I'm ok with full loot so long as the game is built to account for the loss of loot regularly.
In other words, it needs a strong functional baseline of generic equipment to use so that in the advent of a loss, square-one is not such a massive setback that the idea of recovery leads to despair.
Also needs to account for that in the way gear bonuses and deficits work. Like if you have a more powerful weapon then it may not be be more powerful in a flat statistical way, but through unique modifiers that add special effects or access to a new utility power. Something that allows for a relative balance to be maintained while still making special and unique gear meaningful to possess.
Most of the time games seem to not be well built for this though, so under most circumstances full loot is a no-go.
Rust is a full loot sandbox, it works just fine, and I enjoy the hell out of it. Might not be what many people here consider an MMO, but with servers hosting up to 200 players in some circumstances, it certainly feels that way. I absolutely support full loot if the crafting allows players to make and replace the best gear available.
I'd also mention Ultima Online, but I know many detractors will attempt to curb that argument by pointing out the introduction of Trammel. Regardless of your position, the crafting system pre-Trammel allowed players to make and replace weapons and armor that were extremely competitive, even against most of the magical variants (though there were exceptions). This softens the burden of loss, and allows people to create contingency plans in the way of an armory. If you died, so what? You had twenty more suits of armor and twenty more swords to go kick ass with.
Yes but the end result is that armor and weapons didn't feel special but rather "disposable".
Full loot PvP where the meta is having a stash of gear that you can use when you die sort of defeats the purpose of looting players as it's all disposable loot in the end.
It's not really any more hardcore when you just use one of your 30 weapons or armor anyways.
Might as well just let everyone keep their gear and skip the tedium.
Couldn't disagree with you more. A game built around gear loss and PvP is all about using the work of other players to your advantage. It's far faster to kill some dude who's geared and take his stuff, than it is to grind the resources and build my own. You have the options to do either, and most players will eventually be doing both. Not to mention, acquiring a healthy store of loot is the padding you need to soften that burden of loss. You don't just start with that stuff, you have to work your way there, which makes every piece of gear you gank or build very important.
Who is gearing up to be killed by some lazy jerk, when the entire server becomes this way? When everyone is sitting around waiting for someone else to do the work, but no one is when they know there are 30+ people waiting for him to do it, then gear is meaningless as no one will have any.
That's not what happens, though. People farm those resources because it gives them advantages. Sometimes you lose those resources, other times you don't. There's a risk involved, and people take it because it's worth that risk (or can be, using Rust or UO as examples). Even the people who are hunting around solely to kill other players, they'll eventually be farming at some point as well, though they may do less of it overall, because it rewards an advantage to have those resources. The problem you're describing, I've never seen in the sandbox games I've played.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
If the game has forced Full Loot PvP it will have a very small population.
The best way to do this is to offer two kinds of servers, one without open PvP and one with open PvP.
I for one would love a sandbox game with interesting PvE, open PvP, full looting and characters with only one (or limited) life, with a focus on character progression and not strictly gear progress (horizontal progression prioritized over vertical). Losing a fight should however not necessarily mean death. Players (and monsters) should have the option of a coup de Grace if they're feeling particularly cruel, otherwise you'd just wake up wounded and have to find your way back to civilization with whatever the attacker didn't want.
Don't even try to understand this world, the human mind has no chance of comprehending its instabilities.
If you're a developer and you want to shoot yourself in the foot and have your game "fail" even before it makes it to market, have full loot pvp. I would think that by now we would have learned that full loot has no room in the modern mmo. Especially if you want your game to be a commercial success.
Now, if someone were to come along, make a fully sandbox mmo and not include open world free for all full loot pvp, THAT would be revolutionary. Especially since devs think that open world ffa pvp somehow creates content that many will enjoy. When in reality, ow ffa pvp games just cannibalize the populations from each other.
If Amazon wanted to attempt to grab the largest share of the available sandbox pop, they would most likely need multiple servers with different rule sets, but there's inherent risk with going that route. Either they attempt to keep all game modes balanced within themselves, which is difficult, or they just add in options and leave the players to their own devices. Neither is a very good option either. Since changes to PvE or PvP will negatively affect the other.
They could go with a more UO approach and add a full pvp mirror world that you can access. Although, you're still splitting your community, and the pvp can be negatively affected by the safe pve side of the world. You'll also most likely create a toxic community with the PvE people and the PvP people at odds.
In my humble opinion, ffa pvp needs to be kept where it can be most meaningful. In smallish communities of like minded folks, who are playing a game with ffa full loot pvp as the primary focus. Games like Rust and Hurtworld, and even ARK come to mind. It needs to be kept out of large mmos though.
How did we get to the point where 'sandbox' is being declared by some to mean that being able to screw over other players is required, when 'sandbox' simply meant that you aren't tied to the storyline and could go all kinds of places and even alter the world itself in some fashion.
You know, like in an actual sandbox.
After all, the kids in the sandbox don't have to stay in one corner, and can build their sandcastle and all that, but the idea that they could take another kids shovel or beat the #%&^ out of them and then take their shovel is something that isn't tolerated on any playground.
I'm going to guess that your favorite character class is Murder Hobo. Am I right?
Yes. It keeps the psychopaths out of the games I enjoy, though I do wish more sandbox games would add PvE or non-loot PvP servers. There's really no reason not to. Even the venerable Ultima Online didn't become truly popular until Trammel was implemented.
And yes, the people who argue against PvE servers for such games are usually the psychopaths who want to kill, loot, corpse camp, and grief easy targets in order to find some semblance of purpose in their sad, wasted little lives.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
Full loot PVP in an MMO wont work until Murder and ganking have proper repercussions. This is the part of PVP Devs keep missing. Being able to murder people all day with no penalty or cost doesnt work. Being able to circumvent the penalties easily by handing off the loot to alts is also a problem.
I fully understand if you’re the type of player that simply likes to log in, get on, and accomplish something without risk, but if you’re that sort of player, a full sandbox experience likely isn’t for you anyway. Chopping away parts of a sandbox game in order to ensure it’s exactly to your liking is missing the point: you’re effectively only seeking an MMO with more depth, as opposed to a total package offering players complete freedom.
I don't think it matters if people "miss the point" there are plenty of people who would love aspects of a "sandbox game" and think that take a piece away here and there would only enhance their experience.
Incidentally, Kano is correct and it's something that I've said over and over again: full loot when you have 30 of something in the bank is not remotely hardcore. It's the same as running to your corpse in wow only you are running to the bank to regear.
That's why I don't understand people's reticence to full loot, it's one of the easiest death penalties out there.
Post edited by Sovrath on
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With all due respect to Lewis, he has a rather narrow definition of "sandbox." It's his right to define it how he wants, but it seems rather "unsandboxy" to say it must have or it's not a sandbox.
As to the greater discussion.. I've played a lot of MUDs/MMOs in the last 20 years and a great deal of them were PVP games or games in which I focused heavily on PvP. I've also played most of the "sandbox PvP" games that have come out over the years. I have a lot of good memories and had a lot of fun in these games, but every single one of them shared the same problem - lack of playerbase.
There are many reasons why these games struggle to maintain a healthy population, but I'd simply sum it up as them having or creating the environment of "helplessness" in certain groups of their players (particularity new players). New and or unskilled players experience this feeling more often than not and for these players, full loot is just salt in the wound.
Do I like games with full loot? Sure, if the game is done right. Do I think full loot is the way to go? Nope - I'd rather have a game with a healthy population and no/limited loot, than any of these defunct or desolate full pvp/loot games we have currently.
P.S. Shadowbane was, by far, my favorite PvP game. I'd play a remake in a heartbeat.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Amazon...shopping for the MASSES...would never authorise a full-loot niche game. The penalties for PvP ganking would have to be (super) extraordinary to entice the kind of player numbers needed for a significant profit margin. Safe-zones, karma-loss, jail-time, et al would mean nothing for an inexpensive or F2P affair. Full loot games don't work for mass-appeal because they don't mirror real life where the consequences are all too real.
I have to toss out the obligatory, "Depends on how the game is made" answer here, but as a general rule, I am against full PvP loot. Full loot affects so many things in the game world with everything from economy to balance making the list. If it's done even a little bit wrong, then the whole world begins to fall apart. SWG was one of the best sandbox MMOs ever, and it didn't have full loot nor forced PvP. Despite this fact, it had one of the best game world economies I have ever been a part of (at least before holocrons ruined everything). Even something as simple as allowing players to upgrade available inventory space can completely ruin your full loot free for all PvP system if not planned out from the game's inception.
I agree that complete freedom can enhance the sandbox experience when done correctly, but I disagree completely that it is a necessary part of sandbox play.
I played eve for almost 10 years, Darkfall 1.0 and 2.0......full loot works when you can print out new gear but games like unholy wars made it a pain in the ass and just wasnt worth it.....gear gap in any full loot like that makes it blow hard....I dont understand why people think full loot pvp is needed in a "sandbox" but it is not. Looking at most of the comments also tells me that the majority hate it so why keep pushing it.
Full loot pvp does absolutely work and when implemented properly is one of the most exciting features to a game...Be you killer,crafter or adventurer.
Alot of people are trashing what they see as a full loot system with no consequences to the killer...which is silly. in the first days of UO if you attacked someone then everyone could attack you...and if you killed people you were forbidden from entering town. Not just that but if you happened to be killed as a murderer you suffered massive skill loss. In a game taking months to grandmaster most skills, this was a severe penalty. You could not simply be killed as a PK and then pop to the bank (you cant go there) grab some gear and go back at it...you needed to train again now.
Not only that but the huge bounties posted on player killers created guilds specializing only in the tracking down and be-heading of murderers...I know because I was in one, and we out numbered killers 5 to 1 in those days.
Guess what? Full loot also moves the game economy...never was there such a true need for good quality crafted gear as there was in UO. When players would die to other players or deep in a dungeon where a corpse was not retrievable you would head the local blacksmith to craft you a new set of items...Loss was part of the game for everybody and take it from me being a grandmaster crafter was never so satisfying....you were truly needed.
Full loot also drives socialization....want to be a crafter? well you could risk going it alone...or you could join a guild that would offer protection to its resource gatherers....often sending warriors with the miners as protectors...it created caravans of people making the dangerous trip to town exciting.
I guess I dont understand the crowd that feels losing anything in a game is a design flaw that should be weeded out....Wish yall coulda been around for the glory days of UO...It was nothing like what any of you are describing...
That sounds like selective realism. Do you have to eat in the game? Shower? Use the toilet? When you die can you just resurrect? That doesn't sound very realistic. When you're killed the game should uninstall itself - it's not like you get to just pick up where you left off when you die in real life.
That sounds like selective realism. Do you have to eat in the game? Shower? Use the toilet? When you die can you just resurrect? That doesn't sound very realistic. When you're killed the game should uninstall itself - it's not like you get to just pick up where you left off when you die in real life.
Not sure if you are talking to me or not....I dont think I mentioned realism at all in my post....Just trying to say that full loot, if implemented correctly, can add a great deal of fun and excitement to a game where it might not otherwise exist...
Do we need to get aggressive with each other? Or can we discuss this reasonably? Can we try to talk about ways in which full loot could work? Or is it just "No, this will never work...because I say so...." ???
Well groovy for you....However, I dont think the looting of items and permadeath features are such deal breakers for most *cough* Chronicles of Elyria *cough*
i think in a game with full loot, there needs to be something other than pvp and destruction, and how building cities, aligning with npcs, politiics play a part and the full loot is really just a way of making money fast by collecting more than losing loot, and then having many ways to spend that loot.
so then it becomes a some what compounded effect with spending the extra loot to get more power, and get even more loot, then it means there can be and end to the server conquer mode so to speak.
i think something like that would be fun.
but does it have to be a whole server for that, or it could be an in game mode for a large bg even in a themepark mmo just that it lasts for several hours, like a raid but a conquest BG.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
I disagree that full loot makes it a true sandbox. A true sandbox is SWG. What makes a true sandbox to you might not make it a true sandbox to other people depending on how you define it. My req for true sandbox is intricate, complex, and freedom.
Nope a true sandbox is Wurm Online. Put SWG beside Wurm and you soon realize SWG wasn't as sandbox as you thought it was.
So now sandbox means full loot, what a load of rubbish. Tell that to Wurms PVE server or ATITD. As for new world, just like people are saying about Dnl, talk is cheap.
Full loot is redundant because only fools would carry anything worthwhile on them.
There are enough super successful full loot MMO(light) as of now. Most survival games are just that. And there is a big audience for those games. Last I checked (few weeks ago) Ark Survival Evolved and Rust were in top 5-15 on Steam. If you wonder what all MMO gamers play now, they are there playing the successful part of the survival genre. That's because it delivers much better MMO experience than most games that call themselves MMOs.
I dont know if full loot games are niche, but (excluding WoW) themeparks look niche to me. I once heard this and non-stop repeat it here because it is soo true - MMOs are now "single-player in a crowd".
I love my PvP, especially open world pvp. Full loot is a big disincentive for pvping so just by having that feature in the game you're going to reduce the population and thus reduce the fun. Full loot pvp is a self-defeating mechanic.
Even if it didn't put people off, you're still adding lots of extra time to go and re-equip before you can rejoin the fun. How is that a good thing? PvP thrives off lots of people, so any mechanic which takes people away from pvp is going to be bad.
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Comments
In other words, it needs a strong functional baseline of generic equipment to use so that in the advent of a loss, square-one is not such a massive setback that the idea of recovery leads to despair.
Also needs to account for that in the way gear bonuses and deficits work. Like if you have a more powerful weapon then it may not be be more powerful in a flat statistical way, but through unique modifiers that add special effects or access to a new utility power. Something that allows for a relative balance to be maintained while still making special and unique gear meaningful to possess.
Most of the time games seem to not be well built for this though, so under most circumstances full loot is a no-go.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
The best way to do this is to offer two kinds of servers, one without open PvP and one with open PvP.
I for one would love a sandbox game with interesting PvE, open PvP, full looting and characters with only one (or limited) life, with a focus on character progression and not strictly gear progress (horizontal progression prioritized over vertical). Losing a fight should however not necessarily mean death. Players (and monsters) should have the option of a coup de Grace if they're feeling particularly cruel, otherwise you'd just wake up wounded and have to find your way back to civilization with whatever the attacker didn't want.
Don't even try to understand this world, the human mind has no chance of comprehending its instabilities.
Now, if someone were to come along, make a fully sandbox mmo and not include open world free for all full loot pvp, THAT would be revolutionary. Especially since devs think that open world ffa pvp somehow creates content that many will enjoy. When in reality, ow ffa pvp games just cannibalize the populations from each other.
If Amazon wanted to attempt to grab the largest share of the available sandbox pop, they would most likely need multiple servers with different rule sets, but there's inherent risk with going that route. Either they attempt to keep all game modes balanced within themselves, which is difficult, or they just add in options and leave the players to their own devices. Neither is a very good option either. Since changes to PvE or PvP will negatively affect the other.
They could go with a more UO approach and add a full pvp mirror world that you can access. Although, you're still splitting your community, and the pvp can be negatively affected by the safe pve side of the world. You'll also most likely create a toxic community with the PvE people and the PvP people at odds.
In my humble opinion, ffa pvp needs to be kept where it can be most meaningful. In smallish communities of like minded folks, who are playing a game with ffa full loot pvp as the primary focus. Games like Rust and Hurtworld, and even ARK come to mind. It needs to be kept out of large mmos though.
You know, like in an actual sandbox.
After all, the kids in the sandbox don't have to stay in one corner, and can build their sandcastle and all that, but the idea that they could take another kids shovel or beat the #%&^ out of them and then take their shovel is something that isn't tolerated on any playground.
I'm going to guess that your favorite character class is Murder Hobo. Am I right?
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
And yes, the people who argue against PvE servers for such games are usually the psychopaths who want to kill, loot, corpse camp, and grief easy targets in order to find some semblance of purpose in their sad, wasted little lives.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
No it doesn't.
Full loot looks great on paper until the first person enters your world.
I fully understand if you’re the type of player that simply likes to log in, get on, and accomplish something without risk, but if you’re that sort of player, a full sandbox experience likely isn’t for you anyway. Chopping away parts of a sandbox game in order to ensure it’s exactly to your liking is missing the point: you’re effectively only seeking an MMO with more depth, as opposed to a total package offering players complete freedom.
I don't think it matters if people "miss the point" there are plenty of people who would love aspects of a "sandbox game" and think that take a piece away here and there would only enhance their experience.
Incidentally, Kano is correct and it's something that I've said over and over again: full loot when you have 30 of something in the bank is not remotely hardcore. It's the same as running to your corpse in wow only you are running to the bank to regear.
That's why I don't understand people's reticence to full loot, it's one of the easiest death penalties out there.
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
As to the greater discussion.. I've played a lot of MUDs/MMOs in the last 20 years and a great deal of them were PVP games or games in which I focused heavily on PvP. I've also played most of the "sandbox PvP" games that have come out over the years. I have a lot of good memories and had a lot of fun in these games, but every single one of them shared the same problem - lack of playerbase.
There are many reasons why these games struggle to maintain a healthy population, but I'd simply sum it up as them having or creating the environment of "helplessness" in certain groups of their players (particularity new players). New and or unskilled players experience this feeling more often than not and for these players, full loot is just salt in the wound.
Do I like games with full loot? Sure, if the game is done right. Do I think full loot is the way to go? Nope - I'd rather have a game with a healthy population and no/limited loot, than any of these defunct or desolate full pvp/loot games we have currently.
P.S. Shadowbane was, by far, my favorite PvP game. I'd play a remake in a heartbeat.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
I agree that complete freedom can enhance the sandbox experience when done correctly, but I disagree completely that it is a necessary part of sandbox play.
Alot of people are trashing what they see as a full loot system with no consequences to the killer...which is silly. in the first days of UO if you attacked someone then everyone could attack you...and if you killed people you were forbidden from entering town. Not just that but if you happened to be killed as a murderer you suffered massive skill loss. In a game taking months to grandmaster most skills, this was a severe penalty. You could not simply be killed as a PK and then pop to the bank (you cant go there) grab some gear and go back at it...you needed to train again now.
Not only that but the huge bounties posted on player killers created guilds specializing only in the tracking down and be-heading of murderers...I know because I was in one, and we out numbered killers 5 to 1 in those days.
Guess what? Full loot also moves the game economy...never was there such a true need for good quality crafted gear as there was in UO. When players would die to other players or deep in a dungeon where a corpse was not retrievable you would head the local blacksmith to craft you a new set of items...Loss was part of the game for everybody and take it from me being a grandmaster crafter was never so satisfying....you were truly needed.
Full loot also drives socialization....want to be a crafter? well you could risk going it alone...or you could join a guild that would offer protection to its resource gatherers....often sending warriors with the miners as protectors...it created caravans of people making the dangerous trip to town exciting.
I guess I dont understand the crowd that feels losing anything in a game is a design flaw that should be weeded out....Wish yall coulda been around for the glory days of UO...It was nothing like what any of you are describing...
Do we need to get aggressive with each other? Or can we discuss this reasonably? Can we try to talk about ways in which full loot could work? Or is it just "No, this will never work...because I say so...." ???
Well groovy for you....However, I dont think the looting of items and permadeath features are such deal breakers for most *cough* Chronicles of Elyria *cough*
so then it becomes a some what compounded effect with spending the extra loot to get more power, and get even more loot, then it means there can be and end to the server conquer mode so to speak.
i think something like that would be fun.
but does it have to be a whole server for that, or it could be an in game mode for a large bg even in a themepark mmo just that it lasts for several hours, like a raid but a conquest BG.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
Nope a true sandbox is Wurm Online. Put SWG beside Wurm and you soon realize SWG wasn't as sandbox as you thought it was.
Full loot is redundant because only fools would carry anything worthwhile on them.
I dont know if full loot games are niche, but (excluding WoW) themeparks look niche to me. I once heard this and non-stop repeat it here because it is soo true - MMOs are now "single-player in a crowd".
I love my PvP, especially open world pvp. Full loot is a big disincentive for pvping so just by having that feature in the game you're going to reduce the population and thus reduce the fun. Full loot pvp is a self-defeating mechanic.
Even if it didn't put people off, you're still adding lots of extra time to go and re-equip before you can rejoin the fun. How is that a good thing? PvP thrives off lots of people, so any mechanic which takes people away from pvp is going to be bad.