'Hardcore' mode

[theangel04]

the idea of a hardcore mode is interesting but i believe it is somewhat implemented into the way the game plays online.

[SoCalDistortion]

I would like to see 2 servers... 1 Hardcore (where a sole alliance wins and resets when certain are conditions met) and another regular. Give the players some freedom on how they want to play!

The devs have provided some excellent feedback in this thread with how they view things. Hopefully at some point a hardcore server with conquering and destruction of teritories will be implemented.I don't think having a hardcore server would segment the playerbase to such an extent that it would have a detrimental impact for the community.

Give us hardcore!

[Farseer_Arien]

I would like to see 2 servers... 1 Hardcore (where a sole alliance wins and resets when certain are conditions met) and another regular. Give the players some freedom on how they want to play!


I agree it will let those that want to sit down and play without worry of being farmed, while the other server would let those of us fanatical do what ever we want as we accept farming.

[Valhalla]

Hardcore mode for MMORTS, thats a little too much don't you think?

[Marcos182]

I agree with the guild emphasis as far as "hardcore" goes, but there has to be another word for guilds. How about Orders or someting, if i'm a king i would want to be known as part of a guild

[Zackreaver]

Hardcore kind of setting can still work, it's just that you have to take the factor at a carefully observed approach. As mentioned it would be bad to fragment the player base, we want everyone to be in 1 spot so we all know we won't be left stranded somewhere.

To avoid that, Hardcore setting should be like a gamble, have players set a stance saying "We are playing this hardcore, as such we are willing to take a greater penalty at defeat, while having a better benefit while surviving the course"

Think about how other games take this approach. Diablo 2 has a hardcore mode where when you die, your character is gone forever. This works in diablos setting as leveling up is rather fast and simple, most fights are pretty easy and caution just has to be taken to avoid getting too low. If a death occur's the items are dropped and anyone can take them, given the faster pace of the game this optional feature fit well in the concept.

The cool part of this feature was that it let players get the thrill that if they can reach a high level on a hardcore character they feel accomplished, as they know with even the simplest of mistakes everything they worked for can be lost in an instant.

The key thing here is, permanent loss can be discouraging if handled incorrectly. You can gaurentee that if the hardcore players grouped together, and both got killed at the same time, and their equipment was lost forever, chances are they would stop playing diablo for a long time, seeing as how everything they worked on was just suddenly lost. This worked fine, because hardcore was only really available as an optional mode after the game was beaten, so it was only meant as a replay feature for the game.

The thing is, to implement a hardcore mode into an MMORTS, namely this one would require careful execution. Hardcore could be summarized differently, here's a better example on how a hardcore mode can be implemented in this game.

Players start the game just like everyone else, consider these normal mode players. As the players progress they can opt to expand and create a new city in "safe, common" territory with basic resources and the like. Or can challenge themselves and make a city in a "hostile, dangerous, resource rich" environment. This can basically be territory that require the player to complete dangerous PVE quests that could threaten the existance of their city in the territory. And then after a few quests they must defeat a player with a city in that territory that's at the same stage. These events happen periodically and the player must continue to protect the city from the incoming PVE events and PVP matches until one of them inevitably beats them and destroys the city.

Depending on how long the players can manage to keep their city functional in this territory, they get rewarded either with resources, a special bonus depending on how well they did (like a buff to their unit's or structures), or simply with points for a ladder ranking and bragging rights. Whatever the case, you get the same feeling of a Hardcore game mechanic, without the permanent loss of everything you have and without separating the player base.

I have no idea how the game plays so this idea was made without consideration on how the game mechanics are. Hopefully if I get invited into beta I can get a better understanding on the game mechanics and reformat my version of the idea with better more realistic details.

[GoGoCactusMan!]

I've mentioned in a few other posts the idea of a "Hardcore" mode, I'm glad I've found a thread about it!

As with Zack above me, as well as others, yes, I do have the worry about fragmenting a player base. The idea itself though is so broad, and without playing even a beta yet, I don't even know if any of my ideas would even be feasible in the slightest, but I'd like to share them anyhow. Who knows, maybe someone will dig em' and they could be implemented one day.

1. Hardcore Mode As A Server

This idea would be just as others have said: Two Servers. One would be vanilla DoF and the other would be a Hardcore variant. Either start off on the HC server or get the option to COPY your current level kingdom (if that makes sense) over to the HC server once you hit a certain level. The idea here is being able to either jump right into a world made of higher risk (Not necessarily a perma death situation) with an altered set of rules OR, as said above, reach a certain point in the normal online segment and COPY over your base Stronghold, starting from a single point, but not gimped at a starting low level.

There could be certain things in the way people fight each other in the HC server that would be more risky that the vanilla server.
Things such as:
- Offline Battles: If you are not online and someone enters your territory, a Defensively minded AI kicks in to defend your walls. If possible, you could receive an e-mail or text alerting you to this. Maybe be able to log into a web browser and click a behavior for your men if you cant make it back. Do you want to retreat? Give the attacker your land in favor of saving your men? Do you want to hold the line?

- Modified HC Server Specific Items: Something to fight over. Maybe a witch you could capture from a neutral territory that would alter the weather wherever you have her garrisoned so you could have farms in the winter. Mayyybe a rare mineral from a mine that would give you a limited set of tougher armor for one group of your army. If you get defeated and own something like this, it gets taken for as long as this scenario is running.

- Stronghold Sieges: Your home getting sacked. There could perhaps be a lattice system where in your enemies would have to destroy towns you control leading up to your Stronghold, severely weakening the opposing force as they tried to march into your lands and giving you time to mount a counter offensive. Maybe this is declared as a War, a HC server option within game where if the two players agree, they agree to fight until a winner is declared. This could last weeks. Whatever the end result, say there is no lattice system as suggested above, and the worst happens, your stronghold is lost. You lose, everything. Your main unit, your Hero, at the level he was at during that fateful fight would randomly respawn in a neutral town/city, where you could strike out and begin anew. Depending on your Hero's level, you would be granted a certain amount of what you need to get the ball rolling, and attempt a new life in a new section of the map.

2. Hardcore Mode as a Set of Options

This portion could be for late game content or just a way for bold players to try and make their names. This would be nothing that would imbalance the game, but allow for higher stake "tournament" like battles.

- Guild Fighting: Things can get personal when Guilds clash, EVE has taught the online gaming community that. It would be remarkable to see Guild fights have the option of impacting the Guild as a whole. Maybe they could start a persistent war, marking off victory conditions as a sort of Hardcore mode. The war would be unstoppable once launched, unless one or the other side completely ceded, causing a guild wide set back in something. Maybe the whole guild has to pay a tithe to the winning guild for x amount of time, or what have you. Would this set these people back? Yes, of course it would. But that would be glorious, and the thing that causes EVE to make nearly world wide headlines.

- HC Option for Your Kingdom: This would be like what I had for the Offline battles. Marking yourself "Hardcore" would be like putting up or down your PVP flag. You're Kingdom is essentially declaring to everyone that it is a powerful force. This would have a timer on it, lets say, a week. Over this week, this person's kingdom would be vulnerable to certain defeat penalties that are harsher than they would normally be and anyone who were to cause such a defeat would reap the equal reward, perhaps with a little bonus. However, if you are in the week long HC period, and fight others who are "marked" in the same mode, depending on what you accomplish against this person, you would get a far greater reward than you normally would in a victory. If you make it through the week without being wiped out, you get, perhaps, a Influence bonus since you would also be gaining notoriety in the community by being, well, Hardcore.

To break that down, since that was a lot of stuff, HC Option for Your Kingdom would be:
- Flag yourself as HC, lasts a Week.
- Defeat means larger consequence.
- Normal Victory yields nothing extra.
- Victory against another HC Flagged player means Larger winnings.
- Defeat by another HC Flagged player means worst possible consequence.
- Surviving the time limit (a week in my example) would grant some reward (Influence, in my example.)

I've more ideas I'll save for another time, but seriously, there is some juicy, meaty possibilities for something like this from a competitive play standpoint.

This is something I am heavily interested in, not as a requirement, but at least as some sort of option. It brings a lot of interesting possibilities for unique and dynamic game play, which would in turn, could reap the benefit of getting people to look at it as innovative. The possible dynamics could also cause game play situations that would make waves within online communities, things like what EVE has done, bringing in more people to give a hand at the brave new world within Dawn of Fantasy.

[ElegantPete]

At this point I'm agreeing completely with Zack and his suggestion of hardcore wilderness vs relative safety of known lands.

I think this is a viable model that wont necessarily divide the player base, also, to make the wilderness more enticing create artifacts that can be fought over for bonuses ala daoc.

The sense of community in daoc was incredible and to see people rally together to chase down an artifact was brilliant, by including this kind of 'end game' content you can challenge and engage your player base, or at least those that are getting bored of having no real consequences.

I admit, I've raged at losing ships in EVE, but it creates a tension that does not exist in other games.

I guess interactions between the known lands and the wilderness could be interesting too, and you could enhance the in-game economy by increasing the risk/reward ratio for living on the wild side.

Hardcore is good, if it's easy to implement, and enriches the life of the game.. how can you say no?

[Lukre]

Thanks For the imformation

[Raulaun]

- HC Option for Your Kingdom: This would be like what I had for the Offline battles. Marking yourself "Hardcore" would be like putting up or down your PVP flag. You're Kingdom is essentially declaring to everyone that it is a powerful force. This would have a timer on it, lets say, a week. Over this week, this person's kingdom would be vulnerable to certain defeat penalties that are harsher than they would normally be and anyone who were to cause such a defeat would reap the equal reward, perhaps with a little bonus. However, if you are in the week long HC period, and fight others who are "marked" in the same mode, depending on what you accomplish against this person, you would get a far greater reward than you normally would in a victory. If you make it through the week without being wiped out, you get, perhaps, a Influence bonus since you would also be gaining notoriety in the community by being, well, Hardcore.

To break that down, since that was a lot of stuff, HC Option for Your Kingdom would be:
- Flag yourself as HC, lasts a Week.
- Defeat means larger consequence.
- Normal Victory yields nothing extra.
- Victory against another HC Flagged player means Larger winnings.
- Defeat by another HC Flagged player means worst possible consequence.

I imagine this would work quite well. But there should be other flagging options. 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 3 month permanent. I do really like this idea, though.