Hi guys,

I know I mentioned this in a previous post, but this is something that is of lack luster in today's mmorpgs and I'd like this to be it's own post. Specifically because this is what I enjoyed as a mmorpg player. I'll try to keep this short and concise! 

I have two ideas, unique mobs that appear throughout the content randomly with enticing rewards, and trash mobs dropping unique/valuable items.

1. Back in the days of MU ONLINE there would be golden mobs that you could hunt around the maps, these would drop kundun boxes. Upon opening the box, you would receive random items such as jewels, gold or excellent *unique* items.

This introduced various elements to the game:

-being able to solo farm / hunt unique mobs to build your wealth in the game
-adding a little bit of excitement to randomly stumble upon these mobs

There are a lot of games with "unique" mobs, so to speak, however it's really "mini bosses" - and the reward system majority of the time is very lack luster. Most of the time these minibosses are ignored because the effort to kill them is not worth it. Another great example is flyff, they had some pretty cool bosses that would be regularly hunted. I would not tie these unique mobs to quests as this would make quests difficult to complete. The key take way from this point is that the reward system needs to be especially enticing for killing unique mobs, and the mobs needs to be rare to find (not another "elite/mini boss" that spawns on the hour every hour) and difficult to defeat, obviously.

2. Trash mobs dropping unique items

Yes I know, 'balance' is a cruicial aspect of all games. So what's my argument for finding unique items from trash mobs? At the end of the day a lot of the time players will have to farm mobs for quests or just to level up in general. Adding another carrot on the stick so to speak, can motivate players to be out in the open world more often than not, or provide that extra excitement.

-the drop rate needs to be extremely low, I'm talking 1 in 1000 mobs or even lower (1 in 10000)
-the unique items shouldn't equate to those from dungeons or high end bosses; such as an epic sword
-the unique items can only be accessories or armor instead of weapons, that have unique stats only obtainable from trash mobs

Why bother with these two points? Well, going out into the open world needs more encouragement other than questing, or leveling, or PVP etc. Adding these little nice to haves can make the open world a little more enjoyable. For those especially rare circumstances that you do come across a unique mob and manage to defeat them and score juicy loot, or find that one off unique item. It adds a little more excitement to the game :)

Let me know what you guys think!
Cheers

Gabriel Dias wrote:

Surprise events also seem like a good idea

Yep thats a good idea too, GM hosted events, or scheduled events for easter.. christmas.. etc

KFCTONIGHT wrote:

Hi guys,

I know I mentioned this in a previous post, but this is something that is of lack luster in today's mmorpgs and I'd like this to be it's own post. Specifically because this is what I enjoyed as a mmorpg player. I'll try to keep this short and concise! 

I have two ideas, unique mobs that appear throughout the content randomly with enticing rewards, and trash mobs dropping unique/valuable items.

1. Back in the days of MU ONLINE there would be golden mobs that you could hunt around the maps, these would drop kundun boxes. Upon opening the box, you would receive random items such as jewels, gold or excellent *unique* items.

This introduced various elements to the game:

-being able to solo farm / hunt unique mobs to build your wealth in the game
-adding a little bit of excitement to randomly stumble upon these mobs

There are a lot of games with "unique" mobs, so to speak, however it's really "mini bosses" - and the reward system majority of the time is very lack luster. Most of the time these minibosses are ignored because the effort to kill them is not worth it. Another great example is flyff, they had some pretty cool bosses that would be regularly hunted. I would not tie these unique mobs to quests as this would make quests difficult to complete. The key take way from this point is that the reward system needs to be especially enticing for killing unique mobs, and the mobs needs to be rare to find (not another "elite/mini boss" that spawns on the hour every hour) and difficult to defeat, obviously.

2. Trash mobs dropping unique items

Yes I know, 'balance' is a cruicial aspect of all games. So what's my argument for finding unique items from trash mobs? At the end of the day a lot of the time players will have to farm mobs for quests or just to level up in general. Adding another carrot on the stick so to speak, can motivate players to be out in the open world more often than not, or provide that extra excitement.

-the drop rate needs to be extremely low, I'm talking 1 in 1000 mobs or even lower (1 in 10000)
-the unique items shouldn't equate to those from dungeons or high end bosses; such as an epic sword
-the unique items can only be accessories or armor instead of weapons, that have unique stats only obtainable from trash mobs

Why bother with these two points? Well, going out into the open world needs more encouragement other than questing, or leveling, or PVP etc. Adding these little nice to haves can make the open world a little more enjoyable. For those especially rare circumstances that you do come across a unique mob and manage to defeat them and score juicy loot, or find that one off unique item. It adds a little more excitement to the game :)

Let me know what you guys think!
Cheers

i like your ideas both. about random dudes appearing in the open world with cool rewards, more difficult than regular mobs but not "boss-like" like having to call 10 people to down them.

i also like the idea of mini mini probability of awesome loot in every mob, even if its the trashest trash. that element would certainly add a bit of excitement when farming stuff or simply killing mobs for quests