What feature would you like in the game that no one else may like?
- Thread starter TimSoulsurfer
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PvE that is actually disruptive and dangerous.
Most sandbox games have crappy PvE, which means that any time you're not directly interacting with other players, which is the majority of your time in most sandbox games, your game is boring.
As much as I love the sandbox genre, It is a lot of boring work for a little bit of fun across the board. Resource gathering, killing mobs, etc. is rarely any fun. Even when it is, having predictable interactions with those pve elements is boring. Like here's a camp of orcs or space pirates over here, but they're not really a threat to you because your rocks to bang are over there.
The players are supposed to be the content, but when developers make sandbox games they seem to forget that players aren't playing their game 24/7, and that the majority of their players, especially in a pvp game, spend a large portion of their time not interacting with other players because it is inherently risky to do so.
I have not played a single sandbox game where the PvE elements were anything more than resources with a tougher gear check, and as such I have yet to play a sandbox game that isn't mind numbingly boring during all the time you're grinding so you can go risk your wealth by interacting with other players.
Again, I love the genre, but its fucking boring 80% of the time because nobody's around, and it is actively designed to encourage avoiding people through implied violence or running away to acquire wealth in peace. For a genre about encouraging interactions with others it more often than not does the exact opposite, and then blames the player for not having fun because they're playing in the most optimal manner, by crushing their enemies so hard that they run, or by running away from a superior opponent to accrue wealth so they can come back stronger.
The majority of the game in any pvp sandbox is preparing to fight or avoiding a fight, and the majority of the game is boring because systems are generally built on a skeleton that just makes those resourcing or mob grinding systems "there" rather than "fun"
Most sandbox games have crappy PvE, which means that any time you're not directly interacting with other players, which is the majority of your time in most sandbox games, your game is boring.
As much as I love the sandbox genre, It is a lot of boring work for a little bit of fun across the board. Resource gathering, killing mobs, etc. is rarely any fun. Even when it is, having predictable interactions with those pve elements is boring. Like here's a camp of orcs or space pirates over here, but they're not really a threat to you because your rocks to bang are over there.
The players are supposed to be the content, but when developers make sandbox games they seem to forget that players aren't playing their game 24/7, and that the majority of their players, especially in a pvp game, spend a large portion of their time not interacting with other players because it is inherently risky to do so.
I have not played a single sandbox game where the PvE elements were anything more than resources with a tougher gear check, and as such I have yet to play a sandbox game that isn't mind numbingly boring during all the time you're grinding so you can go risk your wealth by interacting with other players.
Again, I love the genre, but its fucking boring 80% of the time because nobody's around, and it is actively designed to encourage avoiding people through implied violence or running away to acquire wealth in peace. For a genre about encouraging interactions with others it more often than not does the exact opposite, and then blames the player for not having fun because they're playing in the most optimal manner, by crushing their enemies so hard that they run, or by running away from a superior opponent to accrue wealth so they can come back stronger.
The majority of the game in any pvp sandbox is preparing to fight or avoiding a fight, and the majority of the game is boring because systems are generally built on a skeleton that just makes those resourcing or mob grinding systems "there" rather than "fun"
Hostile ai and effect to fight. Nanobot virus that attacks anything made of metal. It's more of a visual effect or mechanical debuff until it has "matured", in which it may create forms of its own. (i.e.: SG1 Replicators).
Effect ideas in relative order of progression of nano virus
Prevention and removal: two step process
Effect ideas in relative order of progression of nano virus
- Discoloration, altered texture, very slight texture effect to make it hard to diagnose on sight
- Debuffs: decreased structural integrity, slower rotary movement, energy capacity, chance to expel contents (thinking gas canister, coolant)
- Increased texture effects that aren't quite obvious
- Nanos create head to torso sized constructs capable of attacking players, ships, and increasing nano spread/production
Prevention and removal: two step process
- Prevention would require application of.. something to attempt to defend against random infection of nanos. Different concentrations would allow different tiers of protection based on activities.
- Removal application would clear an infection, but have no effect in prevention. Worse infections would require more or higher concentration.
- Prevention and removal neither 100% effective. An explorer alone in space wouldn't have to worry as much about nanos, as they can't pick it up from others and they do not go near a source of nanos.
- Nano shells to be fired at enemy ships to cause additional havoc in internals. Simple as concentrated nanos to eat away at internals, to a nano construct that would also replicate within but additionally be able to attack crew members/pilots.
- Ships coming from battle could be "hot" with nanos and require disinfection.
- Constant source of nano infection.
- Combat could imbue dormant nanos with enough heat energy to cause an accelerated outbreak naturally against a ship not protected.
- Battle wreckage would require cleaning to avoid infection.
- Potential cleanup of outbreaks on ships after fights.
- Pirates have greater incentive to perform clean capturing of ships to avoid outbreak on a soon-to-be-repurposed ship that might not have a preventative coat.
- Levels of visual changes, debuffs, and malfunctions. Last stage body nonfunctional due to being taken over by nanos.
- Robo body taken over by nanos the most dangerous nano enemy due to diverse components within a robotic body serving as the best host for calculation and object manipulation.
1. Vertice-beam-face building system.
We have so many block building games, trying to mimic lego, while being pc game allows for so much more freedom.
SB allows us to play with some other angles than 90 degree, but it always feels like wrestling against the system.
2. Goal. Some measurable way to "win".
As Pope said, pure sandbox discourage combat. Even more if grind is tedious. But instead of creating non-player challenge, I'd rather create something you can fight for.
I.e. create places in the game where you can get "thing". The more you get, the higher you'll be (or your company) on the scoreboard.
But because all the players know about the places, it's a constant battle.
There should be multiple of those, with varying rewards, smaller companies could still compete between each other, while big boys fight in the main league.
Those rewards should be purely for fame and glory, not to make future battles too easy=boring.
Such increase in destruction would be great resource sink. And the more sinks, the less severe grind need to be.
Less grind=good.
We have so many block building games, trying to mimic lego, while being pc game allows for so much more freedom.
SB allows us to play with some other angles than 90 degree, but it always feels like wrestling against the system.
2. Goal. Some measurable way to "win".
As Pope said, pure sandbox discourage combat. Even more if grind is tedious. But instead of creating non-player challenge, I'd rather create something you can fight for.
I.e. create places in the game where you can get "thing". The more you get, the higher you'll be (or your company) on the scoreboard.
But because all the players know about the places, it's a constant battle.
There should be multiple of those, with varying rewards, smaller companies could still compete between each other, while big boys fight in the main league.
Those rewards should be purely for fame and glory, not to make future battles too easy=boring.
Such increase in destruction would be great resource sink. And the more sinks, the less severe grind need to be.
Less grind=good.
Who would to fight for points that don't do anything?
That's called wasting your resources and time.
Further, the "hotspot" PvP design is a good driver for pvp, but it doesn't change the fact that pvprequires farm, and farm is boring. If your farm sucks, it sucks, regardless of how awesome your pvp is. The farm in pretty much every sandbox pvp game sucks.
You WILL spend a truly mind blowing about of time farming, and if you're not doing it you'll be relying on someone else to do it for you. This is the paradigm by which every sandbox lives. You fight for control of resources in order to scale your economic and military power to control even more resources, repeat.
However as long as players are the ones actually gathering those resources, that action alone should be fun. In games with PvE, fighting mobs is primarily a resourcing activity.
I've never understood this aversion to PvE in the sandbox. I've played a ton of these games. The ones that are well populated are predictable. The same strategies for the same fights in the same areas over and over. The ones that aren't well populated are boring. The game is designed around fighting other players but there aren't enough other players to make that a core gameplay loop.
PvE should exist specifically to throw a wrench in your plans. Not as a thing you go visit to farm it for resources, but as a thing that visits you to take yours, disrupts your battles, and generally provides an X factor that requires adaptation and preparedness rather than dogmatic and predictable strategies and patterns by the player.
Often this idea is unpopular because it doesn't pass some kind of ideological pvp purity test. Because people don't want to be "cheated" out of some loot or a kill. My reply to that is that the sandbox genre shouldn't be about predictable and fair encounters. That's the function of an arena based model. If I want that experience I can go play a game where I can have that experience without flying around space looking for a fight for three hours.
The sandbox is about making the universe unfair for your enemies. That's the goal of these games. The universe itself should be equally unfair. If nobody shows up to wreck my mining operation I should still be worried for the safety of my mining operation. I should be worried that if I limp away from a battle badly damaged that some npc pirate might take the opportunity to finish me off. I should be aware of npc threats so dire they can break up a fight between two players just by drifting through because it is no longer worth the risk against a bigger threat.
I'm tired of playing sandbox games in which the environment is simply a backdrop against which groups of players play out the same dance steps over and over. I want that environment to disrupt my plans and require a reaction from me. I want to be excited to play the game even if I don't run in to another player.
I want players to run the world, but I'm sick of the world just rolling over and taking it. The world should fight back a little too.
That's called wasting your resources and time.
Further, the "hotspot" PvP design is a good driver for pvp, but it doesn't change the fact that pvprequires farm, and farm is boring. If your farm sucks, it sucks, regardless of how awesome your pvp is. The farm in pretty much every sandbox pvp game sucks.
You WILL spend a truly mind blowing about of time farming, and if you're not doing it you'll be relying on someone else to do it for you. This is the paradigm by which every sandbox lives. You fight for control of resources in order to scale your economic and military power to control even more resources, repeat.
However as long as players are the ones actually gathering those resources, that action alone should be fun. In games with PvE, fighting mobs is primarily a resourcing activity.
I've never understood this aversion to PvE in the sandbox. I've played a ton of these games. The ones that are well populated are predictable. The same strategies for the same fights in the same areas over and over. The ones that aren't well populated are boring. The game is designed around fighting other players but there aren't enough other players to make that a core gameplay loop.
PvE should exist specifically to throw a wrench in your plans. Not as a thing you go visit to farm it for resources, but as a thing that visits you to take yours, disrupts your battles, and generally provides an X factor that requires adaptation and preparedness rather than dogmatic and predictable strategies and patterns by the player.
Often this idea is unpopular because it doesn't pass some kind of ideological pvp purity test. Because people don't want to be "cheated" out of some loot or a kill. My reply to that is that the sandbox genre shouldn't be about predictable and fair encounters. That's the function of an arena based model. If I want that experience I can go play a game where I can have that experience without flying around space looking for a fight for three hours.
The sandbox is about making the universe unfair for your enemies. That's the goal of these games. The universe itself should be equally unfair. If nobody shows up to wreck my mining operation I should still be worried for the safety of my mining operation. I should be worried that if I limp away from a battle badly damaged that some npc pirate might take the opportunity to finish me off. I should be aware of npc threats so dire they can break up a fight between two players just by drifting through because it is no longer worth the risk against a bigger threat.
I'm tired of playing sandbox games in which the environment is simply a backdrop against which groups of players play out the same dance steps over and over. I want that environment to disrupt my plans and require a reaction from me. I want to be excited to play the game even if I don't run in to another player.
I want players to run the world, but I'm sick of the world just rolling over and taking it. The world should fight back a little too.
Who would fight for points/score? Like in 90% of games, including those most successful? People like points. And cosmetics/badges/achievements.
Isn't gaming basically wasting resources and time? Or any kind of entertainment for that matter?
But I agree with your point about farming being boring.
And people hate AI because it's dumb, repetitive and has aimbot and radar.
Dumb in a way that tactics that shouldn't work do.
Repetitive, because once you find a way to defeat them, they become just annoying.
Aimbot and radar on the other hand make all those tactics that should work (disguise, hiding, dodging, ect.) useless.
Just show me a vehicle building game with fun AI to fight against.
But I'm all for random environmental hazards that require clever engineering and meaningful choices.
Like corrosive clouds that require heavy plating, which make you slow in combat. Or dedicated internal carrier.
Or micro asteroid storms/solar flare forcing everyone to case whatever they were doing and face it with shield side or hiding behind bigger objects.
Or aggressive space jellyfish that gets attracted by loud sounds (gunfire) or maybe high speed.
Isn't gaming basically wasting resources and time? Or any kind of entertainment for that matter?
But I agree with your point about farming being boring.
And people hate AI because it's dumb, repetitive and has aimbot and radar.
Dumb in a way that tactics that shouldn't work do.
Repetitive, because once you find a way to defeat them, they become just annoying.
Aimbot and radar on the other hand make all those tactics that should work (disguise, hiding, dodging, ect.) useless.
Just show me a vehicle building game with fun AI to fight against.
But I'm all for random environmental hazards that require clever engineering and meaningful choices.
Like corrosive clouds that require heavy plating, which make you slow in combat. Or dedicated internal carrier.
Or micro asteroid storms/solar flare forcing everyone to case whatever they were doing and face it with shield side or hiding behind bigger objects.
Or aggressive space jellyfish that gets attracted by loud sounds (gunfire) or maybe high speed.
name me one sandbox game in which people fight for points and not usable wealth.
That's the core difference between the sandbox genre and match based games. They're driven by a wealth based reward system, not an intangible ranks based reward system.
Take a look at Crowfall right now. That's a sandbox in which the end goal of the server is to get the most points. It has a pretty severe problem getting people to care about oints because fighting for said points is a net loss. Even if you win, you lose because your victory didn't replace the wealth you spent to win. You have to choose between doing something that puts mats or gold in your bank, or fighting for points. Most people... choose to ignore the points, which are supposed to be the entire focus of the game. They're still spinning their wheels trying to figure out how to tread the line between tangible rewards and campaign victories.
You can't have a system that requires the user to "buy in" with farm that doesn't "pay out" with some sort of countermeasure that makes it worth the time spent farming. Simply adding some points that give "rank" and nothing more is going to be a colossal flop. A few groups will establish dominance of those locations early and everyone else will just let them have it because why bother. I could be using my mats and fleet to build space stations and do stuff that matters.
This isn't a problem in match based designs where "the win" is the entirety of the gameplay. Everybody starts at zero in a DOTA match or a CoD match or whatever because there are no alternative activities and the point of the game is to win the game, not get rich and build an empire. Those designs work because there is no farming. Even the laning phase in DOTA is part of the entire structure of the single match.
I've been testing an MMORTS called starborne that does this model over several months. The point is to establish coalitions and win the server by capturing sectors, and the rest of the game is production, resourcing, and moving fleets. The goal structure there does nothing but cost your resources, however that goal structure works because every match restarts everyone to zero, and as such there is no other use for those resources.
You can't have two conflicting goal structures exist in your sandbox. Either the point of the game is to win the game, or the point of the game is to dominate a persistant world via economically derived force. For this system to work in Starbase you'd need some kind of time limited league structure. You couldn't simply put some spots on the map and tell people they get phantom useless points for owning them. The vast majority of your community would recognize them for the giant wastes of resources they are. Nobody would care about these outposts unless what they rewarded folded in to the primary reward structure of the game, that reward structue being wealth in the form of resources and currency.
As far as "AI is dumb and repetitive" goes that's my entire point. There is no rule that AI has to be dumb and repetitive. PLENTY of games have good, interesting AI opponents. None of those games are sandbox games. Developers simply don't see AI as a priority, and thus the AI sucks, and thus the farming sucks. AI doesn't even have to be smart to be a threat TBH. I play the original DOOM at least once a year, and the AI is dumb as a brick. The combination of enemy varieties combined with the situational stressors of level design still allows those enemies to function as an interesting threat.
Building games often get stupid by assuming that their enemies must ALSO be built from the same parts, and then find themselves unable to write decent AI capable of accounting for the complex physics and damage states of that system. Why? You could have a more performant and interesting to fight AI if you just decided all your agressive AI was a more traditional kind. Bigger ones that work at spaceship scale and smaller ones that can board ships. Monsters aren't players so why should they play the the same rules if it would be easier to implement and more fun to just let them play by different rules?
That's the core difference between the sandbox genre and match based games. They're driven by a wealth based reward system, not an intangible ranks based reward system.
Take a look at Crowfall right now. That's a sandbox in which the end goal of the server is to get the most points. It has a pretty severe problem getting people to care about oints because fighting for said points is a net loss. Even if you win, you lose because your victory didn't replace the wealth you spent to win. You have to choose between doing something that puts mats or gold in your bank, or fighting for points. Most people... choose to ignore the points, which are supposed to be the entire focus of the game. They're still spinning their wheels trying to figure out how to tread the line between tangible rewards and campaign victories.
You can't have a system that requires the user to "buy in" with farm that doesn't "pay out" with some sort of countermeasure that makes it worth the time spent farming. Simply adding some points that give "rank" and nothing more is going to be a colossal flop. A few groups will establish dominance of those locations early and everyone else will just let them have it because why bother. I could be using my mats and fleet to build space stations and do stuff that matters.
This isn't a problem in match based designs where "the win" is the entirety of the gameplay. Everybody starts at zero in a DOTA match or a CoD match or whatever because there are no alternative activities and the point of the game is to win the game, not get rich and build an empire. Those designs work because there is no farming. Even the laning phase in DOTA is part of the entire structure of the single match.
I've been testing an MMORTS called starborne that does this model over several months. The point is to establish coalitions and win the server by capturing sectors, and the rest of the game is production, resourcing, and moving fleets. The goal structure there does nothing but cost your resources, however that goal structure works because every match restarts everyone to zero, and as such there is no other use for those resources.
You can't have two conflicting goal structures exist in your sandbox. Either the point of the game is to win the game, or the point of the game is to dominate a persistant world via economically derived force. For this system to work in Starbase you'd need some kind of time limited league structure. You couldn't simply put some spots on the map and tell people they get phantom useless points for owning them. The vast majority of your community would recognize them for the giant wastes of resources they are. Nobody would care about these outposts unless what they rewarded folded in to the primary reward structure of the game, that reward structue being wealth in the form of resources and currency.
As far as "AI is dumb and repetitive" goes that's my entire point. There is no rule that AI has to be dumb and repetitive. PLENTY of games have good, interesting AI opponents. None of those games are sandbox games. Developers simply don't see AI as a priority, and thus the AI sucks, and thus the farming sucks. AI doesn't even have to be smart to be a threat TBH. I play the original DOOM at least once a year, and the AI is dumb as a brick. The combination of enemy varieties combined with the situational stressors of level design still allows those enemies to function as an interesting threat.
Building games often get stupid by assuming that their enemies must ALSO be built from the same parts, and then find themselves unable to write decent AI capable of accounting for the complex physics and damage states of that system. Why? You could have a more performant and interesting to fight AI if you just decided all your agressive AI was a more traditional kind. Bigger ones that work at spaceship scale and smaller ones that can board ships. Monsters aren't players so why should they play the the same rules if it would be easier to implement and more fun to just let them play by different rules?
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A planet
Incentives: Have a extremely valuable ore there along with other rare ores in high concentrations. Also make it beautiful.
Drawbacks/balancing: have a very thick atmosphere so you have to have some sort of fancy way of not dying. Travel there will also be highly contested.
I don’t really know what else to put
Incentives: Have a extremely valuable ore there along with other rare ores in high concentrations. Also make it beautiful.
Drawbacks/balancing: have a very thick atmosphere so you have to have some sort of fancy way of not dying. Travel there will also be highly contested.
I don’t really know what else to put
Since we're all using remote control EXO units because there just aren't human habitable worlds, make the planets all places ONLY robots could really settle. Corrosive atmospheres, extreme winds and storms, radioactive ruins from massive wars, etc.
The idea being that all planets have factors that deterioriate an EXO extremely quickly over time, make the structural integrity of buildings and vehicles far more brittle, or make certain kinds of weapons systems unusable due to chemical interactions with the atmosphere that would simply destroy the weapon.
Add some scanning and archeological equipment to find tech blueprints for versions of plates, exos, and systems specifically adjusted to function in that planet's atmosphere so that first landing on any planet is extremely hazardous, but can become more livable over time through use of these found technologies and unique ore compositions native to the planet. For example the planet "Apollo" would have "Apollon Missile Fuel Tank" and "Apollan Armor Plate" bluprints and so on. You'd need to consume these blueprints to learn a recipe, and they would require the unique resource "Apollium" in addition to their usual materials, and "Apollium" could only be found on Apollo.
The idea being that all planets have factors that deterioriate an EXO extremely quickly over time, make the structural integrity of buildings and vehicles far more brittle, or make certain kinds of weapons systems unusable due to chemical interactions with the atmosphere that would simply destroy the weapon.
Add some scanning and archeological equipment to find tech blueprints for versions of plates, exos, and systems specifically adjusted to function in that planet's atmosphere so that first landing on any planet is extremely hazardous, but can become more livable over time through use of these found technologies and unique ore compositions native to the planet. For example the planet "Apollo" would have "Apollon Missile Fuel Tank" and "Apollan Armor Plate" bluprints and so on. You'd need to consume these blueprints to learn a recipe, and they would require the unique resource "Apollium" in addition to their usual materials, and "Apollium" could only be found on Apollo.
Asteroid bound space worms....like in Star Wars but a little smaller and more dangerous. Perhaps it can leave it's hole in the asteroid and battle the player a close distance from it's home. It would float around like an eel (leviathans from Subnautica) and ram ships with it's head doing kinetic damage. Bigger ships a especially at risk. It's health can be high offering up something like a mini-boss battle. Maybe you could have an extremely massive variant that acts almost like a world boss.
They can be rare but they are out there in the big roids and when you find one it's quite the battle to take it down but when defeated the carcass can be salvaged for valuable materials and you get to mount it's head as a trophy in your ship or station.
They can be rare but they are out there in the big roids and when you find one it's quite the battle to take it down but when defeated the carcass can be salvaged for valuable materials and you get to mount it's head as a trophy in your ship or station.
Letting PvE act in the level of the players. That is, you might have pirate miners and pirate raiders each eating up world resources in their own ways, but the low-level actions of those NPCs don't ever add up to larger threats, a pirate battleship just spawns regardless of whether raider and miner efforts are being suppressed in the area. In the same vein, the way AI cheats its economy in RTSs to remain competitive to players. I've always wanted to see MMO PvE systems use more logistics behind the scenes- or at least what it can deliver compared to mobs- mind, somebody's probably already tried this somewhere and everyone has probably decided mob spawns are just far more feasible.
Dunno, I just think it'd be neat if sweeping out pirates regularly made them bring in bigger guards and letting them go made the raids extend a little further out into formerly safe territory. SB doesn't have AI tho, so, private gripe.
Dunno, I just think it'd be neat if sweeping out pirates regularly made them bring in bigger guards and letting them go made the raids extend a little further out into formerly safe territory. SB doesn't have AI tho, so, private gripe.
