Hi, folks. Been a while since I've been here (I was active early on, but have mostly left you all to it for quite a while!) how are you all?
I have been pretty active in the Battlefield 1 game and forums (I'm mostly about MMORPGs, but have always had a soft spot for BF since 1942 (the version, not the year)) and learned how to do the YouTube thing so I could make guides for the community.
EA/DICE did a pretty good job at connecting with established YouTubers to get some user-manual-like material out there, but it was very basic and not too well organised - hidden away such that people still don't know it's there.
So, the though I had (that has brought me back to the forums) is: are VR planning to produce any kind of 'training' materials?
I loved it when games, especially the big RPGs, used to come with lovely glossy manuals, but that's a tad old-fashioned I guess.
I know they are expecting a Wiki to flesh out, but are they planning any coordinated 'official' guides? Often Wikis are too technical or give spoilers when all you really wanted was a good basic grounding in 'how to play' issues.
I'm not offering my services - I'm no polished pro - but I felt they really missed a trick with BF1. You met so many players with high level soldiers who still clearly didn't know some very basic stuff and everyone would gain if there was some kind of well organised and advertised and accessible video boot camp for new players.
I absolutely intend to be YouTubing my backside off when Pantheon is playable (and NDAs are lifted!) but, as with BF1, I really believe VR would be missing a trick if they didn't make some basic how-to guides or at least an online manual type thing.
Sorry if I've missed an existing topic - I had a bit of a search, but it's tricky to use without coming up with 10,000 hits to look through.
We don't really support "guides" so to speak, anything that tells you how to do something or what to do takes away from the adventuring, discovery and working it out yourself, we know there will be guides put up online, we can't and won't stop that but we won't encourage it or assist them in any way.
We will have a brief in-game "tutorial" if you can call it that, that will go over the basics when you log in at level 1 for the first time, other than that, the whole point of our MMORPG is to work it out or cooperate with others to help work things out, so it is unlikely we will ever have a "guide" for anything other than some explanations of critical systems, mechanics and features that help give people the tools to work it out themselves. :)
Kilsin said:some explanations of critical systems, mechanics and features that help give people the tools to work it out themselves. :)
Well, that's kinda the stuff I meant. No spoilers, just explanations of how things work. For example, in my guides for Battlefield (though a completely different kind of game) I prefer to steer away from telling people "this is the best weapon" and more "This is how weapon accuracy, recoil, etc works. These weapon variants have these underlying properies" so that people can work out for themselves what weapons they should use for what situation and playstyle.
I absolutely don't want to spoil the fun of discovery or hand hard-won info to people on a plate, but game mechanics and "how to craft" and "how to use the auction house" might be nice - there are always either complex or simply tricky things to understand.
Like the instruction manual for your car. It doesn't teach you how to drive or tell you where to go, but it's a good idea to know how to inflate a tyre or top up the oil and what that weird red light that keeps coming on means...
What Kilsin said is fine in terms of things like walkthroughs but it is still useful to start off with some knowledge of the system.
I still remember how FFXIV had such a terrible explanation of what abilities the classes had that I created a healer by mistake certain from their description that it was a dps class. Worked out quite well - much shorter queues and to say that game had an excessive emphasis on queueing for dungeons is an understatement.
Thus an official "guide" might say these are the classes and this is the general emphasis of each class. As in tank, melee dps, ranged dps, healing, crowd control etc. These are the races and this is where each race starts. These are the manufacturing crafts and these are the harvesting crafts that support them. A group in Pantheon is up to X characters and you can start a group by ((targeting another character and typing /ginvite or clicking on a menu or whatever the system will be)). A guild can be formed by going to .....and doing ..... That kind of guide which may be what the OP had in mind and is in no way inconsistent with anything Kilsin said.
I am quite confortable playing around for hours with each class and each race for quite a few hours and not even trying to get to level 2 for days. But many people prefer to jump right in and giving an idea of what the classes do for example is pretty basic and in no way a spoiler. Some will be obvious from the names but not every player will have an extensive MMO background and not all will be obvious even to veteran players unless they did research into the game.
disposalist said:Kilsin said:some explanations of critical systems, mechanics and features that help give people the tools to work it out themselves. :)Well, that's kinda the stuff I meant. No spoilers, just explanations of how things work. For example, in my guides for Battlefield (though a completely different kind of game) I prefer to steer away from telling people "this is the best weapon" and more "This is how weapon accuracy, recoil, etc works. These weapon variants have these underlying properies" so that people can work out for themselves what weapons they should use for what situation and playstyle.
I absolutely don't want to spoil the fun of discovery or hand hard-won info to people on a plate, but game mechanics and "how to craft" and "how to use the auction house" might be nice - there are always either complex or simply tricky things to understand.
Like the instruction manual for your car. It doesn't teach you how to drive or tell you where to go, but it's a good idea to know how to inflate a tyre or top up the oil and what that weird red light that keeps coming on means...
Well, that is exactly what the Wiki, FAQ, our official sites and fan sites are for my friend! :)
Plus there will be a lot of people that will be making videos and streaming our game once it launches and I can guarantee you that there will be tons of guides, walkthroughs, top 10's and let's plays etc. to cover any questions or interests that people may have.
Liav said:I've yet to see webpages integrated into a video game UI in a way that wasn't extremely laggy, buggy, or otherwise awful to use. Multimonitor setups are basically standard now, it seems unnecessary. Even if they aren't, alt-tab isn't a big deal.
It's been quite some time since I played, but i think The Secret World included one that wasn't a pain to use or laggy/slow.
... I think.
Kilsin said:disposalist said:Kilsin said:some explanations of critical systems, mechanics and features that help give people the tools to work it out themselves. :)Well, that's kinda the stuff I meant. No spoilers, just explanations of how things work. For example, in my guides for Battlefield (though a completely different kind of game) I prefer to steer away from telling people "this is the best weapon" and more "This is how weapon accuracy, recoil, etc works. These weapon variants have these underlying properies" so that people can work out for themselves what weapons they should use for what situation and playstyle.
I absolutely don't want to spoil the fun of discovery or hand hard-won info to people on a plate, but game mechanics and "how to craft" and "how to use the auction house" might be nice - there are always either complex or simply tricky things to understand.
Like the instruction manual for your car. It doesn't teach you how to drive or tell you where to go, but it's a good idea to know how to inflate a tyre or top up the oil and what that weird red light that keeps coming on means...
Well, that is exactly what the Wiki, FAQ, our official sites and fan sites are for my friend! :)
Plus there will be a lot of people that will be making videos and streaming our game once it launches and I can guarantee you that there will be tons of guides, walkthroughs, top 10's and let's plays etc. to cover any questions or interests that people may have.
I don't doubt there will be lot's of info. If it's anything like other recent games, too much. In some ways it makes it more difficult for someone new to get just the basic grounding they need. It's like someone wanting to learn to drive and having everything from "how to build your own car" to "what is three dimensional space" put in from of them. Or wanting to know if a film that is showing at the cinema might be something they'd enjoy seeing and being given everything from cast biographies to in-depth analysis with spoilers.
I'm maybe not being clear. I know there will be a mass of info shortly after release. What I have found with Battlefield 1 and with other games with complex underlying mechanics is people just don't come across the right level of information at the right time to be useful. Some people don't ever look for Wikis or YouTubers and they will simply become disenchanted with a game experience that with a little more understanding they might have loved. Some people *do* look for those Wikis and YouTubers and end up watching walk-throughs and downloading maps and mods that they don't need and will spoil the game.
Unless Pantheon is looking to draw it's audience solely from RPG veterans, I'm just suggesting some modern equivalent to the old-fashioned game manuals would be a good idea, presented up-front and center for new players.
I found the Boot Camp videos for Battlefield in case anyone is interesting what I'm waffling on about ;) I had to search for them again, even though I've looked a couple of times before, which is kind of my point. I should be able to find them in the game main menu and there should be incentive to go through them. Everyone benefits from new players quickly being at least 'capable'.
https://www.battlefield.com/games/battlefield-1/tips
Sunmistress said: Will we be able to pull up the Wiki/official sites within the UI?
Personally I don't want to have to go to Wikis for my info. The devs are the best people to give out useful info for game mechanics and whatever without giving spoilers. For me Wikis are where I go as a last resort when I'm stuck and not being able to progress is already spoiling the experience for me, so I may as well.
I totally understand, however, if VR want Pantheon to be something people have to work out for themselves. For most of the people that played Everquest, that sense of mystery and discover was part of the joy, I'm sure. We live in a different world now, though, and whilst I am so so glad that VR is targetting a niche audience of people like me, I'm also sure that just a little effort in the modern training tools department would go a long way toward encouraging and not losing those new to the classic MMORPG feel without spoiling things for everyone else.
I don't know what kind of instruction manual is expected.
Everyone knows how to use a mouse and a keyboard, and if they don't, they have a lot to learn before a video game would even approach being practical to them. Keybindings are generally available in the in-game menus. Terminology used in video games hasn't changed much over the past two decades. Mob, camp, raid, CC, etc.
You're either writing a huge book that contains an exhaustive amount of information on the likely plethora of game mechanics, or you're writing a minimalistic book full of common sense that anyone who has touched an MMO in the past two decades is already familiar with.
Speaking of modernization, I somehow doubt Pantheon will be in brick and mortar stores, or if it is it will be pretty short lived. Digital distribution is the go-to for MMOs, aside from some collector's editions of games. Unless it's something you can purchase independently through an online store and have it shipped, it seems prohibitive to include it for every single person who purchases the game, including digital copies, in which case only a small fraction of your players will have access to it.
In addition, the epitome of modernized information is through a webpage. I don't really get the opposition to a wiki. A wiki page with minimal information is the same as a physical book with minimal information. Similarly, a book full of spoilers is the same as a webpage full of spoilers.
disposalist said:Sunmistress said: Will we be able to pull up the Wiki/official sites within the UI?Personally I don't want to have to go to Wikis for my info. The devs are the best people to give out useful info for game mechanics and whatever without giving spoilers. For me Wikis are where I go as a last resort when I'm stuck and not being able to progress is already spoiling the experience for me, so I may as well.
I totally understand, however, if VR want Pantheon to be something people have to work out for themselves. For most of the people that played Everquest, that sense of mystery and discover was part of the joy, I'm sure. We live in a different world now, though, and whilst I am so so glad that VR is targetting a niche audience of people like me, I'm also sure that just a little effort in the modern training tools department would go a long way toward encouraging and not losing those new to the classic MMORPG feel without spoiling things for everyone else.
Honestly I am with you on WIKIS
I had a love/hate relationship with mechanics in EQ there was so much false information that circulated because of the "mystery" behind how mechanics worked.
When you are trying to get the absolute max out of your character basing decisions off tribal knowledge is a rough ride.
Having a basic mechanic explanation available "this is how accuracy works, this is what affects it" etc available through some official means so I can make informed decisions will save me thousands of hours of parsing and messing around.
That's time I can spend doing stuff I'd rather be doing. Like smashing orc faces in and pulling dragon tails.
Sunmistress said:disposalist said:Sunmistress said: Will we be able to pull up the Wiki/official sites within the UI?Personally I don't want to have to go to Wikis for my info. The devs are the best people to give out useful info for game mechanics and whatever without giving spoilers. For me Wikis are where I go as a last resort when I'm stuck and not being able to progress is already spoiling the experience for me, so I may as well.
I totally understand, however, if VR want Pantheon to be something people have to work out for themselves. For most of the people that played Everquest, that sense of mystery and discover was part of the joy, I'm sure. We live in a different world now, though, and whilst I am so so glad that VR is targetting a niche audience of people like me, I'm also sure that just a little effort in the modern training tools department would go a long way toward encouraging and not losing those new to the classic MMORPG feel without spoiling things for everyone else.
Honestly I am with you on WIKIS
I had a love/hate relationship with mechanics in EQ there was so much false information that circulated because of the "mystery" behind how mechanics worked.
When you are trying to get the absolute max out of your character basing decisions off tribal knowledge is a rough ride.
Having a basic mechanic explanation available "this is how accuracy works, this is what affects it" etc available through some official means so I can make informed decisions will save me thousands of hours of parsing and messing around.
That's time I can spend doing stuff I'd rather be doing. Like smashing orc faces in and pulling dragon tails.
Stop trying to get the absolute most out of a character and just enjoy the game. Don't worry about the formulas. Play. I applaud any attemot by VR to obscure the formulas they use to keep exactly how combat works and stats effect us a mystery. Gives peope time to actually enjoy the game before elitists ruin it with min/maxing and cookie cutter character progression.
At most all VR should provide is a 2 minute tutorial showing how to move, target, and interact with the world. Everything else should be a complete mystery to everyone for as long as possible.
@Kellindil
Don't know why elitists ruin the game with min/maxing for you, one of the best aspects of MMO's for serious players is min/maxing their characters, if you don't want to take part in it or be affected by it avoid playing with "elitists".
But I hope VR keep the exact formulas and numbers hidden from the players. Instead they can have a short description of what each stats does to your characters (i.e. strenght - increases your melee damage..... , Haste - increses your attack speed or cast speed...... , Agility - increases your dodge chance...... , etc) this streamlines what type of gear is usefull to your character at a first glance, and gives min/maxers a lot of room to theorycraft and speculate what's the best for each class and situation.
kellindil said:Sunmistress said:disposalist said:Sunmistress said: Will we be able to pull up the Wiki/official sites within the UI?Personally I don't want to have to go to Wikis for my info. The devs are the best people to give out useful info for game mechanics and whatever without giving spoilers. For me Wikis are where I go as a last resort when I'm stuck and not being able to progress is already spoiling the experience for me, so I may as well.
I totally understand, however, if VR want Pantheon to be something people have to work out for themselves. For most of the people that played Everquest, that sense of mystery and discover was part of the joy, I'm sure. We live in a different world now, though, and whilst I am so so glad that VR is targetting a niche audience of people like me, I'm also sure that just a little effort in the modern training tools department would go a long way toward encouraging and not losing those new to the classic MMORPG feel without spoiling things for everyone else.
Honestly I am with you on WIKIS
I had a love/hate relationship with mechanics in EQ there was so much false information that circulated because of the "mystery" behind how mechanics worked.
When you are trying to get the absolute max out of your character basing decisions off tribal knowledge is a rough ride.
Having a basic mechanic explanation available "this is how accuracy works, this is what affects it" etc available through some official means so I can make informed decisions will save me thousands of hours of parsing and messing around.
That's time I can spend doing stuff I'd rather be doing. Like smashing orc faces in and pulling dragon tails.
Stop trying to get the absolute most out of a character and just enjoy the game. Don't worry about the formulas. Play. I applaud any attemot by VR to obscure the formulas they use to keep exactly how combat works and stats effect us a mystery. Gives peope time to actually enjoy the game before elitists ruin it with min/maxing and cookie cutter character progression.
At most all VR should provide is a 2 minute tutorial showing how to move, target, and interact with the world. Everything else should be a complete mystery to everyone for as long as possible.
I am going to respectfully disagree. How I choose to play the game within the ruleset really isn't any of your concern. Transparency mechanics wise allows you to make informed choices, if you choose not to that does not affect me.
Sorry, that was meant to be more sarcastic than me literally telling him to stop.
The whole idea of min/maxing is a sore spot for me. I absolutely hate it. The outcome of it has always been a narrowing of gameplay. Always there is that one setup that is "the best" and if you don't adhere to "the best" setup you are excluded. This will usually cause people to end up having to play a certain playstyle they do not like, which just ruins then entire experience.
This is why I say "stop doing that" because I honestly feel it cheapens the experience of the game and the overall objective. To have fun exploring the world with friends, not to be "the best".
To each their own and all. I think VR kinda shares the view on min/maxing (that they don't want all the information to be easily obtained) so I am hoping that this will not be too big an issue for a while. I know VR won't actively stop people from theory crafting or posting these theories online or anything like that, and I am not saying that they share my view on the act ruining the game. It just sounds to me like they want to keep the mystery to the game as long as possible, which I applaud. I hope that figuring out the formula is as hard as humanly possible and the game is quite old before the cookie cutter character templates start showing up and BiS gear lists get posted.
It's impossible.
Look at it this way. The way we choose to equip ourselves for a task in real life is the absolute best we can expect in terms of equipment selection, and it's a lot less variable than what video games have to offer.
Two professional climbers who are about to take on Everest will likely be equipped almost identically, maybe with some minor preferences in branding. In terms of utility, what they will be carrying is identical. Insulated clothing, boots, rations, hydration, etc. This is the endgame of real life when it comes to equipping yourself for a given task, and it's what separates professionals from casuals within a hobby. The main difference with real life is that things aren't necessarily as objectively measurable as they are in video games due to the open ended nature of reality.
In a "virtual world", you're operating within a very strict set of operations compared to reality. Even with abilities like levitate and shooting fireballs out of your hands, the world is very finite compared to the practically infinite universe we inhabit outside of Pantheon.
The point I'm getting at is that number-based stat systems in video games are there for practical purposes. Equipment is a practical way to simulate progression in a virtual world. Using numbers is the most obvious way to structure that progression. The downfall of such a system is that it is easily defeated by anyone with enough patience to run some tests.
At best, you can just choose to ignore this information. However cryptic VR tries to make it, though, a calculator on your desk, a stopwatch, and a piece of paper is more than enough. In most cases, the effectiveness of the various bits of equipment available will be very self-evident in their effectiveness. You can feel when you're not taking as much damage by just watching your HP not rubberband quite as much. You can tell when a mob dies faster than the previous one, and getting an objective measurement of this and comparing sets of gear for relative advantages is trivial.
I've always championed transparent stat systems because trying to obfuscate it will only serve to artificially greaten the divide between top tier and lower tier players.
Right, you want the best equipment to climb a mountain. But then you start getting into the details of things like one brand vs another. This type of hook or clamp (i dont climb mountains so) vs another type of hook. You can "feel" one is better than the other. And everyone will have a different opinion. Then you get down to the math and it turns out that brand A is 1% better than brand b and suddenly if you aren't using brand B you aren't allowed to climb the mountain any more. This is just a silly example but this kind of thing is regular practice in elitist guilds and such. You either use the most optimal gear/spec/build/etc or you get excluded.
I'd rather the details be obscured completely and let us "feel" out what we want to do. Of course the details will eventually be laid out for us by some math nut. I still hope VR makes it DAMN hard to get the exact formulas. They did a fairly good job with EQ. It took a pretty long time for the info to get out with solid proof behind it. Maybe that was due to the "newness" of the genre but still, heres hoping.
I feel like you missed the point a little bit, no offense intended.
You don't need to determine the formulas behind things to make an accurate relative comparison between two things. We know that driving a car at 60 xPH gets you to your destination faster than driving 45 xPH, without necessarily knowing all of the physics behind why that is true.
Similarly, no amount of obfuscating the math behind various game mechanics will prevent exclusive parties from finding the optimal path. Instead, it will simply increase the burden on the average player to make intelligent gear choices, and likely make them more likely to refer to third party information sources to guide their choices while they remain ignorant of why the choice they're making is the optimal one.
It's a challenging position for the developers to be in. While you may feel this way, I think heavily obfuscating information would be damaging and counterproductive to the overall health of the game for the aforementioned reasons. If information is too cryptic, it will be the blind following the elite few. Even in games with transparent stat systems, people often don't understand why they're making the choices and instead just appeal to guides to tell them.
In the mountain climbing analogy, I was using it as an example of how undesirable it is in a video game because the choice is illusory at best. You have maybe 3 major competitive brands that all do practically the same thing, which means in video game terms that gear would be homogenized.
Edit: As far as EQ goes, I'm pretty sure people figured out very quickly that stats like Agility are functionally worthless compared to more obvious choices. Every tank stacks AC and HP and they always have since the beginning. Knights have never been able to MT as well as Warriors. Druids can't be main healers in raids. CH rotations practically predate human history. People had EQ pretty well figured out very early on, even if the math wasn't 100% there.
If VR explains how each stat effects your character but "hides" the math behind I can gurantee you there will be a lot more non-optimal (but still good) specs and gear sets flying around, because without a set metric small 1/2% differences are almost unnoticable. The top end will most likely be the same but the rest of the player base won't care or even notice it as much.
