Maps for end game isn't enough

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Ferumbras wrote:

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0nin wrote:

I don't get why people even suggest the endless dungeon. It was not interesting in Torchlight. It was not interested when it was called Maelstrom of Chaos. It won't become interesting.

It can be if it isn't endless for the sake of being endless, but because it has meaning.

Too little increase in difficulty, no ladder, constant reset back to lvl 1... all sorts of issues that can ruin an endless dungeon concept.

But when done correctly by GGG; where players can control how difficult their gaming session gets, this type of system has a lot of potential.

Besides, who says we can't mix things up? Have 8 stupendously difficult bosses (the ubers) set at level 25, 50, 75, 100, etc, of the endless dungeon. And everytime players creep up to the last boss GGG can add content.
-Are you capable of reaching level 25? Sure then you can farm that boss over and over if you please.
-Do you feel you have what it takes to venture on? By all means do so.

Everytime you clear an endless dungeon level you also unlock it's waypoint. That way you can always keep on going at the difficulty you choose. We already have means to reset instances, so you can keep farming the level you can manage, without the need for a lot of development.


Basically the entire endless dungeon does not require a lot of development, since we have most of the tools already.

And I agree with you, you just can't have endless dungeons just to have endless dungeons. The tiered levelling you talk about is a pretty damn good idea. I love how if you hit one of these areas you can continually go to harder content.

I think an endless random tiered dungeon would be awesome, especially with friends. Gears of war horde mode comes to mind. Finishing a wave opens up a portal down to the next level, where monsters progressively get harder. Accessed by items similar to maps, and function the same in their item quantity modifiers. Each player can list their hardest dungeon tier that they've conquered for bragging rights. A nice alternative to the stupid map grind "hope I find a higher level one this time!" business.

Idea #2 (not specifically related to end game, but could be)
Shapeshifting boss
Massive amount HP, morphs into a new rare/legendary monster every 30 seconds or something. Can test even the strongest characters as it morphs into a direct counter to various builds. Obviously drops a tonne of shit

endless n00bs pwning - best end game eva since DOOM '93!

Lineage 1 style wave arena proposed by KenshiD:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/50090/page/1/#p641420

PoE already has the perfect endless dungeon built into the game already. All you have to do is come up with names after mercless.

Don't limit the difficulity levels, don't limit the character levels.

At the end of each difficulty level a character would receive a unique map that has a end reward of some sort of upgrade not otherwise obtainable.

Something like:
Increase max level of a skill gem by 1- Allows gems to go over level 20.

Increase max quality of a skill gem by 5%- Allows gems to go over 20%.

So the ladder would show not only level but how many level of diffuculty a character has completed.

I think GGG's current stance of maps is wrong. I think maps should be common enough that players have enough to trade and upgrade them using the current recipies. That way players could jump out of the above "endless dungeon" and try something really difficult.

Example:

My character my be on the 6th level difficulty act 3, killing level 93 mobs. I gather up enough maps to combine them into a rare map level 102. So now I can jump into the level 102 map and test my skill and hope I get a fairly serious gear upgrade.

Why put limits on anything.. Is there anything wrong with seeing level 200 characters 2 years from now?

My impressions and experiences about what could be interesting also as an end game stuff to do:

Uber-bosses and areas like in Median XL. They could be made as maps and bought from traders as always offer.

Creating bosses as very hard and - or only killa-ble if you get either some special weapons or special set of items.

Witch leads me to another idea I think it would be cool, sets. As in D2 or Median XL. Completnig all parts may take time but cool bonuses on wearing it may be motivating for farming for those.

I also think that idea of having some additional kind of dmg-effect on hit / crit. or being crited would be cool. Those effect may spawn on those sets or unique items and could expand diversity of builds. ( Again I liked those in Median XL )

Peoples like challenges and goals to keep them interested in a longer run. :), and ofc cool rewards when they win over :),

Edit..
More complex upgrading-crafting system...

Apart from median XL mod,
If I could suggest a good source of nice ideas and not only for end gaming, I would certainly point toward D2 mods. This would be like the best ARPG place and imo some ideas lifted ordinary D2 into something much more fun.

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What I get from all the posted ideas in here (and what I think too) is that the current end-game map system lacks one big thing, even if their drop rate is fixed so you'll always get another map inside a map.

What's missing is any sense of progress from doing those maps.

Each map is a bite sized chunk of content, doable in 15-30 minutes. It gives you, usually, another map of a similar level and some currency items (respectively some rares which most likely get turned in to currency items). Any experience gained will eventually be negligible because of outleveleling the available maps.

It would actually be nice idea to add progress in maps. In addition to random items (with adjusting drop rates) we could have a map drop a more difficult version of itself from boss. Preferably to infinity (difficulty going up making monsters stronger up to level 65535, even if experience and items dropped are not getting better after a few levels).

I would imagine something like this: We find a level 60 thicket map while playing. We start doing it and may get a different level 60 map, but for sure we get a level 61 thicket map from the boss. We continue doing higher and higher maps. If it gets too hard we can stop and leave a high level map for later. Doing same map over and over can be boring but we can get a few different maps and get higher levels of them in turns.

High level character can do one map and get quickly to high levels. This provides him with new maps of more difficult content, so he can farm and level more. But, at some point it gets too difficult, so he would have to get a new level 60 map and start over. Not a big problem since early levels will be quick and he is guaranteed to get higher levels.

Pros:
- we can always progress and kinda save our progress
- we can boast about how far we got
- there is a content too difficult for anyone, so level 80 chars will still eventually have problems
- easy access to very high level content for characters that deserve it but not for everone
- easy to implement on top of current system

Cons:
- if system stays like this, all progress can be lost with disconnect
- kinda contradiction of current random loot system, which is cool
- just another mindless grind, even if improved, there are players that don't like it

This would not really solve all problems, but would extend playing in maps. Additional ladder could be made for characters that got to top levels of maps, characters that did not start early have chance to compete in it too if they get far enough. While Uber bosses are cool idea, they require careful design to make them properly balanced as THE BOSS. Maps getting harder on their own will make players find good teams to continue doing harder and harder content so they can link a map level 115 to global chat and have a message "X is the first one to enter level 115 map". It's a bit like paragon level in D3 and players seem to like it, except getting high paragon level is not a challenge, while this would actually require you to beat something.

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What feels good in other words, is the feeling of progression on a character rather than stagnation. Maps, sadly, do not give that feeling of progression at the moment.

However, they give you a reason to get more powerful.

This is basically correct, I think. I think the map system is great, so definitely don't mess with the underlying principle there, but when you play an RPG (any RPG), you want to feel like your character (and not just the character's gear) is moving forward toward something special. This is what keeps everything going, and so far, I think POE does a Great job with this---but there's always places to make it better. There are two main ways to create that feeling of progression, I think:

You can make challenge progression. Like, "YOU HAVE DEFEATED UBER DIABLO! TIME FOR UBERUBER DIABLO!" You can obviously do this with POE. There could be pieces you collect from the maps that you put together to open up access to a particular piece of new content or new boss, etc. There's also achievements, etc. "You beat X in 3 minutes!" I find achievements not particularly interesting unless those achievements mean special unlocks. For example, if you beat a certain boss, you now gain access to some special perk or skill or piece of gear. What's key, I think, to this sort of progression is a sense of accomplishment. You really want to feel like the thing you did was a real challenge (and not just annoying or frustrating---See Diablo 3). Teamwork helps a lot with this. It doesn't Have to be teamwork-oriented, but it's just the most obvious. I remember playing Diablo 2: Hell Unleashed, spending hours working to beat Hell Duriel. It was fun. We had to get a level 98 Necromancer in there, and it was intense, but thoroughly enjoyable.

Or you can add more specialization for the actual character itself. I think this is the more enjoyable type of progression, but I think it's more difficult with POE since POE already has a ridiculously great amount of specialization as it is. But you could always add sub-classes (that you access once you reach a certain level or complete some certain quest) to the current classes that open up special skills, etc. These skills would be really specialization-oriented. Like, really unique minion skills that a truly hardcore pet-character would love. Again, I think this may get a little out of control since the passive skill tree is already so complex. All the same, I definitely want to feel like, "I AM MAKING AN X, IT'S GONNA BE SO AWESOME." It is a great feeling when you really do make that special character. It's an even greater feeling to feel like you're moving on to something even More special. The benefit about this type of progression is that it requires the player to make a meaningful character decision. The more often you can get players to make these decisions, especially end-game, the happier the player is. The main problem with end-game, of course, is you're no longer really making any decisions about your character because there is a level cap, or because the next level is So Far Away that it's not worth the time investment.

At any rate, working in those two systems is clearly helpful, if not a little restrictive sometimes. There are always interesting things that don't fall into those two systems (like gear farming), but you always, always want to keep a sense of progression and accomplishment. (PvP is clearly another option, but you guys obviously have that under control, and as some have pointed out, PvP doesn't appeal to some people.)

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Chris wrote:

What game have you guys played that had a great end-game? Please disregard any super content-heavy ones like MMORPGs that cost two hundred million dollars to make.

Edit: I'm not asking this rhetorically - I am interested in actually getting names of games to research.

Ragnarok Online is a highly rated MMORPG. It has NO content (well, not game related, but comics), and focus on item collection quests and Emperium War.

1) Open Source for Ragnarok (EAthena wiki)- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EAthena
2) Emperium War wiki - http://irowiki.org/wiki/War_of_Emperium

Why it is successful (from my perspective):
1) Similar to PoE, players allocate stats points.
2) Social effect within Emperium war, and 1 hour limit (good for both hardcore and casual players)
3) Customization in appearance (lots of girls like to play the game, adding a devil wings, pumpkins hat, and etc. even with no functionality)

Emperium War:
- You attack a castle and break emperium then defend it.
- Each class/build has an advantage in the game. Eg. Emperium has 100% defense and cannot be attacked by skills, therefore, assassin with high attack speed is the most effective role to break the emp (damage 1 in each attack with 100000 HP, and it can be healed by Priest)
- You fight as a guild with strategy. Some guilds are weak, and they sneak in the last minute. Some guilds are strong, and they have multiple defense point to camp at portals. Once you die, you take a long way back (5 portals), so guilds need to plan for strategy, and determine who stays in the room for final defense.

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Well it has been mentioned here alrdy, just c&p from another thread, before i saw this one:
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Endless dungeon:

Hey there.
For me maps are a convenient way to get to highlvl areas, to get easier and better drops and to be challenged, in a very uncomplicated, fast way.

But somehow: One does not always have maps. Or they are to low lvl, etc. So in this case one has to farm the known areas to get to some endgamecontent. For me engame content should always be available, so I dont have to trade it or to farm it.

A solution would be an endless dungeon. For example like the church, but with indefinite lvls. Dependend of the size of each stage, after every 3/5/10 stages the monster lvl will rise. To proceed to the next level at least 80% of the monters have to be killed (or all monsters. Just to prevent ppl rush through to higher lvl).

One can not teleport back to town. If doing so, he will not be able to rejoin the actuall lvl of the dungeon again, but has to start again all over. Same when you die.

So with this system one would always have access to higher lvl maps and be challenged, but has to invest more time. Maps would be just a shortcut.

One could then also think about special stages. Like every 10th is extremly dangerous, by adding special planned dungeons (like 1hit laser shooting through room conncting doors in regular delays, or something). Or evey 5th stage maps get a random attribute (like increased ias/movementspeed/dmg/resistance of monsters), which will count for each followed lvl (iiq and iir should be excluded here, only negative effects for the player, to make it even harder).

Also a disadvantage to maps would be: You only have one inventar. You cant sell and get back to the actual location.

I think this would ba a very nice addition to the maps, which are btw a very good idea. With maps one could get to higher lvl areas with iiq/iir, which would not be possible in the dungeon. And so on and so on. This dungeon could be easily balanced in such a way, that one still wants to play it, but is also happy about high lvl maps.

As someone stated above, these type of ideas seem very good and would definitely add a huge amount to a game in terms of "end game" content.

I also think that having more bosses would be a brilliant idea. One thing that I did like about Diablo 3, whether you liked the bosses or not, was there were a multitude of them. I feel boss fights are always edgy and exciting, especially when you get to the higher difficulties.