SmedBlog (last year): NPC Enemies and Armies

[basti]

Let me put this simple:


Add actual NPCs to Planetside 2, and you have a pretty nice Game of NPCs fighting each other. The players would leave right away tho, as you just destroyed a rather big selling point: Pure PVP.

We can live with static, automated defense turrets like Spitfires. They dont do much than shooting enemys anyway, there is no big logic behind it.
But actual moving units? Nope. Not as an event thing, and especially not as a permanent thing.

If i want PVE, i play Firefall (Will play that actually).

[basti]

Originally Posted by Smed

we want you to feel like you're in a war and we're the heroes of that war.

Stop right there.

IF that is your intention, make a Singleplayer. Stop trying to do the impossible. In a MMO, it simply not possible that everyone is "The Hero". Blizzard showed that quite well, as they tried hard to make you feel like "The Hero". But they failed, because you cant be The hero if Thousands of others are "The Hero" as well.

Whats the point if I saved the Galaxy, only to learn that it doesnt actually matter, because 5000 others also saved the galaxy, and even tho if everyone would have failed, the Galaxy would still be saved? Also look at WOW here. WOTLK, Ulduar: Whole story of the instance was about Yogg-Saron. Kill it, or it will destroy the world. Kill it = you are the hero, and get a nice little ceremony in the City. Now, first time he died you had this feeling of "yehhaaa", but mostly because you beat a pretty hard boss, rather than actually archiving anything great. Days later, some other group finished Yogg-Saron, and everyone saw the cerimony again. Some weeks later, the whole thing was nothing special anymore, and the cerimony happend several times a day.



Smed, you guys had it down once. Star Wars Galaxies, remember? All i did there was flying around in space, and loads of crafting and Harvesting. I never once felt like "The Hero" in SWG. Never touched the ground based combat. Yet, It was THE MMORPG for me, because i wasnt bombarded with "You need to do this to save XYZ, or else DOOOOOOOMMMMMM", but i was actually just a guy, living in his house, crafting stuff and talking with people.
THIS is what makes a Sandbox MMO (See Eve), not "Ohh teeh great hero saved the day, lets give him our daughters!"

[Boone]

No moving units, but like I said I wouldn't maybe mind to see you be able to drop down (similiar to the Engineer in the way they deploy stuff) walls, AA guns, defense turrets, things of that nature might work I think. You could always have to Cert in something like that as well. Make it either Cert seperately (wall, turret) or just simply a "builder" Cert of some kind.

You would just have to maybe either find a way to limit it with a long timer or make it really expensive. You wouldn't want the game to get cluttered/crowded from idiots doing random stuff, which they'll do anyway, but at least it can be somewhat controlled.

[RAS]

while i'm always up for new content and ideas how about NO ?
and while i'm posting if and when you get ps2 to great hieghts of ps1 i think adding new content / ideas should be put on the back burner

[Boomhowser]

Originally Posted by basti

"lets give him our daughters!"

Forgot what thread was about once I got to this part and realized I now know what I want from a game

[sylphaen]

Aaaaah... So I get it now !

The mission system was actually for the bots, not the zerg ! Or is AI actually equivalent to a casual player's level of thought while he plays ?

Or did they mean NPCs to do the secondary gunning for your vehicles so they can truly fix that multiplayer problem ?

To be honest, I'm not sure what they are thinking about but NPCs in a PvP game is a slippery slope idea.

[Garem]

This would be excellent so long as there is a separation between standard and NPC-Army-Added areas.

Don't force something on the players- give them a choice, at least at first. If it's super popular, go with the flow. I do not see this being all that popular, but it definitely broadens the appeal and adds an interesting new element.

[Timey]

Also, Smed, you should really make a poll about stuff like this once the game launches on the official forums or something. I'd be surprised if those for npc's was anything above 8%..

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Timey

Also, Smed, you should really make a poll about stuff like this once the game launches on the official forums or something. I'd be surprised if those for npc's was anything above 8%..

I'll be surprised if any idea that is NOT from PS1 gets more than 30% votes right now.

[Timey]

Originally Posted by NewSith

I'll be surprised if any idea that is NOT from PS1 gets more than 30% votes right now.

Unsure what you're implying here. I'm for anything that's good stuff. NPC =/= good stuff, so I'm against it :]

[QuiCKaNdDeaDLy]

This Idea is worse then adding BFRs to the Game...
You guys should actualy focus on Removing the actual Problems with the Game instead of creating more Problems!

[Blackwolf]

Originally Posted by Smed

I should point out the simple fact that I'm having this discussion before the game even launches and in my blog I specifically noted that we plan on releasing the 3 year plan and taking player feedback. We've learned our lessons.

In terms of some of the comments I've been reading (which have been great btw) - someone asked the basic question of why we would introduce these NPC armies. The idea (and maybe it's a crappy one) is that we want you to feel like you're in a war and we're the heroes of that war. These NPC guys would be cyborgs perhaps or something like that. It's interesting to me that this particular idea is getting the response it is. This wasn't an idea that was high on the list. actually it was pretty far down. I'm just genuinely fascinated by the reaction. People have some great points both positive and negative.

Either way this one isn't on the high priority list anyways.

I play Planetside because I don't want to be the hero unless I deserve it. Other MMOs all try to do the same thing and this doesn't work. You can't be an individual hero side by side with thousands of other individual heroes. PS was always a gritty war to me, never an epic RPG where I fight the good fight for my faction.

Remember this is an MMO first and an FPS second. There is no RPG aspect to this.

This is also why you shouldn't have super powerful aliens as the invasion force. Keep it gritty and war like. Swarms of enemies that can match player count based on how many a single player could take out by standing still and shooting at them before dying. If a player can take out 3 without tricks tactics and strategy (or vehicles), make the ratio 3 to 1. It makes it an actual challenge to overcome.

[super pretendo]

Players should be the hero if they earn it and deserve it by doing actually amazing things that affect the dynamic game world. Like in vanilla WoW, I once won a 1v4 fight with equal level players on my warlock, and it was awesome. If you land a galaxy where you shouldnt be able to by using dummy galaxies to take the fire and capture a base because of it, you should feel like a hero. Not because you can log in with a pulse.

But I think the total "NO NO NO" disagreement with anything involving NPCs is silly; it can be done right, and it can be used as something SPECIAL, not daily, to shake up gameplay. What if when the vanu control two continents, it attracts alien attention, which causes some insane shit to go down involving NPCs?

Or once an empire caps every one of the whateverthefuck factories, their engineers can spend resources to deploy simple automated ground bots that walk and fire weapons on their own (but aren't as good as a player of course)

I see no problem with actually being creative about it

[Revanmug]

Originally Posted by basti

WOTLK, Ulduar: Whole story of the instance was about Yogg-Saron. Kill it, or it will destroy the world. Kill it = you are the hero, and get a nice little ceremony in the City. Now, first time he died you had this feeling of "yehhaaa", but mostly because you beat a pretty hard boss, rather than actually archiving anything great. Days later, some other group finished Yogg-Saron, and everyone saw the cerimony again. Some weeks later, the whole thing was nothing special anymore, and the cerimony happend several times a day.

For someone that saw that event soo many time, you aren't really good a remembering from which boss that came from...

That event was from Algalon which was unlock after doing all the keeper's hardmode and seriously, it got farm mostly after the first 2-3 bosses from toc got release. Ulduar was the last good tier of raiding they did.

Really, the only point you could have made is with easy to obtain gear and easy raid to make everyone access said tier of raid Like that, everyone can feel like a hero! But best to avoid that discussion if you don't want a shitstorm.

[PoisonTaco]

Part of what makes Planetside (2) special is that it's 100% player driven. When you see aircraft flying overhead, when you see a column of 20 tanks and when you see infantry charging towards a point you know those are all people.

I think if you added enemy NPC's to the core gameplay, you would take away from that player driven element. Even if it's still 90% or 95%, it would still remove the impact players have on the world.

Maybe if the idea is tried and we get to see how it works, it actually adds a lot to the game. Who knows, it could be a lot of fun. Either way this is a long ways off. Let's focus on naval combat first.