Remove the party system?

[Johnny Walac]

We should all appreiciate quests and not complain if there is no mob loot. I would make the consequenses for failing the quest harsh. If the players wont fight because "no lootz" well, they just lost the city to a horde of undeads. On the other hand, if they succeed they get a nice Quest Deed.

Loot shouldn't be a problem when it comes down to defending your home town against NPC invaders. Sounds like a mighty good cause for your character to fight for.


Edit: So, voted no. And make quests with no mob-loot.

[Bestia Domare]

I agree that the issue lies in the players. We are greedy and that wont change. The closest we can get is to change the quests to avoid situations that allow greed.

If it is possible to impliment, these are my suggestions:
Quest mobs should NOT loot.
Reason 1: Other players will kill it and steal your gear (yes it happens) = a bad time.
Reason 2: Quests should be the one aspect of the game where you can freely use your BEST gear without fear of losing it.
Reason 3: LESS HASSLE FOR GMs
Quest mobs should have NO loot.
Reason 1: This succeeds in turning any teamwork that existed into dust. People would rather solo, loot, repeat.
Reason 2: Players dont care about other players and will rather run ahead and smash things instead of ressurecting. (similar to point 1 but thought it was important to point out)
Reason 3: It will never be fair, people get their kills looted, so they loot other peoples kills and everyone has a bad time.
Reason 4: Varying strength in players, religious and veteran players have the advantage.
Reason 5: Its not about who does the "most work" should get loot, smashing things is fun enough. Focus on quest first, get loot later (deed). Dont mix loot with quest.
Reward Good Behaviour.
Reason 1: People will help others if they know they get loot from it, a simple bonus to quest deeds if players worked as a team.
Reason 2: Quests can go to crap fast when people dont plan, or work together. They can be real hard and require teamwork in order to complete.

Some of my experiences:
When boris ran the space giant quest (i was still a n00b) everyone ran into khaldun without clearing the entrance and I was instantly killed by a nightmare when i followed. No one turned to res me and i had to icq a friend to come help. I was expecting the strong to look after the weak, but i was wrong. I ended up ressing others with a life wand, using up my charges and helping them only to watch them kill and loot, kill and loot. In the end boris distributed the space giant hides himself, everyone saying "pick me, i did the most damage" etc, but he gave it to another n00b who seemed to be a new player which i thought was great.

There was a brit GY & vesper quest that ended in covetous sometime afterwards which I thought went well, people were helping eachother, returning lost gear, and sticking together. I dont remember who ran that one (i think ares?) but i remember the final boss had an OP flamestrike that nuked us all at one point. I didnt even mind because it was fun. I think the mobs were just the right difficulty that you needed at least 2 or 3 people to take down the harder ones, and after the GY it progressed almost directional. people werernt going all different directions. but the GY was nice too because groups all took a different side of it to clear and there wasnt fight over mobs.

The Dante quest with lord Telnak ( or w.e the name was ) was pretty good, but people were definantly trying to get loot and not working together at all. After my bird got toasted i stood back to heal and res players with wands while they got their arse kicked by the boss. Personally didnt get any loot from that quest.

The next Dante quest (which we couldnt finish due to difficulty and small party) was pretty fun. It was hard and only a few of us, so we worked together for the most part. I think we could have done much better however, people were still running ahead trying to take things out without fully clearing areas before, leaving hard mobs to players that couldnt beat them alone.

[Jyrgen]

I also check the player counts and who's doing what and I must say I'm disappointed with the number of people who'd prefer to macro day in day out rather than attend events that bring people together - perhaps this is a comment on my quests or the current player base. Who knows.

Do keep in mind that some people might not attend quests because they don't have time for it. Even though they might be macroing, doesn't mean they have time for taking part of a quest, as it'd need much more attention than just macroing.

[Sid DeTritus]

I also check the player counts and who's doing what and I must say I'm disappointed with the number of people who'd prefer to macro day in day out rather than attend events that bring people together - perhaps this is a comment on my quests or the current player base. Who knows.

Do keep in mind that some people might not attend quests because they don't have time for it. Even though they might be macroing, doesn't mean they have time for taking part of a quest, as it'd need much more attention than just macroing.

spot on, this was me during the last quest

[Mike]

@ Dante I would suggest you keep making quests targeting a specific part of the shard, such as religions, only blues, only this or that. You might have less players there total but they will be more engaged. I know atleast during Tek quests I tend to have a bigger intrest for what's being said etc then in a free-for-all quest, which is one of the reasons I tend to avoid most quests unless I've been asked to come create some trouble for the adventurers :)

Adding on to this.

I'm not sure how many people have experience with a GM system in other games. I've played thousands of hours of Neverwinter Nights on a few servers and they all feature GM quests now and then. The differences between Pang and an average NWN RP server is a dramatically higher level of RP, less focus on looting and a lower skill cap in the game itself.

What tends to work well in such quests is 3-6 people attending. That way player RP is distinict enough to make the quest enjoyable, even though naturally the strongest personalities tend to do most of the talking. There's a flow of information between GM and player that makes the quest interactive. The risk of someone screwing up the quest due to not following the narrative is minimal. Pang is more about the mechanics than the RP, so a 3-10 man group would be suitable... doesn't have to be that HCRP.

What tends not to work are those big zerg quests with 30+ players in the same area, huge battles and so forth. People don't follow the narrative, people fall behind, ask for directions, or complain. Half of the crowd has no idea what's going on unless the GM hands down pauses the action, gathers people up and feeds them the story. The GM's personality doesn't really shine through since the story elements are weakened by the zerging. Basically it's bad, but it can be fun and necessary for server-changing events.

So all in all, faction- or group-specific quests might be the way to go to eliminate a lot of the headaches that go into these things.

[Cirius Do'Brim]

If there are more than 20+ players on a quest, it's usually a clusterfuck - and that's coming from years of experience. The outcome is nothing but players running like headless chicken. Corpses fill the screen and nothing works. I would also recommend organizing quests for a certain group instead of the current "free for all" concept. At least separating religions from each other is a good start. I remember hosting a religion free quest at one point and that was a win-win.

[Dista]

I am voting for keeping the party system, mobs have no loot. Quest deeds need to be improved. Just makes more sense to reward everyone that attends not just the 3 people that kill everything.. If I can help kill somethings but know that I wont do the majority of the work therefore will not get any of the good loot there is no reason for me or anyone else in my shoes to even join the quest. I think its most important to have huge turnouts for quests then to have smaller turnouts of everyone working against eachother or simply the best teaming up and taking all or most of the loot.

[Oomari]

I say no on removing the party system, it worls fine

And on the other note this topic has turned into....doing quests... i think sometimes the GM's are over thinking the quests

Somewhere back i see a gm complaining about to many macroing, and not joining....then think different, if you see a new player macroing his upcoming tinker by making bottles or lockpicks, go up to him....rp you need him to make you some stuff, tell him you are low on gold, but you have 1000 glass/iron (has to be some matr. he can use to train his skills further) he can have for making you something (check his skills, let him/her make something that is a Little hard to make), rp with him and suddenly you have done a 10 min quest and helped a newcomer...

you see a fighter doing something alone, spawn a mob or 2 near by with some extra gold, and some quest item, run to him and ask him to kill them so you can get your 'quest item' back....and you have suddenly made a 10 min quest for someone....

quests dont have to be big and with everyone

[Bestia Domare]

Somewhere back i see a gm complaining about to many macroing, and not joining....then think different, if you see a new player macroing his upcoming tinker by making bottles or lockpicks, go up to him....rp you need him to make you some stuff, tell him you are low on gold, but you have 1000 glass/iron (has to be some matr. he can use to train his skills further) he can have for making you something (check his skills, let him/her make something that is a Little hard to make), rp with him and suddenly you have done a 10 min quest and helped a newcomer...

you see a fighter doing something alone, spawn a mob or 2 near by with some extra gold, and some quest item, run to him and ask him to kill them so you can get your 'quest item' back....and you have suddenly made a 10 min quest for someone....

love it

if you see a n00b steedless, spawn yourself as a *wounded* animal. use emotion to convey it *looks injured and hungry* if the n00b is really thick headed *looks like it needs a carrot* =p when he drops a carrot on the ground you transfer yruoself to him

[Zaradon]

Don't see a problem with it.

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