[Hardcore Servers] Here's how to do hardcore correctly and how to do it bad

[Kokolums]

The correct way to do hardcore vanilla servers:

This will need some sort of appeal system regarding unfair deaths. They will have to sort that out.

Anyway, its all about the leveling so make it all about the leveling. When you hit 60, you have 2 options.

1. Go ahead and play endgame with raids etc. I don't think many really want this option.
2. Players can have their character reset to level 1.

a. The toon gets an official designation of how many times it completed the 1-60 trip. It can be seen on inspection. It also gets a tabard designating how many times it completed the 1-60 journey.
b. They get to keep (5) Five items of their choice from their bags and inventory. Stacks do not count as 1 item. the rest are deleted. All skills are removed and reset.
c. They get to select (1) One new skill, spell or ability from a suite of them. Whichever one is picked becomes a permanent feature of the toon forever. So you can collect them all if you live that long to reset to level 1 a bunch of times.

Ideas for reset skills, spells and abilities:

1. A button to give you Savory Deviate Delight effect instantly.
2. Cut hearth time to 30 minutes.
3. Rest XP recharges at an inn 50% faster.
4. A button to force a quest mob to spawn instantly, tagged by you upon spawning, 1 hour cooldown. (this is probably too much coding for them but we will throw it in there)
5. Boost maximum weapon skill by 5, up to a maximum of 10 for any given skill. Overrides clause (b), so if you added 10 to axes, youd start with that +10 at level 1 or whenever you relearn that weapon skill.
6. Run speed increased by 5%, to a maximum of 10%. So youd need to reset twice and select this option twice to max this.
7. +5 to one resistance, up to a maximum of 50.

and you can add more just not gamebreaking, at least not gamebreaking very easily.





The wrong way to do hardcore servers:

I suspect they will think about creating "seasons" to maximize churn. They will set the season length so that few will ever actually hit 60, thinking that will encourage people to keep playing. It will do the exact opposite and turn everyone off.

[Gimlix]

WoW is more then just leveling even on hardcore. having raids on hardcore only shows even more a feat and prestige that you can earn with the maximum chance on failing everything. that is what these servers are all about.

You want people to play this game as Diablo basically? That isn't WoW.

Feels like that you dont want this to be a MMORPG even looking at your fix wow signature "Smaller server size" like what >->

[Kokolums]

WoW is more then just leveling even on hardcore. having raids on hardcore only shows even more a feat and prestige that you can earn with the maximum chance on failing everything. that is what these servers are all about.

You want people to play this game as Diablo basically? That isn't WoW.

Feels like that you dont want this to be a MMORPG even looking at your fix wow signature "Smaller server size" like what >->

Smaller server size is MORE social. Sort of like how everyone gets to know everyone else in a small town. If you live in Los Angeles, theres 10 million people but you feel anonymous.

Leveling is very RPGish and can be the most social aspects of the game.

[Oneirophobia]

This will need some sort of appeal system regarding unfair deaths. They will have to sort that out.

I run a minecraft SMP and let me tell you, every death is considered "unfair". The amount of DMs I get daily about dying and wanting items restored is astronomical and we only have about 40 players.

I think they should go the opposite direction and have a strict "Do not play perma death WoW if you are unable to mentally process and recover from loss." They barely have the GMs to look after classic and retail tickets, I don't think devoting GMs to investigating every death that occurs in Hardcore is A) logistically feasible and B) a wise expenditure.

[God Save The King]

HC raiding, for many at least, is the pinnacle of HC content.

I'd just like to see them tune the raids a bit and give us an escape on HC so it's more doable.

Also death is death. If your internet is bad, don't play or accept possible loss. If there's a known bug that can cause death, avoid it.

Only exception, and one we see even in D3, is something like a DDoS or genuine Blizzard error, then you just rollback all deaths during that timeframe.

[Lolites]

so basicaly "do it MY WAY or its WRONG"... you do know theres difference between opinion and fact, right?

[God Save The King]

I run a minecraft SMP and let me tell you, every death is considered "unfair". The amount of DMs I get daily about dying and wanting items restored is astronomical and we only have about 40 players.

I think they should go the opposite direction and have a strict "Do not play perma death WoW if you are unable to mentally process and recover from loss." They barely have the GMs to look after classic and retail tickets, I don't think devoting GMs to investigating every death that occurs in Hardcore is A) logistically feasible and B) a wise expenditure.

Yeah my thoughts as well. There's not really a way to easily discern what can be appealed. If you allow any HC death to be appealed, then blizz would be essentially swamped in appeals for every toon.

If feasible, it'd be nice to see an appeal popup if you died due to terrain damage while offline, would account for the FP disconnect bugs. Also for out of bounds deaths to account for mage blink/warrior charge. Potentially one for mobs that can grief. E.g. if you die to a mob outside its home zone, you'll just get rezzed for free.

[durenas]

I feel like if you give players something extra to reset to 1, a blessing, as it were, then you also have to give them a 'curse'. Give a little, take a little away, to mix it up a little.

[Throwme]

The correct way to do hardcore vanilla servers

so basicaly "do it MY WAY or its WRONG"... you do know theres difference between opinion and fact, right?

It doesn't seem like it. But a lot of people sure could benefit from some people knowing that difference.

[Kokolums]

I feel like if you give players something extra to reset to 1, a blessing, as it were, then you also have to give them a 'curse'. Give a little, take a little away, to mix it up a little.

i did consider that. one way is to make it so that you gain slightly less xp every time you reset to level 1. So maybe drop it by 2%. 98% on your second trip, 96% on your third etc. But I think it just feels bad.

[Nathanyel]

Death penalties, even permadeath in any modern game feels like such a regression to me.
WoW itself succeeded, 20 years ago, because it didn't have experience loss on death like most earlier MMOs.
Modern Roguelikes save your progress, even include dying into the gameplay, e.g. Rogue Legacy.

Sure, it's somewhat impressive you can play a game without ever "dying", but in the end, it's either just trying over and over until you know everything inside out, or playing so gingerly it's far from the original gameplay.

[Kokolums]

HC raiding, for many at least, is the pinnacle of HC content.

Most never get there. But some of the bonuses listed here can help raiders.

[SinR]

rofl No
/10


death = no resurrection option. that's it.

[Kokolums]

And please stop derailing the thread by playing semantics regarding "my opinion isnt fact". I didnt say that and if you think I did, please have the courtesy to ask for clarification. Thank you very much!

[vizzle]

You want people to play this game as Diablo basically? That isn't WoW.

Yeah, WoW is a game with a continuously dwindling population which requires communities developing different ways to play it to get people interested again. Lol.

Some of you people are so resistant to other ways to play the game that you don't realize it's choking your own game.

[Ringthane]

For almost twenty years, people have been saying how it's "all about the endgame", how "the game doesn't really start until you hit level cap and start running endgame stuff." And now it's all about the leveling.

Some of you wouldn't be happy if you asked for a PBJ sandwich and a Michelin chef ground the peanuts and made the jelly by hand and fed it to you. You'd want another flavor of jelly, or some other bread, or some other thing.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The correct way to do hardcore vanilla servers:

This will need some sort of appeal system regarding unfair deaths. They will have to sort that out.

Anyway, its all about the leveling so make it all about the leveling. When you hit 60, you have 2 options.

1. Go ahead and play endgame with raids etc. I don't think many really want this option.
2. Players can have their character reset to level 1.

Or they can add more world content, such as Ascension's high risk PvP where the best gear is obtained from materials that can only be acquired out in the world with PvP enabled where your gear can be looted. Resetting your character to level 1 and levelling back up to 60 over and over like in Ascension's draft mode is not fun.

[vizzle]

Or they can add more world content, such as Ascension's high risk PvP where the best gear is obtained from materials that can only be acquired out in the world with PvP enabled where your gear can be looted. Resetting your character to level 1 and levelling back up to 60 over and over like in Ascension's draft mode is not fun.

The idea the OP is trying to work with is creating a long-lasting mode that doesn't require adding new content. If your solution is "add more content", then the game always eventually needs more content.

Before finding out about hardcore, I hadn't played WoW in more than a decade, aside from 5 minutes every few years just to see if I was still into it (I wasn't). I feel like there are tons of people who feel that way. Now with the hardcore mod on a vanilla server, the game feels like something I could pour hundreds of hours into, because the carrot on a stick is different.

Games don't always require new content every few months to keep players hooked. If players are only logging on today to get ready for tomorrow's new content, then the devs always need to develop new content.

But there are systems they could implement -- systems like what the OP described -- that would give players a reason to log on without worrying about FOMO and a constant treadmill. The idea of a progression that goes on forever, a progression you can continue at your own pace, that rewards mindful playing (even if that "mindfulness" is as insignificant as just not running into a pack of mobs), sounds very enticing. And there are other old MMOs that do this -- there's a reason games like Runescape and Ragnarok still have loyal fanbases, even without any new content (or barely any new content).

Reading threads like this make me roll my eyes, because it really shows how deeply a lot of WoW players don't understand why people are tired of WoW. WoW is a great game; but there are very small changes -- not content but systems -- that would extend its longevity for many more years.

[Kokolums]

For almost twenty years, people have been saying how it's "all about the endgame", how "the game doesn't really start until you hit level cap and start running endgame stuff." And now it's all about the leveling.

Some of you wouldn't be happy if you asked for a PBJ sandwich and a Michelin chef ground the peanuts and made the jelly by hand and fed it to you. You'd want another flavor of jelly, or some other bread, or some other thing.

I have always said over the years that the 3 pillars of an MMO are 1. leveling 2. end game PvE raids 3. PvP

Blizz has destroyed leveling and turned PvP into a tiny duel in a box game. Its hardly an MMO at this point. Its like an action kiddie game.

I've actually proposed this solution to fix leveling (reset to level 1 for prizes) for over 10 years. So its not like this is something new.

[Hotmail]

I say let the masochists torture themselves with their own addons and rulesets. I'd rather Blizzard come out swinging with Classic+ class changes, mob changes, raid changes, PvP gearing changes, etc. Vanilla is still a fantastic game, all it needs is a few things to keep it fresh. But an even BIGGER penalty for dying just ain't it.