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Ideas for Dragon Response Mission evolution


Psientist.6437

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Right now DRMs are underwhelming, but we are also just starting a round of story with a different pacing than we have seen. A lot of modifications can, and likely will, be made to DRMs. Here are my thoughts on how they could evolve.

Somewhere in the giant pile of messages from the studio, they mentioned the ability to upgrade our DRM NPC allies. I see 4 possible upgrade avenues: gear, skills, stats and appearance. There are two ways to earn upgrades, individual work and community work. Upgraded NPC gear would be earned by individual players. When grouped for DRMs, the player with the highest unlocked gear determines the gear upgrade for the instance. Skills and stats would be unlocked and upgraded by the community using current tech. For instance, the community would get 6 days to progress through tiers with each tier unlocking a stat increase. For skills, the community would get 6 days to upgrade the stats of a skill that becomes available after the timer expires. The work from individual players unlocking gear upgrades could be mapped to the community unlocks.

Appearance would be a little harder to manage. We would need named NPC heroes. Thankfully we can use this model to make or find them! Make a new NPC or use an existing B or C list character. Build and upgrade their stats, gear, skills, and appearance using a combination of community work and ranked choice voting. As the story progresses the community could choice the fate of the heroes. Are they stationed permanently somewhere or do they move on through a side story?

The potential of DRMs really shows when we consider a zone built just for this model. The zone would have a spectrum of possible upgrades. When the episode begins, we would begin assigning our work to different goals. At the end of the episode, we could compile all the player and community work and votes into the end form of the zone. As long as the story can be replayed, the only thing that can't be replayed is the community working towards a specific goal. New community goals would arrive.

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This content wouldn't be for everyone but I bet it is coming. I am on this stalled at the station hype train. The studio is talking about returning to a narrative design space that included a semblance of player agency. They have built a suite of technologies to engage and map individual and community work to an array of factions. With DRMs they can layer individual, group and community agency and ensure story content is never lost.

I may be insane and none of you may be real, but I am still on this hype train. The roll out for the DRM tech is happening and has traits. Hopefully, the system comes together. We may have to wait for the expansion for everything to take off.

Or my hype train is really a cardboard box.

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I tend to agree with Blude.These are poorly designed, boring to play and scale completely wrong.As far as I am concerned, when I get what I need from them: Never again.

What is wrong with them?3 missions... 3 times copy/pasteScaling: Designed as 5 man content, but when you enter a public one alone: it works fine, 4 more come in, scaling is OFF THE CHARTS

End bosses in these are nothing but annoying

What I mean by scaling, I go in... am alone in public.I attack a dragon minion, first shot takes away 80% health... That is NORMAL for a glass canon deadeye.Suddenly I notice I do POOR damage... why? 4 more people showed up.Why did it upscale in this manner?When I enter in public, I should enter in ready-to-go 5 people mode, EVEN if being alone.But nooo you completely destroy the damage when more people show up.

With other words, I have NO CLUE what to expect from my build on whatever class I hop in.NO OTHER CONTENT in the game responds in that way so why it suddenly does... I have no clue.

I play the last 3 times I need for achievement private.After that... please release the rest ASAP so I can abandon this poor content PERMANENTLY.

You got EXTREMELY lazy with this one, Arena Net, I am HEAVILY dissapointed

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@"Linken.6345" said:How so, please explain?First off there is thishttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/97028/a-message-from-andrew-gray/p1Back on February 3rd 2020, just a few days after Episode 2: Shadow in the Ice released, Andrew Gray talked about how, after episode 4, they planned to go back to more LWS1 style content. He specifically mentions the "boss rush" style community events, like what we got with the Crystal Bloom event, as playing a factor in this content. He also mentioned how, unlike LWS1, this content will be deigned to be repayable after IBS is over. All of this is literally what we are getting with Champions.

The number of Champions releases we are getting, that being 4, also matches up with what we learned from Episode 2 itself in regards to how many major content releases IBS was going to have by the time it was over. Episode 2 was developed for several months before its release in late Jan 2020, so this has been the plan since at least late last year. Long before COVID became a problem, before they couldn't do VA, and before they would have really started working on the expansion.

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Its all about marketting. Its 2020....most of us have played this content for years and maybe even more MMORPGs than Gw2 so we have to wowed. How could they possibly think 8 year old models would be good enough in today's new content? Change the models even just a tiny bit aesthetically that's why their boring. Make them a deeper orange and maybe a few more lava spikes SOMETHING and bam its the illusion of content. They need to stop phoning some decisions in.

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:-I believe they have cut the IBS short for the sake of the expac).You would be demonstrably wrong.

I actually think its smarter to have a bigger team for content under a year and a small team for content years away. That way you aren't having to constantly trying to catch up and thus only able to deliver very small updates/loot per festival and episode release. They obviously have it backward and a game director would be letting them know that...

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@"HotDelirium.7984" said:I actually think its smarter to have a bigger team for content under a year and a small team for content years away. That way you aren't having to constantly trying to catch up and thus only able to deliver very small updates/loot per festival and episode release. They obviously have it backward and a game director would be letting them know that...That isn't how game development works anywhere.

You generally only have a year's worth of content, if even that, planned out because the inevitable barriers/delays, be it from real life problems like COVID, or technical issues, that crop when when trying to make "the next big thing" will always make your longer term plans never pan out like you originally want.

Cryptic Studios, the developers of Champions, Neverwinter, Star Trek Online, and the upcoming Magic the Gathering, MMOs have mentioned they typically only have the next 6 months of content really scheduled, with high level ideas for the 6 months or so after that, because you simply can't get too far ahead of yourself since something always comes up to cause some sort of change.

Not to mention, you wouldn't want a team working on longer term content since they would be working with the game engine as it is when they started, and wouldn't be able to integrate anything new developed for the game since that point without having to throw everything out and start over, which defeats the point of them working on it previously.

Anet's development style is the exact same as I've seen for every other MMO, and for the same reasons.

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Anet's development style is the exact same as I've seen for every other MMO, and for the same reasons.

If this is in fact the way MMO's are suppose to do content for the reasons you state it...then ANET surely doesn't do it optimally for whatever misc reasons. They may try but maybe it would be better to do the 6 month model like Cryptic. I always thought it was weird to have these design teams (what was it over the years 3,4,5?) who work on an episode each and leapfrog to the next one. From the DRMs released to lukewarm reviews and EOD likely in a year I think we're seeing every poor decision catch up to them.

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Hard to critique this chapter since it hasn't been completely released yet. Many of the complaints seem directed at the pacing and the size limit it places on each section of the chapter. Those could be fair complaints if the completed chapter is thin on engaging content. This is also the studio's first attempt at an evolved, LW season 1 format.

I don't know what the studio has planned but genuine, Golden Path, player story agency is possible. Imagine this tech applied to the 2 episode, one zone model. Episode one is all 1-5 person instanced slices of the map. Players earn individual and community upgrades. Player work from episode one is complied and potentially combined with voting. This information is then used to set the final form of the episode 2 map. Episodes would share a map but the second season map would have completely different events based on what players did in episode one. Depending on the number and size of episode one instanced slices, the episode 2 map would likely include parts not explored in episode 2.

Arenanet, forgive me if this lands too close to your plans, but too many people are kittening on this potentially game defining content.

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@HotDelirium.7984 said:If this is in fact the way MMO's are suppose to do content for the reasons you state it...then ANET surely doesn't do it optimally for whatever misc reasons. They may try but maybe it would be better to do the 6 month model like Cryptic. I always thought it was weird to have these design teams (what was it over the years 3,4,5?) who work on an episode each and leapfrog to the next one. From the DRMs released to lukewarm reviews and EOD likely in a year I think we're seeing every poor decision catch up to them.M8, the leapfrogging thing is how GAMES are made in general.

Like, every game developer has multiple teams of people who are constantly leapfrogging over each other on projects. That's the only way game companies are able to release games in general as fast as they do. Its very rare that everyone in a game studio works on one thing, then everyone moves onto the next thing.

And Anet does work on the 6 month model like Cryptic. There is nothing of Champions episodes 3/4 done yet because no one is working on them yet since that is content WAY too out there to have any solid development done of them. And that is how Living World has worked since forever.

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I actually quite like DRMs as an idea. For me the biggest QoL change would be to the inital 5 minutes - either start the mission when you reach the objectives or give some sort of incentive to keep doing the things after you reach them (since it keeps counting up anyway). It's things like this that make it drag.

I really like that you can solo even the challenges, so you're not really forced to play with people if you don't want to, but you're still able to and it definitely makes it faster.

Obviously it'd be cool if we got more rewards from it, or just more reason to play them in general.

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@HotDelirium.7984 said:If this is in fact the way MMO's are suppose to do content for the reasons you state it...then ANET surely doesn't do it optimally for whatever misc reasons. They may try but maybe it would be better to do the 6 month model like Cryptic. I always thought it was weird to have these design teams (what was it over the years 3,4,5?) who work on an episode each and leapfrog to the next one. From the DRMs released to lukewarm reviews and EOD likely in a year I think we're seeing every poor decision catch up to them.M8, the leapfrogging thing is how GAMES are made in general.

Like, every game developer has multiple teams of people who are constantly leapfrogging over each other on projects. That's the only way game companies are able to release games in general as fast as they do. Its very rare that everyone in a game studio works on one thing, then everyone moves onto the next thing.

And Anet does work on the 6 month model like Cryptic. There is nothing of Champions episodes 3/4 done yet because no one is working on them yet since that is content WAY too out there to have any solid development done of them. And that is how Living World has worked since forever.

but their all working on EOD rn, allegedly. You can't tell me all this chaotic development doesn't have an impact on quality, M8.

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@HotDelirium.7984 said:but their all working on EOD rn, allegedly. You can't tell me all this chaotic development doesn't have an impact on quality, M8.Except they aren't all working on EoD. Nor has that ever been alleged by Anet themselves. Anet, like most other MMO developers, has multiple teams working on various content releases, at various stages of development.

They had like 4 Living World content teams working parallel to produce the LW episodes. One of them would be taken off making LW episodes to being primary development of the expansion, and as the various champions chapters get finished, the teams for those chapters, who no longer have IBS Saga to make, would be moved to help EoD's development.

There is nothing chaotic about this development process. Its how they have been doing LW and expansion development for years, and how other MMO devs do it also. This is how games are made in general.

And as I pointed out earlier, this has been the plan since at least January, probably since late last year. This whole Champions thing was planned out a year ago. Its not some 11th hour change to IBS because they moved so many people over to EoD that they don't have the people to make the content they originally planned or anything.

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

And as I pointed out earlier, this has been the plan since at least January, probably since late last year. This whole Champions thing was planned out a year ago. Its not some 11th hour change to IBS because they moved so many people over to EoD that they don't have the people to make the content they originally planned or anything.

Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of people make the claim the EoD caused IBS to all of a sudden go to shit. Clearly if you read the forum post in February, this doesn’t appear to be the case, more of Anet experimenting with the Season 1 style process in a more modern way.

Here’s the post, it seems to mirror exactly how the releases have been planned from the start.

“Living World

Between episodes two and three, we already mentioned we'll be releasing a special new type of content called Visions of the Past; we'll have more details on that at PAX East.I can't go into a ton of details on episodes three and four because, you know, spoilers and all, but I can tell you the map is meta-focused with a push-and-pull feel similar to WvW in a PvE setting. We want maps this season to bring something to them that makes them a permanent part of your play experience. That's why the culmination of Bjora Marches is a world boss and we're striving for high replayability for the episodes three and four map. We want it to be a unique, fun, and rewarding experience that will be part of your daily/weekly play cycle.After episode four, again I'm going to be somewhat vague here, but we want to revisit some of the types of content we pioneered in the past. We learned a lot with Living World Season One and one thing it did very well was to bring the community into the story, and make their actions drive the plot forward. The Nightmare Tower, the election between Evon Gnashblade and Ellen Kiel – these things are memorable experiences because the community's combined efforts had an impact on the world. As you may have noticed, we've been testing tech with things like the boss rush event, that we hope to leverage later on in The Icebrood Saga to create a unique, community experience. But, learning lessons from Season 1, the bulk of this content will be built in a way that it is still playable after the Icebrood Saga comes to a close.“

This was from February 3rd 2020.

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@HotDelirium.7984 said:but their all working on EOD rn, allegedly. You can't tell me all this chaotic development doesn't have an impact on quality, M8.Except they aren't all working on EoD. Nor has that ever been alleged by Anet themselves. Anet, like most other MMO developers, has multiple teams working on various content releases, at various stages of development.

They had like 4 Living World content teams working parallel to produce the LW episodes. One of them would be taken off making LW episodes to being primary development of the expansion, and as the various champions chapters get finished, the teams for those chapters, who no longer have IBS Saga to make, would be moved to help EoD's development.

There is nothing chaotic about this development process. Its how they have been doing LW and expansion development for years, and how other MMO devs do it also. This is how games are made in general.

And as I pointed out earlier, this has been the plan since at least January, probably since late last year. This whole Champions thing was planned out a year ago. Its not some 11th hour change to IBS because they moved so many people over to EoD that they don't have the people to make the content they originally planned or anything.

You make great explanations of rhyme and reason...SO... why did we get DRMs in their lackluster quality?

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@Tyson.5160 said:

And as I pointed out earlier, this has been the plan since at least January, probably since late last year. This whole Champions thing was planned out a year ago. Its not some 11th hour change to IBS because they moved so many people over to EoD that they don't have the people to make the content they originally planned or anything.

Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of people make the claim the EoD caused IBS to all of a sudden go to kitten. Clearly if you read the forum post in February, this doesn’t appear to be the case, more of Anet experimenting with the Season 1 style process in a more modern way.

Here’s the post, it seems to mirror exactly how the releases have been planned from the start.

“Living World

Between episodes two and three, we already mentioned we'll be releasing a special new type of content called Visions of the Past; we'll have more details on that at PAX East.I can't go into a ton of details on episodes three and four because, you know, spoilers and all, but I can tell you the map is meta-focused with a push-and-pull feel similar to WvW in a PvE setting. We want maps this season to bring something to them that makes them a permanent part of your play experience. That's why the culmination of Bjora Marches is a world boss and we're striving for high replayability for the episodes three and four map. We want it to be a unique, fun, and rewarding experience that will be part of your daily/weekly play cycle.After episode four, again I'm going to be somewhat vague here, but we want to revisit some of the types of content we pioneered in the past. We learned a lot with Living World Season One and one thing it did very well was to bring the community into the story, and make their actions drive the plot forward. The Nightmare Tower, the election between Evon Gnashblade and Ellen Kiel – these things are memorable experiences because the community's combined efforts had an impact on the world. As you may have noticed, we've been testing tech with things like the boss rush event, that we hope to leverage later on in The Icebrood Saga to create a unique, community experience. But, learning lessons from Season 1, the bulk of this content will be built in a way that it is still playable after the Icebrood Saga comes to a close.“

This was from February 3rd 2020.

Yes and after the first vision of the past we got no more. why did we get inferior drm missions?

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@"Linken.6345" said:How so, please explain?First off there is this
Back on February 3rd 2020, just a few days after Episode 2: Shadow in the Ice released, Andrew Gray talked about how, after episode 4, they planned to go back to more LWS1 style content. He specifically mentions the "boss rush" style community events, like what we got with the Crystal Bloom event, as playing a factor in this content. He also mentioned how, unlike LWS1, this content will be deigned to be repayable after IBS is over. All of this is literally what we are getting with Champions.

The number of Champions releases we are getting, that being 4, also matches up with what we learned from Episode 2 itself in regards to how many major content releases IBS was going to have by the time it was over. Episode 2 was developed for several months before its release in late Jan 2020, so this has been the plan since at least late last year. Long before COVID became a problem, before they couldn't do VA, and before they would have really started working on the expansion.

Ashantara said they believe that they cut the IBS short because of the expansion, you counter with no because this is the plan since February. Well that doesn't actually disprove what Ashantara said, does it?

When the IBS was announced Mike Zadorojny said that there were no plans for future expansions and that they would deliver expansion level content through the LS. That changed between that announcement and February. It's not crazy to believe that the decision to produce an expansion after all would alter their other plans.

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  • 4 weeks later...

@HotDelirium.7984 said:

Anet's development style is the exact same as I've seen for every other MMO, and for the same reasons.

If this is in fact the way MMO's are suppose to do content for the reasons you state it...then ANET surely doesn't do it optimally for whatever misc reasons. They may try but maybe it would be better to do the 6 month model like Cryptic. I always thought it was weird to have these design teams (what was it over the years 3,4,5?) who work on an episode each and leapfrog to the next one. From the DRMs released to lukewarm reviews and EOD likely in a year I think we're seeing every poor decision catch up to them.

Using Cryptic as a point of reference only works when you are using it as a prime example of what not to do.

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