Suggestions/Ideas for PvE

[Neallys]

Hi!


I wanted to do an entry here for PvE. I really do play Neocron for its PvP, but I remember back when PvE wasn't so painful. I remember the days when I actually had fun doing PvE and I would do it for hours chasing warbots with a libby, and it would actually work very well and be rewarding. But let's face it nowadays when you do some PvE you just get raped.

Ok, some people will actually tell me PvE is easy, and that's understandable, but I'm not especially talking about easy but more about fun. And the way I see people doing PvE, I'm sorry but anything but fun. I'll name a few hunting spots and their rewards:

PvE spots and hunting

- Firemobbing for techparts : If you stay in front of a Hopper with full Inq. set you can kill it and barely make it. I'm not even talking about the Maulers and their über friends, the Grim persi.
- Warbot hunting for techparts: Even with a full HDensity dura set and a PA you get owned within seconds
- Hoverbombers for techparts: Don't even get me started, all you see is the light at the end of the tunnel, the blue one. Well actually it's a blue laser.
- DoY bots units for.. well, these parts you could sell in NC1 and now it's totally pointless (maybe drug recycling?): Hello, beam of light in your face and x-ray stacks of death.
- The Energycave (desert zones)/Swamp caves/The Grave: These places offer nothing good and the mobs there deal way too much damage to be places of interest.
- The DoY tunnels techs and illegals: The bots there just literally leave you no chance, other mobs have too many HP. 1st level not efficient enough to do, 2nd/3rd you need a PPU and wait for what's my next argument
- The Ceres Labs for WoC Disks: End-game cave, it's difficult but well, too much HP and I believe people do it in a weird way, myself included.


Alright, I named a few places and gave you an opinion, it is mine and you may disagree with it. Now comes the main argument in the way of doing these places and what it implies.

PvE/Hunting methods:

So a lot of people will say they can do these places easily, and you just have to know how. But here is the deal though, and I think most will agree with this, we are doing these places in a way that's not really enjoyable. I mean, Firemobbing, we hunt with laser beams and stay totally out of reach of the mobs there, Same with warbots hunting, we also use the hills to overlook the mobs and shoot it without it being able to reach us, any slight mistake of course leads us to have half-HP. Hoverbombers? Hell no one will approach these, they just two shot your PPU with the blue laser of death (and get bugged in top fo the trees where you cannot hack them), DoY Bots units offer nothing interesting, now I'm speaking a little bit out of knowledge here, their parts may be interesting for recycling purposes, if someone tried this, give me a feedback!

EnergyCave/Swamp/Grave, fascinating places to hunt, we could make something out of it, too bad it's totally not a place of interest, and way too much damage dealt to players. The Doy tunnels are interesting, I do solo the 2nd level with a Winding Argument like someone told me to, but really, it's like using walls to make the grenades bounces, it's smart of course, but mobs can't shoot you and it kinda feels like you are able to use that game mechanic only, it's not really fun to me. And finally the Ceres Labs, where I basically go in, go past first room, kill the unit in the way, click it continuously so it doesn't respawn, and nade/barrel the room without getting shot.


Ideas to improve PvE

I'm thinking, players currently have to hide too much and of course the use of a PPU is good but we definitely have to find another system because no one levels a PPU from the beginning (or some people do, but people will tell them to LoM APU pretty quickly). The way I see it is that we have a few weapons of choice when it comes to hunting and most of the time AoE for cave and Beams for outside world is the main choice. It makes sense but it's just you should be able to PvE with a PE libby, or a spy first love, and be as effective as if you were sniping with beams. My ideal PvE would be to use any weapon, and that I feel like there is a fight instead of hiding like a coward and take advantage of the dumb AI. I'm thinking lowering the HP and damage, but this can go through rewards also, if you take risks to engage combat in the swamp cave where there isn't even that much mob, get rewarded more XP than the bossroom where you fear nothing because the mobs only have melee range. I want variation in PvE, not the basic "Yo go to Regant Bossroom, it's the best". I don't want it to be the best place, I want it to be one of these places where I could go.

I really believe all of this requires very little work from the Dev, it indeed will need testing, but people are willing to do that on the testserver to make things go forward, because I have to admit it clearly, I don't feel the game is very fun to play as a newcomer. Now I can't say, been playing the neocrack for 10 years.

To me this whole risk vs reward make sense, we need to see something else and go somewhere else!

I also wanted to mention quick the rarepart dropping, maybe put more parts in the warbots (which also require hacking) and risky mobs? I know these weapons are supposed to be rare, but this game for now revolves too much around having a clan to get your things and such. Shouldn't be that way. I also wanted to mention Faid here, with whom I had similar idea for a long time: if you want to make something rare, then do it, but only play on aesthetics that will not unbalance someone who doesn't have that much time to play. PowerArmor that have different colors, whatever, people would hunt for this I know that for sure, and I don't think it's hard to change the colors of an item that already has its model made.


I think the game really need those changes, I honestly do. It affects both trading and PvP.

If you have ideas, please I would love to hear them out, people always come up with very interesting things when it comes to PvE.