I killed the wolf pack leader!! Oh, wait, I didn't?

I believe a different behavior in MMO- and single-player mode for respawn is definitely necessary. This is another point we don't know anything how the devs thinks about it. The usual - and only - answer of all questions concerning single player mode is that the game is pre alpha, the story will be great and inserted later.

 

Wait, are you thinking that the wolf leader is acting the way they intend it to act at launch?

 

Hopefully not. But it would be great to hear the plans the devs have for respawning in the different modes.

 

Or adventurers and grinders. I don't really like unnatural spawns in my sandbox either.

Beat it home Darkmoon. As I have said before I agree that the single player offline spawns should work as you suggest. I would think that they would have plans to do it like this. But since we do not know their plans it is good that you are here putting it out there. Because if they are not already planning to do it that way then they should be convinced to do so.

 

Nah. This difference is that Story Lovers do it with words. Sandbox Lovers do it with sand in their leggings.

 

So could things be like in diablo 2 where certain monsters was afraid of you if you had killed ...
So once you had killed the wolf pack leader, wolfs would be less likely to initiate combat with you.

 

I think that is leaning more towards AI. But I would be all for for having AI that reacted different based on how much a threat you appeared to be.

For example a creature that may attack one player may not attack a different player and may even flee from yet another.

 

Even in MMO's, this kind of thing kills immersion and is often exploited by gold farmers. It also just looks bad and feels cheap, too.

Case in point, look at time 22:25 of the following video (NOT SAFE FOR WORK):

 

The guy in the video is absolutely right! And I am glad that other people share my view on this.

 

All these things that affect the single payer experience also harm the multiplayer experience too IMO, which is why I don't agree when people make it into a SP vs. MP issue.

Multiplayer poses additional challenges to creating immersion, but those challenges should be met. SotA should rise to the challenge here where traditional MMOs have failed.

 

I played the beta.. there was a lot of spawn camping. One of the worst aspects of the game. You went down into a dungeon to kill some "boss", and there were a bunch of people camping for the boss to respawn. Sometimes it never did, probably because too many people were there for it to retrigger. They would kill the boss, then wait for it to respawn. In the mean time they'd kill the same monsters over and over while waiting, knowing the exact locations where they' respawn.

I don't know if this has been improved in the time its been released.. haven't played since then.

 

They have said repeatedly that some scenes will respawn while others will not. Just because it's not that way now does not mean it will not be later.

 

Yeah. Every indication is that this sort of stuff will be finely tuned in due time, but I still don't think it hurts to point out some examples of how respawns can help/hinder immersion and to point to specific examples in SotA where improvement is needed.

 

And how will those respawns happen?
Will monsters magically pop up before you? Will they appear at the borders of a scene and wander to their destinations?
Those things would be interesting to hear, too as it affects immersion, too.

 

Many games have done respawns well. Such as a nest is the spawner for rats. All new rats spawn inside and disperse out from there. Wolves from a den.

Materializing from thin air isn't really the same subject. As @redfish pointed out earlier, all modes are seeing the same issue. I have never liked the spawn points that poof MOBs into existence.

Old school side scrolling platformers, or as in many Ultima games, used distance to trigger spawns. Run through an area and just off screen the MOBs spawn. Clear the area, move away far enough, and respawn are possible again.

 

@Ristra,

Though MMOs have additional issues they deal with though, such as "boss"/"quest" respawns, and also a lack of "cleared" areas in may cases. Respawns in single player games tend to be just random enemies.

 

Most MMO's build a zone then populate it with MOBs, generically. SotA is using scenes, many that are not generic zones with random MOBs. As they build these scenes there is plenty of potential for them to go either way with this.

Boss/Quest MOBs could be repeatable and respawn. But they could make boss/quest MOBs triggered by events and each trigger is limited.

Example used back in the Kickstarter. The gypsy wagon on the overworld map. Contact with the wagon pulls you into a scene.

Case 1: They offer to tell your fortune
Case 2: The try to mug you
Case 3: They are under attack by wolves.

In case 1, no MOBs at all.
In case 2, all the gypsies are attacking you but never respawn.
In case 3, wolves are never ending until you kill the alpha, bonus for finding the den, as it's holding some loot.

The overworld map is an easier example. The more static the scene the more effort they need to put into making the spawns look more plausible. Such as an Elf camp in a wilderness scene. They are sitting around a campfire. You kill them off. How do they respawn? A wagon rolling in and more Elves drop out? Eh not really worth it IMO. Have them respawn. (maybe the distance method in my last post would work better)

I don't see the expectation of those Elves never respawning being reasonable.

 

It's about creating a believable world in which some logic reigns.
Also it's about stepping back or going forward with a game.
So you basically have this incredibly realistic, believable and alive world with Ultima 7 (1992) in which respawns seldom happened and were more or less logical. From this you go to SotA (2015) with a world that is less believable, feels less alive and less realistic in which monsters always respawn out of thin air. You go from defeating the evil Batlin in Ultima 7 once and for all to "Batlin" respawning over and over in SotA.
Now is this a step forward or backwards?

 

@Ristra,

Yes, which is what I was saying... that being Selective Multiplayer -- and having instancing, which a lot of people use as a pejorative -- allows SotA the ability to solve problems traditional MMOs can't.

For an elf camp, I think it should take a while before reinforcements come to re-man the camp. They could even use the overworld map to control some of the gameplay around this. Say you clear an elf camp. Shortly after, an elf patrol that's on the map reaches the camp. After that, a wave of reinforcements appear. You could either choose to wait for the camp to be manned again, or you can attack the reinforcements before they get there.

A spider cave could, say, repopulate over a period of a week, having gradually increasing population until it reaches its original level.

 

I like the idea of monsters roaming around on the overland map and then entering scenes to "populate" them again and you could attack them before they arrive, preventing them to take over the scene again.

You should suggest this idea during the next dev hangout!