Anti-Speed Run Mechanism

[nimuniverse]

Like I mention above, make it so if you clear the whole dungeon, you get extra tomes of phil and myth. Cause ppl don't care about wpn drops from the dungeon, but they care about tome. Now if you are giving the same amount of tomes like hard mode primal, 10phil and 4myth, I am sure people will do full clear.

[Jinko]

Like I mention above, make it so if you clear the whole dungeon, you get extra tomes of phil and myth. Cause ppl don't care about wpn drops from the dungeon, but they care about tome. Now if you are giving the same amount of tomes like hard mode primal, 10phil and 4myth, I am sure people will do full clear.

That could work, a percentage extra for full completion.

[Leonas]

Did you not read what I wrote ? ....

If everyone is placed on the threat list, if tank dies, healer will die as will the dps, so when monsters reset there will be nobody to raise the tank.

Currently only the person who attacks or is attacked is placed on the threat list so when he dies the monsters reset and leave the rest of the party alive. (this should be changed)

Nope. You didn't read what he wrote. :P

A Healer with swiftcast and revive can drop that on the tank who dies first, and then entire party wipe and tank hits accept to rez AFTER all mobs reset. Tank, which will only work with a paladin, will use his cross class revive on dead healer and then rez up the dps.

Lets face it. Its CHEAPER on repairs for people to all just die and rez up than to fight trash. The durability loss for death is tiny compared to durability for fighting. And with the lack of generated gil in the economy, speed runs will be popular since its not just convience sake.

[Ariyn]

Even a full clear for 10 tomes wouldn't be enough. 45 mins for a full clear of all the trash = 90 philosophy tomes where i can do 2 runs in 40 mins and get 160 tomes now.

[Usotsuki]

Motivation are the best anti speed run mechanisms, let them drop rare stuff for cool stuff to craft, pets or just gil/items and people might go again for them.

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

I don't believe SE designed the game for the current speed run mechanics to occur. A lot of folks may get bent out of shape if you try to consider the balance of the game as it goes against their current favorite method of grinding.

The few things that I can think of that could deter a speed run, such as those found at Amdapor Keep.

1) Once the boss battle starts, all unkilled mobs will pile up into the boss room.

2) Bosses have an HP boost based on the number of unkilled mobs/groups in its dungeon segment. This may result in battles taxing HP/MP/TP more. Better gear and tactics will allow you to "speed run", where other parties may need to level the playing field by killing enemies before the Demon Wall or before that gremlin-ant-looking fellow.

[Jinko]

1) Once the boss battle starts, all unkilled mobs will pile up into the boss room.

Vote for my favourite, plus it would be kind of funny the day after patch >.>

[LilSmalls]

Alot of good suggestions posted on this so far.

My favorites have to be changing the dungeons to give the normal mobs some more meaning EG:
1. Killing mobs mean more chests or more in the chests.
2. Killing the mobs weaken the boss so that it can be killed (faster/at all).
3. Killing the mobs open doors or remove barriers to allow progression through to deep parts of a dungeon.
These ideas sound interesting to me. I'm sure there are alot of variations that could be dreamed up by the SE team.

Having mobs drop gil, items, potions, gear, etc, etc could be a step in the right direction but it seems like there are more creative and dynamic ways of brining them into the fold.

At the end of the day it would be good to have SE focus not just on the reward at the end (Destination) but the journey of getting there. Making the whole experience enjoyable and fun rather than fun being relegated to "I got a new purple item, yay I got some fun today".

[Arale]

All you need to do is put everyone on the threat list once an enemy is engaged.

There will be no dying and ressing then because the whole party will be dead.

I already found a way to break that. Course, you would need a PLD tank, and a healer with swiftcast raise. Paladin dies first, pop the raise, party wipes, paladin gets up, rezzes healer, wait a few minutes, and boom, broken. The best solution is to give trash value, until then people will skip it. This is an absolute, not something debatable. :/

[Amas]

The few things that I can think of that could deter a speed run, such as those found at Amdapor Keep.

1) Once the boss battle starts, all unkilled mobs will pile up into the boss room.

2) Bosses have an HP boost based on the number of unkilled mobs/groups in its dungeon segment. This may result in battles taxing HP/MP/TP more. Better gear and tactics will allow you to "speed run", where other parties may need to level the playing field by killing enemies before the Demon Wall or before that gremlin-ant-looking fellow.

Incentive works much, much better than punishment for altering behavior.

If speed runs of AK stop being viable because of a mechanics change and the only reason to kill trash is because you have to, most people will stop doing AK entirely. It's just not worth the time for a bunch of ilvl 60 greens and some tomes if each run is going to take 60-90 minutes and you'll rack up a massive repair bill in the process. The 8 man story dungeons become more efficient, from both time and cost perspectives, if you have to slow-run AK.

If speed runs of AK stop being worthwhile because you get something of sufficient value from the trash, people will start killing the trash.

Edit: And in a wider sense, if your goal is to create a healthy, thriving MMO, punishing players is a generally stupid idea. If people do something unanticipated (FATE parties, AK speed runs) and the devs' response is to punish people, those players won't feel valued and are likely to quit. It's bad business sense on SE's part to just nerf nerf nerf. If something is exceptionally unbalanced to the point of breaking the game (e.g. finding an exploit that triples tomes dropped in a run), that obviously needs to be addressed.

It's a much better business decision for SE to learn from their mistakes, avoid repeating them in the future, and generally let things stand for the time being (or create incentive to alter behavior). Nerfing FATE XP or adding mechanics to prevent speed running is foolhardy. Especially 2 weeks into a game's life. Add daily quests that give a big chunk of XP for completion of a dungeon, and you'll see people migrate towards the DF and mostly the hardcore grinders will stick to FATEs. Add drops of value to AK trash so that people want to kill it. You lose money hand over fist just by being 50 and doing content, and rather than introducing money through dailies, add it through trash (which is also an effective time gate).