Originally posted by Plasuma!!!

You also missed my response to your other post. Like it matters.... but still, just a heads up.

It was huuuuuge, and went over John Williams and I am fairly sure Reaganomics at one point. I'll look for any reasonable points, but I really don't think that musical taste relates to games since any one of these can fall out with a player;

Art Style

Graphics

Story/setting

Gameplay (twitch or not)

Community

Etc...

Any one of those doesn't strike well with the player and it hurts the relationship between them and the product. In the end you attract those that agree with all the points and suffer the loss of the rest. Circle of life.

~Without requoting

My point on EVE was not about it sucking in the least bit. I played for a long time, but during that I never went looking for PvP (though I've been caught slipping, them's the ropes) and refused to mine or enter low-sec space without funds to rearm had I lost everything. PvP and that kind of stuff is really for player corps that handle thier own armaments and can reoutfit you on loss, I was stuck in Aliasta after starting one and disbanding it only to end up in retail >_>

The point was that the process of having everything behind windows in that game screwed with the "feeling" of it and it's exploration, since most chains would have you never get further than 5 jumps from the station. You only move on once you have the rep to speak to the better paying ones, and so on. It's kinda hard to explore space in the first place, so if there is any reason to conside EVE a bad example candidate it's that. You can see their choice to go with the ambulation indoor simulation though, and strangely enough I would return simply for that to see if it helps me better connect with my character and other players. Very isolating nature being stuck in a pod behind windows, best fun I had was noobcorp chats on alts. That is a game where it's incredible size dictates that communication tools be just as broad, kinda like how it cost isk to accept a call too.

In essence this faceless questgiver is your quest window, and while many games have listings to quests and locations of the givers - they still rope you around because it's better then dealing with a window simply for efficiency. I could only imagine how much you could get done if you never had to travel for new ones or to turn them in, but I do promise you it wuld rope in a variety of players simply for that - just not all of them. I do something "different" in every single aspect of every MMO draft I do, this includes "how" quests are gotten and work, but the one thing I never do is remove the need to explore every nook and cranny of a place that the player needs to be very familiar with. It's a tired idea in open zones sometimes, but in a major social hub players should have every urge to find cool hiding spots and see what reward there might be. My favorite move being the one where they have to use their heads and find the address of a private instance behind a door with simplified directions - no markers. Puzzles seemed to have escaped games for the most part haven't they?

...now as for "standardized game theory"? God forbid.

It's booklearning and imitation that is killing the designer mind. If it's not the battle vs realism (the booklearning) or trying to copy the neighbors test sheet (EQ-style combat - the proverbial MMO staple), designers are trying to fringe on taste.... and in the end taste is going to win the war. If everything is (clone war!!) then people will drift to the ones they feel the most comfortable with in terms of "ambiance". Pretty world, good music, and the strangest this is that the [setting/story] has nothing to do with it. Totally a visual need.

~Story is the missing element of MMOs, it's there but nobody reads it. Everyone is just interested in how many of these need to be killed and where to get the reward. This is why you would think your method is best suited for cutting out the middleman - but the real answer is getting players to take the time to read up, sit through a cutscene, or root through dialog and absorb. If you can get players to care about the goal in any way, then you have won the battle of PvE content. The issue is that "kill X rats" is dead, MMOs need to start thinking about lengthy stretches of unique content of a quality that single-player experiences get. No more grind things in the open field, instead that open field has mobs if you get bored, but the real quest content is in scripted instances. Raid content is what people clamor for, interesting boss combat and the route to him is the journey itself as the scenery changes... [that] is what the quality of the average quest should be, and it astounds me that DDO didn't murder the rest - but I blame that on the confining nature of the open world zones... should have been Planescape (Sigil Districts) and that feeling would feel natural to the setting. Heh see?

If I have anything to donate to a unified game theorum it is to design around a function, or around a setting. Tetris was a functional idea, but Mario was just a magical setting. It would not have been the same without the mushrooms, goombas, pipes, etc. The taste inherant is what sold it, and continues to sell tons of games that most people haven't a clue about. I remember picking up Bujingai: the Forsaken City and going "this has to suck, I'll take it", seeing the intro and wanting to gouge my eyes out, but once I played it - it was extremely tight. Prolly one of the most underlooked action titles out there, and I blame a setting that just doesn't sail for me - and obviously others. It's basically like Devil May Cry, but lacking all the style of it... should have had a cooler dude on the box art.

It's pretty obvious why developers want to encourage grouping as much as possible.   By having grouping mechanics you're encouraging people people to play together, which encourages them to make a few friends.   In the end I'd be willing to say anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of MMO subs are subbed because people don't want to say "goodbye" "right now".

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And grouping does not exclude soloing in all cases.   Especially in one of the samples I provided where everything(and bosses) are soloable, but being in a group lets you finish a larger percent of the dungeon(edit: in one go) rather than navigating portions.

____edit 2

It should also be noted that I purposefully make everything in this forum "World of Everclone" NOT because it's a design  that I work on,  but because it's something I don't need to elaborate in most cases.

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Originally posted by LynxJSA

 

I'd really like to know why so many of you spend so much time trying to come up with ways to force people to do things (group) that they are inherently adverse to doing.

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In this case, because grouping is a powerful tool for making better MMO's. Groups allow a static dungeon to play differently by swapping a player or two. Grouping at it's best is almost like making eye contact while driving in traffic (proven that it reduces the a-hole factor). I'm sure I could rattle off more benefits, but it wouldn't matter.

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Why not focus your energy on creating content that is of interest to your target audience rather than trying to find ways to convince people that they really want to do what you want them to despite their predisposition to do otherwise?

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That's an interesting perspective since grouping is a very human activity. Now that is based on our survival instincts, something these games don't trigger (and its debatable whether they should even try). Even without relying on survival instincts, the majority of people will seek out groups though. Message boards are a type of group, as are the Masons, religions, or frats.

Maybe the better starting point for this would be to identify all the barriers we can to grouping. Or maybe even to analyze the soloers. IMO the slideshow Plasuma!!! linked gave a very good breakdown of the different types of soloers. I would be interested to see soloers accounted for in the same way as the Bartle test.

Originally posted by paulscott

Idea one:  single tier combat system.   When you start you're given a fully developed skill set, this is as powerful as you can get(Max Power Tier).   However you do have the ability to still advance by diversifying your skills and opening up more customization/combo's to your character.   (This is actually a HUGE mechanic that I've covered a few times).

This could work of course, it is a variant of most no level pen and paper RPGs where you can get skills and attacks but your character wont become a good or have to change gear every week.

idea two:   when you do group you split greater amounts of experiance.   If you have just yourself you'll be "splitting" 100% of the experiance, if you have two people you'll be splitting 110%(55% each) of the experiance from mobs,  if three 120%(40% each).  With these small experiance bonuses along with the power that teamwork can offer grouping becomes a convient idea, without hurting soloers at all.

There are games ot there doing similar things now. You will still get a lot more XP because you will kill more mobs a person then a single player would in the same time.

idea three:  limited "energy".    All dungeons are designed for soloers however a soloer can only only take out one or two of the bosses in it, with very careful navigation and similar.    Where as a group could take out all 8 or the bosses with only avoiding  a few areas.     This is done by making it so that when you go into a "dungeon" nothing heals,  this means your mana/faith/whatever doesn't restore,  your health doesn't restore, basically nothing restores.    Sure you could bring some items but those will only get you so far as well.    The downside with this idea is that you need to almost completely redesign combat balance.

The idea that you wont regen life and mana inside a dungeon is actually very interesting. I don't know if it will add more grouping or not but it do sounds fun actually, to be forced to save mana, sneak attack when you can and so on.

idea four:   No server entrapment.   Basically the ability to switch from server to server with minimal  thought and similar.    Granted others will say you're trading community for group easiness.   I disagree because people can be with ANYONE they happen to meet elsewhere, rather than there being some 1% chance that you'll be able to meet with someone.

Guildwars have something like this with their international instance, it is an instance where anyone can come from and play together. You could still have a home server but have the possibility to reach one shared server also where people from many servers can go to.

Grouping is basicly coming from the old pen and paper RPGs, particulary D&D. The idea is that all players will feel useful and have fun when they are playing, and that social games are more fun.

In the old days you usually had 4-6 players in a group. And you needed them.

First you had some classes you had to have to get all the loot from something and not get injured by traps all the time.

You needed a thief (bard or similar): To open locks, find traps and find hidden treasure. They are also a must to appraise the loot.

You needed a mage too. He could also open locks with a spell, he finds magical traps, identifying magical loot and make a whole lot pf DPS.

A healer was of course also a must for any group that wanted to survive without being really careful.

And you needed a warrior or 2. Someone who protects the rest of the gang from mobs.

Or possibly a ranger instead of a warrior. Their knowledge about wilderness is very helpful, and they can also find hidden loot.

None of these classes were a total must. You don't have to use a healer, just don't get injured. You don't have to have a thief but you will miss loot, walk into traps and sell stuff wothout knowing it's real value.

You dont have to have a warrior or ranger but if not you will probably get a lot of melee on your weaker characters.

This is the basics of group dynamics in RPGs, you will at least try to be 4 guys. but the GM will add more danger the more people you are, like Bioware did in neverwinter nights.

Of course in a pen and paper RPG mobs are not stupid enough to get tanked so you needed to body block mobs ( a lot of the fighting in pen and paper RPGs are in very close quarters, not the enormus passages we see in Wow and EQ).

As I see it this is the best way to handle group dynamics. The group will win something to have each class in it but you can survive without them.

Soloplay shouldn't be so much dungeon based. There is a lot of things a single person can do. So put all or most

the solo stuff out in the wilderness and in the city and leave the dungeons to groups. It should be more rewarding to work as a team because it is harder. Alone you onle depends on yourself but if you have one person in a group that messes up the whole group will wipe.

But also make it so that the dungeon gear is better for groups while the solo gear is better for a single player.

Originally posted by ghstwolf

 

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Originally posted by LynxJSA

 

I'd really like to know why so many of you spend so much time trying to come up with ways to force people to do things (group) that they are inherently adverse to doing.

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In this case, because grouping is a powerful tool for making better MMO's.

You are stating opinion as fact. 

 

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Why not focus your energy on creating content that is of interest to your target audience rather than trying to find ways to convince people that they really want to do what you want them to despite their predisposition to do otherwise?

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That's an interesting perspective since grouping is a very human activity. Now that is based on our survival instincts, something these games don't trigger (and its debatable whether they should even try). Even without relying on survival instincts, the majority of people will seek out groups though. Message boards are a type of group, as are the Masons, religions, or frats.

People group with those they know.

People group with like-minded people.

People have little desire to group with random people, especailly when they have nothing in common. Note: Needing a piece of epic gear is not a strong enough commonality to make people want to be with others - it's a strong enough reason to make people want to use the service of others to achieve their personal goal.

As long as you are starting with the group first, you will never arrive at any reasonable resolution for the problem you are trying to resolve.

Are you looking for ways for the players of your game to want to work together or are you looking for ways to force other players together? There is an extreme difference there. In the former, you start from the side of content and in the latter you create artificial and arbitrary constructs in order to make people feel they need to be tethered to another person.

EQ2, Earth and Beyond and most PvP MMOs are great examples of where the developers have created content that makes players want to work together.

In EQ2, the guild benefits from the efforts of its team members. Regular alerts go out to the team about the accomplishments of the various guild members. The guildies feel they are part of something bigger, and that encourages working together. The focus in some of EQ2's content is on encouraging the players to feel they are part of something bigger. By doing so, they have created an environment where players are working together because they want to, not because they feel they have to or because they feel they are missing out if they don't.

The group unit is the result of player desire to interact and not the cause of player interaction, despite what any EQ flagellate will try to tell you otherwise.

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by Plasuma!!!

You also missed my response to your other post. Like it matters.... but still, just a heads up.

 

It was huuuuuge, and went over John Williams and I am fairly sure Reaganomics at one point. I'll look for any reasonable points, but I really don't think that musical taste relates to games since any one of these can fall out with a player;

Art Style

Graphics

Story/setting

Gameplay (twitch or not)

Community

Etc...

 

Any one of those doesn't strike well with the player and it hurts the relationship between them and the product. In the end you attract those that agree with all the points and suffer the loss of the rest. Circle of life.

 

On that same note (har har, my puns are awesome), isn't that how music works, too? It looks to me like they're made of the same parts..

Aesthetic

Presentation

Progression

Interaction / Purpose

Community

Etc.

But I get what you're saying. "Taste determines how we should make our games."

However, what is the origin of taste? Does it develop by some cosmic disturbance by Gods or the alignment of the stars? Or is it something more logical, like how we compare good and bad experiences with one or another to determine whether we like something or not. The product existed before taste. So we can conclude that a product can be engineered to alter taste. After all, there has to be a reason somebody likes or does not like something... some experience.

Someone may really like the Star Wars orchestral score, but think Gustov Holst's The Planets is completely arbitrary and boring. Even though Star Wars is just the same set of songs remixed. Likewise, somebody who listened to The Planets suite and enjoyed it might find Star Wars repulsive "how dare he steal these wonderfully original ideas!"

It's the same how somebody can like WoW but not UO, even though they're the same game remixed.

"Standing on the shoulders of giants," I believe is how the phrase goes. Theories just help get people up on those shoulders.

Take what works, work with it. To make things easier, you develop a theory around it as a reference sheet. You are experimenting, carrying out those experiments, and then comparing the result with your hypothesis. This process was used to make a music theory (just listen to all the wonderful crap we have today compared to the 18th century - but we also have comparatively more good stuff as well... it can't be a mere function of population, although that is a factor), so why would it be so terrible to work out a game design theory?

I had a much more verbose response lined up, but the campus wireless decided to kick me off while finding a link to some obscure reference that could have confused you even better than my other ones. I'm sad I forgot where it was.

I think taste is a byproduct of environment and experiences.

My first MMO was UO, and I had to play it at my friends hosue cuz he ahd the good connection. I didn't get the kind of playtime I wanted with it and never got back into them after I quit until SWG. That is the game that emphasizes my tastes, and most of it is relatable to UO - like housing w/ deco, collection, unique skill systems, etc. I can appreciate a good theme park, but my preference is a wide-open sandbox with more hidden features then you can every discover. Hence my love for games like Wurm, EVE, UO, SWG and even FFXI - which was friggin hardcore.

I'm the kind of gamer that has the time to sink into games where a goal might take forever... but as I get to the point where that time is no longer there my tastes will change to suit my environment, what I am able to handle. At that point I might indulge in a theme park variety, but I doubt I would enjoy it all the same.

I think you can ween people into a direction, I defintely still try cloney games like Aion, Warhammer, etc when they launch - but I am a bad example since I do so to learn something. As an intense hobbyist in game design, I absorb everything going and and see what they did right and what I would do to improve it. I usually raid the suggestion forums with 100's of pages worth of goods, then walk to the next one as I either burnout or never really clicked with it. Sometimes I don't buy an MMO because I know I will stick with it, I just want that fresh feeling for however long it lasts. Perhaps others are like that.

I do think I was drawn to EQ style games, but only because of SWG's usage of the combat format - and what drew me to that game was "everything else". So in the end, maybe tastes change, but only slightly - and from relatable factors in things they are used to... but I think that is being taken too far with how games are designed. Everyone tries to make is simpler and understandable by be far too similar to the games they want to ween people off of. I recommend not trying to bite mechanical usages as much as I say don't bite a setting, I think there is a game out there that is so much like WoW it even has Goldshire. If you have to have a parallel to a previous game, you need to figure out how to mask it more than make it an obvious relation. People need to be convinced "it's not just another clone".

When we make games, we're designing experiences. That's really the key to to making a breakthrough design: what do you want people to experience? What emotion? What atmosphere?

Yay artistic interpretation. I suggest you check out this book before you take anything I say to heart. I'm really just blabbering about what I learned from it. I called it a WINRAR is you, feel free to scan it for viruses, you won't find any.

I never played UO. I don't know if I regret it or not, but I I first met it, I looked at the box at the game store, went "meh" and proceeded to buy the nearest MechWarrior game (which I still have). Back then, I wasn't much of a game designer, just a game player.

I have played SWG, though. I remember playing it and grinding through all the professions to unlock the FS slot, which I never did. I was simply too slow at it, and the NGE steamrollered my progress which was a bit unsettling. Before that, though, I was having fun - skills instead of classes, open-world design, expandable interface with a datapad that keeps all your important stuff without limitation on weight or size. The social aspect was great - cantinas and the music / entertainer system was phenomenal for the time. Character customization possibilities were massive, too

In all honesty, that's all that kept me playing the game... the social openness and customization possibilities of the game.

What made me quit now and then was the lack of a "final goal" or an achievement system, and the terrible crafting system. There's a funny story to that actually: I made a rotary machine out of Legos and an electric motor and attached it to my mouse so I could grind skills with toolbar macros while I was away in class. Ugh... the noise that machine made still haunts my dreams to this day. In retrospect, the grind wasn't necessary or fun, but I still loved SWG anyways because I had friends in the game (and a reason to call them friends - as well as a reason to hang out with them).

When I say you take the good aspects of games or stand on the shoulders of giants, I don't mean you should copy them because they have a "better" formula. Don't take it that way. They just have some ingredients combinations that worked pretty well, and we should take them into consideration. So here's another parallel: game design is like restaurant management.

That's really all game design is: making a menu for your restaurant that suits the most people possible - because you want costumers, and you want them to enjoy what they're eating.

Which are the most successful restaurants? The ones run by chefs who know what they're doing - those who have been to elite cooking schools and have more than 10 years of experience experimenting with flavor combinations. They know better than to use a fish base for an ice cream dessert because that would only interest very few people - they could put something more appealing on the menu and get more loyal customers by doing it.

So what are the best games? The ones made by people who have similar experience in experimenting with new technologies and puzzle design / presentation. They know better than to spawn the player in the middle of a mob of bosses after the loading screen finishes - they could make the loading areas more convenient and the bosses more reasonable, as that would be less frustrating to new players.

Do you want a busy / successful game or one that only suits a niche?

Although there is a flip-side to going overboard with "mass appeal." Soon, your game becomes fast food and you can't keep up with the previous standards you've set. So instead of having a wide variety of customers in small portions who truly enjoyed what they were getting, you have a mass of unsatisfied customers. You pointed this out in the past, I'm sure, but you seemed to avoid solving it.

I have one such meager, undeveloped solution. Maybe instead of designing some parts to be specifically boring to a group of people as discouragement (poisoning dishes against specific types of customers), you could try something a little less self-destructive. Maybe you limit the number of players registered to a server. The player picks a server and that becomes his digital home - he will never have to wait in queues, but he can never change his home (without a transfer service, which could still be an option I guess). This is is to encourage the player to stay and develop relations with the other players who are also "marooned on server island." The registered user cap should be equal to the maximum amount of people you can have on the server simultaneously - or if you're a talented designer, that cap should be based on how many people your game's content can please.

I can imagine that the game world would need to be designed in a specifically non-linear way (or with a very very large progression curve), as if you have "level 1 content", nobody will ever use it after the last player in the server starts leveling his toon.

This is like reserving a spot at a restaurant in a way... like the owner starts to take a liking to his more loyal customers and schedules those patrons during their favorite / most convenient times. Oh well, everyone else will just have to visit a parallel universe to get a seat at a convenient time.

This idea (apart from the parallel universe quip) is something I got mostly from real life from various places. But I suppose it's worth mentioning that this system could also help with the socializing problem: people really only make good connections to other people they see often enough to bother with. So if the population is consistent, then you'll have less antisocial behavior and more cooperation. it's kind of a happy side-effect of the "don't be fast food" motive.

But really, why do players want their friends to join the server they're on? I think it's because their friends are consistent... why shouldn't we make an environment condusive to building relationships with strangers instead? If you want the ultimate immersion, build a world that works more like what people know and understand: consistency.

Oops, bit of a tangent there, but I'm sorry that's how my mind works. I write what I think and organize it later because I'm the sort that never thinks about what he says before saying it.

Originally posted by paulscott

It's pretty obvious why developers want to encourage grouping as much as possible.   By having grouping mechanics you're encouraging people people to play together, which encourages them to make a few friends. 

Except that they don't.  If developers wanted to encourage grouping so much, then why do they throw so many obstacles in the way so that even people who are inclined to group cannot or decide that jumping through the silly hoops to do so is enough hassle that they won't bother?  "Sure you can group if you schedule your life around the game" and "sure you can group if you spend the first half hour of every play session trying to assemble a group" are not ways to encourage grouping.

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Originally posted by Quizzical

Except that they don't. If developers wanted to encourage grouping so much, then why do they throw so many obstacles in the way so that even people who are inclined to group cannot or decide that jumping through the silly hoops to do so is enough hassle that they won't bother?

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IMO its that the developers get ahead of themselves. Grouping itself isn't the end goal, its just one of the methods for building a community. Those obstacles are there to drive people into guilds. Its not a terrible strategy, but the lack of casual group content everyone wants to do the whole way through is a major over sight.
Most games lack casual group content as I would define it. That is there is a lack of content that cannot be soloed (summon mechanics or such) but can be easily handled by a few players regardless of class and build. Such encounters should also be quick (<1 hr including travel time) and in some way never go obsolete. An example of this would be: take this item to a distant alter, use it to summon the demon and defeat it. This could only be done once on your character, but helping others (after you've turned in the quest) with it would grant you an item you could turn in for good gear (think badges from WoW).
The idea here is to create a social environment around a quest (or several such quests). People who have done the quest will always want to do it for the easy progression, actually seeking out people who can take that quest. Sure it would start with in guild, but pretty quickly it would be an outreach/mentoring activity.

Okay Quiz, questions for you:

Do you schedule time to hang out with friends?

If no, I feel sorry for you.

If yes, then why is it such a terrible idea to have to make time for a game you have friends in?

Scheduling: RL friends yes, Online friends no.

___Auto grouping mechanics___

All players withing the same area are automatically grouped, they share experiance they have quick options for ally targets. This goes for anywhere in the world, you also have supporting mechanics like NPCs droping loot for everyone and similar(IE one person gathering doesn't make the mob useless to everyone else).

Mini game group assignment. You enter a minigame(capture the flag, survive the waves) and groups are generated automatically and content adjusts.

What are the views on these?

_____

The first one could work in "some games"  IE staged shooters(WWII type thing)

The second thing is proven to work pretty well and that MMO players don't mind them in runescape.

Friends are friends. Playmates are another thing.

I try to spend as much time with my RL and online friends as I responsibly can, so I schedule time for them. But the people who aren't really "friends" (but are still friendly) I call playmates. Playmates are the ones you don't schedule anything about - they're practically strangers. Think about RL sports teams: one or two teammates might be your friends, but everyone else is a playmate (you have their phone numbers and emails, but you never call and vice versa).

How about a game that lets you make friends instead of just playmates?

inb4 Playboy references.

Auto / loose grouping is something I've been talking about (luckily, it's all hidden within the massive walls of text I create that nobody reads, so my secret ideas are safe!!!). I've been complaining about "why MMORPGs don't take a page from the Battlefield series" for ages now. At least SOMEbody is finally getting the same ideas... even if it is just a coincidence.

Mini-game group assignments already happen in MMORPGs where mini-games are present. WAR has an automatic teaming system for their battlegruonds, for example.

They work fine in their contexts. The one I'm fiddling around with the most is the auto / loose grouping system. Take the inconvenience out of grouping and group management and you'll have a more group-friendly game.

Originally posted by paulscott

Scheduling: RL friends yes, Online friends no.

___Auto grouping mechanics___

All players withing the same area are automatically grouped, they share experiance they have quick options for ally targets. This goes for anywhere in the world, you also have supporting mechanics like NPCs droping loot for everyone and similar(IE one person gathering doesn't make the mob useless to everyone else).

Mini game group assignment. You enter a minigame(capture the flag, survive the waves) and groups are generated automatically and content adjusts.

What are the views on these?

_____

The first one could work in "some games"  IE staged shooters(WWII type thing)

The second thing is proven to work pretty well and that MMO players don't mind them in runescape.

I like the idea of the autogrouping but I'd rather have a xp bonus instead of splitting xp between local players.

Some questions you may need to consider would be:

At what point of number of players would xp get worse?

How do you keep players from leeching?

 How large of an area are players grouped?

How many players can be in a group? up to 24?

I think this would promote having only a handful of group grinding spots and wouldn't neccessarily get people to socialize.

Minigame group assigments are pleasant and a good change of pace which have worked well in some games but I believe there needs to be some sort of limitation to keep them from being the only thing played.

While reading this post I came up with an idea that I thought would be really cool and something I don't think has been done before. I was thinking you have mobs that roam and harvest nodes. Why not have mobs react to these nodes in different ways. Like when the Cackling Gremlin gets low on health he runs to the nearest Pumpkin Patch node to get a large HP heal. Or the Troll runs over to a harvestable Stone Pile and uses it to throw some rocks at you that are seriously painful. Or the Energized Lightning Elementic only stays within range of 3 Crystaline and in order to kill the Energized Lightning Elementic you must either harvest the nodes (while fighting it with others) or destroy them in order to turn the monster into rubble.