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Grimkeep: Season 2
Now that Endzones have been out for a while, we are looking at what tweaks we can make to make them more fun, more challenging, and more even. There are a number of issues that have been brought to us and that we are looking into, and put together they warrant a full reset of scores before they are implemented to keep things fair. Because of that we are seeking to gather additional ideas and thoughts on the issues already brought to us. NOTE: We know a new endzone would also be desirable and exciting, but we are not looking into that yet.
Problem 1 - Teleporting Out
Being able to ascend, teleport, etc. out of an endzone is something that currently works and something we would like to remove because it allows quick jumping in and out of it to restock, or hop in/out of a timequake, when it should be an expedition that you lock into more properly. The gate should be the primary way to leave and needing to get to it, should one be far away, should be part of the challenge. That said, we do think the system would also then need a quick get out button should someone need to leave immediately (as opposed to just logging out there unsafely, which ultimately would later kick them to the Portal). If we added the button, this would need to bar the person from rejoining that run so it actually serves its purpose. Extra concern: dirigibles, pets, and such should probably not deliver into Grimkeep for the same reason (quick restocking) but we're on the fence about that.
Being able to ascend, teleport, etc. out of an endzone is something that currently works and something we would like to remove because it allows quick jumping in and out of it to restock, or hop in/out of a timequake, when it should be an expedition that you lock into more properly. The gate should be the primary way to leave and needing to get to it, should one be far away, should be part of the challenge. That said, we do think the system would also then need a quick get out button should someone need to leave immediately (as opposed to just logging out there unsafely, which ultimately would later kick them to the Portal). If we added the button, this would need to bar the person from rejoining that run so it actually serves its purpose. Extra concern: dirigibles, pets, and such should probably not deliver into Grimkeep for the same reason (quick restocking) but we're on the fence about that.
Problem 2 - Teleporting In
We have tracked down a few gaps in the system due to placement of the area. It is technically on Prime Plane so as not to remove the players too far away from the rest of the game in terms of communication and information, but that also created its own issues. Those would be going away and we'd rather find and patch them all than move Grimkeep so far away (plane/continent wise) as to make all the options not work due to distance. Teleporting in should not be possible, joining should happen only through Ronai and respect the 5 minute limit for joining runs.
Problem 3 - Gate Camping
Groups are consistently camping out at the gate, the very first room, so as to be able to flee and cure up safely before rejoining. This is a two fold problem.
Groups are consistently camping out at the gate, the very first room, so as to be able to flee and cure up safely before rejoining. This is a two fold problem.
1) It's boring, encourages semi afkness once a group has a good balance going, and Grimkeep may as well be a 3 room area instead.
2) It lessens the danger and challenge immensely to be able to just hop out at a moment's notice. Unclear what the best solution here could be, fortressing is a thing for a reason.
Some ideas: increase spawns at the gate because it's better defended, forced arrival into a random room (but nearish the exit), random forced movement (of group or singular) as one function of one type of the denizens, some sort of room debuff mechanic created by denizens dying (leftover aoe that increases the more denizens die there), additional requirements for leaving through the gate (full or almost full health, limited exits, cooldown before you can return).
Please leave your comments and additional ideas!
2) It lessens the danger and challenge immensely to be able to just hop out at a moment's notice. Unclear what the best solution here could be, fortressing is a thing for a reason.
Some ideas: increase spawns at the gate because it's better defended, forced arrival into a random room (but nearish the exit), random forced movement (of group or singular) as one function of one type of the denizens, some sort of room debuff mechanic created by denizens dying (leftover aoe that increases the more denizens die there), additional requirements for leaving through the gate (full or almost full health, limited exits, cooldown before you can return).
Please leave your comments and additional ideas!
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(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
Put the endzones in aetherspace, and not necessarily at the same exact spots each time. This solves both of the teleporting issues immediately. It also wouldn't isolate participants in the same way as putting the endzones on their own planes, as long as someone involved used Covey/Planarbond.
To address the third issue, you could have the docking point be "above" the endzone itself such that participants have to rappel down into the instance. Or simply add a delay on getting back up to the safe room from the drop point so that you can't shuffle back and forth quickly.
People could use various methods to get *out* of the endzone, but would then have to fly or wait through the cooldowns inherent to aetherspace fast travel to get back - adding a significant opportunity cost.
This is almost certainly a big thematic shift, so I get why it's just as certainly not going to be the actual solution, but I think it'd work to solve the issues listed! Plus it'd inject a bunch of non-direct-competitive/PvP interest into aetherspace.
2) The area is big enough to affect mob tracking - the gate is far enough away from the otherside that staying at the gate controls how fast the mobs come to you. At least as far as I have been told. I'm not sure how true this actually is. it sure as feels like mobs will get stuck on the other side and not come to the other side until they are 'within' range.
Disclaimer: I've never done a Grimkeep run either.
I don't want to lose people to another plane/continent for hours if we can avoid that route. If there might be a way to shorten runs by rewarding for something other than time length maybe that'd help too?
I have heard from early runners about trinkets/trophies that can be picked up in runs and then traded in to the guild of Horizon Walkers (to open up access to special items). How are the trinkets/trophies acquired? Could a run stat for acquiring these encourage less gate camping?
What do walls do? If they're helping control the mobs, could walls raised near the gate not count for run points to encourage setting out further? Can any mobs fly or charge over walls?
As a variant to random room start, what if there's a few possible spots the tunnel leads to in a Grimkeep instance? That is, there is only one tunnel per instance, but the room it links to may be different between runs. Jokingly, these different locations might have different challenges to prevent gate camping, so you can do A/B testing.
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Agree to the part where teleporting in is an issue and that only Ronai should only be the sole access to get in but what;s the issue with allowing communication and information?
Echoing Ayisdra, gatecamping isn't boring and seems to be most strategic route simply because the mobs are just too strong. So borrowing elements from dungeon crawls and rogue-like, can we also properly incentivize moving around to properly survive the run? Like on top of what Ayisdra said as italicised, what if the party can secure short-lived buffs by scouring the area? This might address the issue of gatecamping being the most strategic option to sustain the run.
I don't know that I like the idea, but a requirement to hunt down mobs vs tracking would force people to move. And perhaps even actually pay attention - like a message comes through, telling us to hunt down the mobs for x minutes, if there's no kills (because no one moves to get them) the run would end.
I'm torn about the easy ability to step out and return. I get wanting to make it so you can't just quickly cure/stock up or even enter a timequake...but also that ability actually allows people in a run to still choose to engage in what's going on (like a timequake) without ending the run and wasting buffs/having to start time over. If it weren't possible, you're more likely to see people refuse to end the run and just not engage in what's going on, because the best bang for your buck is to have your run go as long as possible. I'm fine with re-entering via the gate, that makes sense anyway.
Summary of Ideas: (If something's wrong, please quote/highlight)
Here are some of my ideas:
Problem 1/2: Teleporting in/out
Block teleporting entirely. Have the gatekeeper offer an insurance or escape anyone can use to be kicked out of the group in an emergency - TELL gatekeeper ESCAPE. I suggest having them be removed from the run but given a reward based on their personal time.
Problem 3: Gate Camping
Remove the gate entirely - only way out is death or the ESCAPE. Entering again is allowed and giving the password to the gatekeeper should drop players next to the closest player already inside.
Offer a reason to explore the area that is worth leaving a defendable space. Spawn in treasure chests, unique mobs, or other rewards in rooms that benefit the party. For example, have certain rooms have a shrine that offers a buff to the whole room (+resistance, health, regen, etc). Something worthwhile so a 2/14 or more. Have it tick on and off on a timer so groups will not benefit from it the entire time and have to find others. Unique mobs would reward items, large amounts of gold, and/or +bonus to time on the clock.
Another example of an objective option is to allow 'locking down' rooms to prevent mobs from spawning in them for a time - creating a lull in the total number. Mobs would still be able to path into the room.
Could also have rooms 'break down' on a timer or counter based on how many mobs are slain in a room, forcing a party deeper into the area until they're up to the boss. As each room is 'destroyed' it lowers the total number of mobs possible. When all rooms but the boss's are 'Destroyed' the timer stops (even if mobs are still alive and need to be dispatched). Killing the boss adds a set bonus to the time of a run. This allows a party to recover before challenging the boss or deciding to escape. Have unique mobs weaken the final boss be optional - so a party could rush the final boss to kill them to increase the bonus or methodically work through the sub-bosses.
Another idea is to prevent mobs from rushing to the party - a group has to go find mobs throughout the area. For this to be worthwhile, some mobs would have to path and others would need to stay still. This would allow larger groups to be split to be easier to handle. I'm not sure if it's possible but limit how many mobs can stay in a single location so the splitting would be needed.
There isn't an issue. Uilani said Grimkeep is on the Prime Plane to allow for such and to not remove players too far from the rest of the game.
Out of curiosity, how much curative does a run eat up?
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I am a new player and I've done loads of Grimkeeps thus far as a new Demigod, and personally I love this whole concept. I think this is an awesome system and I'd like to make a few comments based on what I've seen here!
I can understand being able to leave / re-enter being a problem. How would these potential changes relate to someone dying? I have never had the urge to leave, it's always been "Let's see how long I can last even though I forgot X". I'll die, take the penalty, and then walk back in and pick up where I left off. I hope that this feature doesn't get removed because dying and being out would really suck for newer players who don't have all the survivability bonuses and artifacts that some other people have. I don't think it should be as easy as teleporting, you should have to go through the gatekeeper in every circumstance, but I think it would really suck that if you were to die then you would just be out.
I also understand the criticism about it being boring / semi-afk. I think the solution to this isn't perhaps to remove the existing version that's highly accessible to all types of people, but instead to consider adding a more difficult / more rewarding option. I don't know what this would look like, of course, but I think there should be something for everyone. I strongly believe there's some value in keeping it in the form it is now in some capacity, especially for encouraging all players to be welcome to an awesome group PVE content with the 'come as you are' mentality.
Lastly, as someone who works a lot of hours IRL and has consistently missed Grimkeep runs by 5-30 minutes, it really sucks to have all your friends/companions/citymates be locked into an event for 2 hours that you have no access to. Would you perhaps consider an option for someone to join an event like this, but with some sort of penalty? Say you join in 30 minutes and the run is an hour long, you get a 50% rewards penalty, but this would still allow participation.
This is the frustrating thing for me. I struggle to catch anyone for other things because whenever I log in, everyone is either sitting in a Timequake, or a domoth, or in Grimkeep. It's frustrating that we seem to be continuing the move away from engaging with the world and toward sequestering everyone away. Even when numbers are logged in, it still feels (the times I'm able to be logged in) that the world is depressingly empty.
1. I think one important item to be careful of is over engineering things to make Grimkeep a worse experience. It would be nice to keep the old Grimkeep as classic so the option is there for it if the changes don’t stick. Even rewards could be tuned so that it’s not as enticing as season 2, but I worry about changes leaving it in a state that it’s not really fun/viable.
2. Regarding teleporting out and leaving/reentering. I think the most elegant solution to this is a timer between leaving and coming out. That way somebody can leave in a hurry. But there is a cost in that they can’t just renter right away.
3. Camping at the entrance as the most viable strategy. This is a tough one to address but I think potentially objectives could help with this (problem is this is also something that could be a bigger pain point than fun addition). Another possibility is for certain rooms to have buffs or debuffs creating a strategy of wanting to find the optimal spot for a particular run.
4. Making teleporting in and changing the optimal position from being the entrance creates the possibility of it being too difficult to return to a run and rejoin the group. There would need to be some mechanism to return to the group. Be it a staging room that won’t have aggro mobs or otherwise.
5. The complaint about grimkeep keeping other players from getting interactions is a tricky one. The players aren’t on prime. And often people will leave to do another activity that appeals to them more. I think it’s wrong to assume if they weren’t in grimkeep they would be there for you to interact with. It’s entirely plausible that if they weren’t in grimkeep they simply wouldn’t be playing at all. Taking away options for people to do to somehow encourage activity is counterproductive to population issues.
Teleporting - make all the rooms monolithed like special quest rooms. Ronai gives us a password to enter, we can just be more vigilant about using it and returning that way when you die. My only issue is, not being able to easily leave. There were several times in the past a few of us would hit up the timequake that popped during our run, finish up the timequake and return. Personally, if that’s going to be something I can’t do easily, I’ll stay in grimkeep. Anomalies aren’t that important to me. Some like to use shrine powers too, you have to run out every time to activate that.
Gate camping - I don’t have an issue with this either. Because if you die, you’re going to have to run through all the mobs in order to get back to the group. If you take out teleporting, that’s going to make it almost impossible when the run hits over a certain time. I understand grimkeep is meant to get harder, but I don’t think it should wipe out an entire group within the first hour or hour and a half. We’ve had a few runs where we weren’t camped out at the gate. We did okay for the most part, but we had a decent size group.
My concern is we just made it for grimkeep to be worth it experience wise. And hopefully we can make aetherhunting great again as well. However, aetherhunting will have the same issue as Grimkeep. Everyone is going to do what they want to do and enjoy. I don’t want this aspect of the game to end or be knocked down so many pegs it’s not even worth getting a group together.
I agree the mobs hurt quite a bit. As for the queen. I have no idea how hard/easy she is. I forget she exists half the time. That’s how much I interact with her.
I always thought (I could be wrong) that the Trench was to be another “endzone”. The trench got two quests, what if Grimkeep had that option as well? And the group can get a honor line? Or some kind of bonus that we can work towards. The reputation was a goal to get for a while, that’s always something to expand on too.
I know a concern is taking people away and not having people interactions. Interacting with my core group isn’t a feat. If I want to set up an RP moment or event and I know scheduling will be hard, I’m not ashamed to ask them when it’s a good time to set this up. I do this all the time for the glowing present parties, I know it’s not RP based but it’s still a time for friends and fun. The game is aging as are the players. Quite a few of us are adults and have other responsibilities, I see nothing wrong with setting up RP dates and times.