I loathe the monotony of replaying raids. Here is a few ways to liven them up using randomness:
1. Randomized special abilities. Each boss would have a wide variety of special abilities that would randomly chosen. Some of these could be designed specifically for this boss, others could be from a generic list. Marvel Heroes does a good job of this.
2. Randomized enemies. The first time you play through an area you are swarmed by enemies with stun batons. The second time, they have rifles. The third time, they heavy mechs. The fourth time, well I won't tell you about that. Keep the players guessing with an element of randomness.
3. Randomized bosses. For a boss fight, have a list of bosses who may be encountered. Each boss would also have randomized abilities to add to the branching potential.
4. Surprise guest! There could be a chance that a mini-boss would be replaced by a special assassin character. Think of him as Deathstroke or Taskmaster. The players would see him standing over the boss's body, and he would turn to the players and silently attack. Such an enemy may be considered a very rare sighting and especially difficult. He could have special loot (yes, I don't like loot, but we are going to have it) too.
5. Randomized stealth enemies. In between the obvious mobs there could be a chance of encountering a ninja, tele-troopers, or stealth bot mob. There may be hidden dangers that aren't always there, like a crack in the wall that a troll may burst through. That example is from GW2.
6. Ambush! A encounter seems normal enough until a platoon of tele-troopers teleport in and open fire. This could be that two mob groups descend on your group simultaneously.
7. Nemisis attack. One of the groups Nemisises attacks instead of a mob.
8. Different puzzles, or sub-objectives.
9. Epilogue. Doing especially well may unlock a secret area with additional enemies and rewards.
A lot of games do try and do this, but they usually only have five or so branches. These games usually assume that a dedicated player will play these missions dozens of times each. I'm just trying to make each play through as different as possible. Anyone have any ideas?
Some good ideas here!
I'll add the popular one from CoH:
10. Optional objectives that reward badges/collectibles (sort of a twist on # 8), which can all be obtained in a single attempt...with enough skill and planning.
One other thing I'll mention - which doesn't fit into the Randomness theme - is simply to not require or over-incentivize players into repeat raiding. I'd like people to raid because it's fun (or at least try it for that reason), not slog through it to get that XYZ enhancement or badge that can only be found in the trial. Can trials give rewards a bit faster or easier than the alternative methods? Absolutely. Can a single run of the trial be used to gate another, to make sure that the story makes sense and the character is given a fair introduction to new or difficult mechanics? Sure. But let's keep the soloists and small team players and PvPers happy with those reasonable alternative paths to rewards. I want to enjoy every minute of gameplay, whether I'm solo, teamed, or leagued in a massive raid, and not feel like it's being done purely for the reward.
Obviously this scheme will put more pressure on the devs and players to design really compelling, fun trials. Most MMOs can just smear a trial together and use the "can only get best gear here" trick combined with the "it's got a 1% chance to drop" trick to funnel a grinding horde through their newest trial, and call it a success, even as most players curse the whole thing. But we can do much better, I think.
[Edit to add]
11. Multiple *simultaneous* objectives and objectives with multiple approaches to success that can be applied in concert (such as several ways to damage and inhibit the big boss, that magnify each other when used all at once, but require coordination). It should probably still be possible (but slower and thus at more risk of running out of time) to play it basic, without the divide & conquer approach.
This leads to mini-teams splitting up to handle the load or at least some discussion of strategy. Also, since most trials will have different participants and powersets every time, it's a big source of randomness and adds variety to the strategy, as everyone "negotiates" to help with objectives they like best or are good at. It allows some competition in the form of a race (Lambda trial) or helping out if one mini-team gets into a tough spot. More opportunities for heroics (and showing off your villainous power)!
I know that I have mentioned Wildstar quite a few times in the past here, but they are doing Number 3 and Number 10 at least, if not also some of the others, for some of the raids, dungeons and adventures that they have planned.
ie for the raids, the list of bosses that you fight will not be static, and instead will vary and change over time (or depending on the choices you make).
This is not to say that this is the same for ALL of the group content that they have there, but I know that in the adventures, there are "multiple correct routes" to go through, and they all lead you to different content to experience in there.
And even in the dungeons (one of the 5 man group playable content) you have a list of optional objectives that you can do for achievements. And you also get rated on it for time as well, so the better and more you do, the better the "bonus reward" you get at the end.
So this means that no 2 successive runs, to *fully* complete it (ignoring the time limit here), will have different sub objectives that you *dont* even need to complete to actually complete the boss. They are purely optional and ONLY for that dungeon group.
It is also worth noting that this is content that I have NO qualms of instancing either for "forced grouping" content .
One thing that CoH tried to do with its later Incarnate trials to provide "incentives" for people to change up their basic strategy for running them were a series of badges that provided the "Master" badge for that trial if you completed all of the sub-badges.
Now for people who actually liked to collect badges just for the sake of collecting them (like I did) it provided a great motivation to figure out new ways to finish those trials which often included ways that were far different than the easiest, most boring way to do them. The only real downside to the concept of course was you had to be somebody who actually cared about getting those fringe semi-useless badges. For many players unless you were talking about the handful of badges that actually provided some kind of in-game bonus they couldn't care less about any of the others, especially if they made finishing a trial that much harder.
So maybe CoT could come up with some other new kind of reward that would better entice more people to run trials in several specifically different ways. Maybe they could still provide badges like the Master badges, but also include some other kind of incentive that would motivate the non-badgers to want to do those weird things too.
Obviously it'd also be great if all of this could be fun. Sure it could be boring if there was only one obvious, direct way to ever complete a trial. But if they try to "randomize" trials in ways that simply make them harder for no obvious reason or beyond the players' control that would be just as bad.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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I have to say, adding this kind of variety to TFs would make me a lot more interested in doing them more than once.
Spurn all ye kindle.
+1 to all of this. If any Devs are reading this, this is not a small point. This kind of thing makes content MUCH more fun!
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I agree that such randomness could be interesting and fun, provided it remains in theme for the TF. If I'm chasing after aliens I don't want to suddenly be confronted by Illinois Nazis.
Since CoT isn't likely to introduce boss fights that require players to memorize and follow strict mechanics lest they wipe, having a variety of possible big bads shouldn't be an issue.
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Good point. I'd still want the story to make sense.
Illinoizis? :-)
Spurn all ye kindle.
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I wonder if they'd "love" being NPCs in CoT? ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
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I think it will be good for the game to assume there will be people doing the same content multiple times, and as such then making the trials and TFs somehow play differently is good. The Master badges were good for this, as Lothic stated. One way to entice the non-Bagers would be to do what they ended up doing later with the iTrials, namely, give Merits or some other randomized swag upon getting the badge (that ism, when you actually get the badge awarded to you, not just every time the badge criteria are met). Other things you could do would be maybe hiding some sort of glowwy or secret door in the map that would be in a different place each time, so you'd either have to find it or just skip it.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I hate Illinois Nazis...
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
It's much more likely that we'll encounter Massachusetts Nazis.
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4 boss at same time i.e Final Fantasy IV Four Fiends? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR-yDE1ADJY
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster and when you look into the abyss, the abyss also look into you, -Friedrich
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spontaneity definitely increases replay value for me. Marvel Heroes has been GREAT feeling new. It is a completely different format (not enough missions for me) but I do love that the instances randomize.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
Random Bosses and/or powers for SF/TF (does MWM have a name for what they are calling these? Raids? Dungeons? X Missions? Trials? Titan Runs?) would be awesome.
A mate of mine is really into FFIV and does a lot of raids and knows EXACTLY how the bosses will act, it almost like watching a movie you've seen 15 times before (unless there is someone who doesn't know the 'rules' for that boss or player-error happens).
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
Considering the damage they live through, the Blues Brothers may be super heroes in their own right XD
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The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
The same could be said for the CoX TF's/SF's as well though.
That is the limitation of raids that follow the WoW format. A large part of surviving an encounter is knowing and being able to follow the mechanics. Failure to do so typically means failing the fight and having to start over. This can be challenging for raids with 4 - 6+ bosses. Add another half a dozen bosses and it is not only going to be frustrating for players, but also a great deal more work for MWM to create involved and unique encounter mechanics.
Hence I'll use this space to repeat my earlier comment that for CoH style big bad encounters, which had straightforward mechanics (if at all), such randomization should be a non-issue.
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I could get behind this for Raids and TFs. Even a given story arc could use this for it's final chapter to spice things up. as long as the relative challenge stayed the same for each set of powers or random boss was balanced.
My thoughts turned to the achievement chests from GW2. For every 500 points earned you get some goodies. Even people who are not achievement hunters benefit from getting optional achievements.
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I'm of two minds on the subject of rewarding players for engaging in content in a particular manner. On the one hand, it is an easy method for extending the life of existing content by encouraging players to explore alternate means and paths. On the other hand, if players have to essentially be bribed to engage in those paths/activities then it clearly is not something in which the players are interested.
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I vote for Titanomachies.