113909-a-brilliant-idea-to-get-people-back-into-the-world

== Content ==
			
I have collected and restructured much of the debate that has ensued over the past few days. 
 
I want to thank everyone, particularly those who disagreed with me, for participating in the conversation. Arguments are made stronger with good counter points. If I misrepresented any of the participants’ thoughts on the matter, I apologize.
 
If nothing comes from my ideas, or if people attack them in one way or another, that is fine. I invite new ideas, new solutions, and a healthy debate. The goal is not to be right, it is to solve a problem. If I have personally offended someone, I apologize. Many things written on the net are not interpreted as they would be in life. 
 
The Problems:
I perceive and am responding to three primary problems. 1) The world is large, well designed, but sparsely populated or enjoyed. 2) There is a severe lack of world PvP. 3) Beyond the attunement quests, world bosses are largely pointless. 
 
The game world of Wildstar is beautiful. It took a huge amount of time to develop and its potential is being underutilized. There is very little incentive to go back to old zones. Incentives that do exist are one time benefits like quests and path missions that are quickly exhausted. 
 
World PvP is sparse. While leveling, there was a moderate amount of OW-PvP, but far less than we remember from World of Warcraft. There is nothing comparable to city raids or the eternal struggle between Tarren Mill and Southshore. Raiding cities in Wildstar is far less prevalent and more actively discouraged. OW-PvP In Wildstar has no place to organically occur besides daily quest hubs which are cut off from the rest of the game world. 
 
There are over a dozen world bosses sitting around the world with little purpose besides the attunement quest. Recently this has changed with the introduction of AMP/Ability points to reputations which I believe was a good change. The potential of these world bosses, and their wide distributions could be used to motivate players to get out of capital cities and into the larger game world.
 
Potential Solutions:
World bosses could quickly be programmed to drop a meaningful reward for any level player, with any level of character progression. Potential drops include AMP/Ability unlocks, elder gems, platinum, PvP or raid consumables, costumes, vanity pets, crafting resources, and more. Items could be made BoE so that the content remains relevant for months upon months. The drop lists of world bosses could also be varied enough to encourage many types of players to engage in the content.
 
Other potential solutions to get people into the world were also suggested. Random world events could be spawned as described here, or Carbine could create random, renewable path missions.
 
Potential Issues with this Solution:
People introduced many potential drawbacks or imperfections with my original premise.
 
It was suggested that the world bosses are relatively easy to complete, so giving them a large character benefit might be inappropriate. One of the reasons I am not advocating giving the world bosses an equippable item is because they are easy to kill. I also do not want to diminish the facets of the game already intended to increase character power through gear. 
 
An individual suggested that large and powerful guilds would be able to monopolize the world bosses. Since mob tagging does not work like classic WoW, the only way to monopolize a world boss would be to kill it without people knowing it is available, or stopping the other faction from participating through PvP. To the latter; I think creating an organic venue for world PvP would be tremendously fun. To the former; If there was a codex announcement when world bosses were going to spawn, any number of players could be present for its arrival and no one organization would be able to monopolize its benefits.            
 
Several individuals were concerned that the attunement quest would be made more difficult. I posit the opposite. With the reduced number of world bosses needed to finish the attunement, and a reliable guarantee that world bosses would be regularly hunted down through a codex announcement, the attunement quest would actually be made much easier and far less frustrating. 
 
Some folks were concerned that increasing the relevance of the world bosses would diminish the relevance of other reward sources in the game. Another individual advocated a large variety of content for a healthy MMORPG. I agree that a variety of content and methods of advancing one’s character is preferable to fewer routes. There are many ideas for fresh content, but this idea has the advantage of requiring very little change to the existing game.
 
Other Suggestions and Alterations In Line with this Solution:
My idea is not perfect. It could most certainly be improved. Here are a few of the suggestions put forward by the thread.
- Scale players down to the level of a zone. Essentially ‘auto-mentor’ players down to offer a more level playing field and more appropriate difficulty for world bosses. 
- Scale the difficulty and reward for a world boss based on the number of participants - like soldier holdouts. 
- Do not show a loot notification so that parties are not upset when someone they deem undeserving receives an item from an event.
-Change world bosses to be more difficult before improving their rewards.
 
A Few Thoughts:
A poster said “a good answer today beats a perfect answer six months from now.” I completely agree. Simple fixes that increase the fun of Wildstar now buy time for more thorough fixes and development in the future.
 
Organized events bring people out to play and give people goals. Events can also incentivize guild activity and participation. While not everyone wants to be in a guild or other social structure within the game, I think many players invite reasons to play with guildies.
 
Easily digestible content like world bosses are an avenue for a broad swathe of players to advance their characters. Casuals, PvPers, Raiders, Crafters - many types of players could benefit from and participate in these world boss events if incentivized to do so. 
 
We do not know Carbine’s current schedule and plans. Nor will we ever fully know. I operate with the knowledge I have and can do no more. If I make a suggestion that is contrary to something Carbine has in the pipeline, there is no harm in it. If they like the idea, they can use it, if they don’t - they won’t.
 
In Closing:
J-Tal was kind enough to give me a dev-track, and dozens of posts and thousands of views came from the initial topic, I felt I’d get enough eyes for a more thorough post to be worth writing. 
 
I don’t believe it is the place of player posts to completely solve the problems of a game. We have neither the information nor the power to ‘fix’ the game. I think the point of these posts is to provide an avenue for conversation between the players and developers, as well as provide developers with fodder for their internal conversations. I think everyone’s goal is to improve the game - I try to keep that in mind.
 
Original Post: Have world bosses drop ONE AMP or Ability Point per kill. You're welcome.	
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Chua disagree.
Requires World Bosses to be more difficult.
If kept as is, Chua and guild can farm 10 points every four hours. If more guilds do this, also block attunement cycle cause bosses on permanent farm.	
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			Scaling boss damage, or scaling 50s down to the zone, would also create more interesting 'old' content, but just adding this one drop would incentivize people to stop sitting in Thayd/Illium.	
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			@Olivar - The point of world bosses being in the attunement is to encourage people to get out into the world. Encouraging them to do the world bosses for more than just attunement would allow the devs to remove this step. Obviously making the content more challenging would be ideal, but would take time to program. Adding a drop would be stupid easy for them to add. And if there was some sort of zone announce for when bosses were going to come up (think Stranglethorn event) then plenty of people could take a crack at the boss. And bosses aren't tagged like in classic WoW, so one guild or group couldn't monopolize the drops. It would also incentivize real world PvP... which would be great.	
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@Olivar - The point of world bosses being in the attunement is to encourage people to get out into the world. Encouraging them to do the world bosses for more than just attunement would allow the devs to remove this step. Obviously making the content more challenging would be ideal, but would take time to program. Adding a drop would be stupid easy for them to add. And if there was some sort of zone announce for when bosses were going to come up (think Stranglethorn event) then plenty of people could take a crack at the boss. And bosses aren't tagged like in classic WoW, so one guild or group couldn't monopolize the drops. It would also incentivize real world PvP... which would be great.
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			Brilliant? I think you're getting ahead of yourself... it was proven all it takes to get people spamming an event/world boss is attunement/EP/an ability point/amp via rep to me when R-12 started having over 2 raids. No need to add them directly as I think the current amp/ability upgrade availability is pretty good for a one time thing per character.	
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You misunderstand the purpose of adding the drop. It's not that I think AMPs and Tiers are too rare (now), its that you have this whole world with no one going back into it after finishing the quests. That's the problem. There is also no incentive to boot up world PvP. By just adding a single, easily coded drop into an existing game feature, you open up the opportunity and incentive for people to enjoy a part of the game that took a massive amount of time to implement.
 
Also - 1 AMP or Tier if you have dozens of people fighting over them will be extremely low bloat. The same number of people that world bosses would draw just doing BGs and Arenas would easily generate more AMPs and Tiers than world bosses would.
 
Oh - and maybe I was unclear... not one per person, one per kill. So if you have forty people fighting a boss, one of those forty people is guaranteed an item. That's the idea anyway.
 
2nd Edit: Also - it doesn't have to be AMPs/Tiers... you could add a healthy plat drop, EG item, consumable drops... basically something that isn't a gear upgrade that will get people out into the world.	
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Random and renewable Path events that give you shinnies and perhaps Elder Gems. You'd have to explore any zone to find what ever number of Events you could do that day.
 
 
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You're welcome.
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Random and renewable Path events that give you shinnies and perhaps Elder Gems. You'd have to explore any zone to find what ever number of Events you could do that day.
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disagree .. this is much better..
 
people with capped amp points and ability points wont go back to worldbosses..
 
but well organized events bring people out to play together.. because events give people goals..	
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Have world bosses drop ONE AMP or Ability Point per kill. You're welcome.
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			Did someone say Rifts? No...okay...	
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I think calling your own idea "brilliant" before getting some feedback from a wider audience is a little iffy.
 
I don't like the idea of guaranteed AMP/AP drops from world bosses.  They are special enough and there are additional methods to acquire them now, that I think that is unnecessary.  However, a random gear drop to everyone who participates that scales to THEIR level (not the level of the boss) might be alright.  If nothing else, it could be sharded into components that might be relevant to that character.  (Yeah I don't need quartz cores at the moment from killing that rock guy in Algoroc -- but something that had a chance for salvaging into good runestones or a dual hybrid would be of some value).	
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Did someone say Rifts? No...okay...
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			If you toss one of the more desirable drops in the game into an open world public event, you won't get people out there enjoying the world. You'll get masses of players out in zones standing around until something spawns, then arguing about who 'deserved' the drop once the fight is done. Guilds and raid groups won't be out in the world enjoying it and helping people, they'll just be moving as fast as they can from spawn to spawn until they get what they need then they're done. In a month or two the World Bosses will go back to something done rarely, or some exploit will have been found on a few of them to make farming super easy and the drops will be for sale on the AH for cheap. Either way we're back to only rare cases where the boss gets downed.Anyone who participates in a Public Event has a shot at the loot in Wildstar. Doesn't matter if they're grouped with the main group. Some random kid comes by to help out or see what the fuss is, gets a nice drop and he has a couple major guilds pissed at him for 'stealing' their drop.Guaranteed drops don't mean people end up having guaranteed fun, yet the OP seems to think so. The system has to be set up right and the rewards should be fair for the work involved.Even with stat scaling you can't make a world boss that is fair for level 50s and the level 12s that are normally in that zone, and first and foremost an encounter needs to be designed for the zone it's in.	
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			Don't epics drop off world bosses? If not should be..	
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Don't give people the 'option' to mentor. Force them down to the level of the world boss. Then, suddenly the world bosses are appropriately difficult.
 
Higher level characters will still be better off than actual at-level characters, because of the full LAS, abilities, and gear, but they won't be able to faceroll.
 
Then maybe we could get some real rewards out of the world bosses.	
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			I agree with the Chua, it was bad enough to do the WB part of the attunment because of the respawn timer, I can't imagine the headache of those bosses being on permanent farm and also people not sharing the info on the spawn time/status of the WB so they can get the amp/ability point.	
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Don't epics drop off world bosses? If not should be..
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			the extra amp / abilities points were truely always a terrible idea and will eventually end up like amp skill drops, trivial. 	
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I think calling your own idea "brilliant" before getting some feedback from a wider audience is a little iffy.
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			This idea is fantastic, make the drop a 50% chance and personal, that would make world bosses have a meaning besides attunement and some rare costume pieces.	
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How about this?  Every day, you "lose" the key to your house and must kill a world boss to get it back.   ;)  I keed!  I keed!
 
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2nd Edit: Also - it doesn't have to be AMPs/Tiers... you could add a healthy plat drop, EG item, consumable drops... basically something that isn't a gear upgrade that will get people out into the world.
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			Um... this idea would not pull me away from my normal playing. I'm sure getting more players at world bosses would be fun for some, but I don't think adding amp/ability points is gonna do it... I mean, unless you think it should drop for everyone. Otherwise, it's just gonna cause all sorts of strife. "Why are you rolling need when you already have all your amps?" "Didn't you win one on the last world boss?" etc. ad nauseum. 1 drop x however many people... bad idea, and very little incentive for alot of people to even bother.	
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Did someone say Public quests from warhammer online, oh wait no because nothing will ever be as good as PQs
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Um... this idea would not pull me away from my normal playing. I'm sure getting more players at world bosses would be fun for some, but I don't think adding amp/ability points is gonna do it... I mean, unless you think it should drop for everyone. Otherwise, it's just gonna cause all sorts of strife. "Why are you rolling need when you already have all your amps?" "Didn't you win one on the last world boss?" etc. ad nauseum. 1 drop x however many people... bad idea, and very little incentive for alot of people to even bother.
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@Lemurian - Your response is reasonable, but misses the goal. Get people into the world with a simple alteration. The 'fun' comes from making something already in the game relevant. As far as major guild's perception of someone 'stealing' their drop. I think you vastly underestimate those individual's understanding of a random drop. They know its random, and they know there is nothing they can do to stop random casuals, levelers, other guilds, PvPers, etc from doing the world bosses. Especially with megaservers - these would be a hot ticket.
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Yes World Bosses should scale their damage taken and inflicted to players, I also don't agree with any kind of guaranteed AMP/Ability point drop but would have no issues with one of either being included on a World Bosses loot table as a potential reward.
 
A better solution to getting more players out in the world would be to simply populate the game world more than it currently is.
 
Once they have a grasp on how to actually deter botting players and gold farmers a Free Trial option for levels 1-30 would go a long way to repopulating the PvE and PvP mega realms.  Put said trials accounts at the back of any queues, and restrict their ability to travel beyond Farside via ships.  Limit their # of characters to 2 with a timer for deleting characters, restrict RP, Trade, PVP, Zone and Advice chats and the ability to form or join guilds, arena teams, warparties or access the Commodity Exchange, Auction house, Credd, trade windows or mailboxes.  Also remove their ability to add neighbors, friends, rivals or visit housing plots other than their own. And limit the number of says/whispers they can make within a short space of time.
 
This could go a long way towards repopulating the lower level areas of the game, getting objects like settler buff stations or cross path items used again and potentially lead to new subscribers.	
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The point you're missing is twofold.
 
World Bosses in the mid to later levels aren't easy, and you do in fact need the full allotment of players to down them. The main driver of large groups is going to be guilds, because there just aren't that many people leveling through each zone these days. Even with megaservers that's not going to change much. You need a nucleus of people to get the battle going in a timely fashion, and most of the time those groups will be guild based.
 
Secondly, the drop you're proposing is something that is of higher value to guilds than it is to the average player still leveling up. They feel they "need" those drops to get every ounce of power to their players for the process of raid progression. If the chance that the drop they spend time and effort organizing to get is going to go to someone at random not in their guild, they won't bother with your content, incentivized or not. They'll put their efforts into Gold Runs or group PvP premades where the return is both more reliable and less aggravation from outsiders.
 
It's not about me misunderstanding the nature of random loot, it's about picking incentives and designing systems that fit with the motivations of the people you're trying to attract.
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Have world bosses drop ONE AMP or Ability Point per kill. You're welcome.
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			Dynamic events? Scaling your level to the zone you're in so that quests are always rewarding?	
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Think it through.
 
AMPs and Abilities points have caps; you've invented a fix that will work for two weeks.
 
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Clearly you've not read the conversation, or you didn't think long enough to realize I said ONE... not one per player. Also... wouldn't people moving around the world be a good thing? Actively engaging in content seems like a positive thing to me. Particularly for the folks who have been craving world PvP incentives.
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			Using your 'capped' logic, isn't every single bit of PvE content in the game capped? Hundreds to thousands of players, for weeks/months, could farm world bosses for benefit to their character. And players moving around the world, as locusts or however you want to characterize it, is still FAR better than sitting in Thayd/Illium. The point is that it is an extremely simple adjustment that can get people into the world, enjoying art, music, and content THAT IS ALREADY DONE. Could the content be better, of course! The point is - time is a limiting factor.	
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I wonder how many times people are going to say this idea isn't as good as the OP thinks, before the OP quits replying saying "No guys, but look..."
 
You might think that adding drops/amps/ab points is this really nifty keen idea to get people out there, but Amayasu is right... this won't get people to "move around the world." The majority will still sit in the capitols, wait for the announcement that X world boss is up, then decide if it's worth going to kill. Sometimes the answer will be yes, sometimes no. YOU might be motivated by shiney loot and ability upgrades, but not everyone is driven by that same desire.	
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I wonder how many times people are going to say this idea isn't as good as the OP thinks, before the OP quits replying saying "No guys, but look..."
 
You might think that adding drops/amps/ab points is this really nifty keen idea to get people out there, but Amayasu is right... this won't get people to "move around the world." The majority will still sit in the capitols, wait for the announcement that X world boss is up, then decide if it's worth going to kill. Sometimes the answer will be yes, sometimes no. YOU might be motivated by shiney loot and ability upgrades, but not everyone is driven by that same desire.
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Using your 'capped' logic, isn't every single bit of PvE content in the game capped? Hundreds to thousands of players, for weeks/months, could farm world bosses for benefit to their character. And players moving around the world, as locusts or however you want to characterize it, is still FAR better than sitting in Thayd/Illium. The point is that it is an extremely simple adjustment that can get people into the world, enjoying art, music, and content THAT IS ALREADY DONE. Could the content be better, of course! The point is - time is a limiting factor.
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Pretty sure everyone is driven by shiny loot and ability upgrades. To argue against that fact is pretty inane.
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			This must be the OP's first idea, in any form, of his life.  He's clinging to it like a child.   But it's bad.   You had a bad idea.   Not gonna work.   If you find yourself alone in a field, saying "No guys, but..." then you are in Elysium, and have already bombed.	
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Not a bad idea, but it involves a ton of new coding and testing to get it up and running.
 
The OP's suggestion has the vital advantage of being easy to code and test and implement so it could be done quickly.  Wildstar could use a bunch of quick, easy adjustments like this even if they'll have some downsides.  A good answer today beats a perfect answer six months from now.  That's true in almost every arena in life.  
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Fair. And the intent? To get people back into the overall game world? Are those things being worked on? For drop 4, 5, n?
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P.S. Loot and progression aren't the pillars of MMORPG's, the RPG portion is the backbone (immersive and social narrative). The only inane thing here is suggesting people are inane for not viewing games the same way you do.
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Loot and character progression are a pillar of MMORPGs. It is inane to attack that assumption. Never said anything about your specific mental prowess, because frankly I have no idea what it is. And no, that is not a veiled insult.
 
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Not 'the,' 'a,' And please do not put words into my mouth... er hands? I never called him inane, just the action. I'm also not trying to fight with a dev. I'm asking a question I am legitimately curious about. SxyHxy, the one-time largest Wildstar streamer for a few weeks running, quit the game because of a lack of world pvp of any form. I am curious if this missing component is being worked on at all. If its not, its not. Doesn't stop me from being curious or encouraging it.
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Have world bosses drop ONE AMP or Ability Point per kill. You're welcome.
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@Mae is Mean - The action, not you, was inane. And I guess we can just disagree about the importance of loot as a driving factor in behavior.
 
@Nazryn - There is occasional ganking doing dailies in their isolated zones. I am on Pergo which is one of, if not the, most active pvp server, so I am well aware of it. I shouldn't have been hyperbolic - there is a very small amount of open world pvp, not none. But far less than the segment of the population who enjoys that content would need to sustain them on WS.
 
@Amayasu - The quote about Mr. Lynch is one born of frustration, and i think the evidence of subs/logins supports WS's decline. I really want this game to succeed where it isn't. I also already answered why the subject/OP were short and structured as such. A subject lock would be fine. There is no longer a conversation about the merits of incentivizing people to get out in the world. It has turned into people with hurt feelings, which was not my intent.	
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It requires no further elaborate explanation.
 
Thank you.
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Fair. And the intent? To get people back into the overall game world? Are those things being worked on? For drop 4, 5, n?
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Loot and character progression are a pillar of MMORPGs. It is inane to attack that assumption. Never said anything about your specific mental prowess, because frankly I have no idea what it is. And no, that is not a veiled insult.
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So tell me true: how many other people have 2-manned world bosses for giggles?
 
Because it this were implemented, me and my friend who did them before would cheerfully get on late a couple nights, burn a couple of those poor slobs down, collect our loot as many times as the game will let us, and TELL NO ONE.
 
Not exactly an engine for broadly social behavior you've stumbled over there.	
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I completely rewrote the original post with the intent of cleaning up and improving many of the ideas in this thread. I am not trying to cloud the original argument or my stance in it. I just want the idea to improve and the game with it. I'll try to leave it alone from here. 
 
Cheers all.	
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			In regards to  your idea to have a codex call when world bosses spawn, either this idea needs alot of refining or it needs to go. I have zero interest in being paged repeatedly that a mob I don't care about is walking around. So unless these calls are restricted to the area of the mob (which sort of defeats the purpose) or there's a way to turn them off or choose which ones you want or don't want, it's a terrible idea. You do not want to annoy the playerbase to try to get them out into the world.	
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			I agree, a way to turn them off would be optimal.	
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In regards to  your idea to have a codex call when world bosses spawn, either this idea needs alot of refining or it needs to go. I have zero interest in being paged repeatedly that a mob I don't care about is walking around. So unless these calls are restricted to the area of the mob (which sort of defeats the purpose) or there's a way to turn them off or choose which ones you want or don't want, it's a terrible idea. You do not want to annoy the playerbase to try to get them out into the world.
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			I think the concern is that, if they became worth something, bosses would be put on timers by people, so just checking the map wouldn't provide a broad audience with a chance at killing them. If there was a timer for the event on the map, that is another solution.	
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I think the concern is that, if they became worth something, bosses would be put on timers by people, so just checking the map wouldn't provide a broad audience with a chance at killing them. If there was a timer for the event on the map, that is another solution.
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			The goal is to have a broad audience get a chance at participating in the event.	
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The goal is to have a broad audience get a chance at participating in the event.
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			I think the point someone made about a small group of more engaged guilds/groups dominating the WB scene is a valid one.	
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I think the point someone made about a small group of more engaged guilds/groups dominating the WB scene is a valid one.
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			Fair points, I was just representing someone else's concerns.	
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The fact of the matter is that World PvP just isn't anywhere as big as it's supporters claim.  They want to twist the whole game around in order to better faciliate something that isn't even all that popular.  Do people play on pvp servers?  Yah, they do, because it adds a little something to the reallism of the game.  But, most people could care less about running around picking fights constantly.  It just isn't anywhere near as fun as fair pvp within battlegrounds.
 
As far as your idea goes it seems fine.  World bosses should be meaningful, but they are sort of like quest mobs too, so you don't want them camped.	
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