8. Farming & Power Levelling.
8.1. Farming.
Unfortunately with the current item level restrictions, I will always rush to hit the level cap before I start to look for equipment, however with the current mechanics, fighting through entire dungeons of regular enemies is too monotonous, and I find myself too unenthused as to try and find the items I need.
Boss brawl dungeons are a step in the right direction, although they then become the only dungeon that people play in an expansion to get loot. Would it be possible to implement a respawn timer for enemies? This would allow a group to run a single dungeon without a restart. Although a restart button is something I would prefer over having to remake the game itself, if the need for this could be eradicated altogether it would be something I’d look forward to.
With dungeons as linear as they are, a Magic Portal similar to the ones implemented in the Townes could be placed at the end of a dungeon to allow the group to progress on to the next level, the buttons that appear could be removed altogether; I’m assuming a player can now leave a dungeon via the world map, and if not then definitely through the menu system. Missing a few enemies in a dungeon would no longer be an issue, and with the right respawn timers, a group could stay in one dungeon, farming for rare loot in a far less tedious way, also adding to the sense of a persistent game world.
With the above changes, the current method of farming; training entire dungeons of enemies all the way to the boss, would become a thing of the past. It would no longer matter that the ‘stun’ effect from enemy attack had been removed, running to the boss would no longer be required. As with a traditional dungeon in an MMO, you would clear the generic enemies en route to the boss(es) and then routinely cycle each boss spawn until you were satisfied and could move on, with minimal grinding through standard enemies in between.
In light of this, early single boss dungeons should drop the less rare loot (as is currently the case with Plasma Pyramid; mostly armour sets and existing weapon types from the previous Alien Oasis campaign), and the later multi boss dungeons could contain the more sought after loot (such as Plasma Swords, Daggers, Talons, Staves, Wands, Blasters and 2 Handers with AO2 currently).
8.2. Power Levelling.
Power levelling is a feature that should be available within MMOs, however the way that it currently works causes much discontent within the player base. Power levelling should never be done in areas designed for the mentor, if players wish to power level, it should be done in dungeons designed for a level close to the lower player. In order to prevent power levelling in dungeons that are too high, experience could be throttled when killing enemies more than a certain amount of levels above the player. For example, any enemy more than 5 levels above the player could be restricted to 0.25 experience, or have the experience gain incrementally reduced the further the level gap increased.
PvP currently feels like a hasty addition rather than a full feature of Pocket Legends, although things are being proposed and bugs fixed, implementing features to support fair, competitive matches & tournaments will be the biggest incentive for people to take part.
There is currently no way to referee a PvP match properly, the host of the game, regardless of whether they are a spectator or participant, should have access to admin features for the match. The ‘Undecided’ group could be split into 3 sub sections to allow for a referee and spectators within the game.
Referee
Player1
Spectators
Player3
Player4
Unassigned
Player5
Player6
The referee and spectators could be implemented either as 'ghosts', only visible to non combatants and untouched by any skill use, or simply not placed as characters at all, scrolling the screen to view the match. Referees and spectators would use a separate UI setup with no skills or auto attack. Where potions would be in PvE, the game host could have a button for a match command screen - reset match, move player to team, kick/ban etc. to assist in moderating a game.
The ability for a player to change sides without rejoining a game would be a very helpful addition, as well as a health display for your target. If possible, a team/score screen would be a fantastic feature, viewing players from both teams, their kill/death count (for the game in progress) and the ability to inspect them from this screen. This would be an excellent way for all players to view current match progress, this could be the default screen for the ‘Match’ button where the potions would usually be, with a moderators sub section for those with admin rights.
For PvP to become truly fair, safe spawns should be added. Currently, spawning can leave you separated from your team; potentially just as fatal as spawning close to enemies. With safe spawn areas, each team would have a home base, allowing for seamless integration of a Capture the Flag game mode into any map. With team PvP should also be an optional function for round based combat, where the round continues until an entire team is dead, score could then be determined by rounds won instead of kill count, although kills/deaths should still be displayed in the match screen, Resurrection would then be useful within this game mode.
10. Transitive Targeting.
The use of target assist in MMOs is crucial to good group cohesion, while this has already been suggested several times on the forums, there is a way to implement it without the need for macros.
Players are currently unable to target team mates in both PvP and PvE, I don’t know if this feature was simply overlooked, not feasible on the device platforms or vetoed to avoid over complication; however with the game evolving into something that closer resembles a fully fledged MMO as time goes on, this would be a very welcome addition.
Both EverQuest II and Anarchy Online allowed the user to transitively target enemies through other targets, should this feature be made available it opens the game to a variety of new functions. Aggressive actions could be directed towards the sub target, friendly actions could be directed to the main target, and single target friendly skills would become a viable option.
All of this would be conducive to hardcore/nightmare/raid dungeons where good teamplay is essential.
Although not essential, more chat commands would give players the means to manually use many of the games existing functions, as well as allowing for use of some currently not present.
- /reply /r
- /friends /fr (listing all friends online when blank, various different uses to filter results, /fr X where X is the level, /fr X X where X is a lower and upper level limit, /fr CLASS)
- /who /w (as with above)
- /follow /fo
- /assist /a
- /guild /gu (guild chat)
- /group /gr (group chat)
- /invite /in (group invite)
- /ginvite /gi (guild invite)
- /ignore /ig
- /played /pl (characters play time, birth date, current server time)
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