I'm fairly new to the forums, so forgive me if this has been discussed already. I'm curious what ideas people would like to see implemented for end-game activities. Raiding, at least as a general concept, should probably exist in some form. There seems to be a high emphasis on PvP for Fallout Online, so perhaps it will focus more on faction/"arena-style" pvp, but I can't imagine that defining the end-game. I suspect PvP will exist as we progress our characters anyway, so I don't know what changes there would be at the end.

For me I'd like to see "raids" in the sense that groups of people tackle a stronghold or even better a more instanced open world area, but without the narrow definitions of tank/healer/dps. Obviously some people will be able to provide more damage, higher armour, crowd control (explosives, etc.), or better healing options, but I think if they can foster multiple ways for a group of 5 or 10 players to tackle a situation based on the synergy between each other's skills, it could lead to a pretty interesting experience. The key being that everyone brings their own skills to the situation and has to focus on their own survival as well as each others.

As another enhancement, instead of being mostly indoor corridor-style dungeons, the "raids" are really more open world (instanced) zones, including buildings, that a group has to overcome various challenges to reach some objective. They could have progressing stories as you achieve different results (perhaps even allowing some variance on what happens in a given "raid").

Sorry, I don't quite understand your use of the term
End-Game options.

Are you talking about when you quit playing the game, or when you quit playing a certain character or ???

To me, I think that there is no End-Game in a MMO.



Dave Chase

Surely you know what I mean. The point when your character has reached the game's level/skill limit. In a single-player RPG, this is meant to culminate with the conclusion of the game's story. If this happens in an MMO, you would probably cancel your account, which defeats the purpose of making these kinds of games. Certainly some players would be happy to run missions and explore just for the sake of it, but without any character progression, the game "ends". Let's not derail the thread simply because you don't like the term I used...

To get an idea of a good implementation of endgame, Guild Wars might be worth a look. Like FO online is said to be, it relies heavily on PvP Combat as well as high level PvE content. Synergy effects from different characters are essential for success which really makes people work together (they normally won't just mindlessly use the same build over and over again). Also, especially in high ranked PvP matches an active live communication between the members of a team is necessary for success.
Now I don't want to say that Fallout online needs 1200 or so skills and secondary classes. Actually this is the last thing I want to encounter in FO online, but nevertheless Guild Wars is a good source of inspiration for that kind of content.

I don't think that they will abandon different character classes altogether but what I really would like to see is a character system where you don't have multiple characters with different specializations but one single alter ego who switch between character classes, professions or whatever one wants to call them. Maybe a system in which you have certain initial disadvantages from changing class but don't loose all the experience (not only experience points!) you gathered before. Something like having to do a series of quests to change class and also learn the class specific skills. Perhaps it would be possible to implement certain benefits for this character if you had a certain level in proficiency in more than one area (maybe the concept of something like secondary classes isn't that bad after all )

Maybe this concept would help to generate a feeling of "I am one person inside this mess and I got to get through it" instead of "I am the commander of a bunch of characters that I can use like different tools for different tasks"

Nevertheless, judging from the information i got from this board, the development of the game is much too far advanced, as that it would be possible to implement something like a new character progression system - at least not unless gamesas wants to beat 3D Reals in the category of received vaporware awards.

I don't think Chase was saying that he didn't like the term. I think he was just saying that he doesn't understand it.

I do understand what "end game" relates to, and I do not like the term because it suggests that character development is the only thing driving the game.

My idea is that Character development takes a back seat to world development. The developers have already stated that restoring the world will be a major part of the game, and I think this is the thing that is going to keep people playing, Not raids or leet items although I'm sure Pvp will also be another draw.

It would be interesting and I'm sure continually engaging if player settlements played a large part in the game requiring you to not only build a character, but also the world around you. After your character reached their limit you could have larger options to effect and build up your settlements, shops, bunkers, organization etc etc. Then having a character who has reached their potential would be like having an influential figure related to that settlement. Another drunk conquistador conquering the governor's ball...

I agree that if obtaining phatter loots is the only purpose one can have once the base character stats are reached (as is the case is most other MMORPGs), then an opportunity has been lost. There could be lots of things to do beyond "raiding", such as rebuilding the world or participating in faction conflicts. However, if there isn't any meaningful character advancement at that point, then I do believe a lot of players will lose interest.

The one idea I would like to see pertaining to raids would be sort of 2-4 hour stories that groups of players go on. They'd be instanced areas with a storyline and different objectives, that could mark progression in the same way WoW saves your raid at each boss. The players would be free to go about solving the story arcs how they can and as a result would gain some faction rewards or something. Basically something like a DnD module...

I would be happy if there is some hard core PVE content and some PVP at the "end game".

I like the idea of a story Module idea. Another drunk conquistador conquering the governor's ball...

Thanks for clarifying. I Thought that was what you meant but just wanted to make sure.

First, I am hoping that gamesas is considering ways to keep most of the players from Topping out.
But there will always be players who grow tired of the MMO play of a particular style or game rules.

Here is one of my thoughts on how to address your question/issue.


From the Why create new characters and crippling actions thread


Been playing the Fallout series again (making up for no Beta to test yey ).

And I have been thinking about something with the characters.
It could be possible to play V13 and just keep finding books to read, kill things and get more perks and attempt to stat/skill out.

What if instead there were two factors that effected your stats.

Time (or aging) takes place. As you get older, your stats start changing (down) a little at a time.
OF Course this opens up many other issues; like how fast is game time to real world time, do you age if you are not online, since some races live longer does their stats change at a different rate, etc.

Injury
SO, instead I was thinking about the fact that no matter what type of protection you wear in the game you do get hurt some time during combat.
What if the game engine kept track of:
How many times you died
How many times you were knocked out/unconcious
How many times you were crippled
And that some of the crippling effects left scars or a permament injury.
And how long before that crippling effect was fixed/cure.

Say you have a crippled right leg, and while you it is crippled you cant run or move at full speed.
Cured and nothing more, right?
Well not everyone recovers well from broken bones.
So, it is important to have a skilled doctor fix your crippled leg or some type of permament effect might still be present. Maybe not the full effect of the crippled injury but some minor one.

Or that you wait for 1 day (or more) to get that leg fixed because you are wanting the best doctor you can get.
Of course your body has started healing already and will heal around that crippling effect. Possibly making it difficult for the doctor to fix your leg now.

The point behind this is as time goes on and you get more injuries it becomes harder to effectively make a living cause you don't move as fast, shoot as well, or remember things as easily as you use to.

And then you have an incentive to create a new character (with the same account).

I have some more thoughts on this but I will wait to see what others think first.

Dave Chase

why would they want to give players an incentive to make new characters? if there's something that happens that basicly forces you to make a new character you would never reach what people call the "end game" content and therefore miss out on content. most mmo companies want players to get to that point b/c when they add stuff on that's where they add usuaully.

I would suggest that the dev takes a look at the old (pre-NGE) Star Wars Galaxies system of world development for inspiration. Player made cities/defence systems, voting for mayors, upkeep and all that plus a totally player driven economy.

the player driven economy would be awesome if they quash gold farmers and 3rd party merchant sites that sell their items in the beginning before they become a huge problem.

the player driven economy would be awesome if they quash gold farmers and 3rd party merchant sites that sell their items in the beginning before they become a huge problem.

This is a thing that really annoys me in other MMOs. Take Guild Wars for example: Apart from certain PvP trophies, the people who have the most to show for normally are those who kill the same enemies over and over again dozens of times a day, waiting for rare items to drop o they can sell them.

the player driven economy would be awesome if they quash gold farmers and 3rd party merchant sites that sell their items in the beginning before they become a huge problem.

This is a thing that really annoys me in other MMOs. Take Guild Wars for example: Apart from certain PvP trophies, the people who have the most to show for normally are those who kill the same enemies over and over again dozens of times a day, waiting for rare items to drop o they can sell them.

Lineage used Epic weapons to fight farmers. There wee a few 2-3 mega-giga-super weapons had a chance t drop from every monster. Now obviously farmers got them first because that is what they do, farm.. the problem was that these weapons showed up on the game map and all the players were incited to hunt it down. I don'T know how successful was the attemt, though.

I know it would certainly have it's problems, But why create a system with a level cap at all? Why not just have the exp requirement increase exponentially. Eventually players would be looking at 6 months to a year of player before a level up could be achieved, but at least there would be no physical caps.

Ofcourse this is no excuss for overlooking other methods for further exploring the game.

I also think it would be good to encourage players having multiple characters. The SPECIAL system atleast in FO1 and 2 makes it impossible to master everything... So why not explore playing different ways? Another drunk conquistador conquering the governor's ball...

they could always make the best items bop(bind on pickup) and that would also hinder the gold farmers and item merchants.

i'm usually pretty open-minded about things in general, but wtf are we even talking about end-game nonsense for a game that's not even alpha testing yet! give me a break people. people these days have no patience at all. this isn't a single player game, it's an mmo. any game company that talks about endgame at this juncture other than in theory and WAY down the road is committing quick death mmo suicide and i doubt these devs are, after all the battling they've had to do in the courts just to get the mmo off the ground.

sorry if i sound a bit peeved but this is the kind of conversation that raises expectations unrealistically and kills mmo interest. other than powergamers who annoy the F**K out of me, and always try to force content out of devs or leave because the game isn't progressing "fast enough" for their tastes, most people play mmo's for the long term. otherwise why bother with an mmo. much better to just make a single player game(with some co-op maybe) and move on. as i said i'm usually open minded and even tempered but this topic has put a hornet's nest in my undies and having my sensitive parts stung repeatedly makes me cranky. lets stick to general content discussions and ideas to make the beginning and ongoing game better and original i beg thee.

The whole concept of an 'end-game' doesn't belong in FOOL.

The reason i say this is that i have yet to play a game that has a well formulated end game. It's either very disappointing when compared to the game leading up to the 'end game', or the gameplay proceding the 'end game' tends to be a monotonous grind to reach the content which is actually considered fun.

Simply put, FOOL should be a living breathing game in which the actions of even the lowest level character can effect what the highest level character does.

I don't understand your frustration. You're saying this is an MMO so why think about "end-game" content? It is only in an MMO that this topic is relevant. MMO's live as persistent worlds. They are not developed so players can play a story out with other people and quit. They exist to allow people to live in a persistent world. But to foster that environment, there has to be activities for players to participate in after they've achieved whatever experience/level/skill cap is in the game. This cap has to exist otherwise the game has no equalization point and becomes completely unmanageable.

Fallout is also not a game that will appease a lot of casual players. I guarantee within one or two months players will have characters reaching the skill cap in the game. And so, this sort of discussion must be addressed before the game is released as there is no time to retrofit new content. There has to be something in place for players to do otherwise the game fizzles. You might not like it (clearly you don't), but gamesas doesn't want to create a literal wasteland on their servers.

The idea of an MMO is to foster an environment that compels people to keep playing and justify the $15/month fee, long after they've passed through the content and zones while leveling. In a single player game the story wraps up and we all feel good and move on. If we're paying a monthly fee, there has to be something that draws us in. That is precisely what this topic was trying to address. I wasn't trying to suggest it has to be WoW raiding as it exists today, but could be something better.

I hate to double-post, but I do understand that people don't want this game to turn into something like WoW with its gearscores and what not. I too am fully supportive of trying to create an environment that's much more compelling, such as activities involving a lot more authentic player interaction, rather than artificial battleground/arena deathmatches or boss/trash dungeon crawls.

That's why I think the idea of mini-story modules in an instanced area would be pretty cool. You can explore with your group of 5 or 10 people and play through something in your own little sandbox environment. Each time you do it might go a bit different depending on how you approached it.

I think ideas on more PvP activities are worth discussing too.