End Game: Extending Play

We will file suggestions here that did not make the cut. Don't expect detailed responses, but the most common reasons are:
- implementing the suggestion is impractical, or too much work for the gain
- the suggestion is thematically against our design philosophy
- the suggestion is too detailed/low-level
Keep your suggestions broad and focused on RP benefits, please, not detailed suggestions of how to tweak X class.

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Bishop Mystera
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Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2018 10:32 am

End Game: Extending Play

Post by Bishop Mystera » Sun Sep 30, 2018 4:30 pm

The endgame is weak, to put it bluntly. Once you achieved 30 and finished your gear, that's it. You might linger on politics or running a shop or just RP but, that's nearly the extent of the options and the reward for all your effort getting there doesn't exactly feel worth it. Yeah, it's just opinion. Yet, it's a shared opinion I seem to get agreed on with frequently enough to make me wonder if there isn't something to do about it. Here's a few ideas for upping that "Epic Goals, For Epic Lols" feel to the end game.

Epic Loot: Extremely Rare, World Breaky Stuff. Nothing drags out an epic adventurer's career like seeking that perfect one-of-a-kind weapon or armor that defies the laws of contemporary limits. Throw in a random loot generator on the top tier, end game dungeons with a chance of producing something that could be labeled "too strong". These don't have to be common by any stretch of the imagination 1-1000 even. To further increase rarity and help keep the balance give them low durability and make them either repairable or only repairable via an equally rare method. Point is NOT to break the game, rather simply to add a worthwhile time sink. I would not call the current end-loot system worthwhile, by the by, it follows the same "Almost, but not quite" good enough vibe I get with a lot of Arelith.

Truly Epic Dungeons: I might just be missing something here but it seems like even the most difficult places in the world can be handled by two well built characters. To me, that shows a great gap in endgame "what to do". Turn up the heat! Start introducing truly challenging endgame dungeons, the goal being that nothing short of a well rounded five man team is going to be able to handle them and even that well rounded five man team is going to have a hard time. Make them long and make them challenging. Use something like an Elite>Sub Boss>Boss*3 gate system, extremely limited resting locations and no portalling in or out. What that might look like is First gate, Elite. Second Gate, Sub Boss, Third Gate Elite x2 Sub Boss. Rest Opportunity. Fourth Gate, Elite x4 Boss. Fifth Gate Elite x4, Sub Boss x2, Boss.

PvP Battlegrounds: Supported PvP Objectives are a great way to extend playtime post character completion. After you've beaten everything in the world there's really only one other challenge left, beating the other guys who beat everything else in the world. Arelith has a great playerbase and plenty of PvP minded individuals with nowhere to flex their muscles and blow off steam. The level 30 Cap and Custom Class Balancing makes it PRIME for for a solid PvP subgame. It could easily support a battleground. What I would do is break a large sub-island off into three NPC "factions". The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly style (Good, Evil, Everything Else). Place a PC Faction Hall in each NPC City, make the requirement to KEEP that PC Faction Hall a "donation" of 1000 Raritanium. Then, only place 2750 Raritanium on the Battlegrounds Maps, protected by Uberbeasts and make it stealable from PC Faction Halls. Let them duke it out over who has the right to own a hall. It's silly basic, but it's enough to foster friendly GvG combat. If I wanted to really step it up, I would add a CtF Objective to each Faction City, any faction that has all three flags gets a small combat bonus. Add a CotH Objective to the middle of the battlegrounds, any faction that can hold it for, let's say five hours, gets an uber Henchman. To add an RP aspect, and to include a myriad of build types, I would add ways for non-combat skills to be implemented, Strong Companionable Animals Wandering around, One Hireable Henchman assigned to each of the "Social" skills (Bluff, Persuade, Intimidate.) and of course sewer entrances for the Lock-Picker Sneaks to use to forego gate breaking. Whole thing resets every 24 Hours. If your faction didn't get the Raritanium? You loose the hall and everyone associated with the faction is locked out for the first 12 hours of the new round (So it's better to wait for the next cycle).

I know it's all technically three separate ideas, but it all falls under the heading of "Endgamery" and I have a severe aversion to forums and the people who frequent them so I really, really, REALLY don't want to get caught lingering in order to create separate posts for each. I hope you understand. I would like to be able to say, "It fits well to Arelith" but, I honestly have no idea what Arelith is trying to be. To me, it's largely just the best option. I neither like, nor dislike it, it has all the nuts and bolts of a good server and world but everything feels only 80% implemented Nothing really feels like you truly earned it. Once you cap off, I feel like that's it and there's no point continuing, I might as well start a new character and once I did that three or four times the real heaviness set in, because I realized that was going to be the Crux of my career. Big Picture, there's really nothing worth working up to and if there was something worth working up to once you've done so then there's nothing worth applying the fruits of that effort to! Well, with that I've made my peace. I won't be back around to check on this post because I know the minute I hit 'post' it's going to turn into a no holds barred negathon, but I reckon if STAFF likes the ideas they don't need me around to expound on them further anyway. Peace.

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Irongron
Server Owner/Creative Lead
Server Owner/Creative Lead
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Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2014 7:13 pm

Re: End Game: Extending Play

Post by Irongron » Sat Dec 08, 2018 8:14 pm

I'm not interested in creating endgame content for players who linger after level 30

First Suggestion: If were going to start furnishing 30s with better items so as to improve their character we may as well up the level cap, which we won't do.
Second suggestion: I don't object to super hard dungeons, they just take time to make.
Third: Its not what Arelith is. By all means go make an arena server that allows you to bring in your own character.
3th

Rejected.

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