1 it still has one orb inside'' thing as an excuse so i suggested in a thread that the ring could be even lowered to cl 0.9 so that the ring cant be bought for salvage

and i was thinking to make ring price a lil bigger that the devs could introduce a ring sink that destroys a ring to transform it in to an avatar item ( like a recipe )

OMFG Taylor
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Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 02:12am

I'll probably mostly stay out of this discussion, but I think your idea for allowing the sale of rings (having them reset to CL 1.0) is flawed. Rings would end up being ~100 gold a piece (if that), and players might as well buy all 40 rings right from the start.

There is probably a solution that doesn't result in rings being worthless and easy to obtain in bulk, we just need to find it.

RAFAKUN MORRY
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Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 03:01am

you have to remember they wont be yost 40 rings forever but monsters will still drop all rings at random so whit every new ring the harder getting one specific ring will get

also like i sead a ring sink would so help whit the ring price

aldo im more interested in power up unsoulbinding then rings

Valheita
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Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 05:32am

@rafakun: That's also an option. Fighting harder monsters gives you bigger rewards. 3nodding

As for the salvaging problem... well, s**t. That's dedication that aught be rewarded right there. I mean, 100x3600 = 360,000 gold, and on top of that all the time waiting for them to deflate back to that price, and salvaging...

@Taylor: Well actually... I don't really see the problem with people obtaining all 40? Seems like just a way to force people to play the game longer.

And yeah. Rafakun has a point with the ring sink idea. Something enticing to pull rings out of the system.

dFangX
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Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 05:46am

Again, the issue we face is that, no matter how much we try to, we can't get around the fact that even at CL 1, rings would deflate like hot cakes in the marketplace and you'd have people starting off the game with a majority if not all rings already (i know when I first started Gaia, I already got up to 10,000 with in three weeks of games and such). I don't like the idea of rings eventually becoming like the flowers and trash floating around Gaia that are an udder waste of space. And we know the devs wont liekly give a reasonable trade in value in place of the 2g you can get.

Again, no matter how I try, my thoughts keep revolving back to some form of trading system for the rings at least and to give some form of order to the chaos that is ring drops. Rings droping is the same 40 to 1 all over most of zOMG. If they could give, say better odds of collecting certain rings in one particuler area or even give some one time only rings like we get recipes, perhaps we, the gamers, can start putting an actaully difficulty to obtain value on some rings and then make a trade system in the future be more likely to go threw.

I'm pretty sure I sound like a broken record at this point but this is my only conclusion myself for the ring soulbinding issue. The power-up one is more of a 'what the heck' thing as to why they soulbound everything instead of just in game drops. It makes no monetary sense to me.

RAFAKUN MORRY
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Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 05:58am

from what i have seen no mater what degree you pick in collage you will always be forced to have a marketing class . or accounting class , even in programing .

and even whit out that it is common sense that the soulbinding of power ups was indeed dumb as hell.

about rings well there are many variables at stake

whe cant expect for the amount of rings to be always 40
the popularity of a ring is also factor on there price

whe can expect some deflation like whit every thing specially sens the only ring sink the rings have is orb making witch is part of why they got soulbound

Valheita
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Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 06:18am

@dFangX: And what's wrong with that? Nobody has ever been able to tell me -why- it's bad for people to pick up rings as they feel like it.

Just chuck in a couple of ring-sinks, and bam. It's functional, and it doesn't cause any serious issues at all.

@rafakun: You don't have to here. biggrin

RAFAKUN MORRY
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Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 06:27am

well over here you kind of do

a friend of mine has a mayor in psychology and she had to take marketing

dFangX
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Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 06:38am

What do most games have? Magic, weapons, and skills.

What does zOMG not have that most game do? Weapons.

In other MMOs, you'd have weapons. In zOMG, the rings tend to act as more or less skills and magic. Not really weapons in my opinion. Unless we get some sort of animated swords and sheilds to become weapons, like they float around you us and attack animated, rings are the only thing that I have to go off of to place into the game to be rare. Again, it nags me that theres nothing rare in the game. I don't even care if I was to get a rare recipe or ring or not, simply the fact that its there and I COULD try and get it just makes me feel at ease.

Truthfully, zOMG feels odd to me cause theres nothing rare to go after! Everything you get with in story of the game, What's there left to go after? A ring, a recipe, a single loot item to go after thats rare if not next to impossable to get would make me feel better. T-T

Maybe its all the years of playing single player games rearing its head but this is how I personally feel about this. zOMG just doesn't feel right to me...

Valheita
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Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 01:21pm

@dFangX: I don't think a casual MMO will have a lot in the way of rare stuff. Don't worry though, they'll become abundant in later chapters, of this you can be assured.

DeathWyrmNexus
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Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 04:43pm

Actually I had an idea to run by Val before making a thread on the matter because Ghi and the lack of Passive skills is pissing me off.

So I thought... Instead of Ghi or even in addition, whatever, we have passive skills that we buy with orbs and improve with orbs. That way we don't have to feel gimped by having a crew under five or have to jerk around in Barton. We can... You know, worry more about playing the damn game than trying to find enough warm bodies for our meager power boost.

As for rare items, I am going to point to the Nobody item that Fang is lusting over. I'm going to point real hard too as I continue to point at items such as Kitten Star and Mercury Moon.

It is the single player mentality because I feel the same way when I play Oblivion, I collect s**t just to have it. You should see my skull collection in the shrine to Sithis, it bogs down the game for me to go down there. Pool of skulls baby... wink However, a multiplayer game's focus should ALWAYS be playability. By having special "rare" s**t, it means that most people won't be using the item. We shouldn't have skills that aren't used due to nobody finding them. It is why they made all rings accessible from the beginning.

I do have an idea for ya Fang. You want the Nobody set, right? Well that is a lot of gold. Quest for it the way I now quest for items: through zOMG's gold granting.

Valheita
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Fri Sep 25, 2009 @ 10:28pm

@DWN: Make a thread. That's a sexy sexy idea. Orb powered upgrades? Do want.

DeathWyrmNexus
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Sat Sep 26, 2009 @ 08:07am

Done and done.

... Hogwash least was my captcha

Valheita
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Mon Sep 28, 2009 @ 03:51am

And so we have this up in smoke.

DeathWyrmNexus
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Mon Sep 28, 2009 @ 05:09pm

Ya, this journal has been dead a couple days.

Valheita
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Thu Oct 01, 2009 @ 09:28am

'Tis not a popular discussion point I guess.

I'll leave it sitting in the wings for a bit while the shitstorm over the recent update dies away, and we see how hard it is.

Bladeglory
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Thu Oct 01, 2009 @ 09:46am

Qixter listed all players having all 40 rings from the start as something he does not like. At all. You'll have to convince him it's better that way, or make it so that Newbies cannot acquire them for pittance.

Personally, I like the idea of having it be direct ring for ring trading. You have to have a ring to trade, but you don't trade the CL. This way there's no powering up a newbie, assuming the rings are all semi-balanced. If this is implemented, you have to get 8 rings, but then you can trade to make them whichever ones you want. For somebody who knows what they're doing, it's just buying what they don't want to wait for. For somebody who's truly new, it means they can try out things as they like.

I like things having to con blue for ANY credit.

I think players should be forced to have a challenge IF there is going to be a profitable reward. If it's for fun, they should be able to breeze through if they like. However, I think that this should also not interfere with other players' choices. I'm totally clueless how to implement that, though. sweatdrop

I think that the suppression system is only unheard of if do everything at a low level. During a player's time going through zOMG!, I'd think that they would at least once reach the CL cap accidentally, be it on a repeatable quest or a chest. Loads of people know about it; those that don't have somehow slipped through the cracks. A quest that does teach the basics early on, and require you to go hunt a couple of gnomes when you're in Zen does sound good, though.

Valheita
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Sun Oct 04, 2009 @ 11:07am

@Bladeglory: Yes, but I don't see -why- it's an issue, hence my suggestion. That being said, being allowed to convert rings from one type to another could work too.

I think you already hit on how to make players face a challenge for a reward. Make them have to be a certain con level to get a reward. *shrugs* My only issue with the C.L. caps is no matter how much power I've earned, I can't just go back and mess with the bosses.

User Comments: [18]

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