Liav said:Kalok said:So you're ok with a player character class being able to debuff a mob, but not a mob of the same character class being able to debuff players?
Pretty much, yeah. Although I'm specifically talking about dispells, not debuffs. The terms do not mean the same thing.
NPCs can warp through walls to reach players if the terrain does not naturally allow for it. PCs can not do the same to NPCs for obvious reasons. Similarly, NPCs aren't sapient creatures and don't have the capacity to experience the passing of time, nor the ability to experience annoyance and tedium.
NPCs "warping through walls" was a bug and not an intended mechanic, yes, I am well aware of all of the pathing problems with EQ, EQ2, and Vanguard, that doesn't mean that they were necessarily intentional. To be honest, I suspect that some of that was due to the limited physics and AI of the time. I have not seen this happen one time in any of the Youtube videos of Pantheon. They have alwatys had to follow pathing that was logical and consistent with physics. In fact, they have shown just that, with the "go get a friend" AI in the videos. Will that be different from that on "go live"? Beats me, but I doubt it.
Any Mob of any class should be able to perform the exact same skills and spells of the same level player character. Backstabs, dispells, debuffs, you name it. Those skills are defined by the class and level, not by the person playing it.
I mean, NPCs basically have to have means of traversing impassable terrain. NPCs also usually don't take falling damage.
While I agree that Pantheon will have better AI and NPC behavior in general, I somehow doubt they'll be able to behave like a player to prevent several exploitable scenarios.
Mobs in Vanguard broke aggro when your Z axis differed by a certain amount, and it was hilarious how exploitable it was.
Grimix said: Couldn't you silence a mob(not excactly sure where the eq variant would be called) to prevent it from casting dispel? Effectively preventing the mob from casting spells...wouldnt that be a counter measure to dispel? Also, wouldnt there be stunning abilities or paralyze abilities to further tie up the mob, creating counter measures to the spell?
Why yes... Yes there would be. Those mechanics for stopping mobs from casting on you have been around "since hte dawn of time" to coin a phrase.
Grimix said: Couldn't you silence a mob(not excactly sure where the eq variant would be called) to prevent it from casting dispel? Effectively preventing the mob from casting spells...wouldnt that be a counter measure to dispel? Also, wouldnt there be stunning abilities or paralyze abilities to further tie up the mob, creating counter measures to the spell?
He means dispel isnt a debuff, like slow, poison, disease, lower of resistance or defenses something to this nature these types of spells you can counter, by curing it with the right spells, as for dispel you simply lose something without getting it back until the buff is casted on you again, but he also said like like lets say you have a haste spell on you and a npc cast a slow you lose all your haste effect with the adds slow% the spell would give you until the slow is cured than you get your haste back, and such like this becuae you can cure a slow. I'm fine with anything, granted like i said i hate dispels but if they are in the game i will simply deal with it.
Liav said:I mean, NPCs basically have to have means of traversing impassable terrain. NPCs also usually don't take falling damage.
While I agree that Pantheon will have better AI and NPC behavior in general, I somehow doubt they'll be able to behave like a player to prevent several exploitable scenarios.
Mobs in Vanguard broke aggro when your Z axis differed by a certain amount, and it was hilarious how exploitable it was.
So, based on the bugged mechaniocs of a game that came out in 2007 (a decade ago) you're assuming that they will be abler to do that in Pantheon. Will their be pathing bugs? I'm sure of it. Those bugs will get fixed as they are reported. VR has already stated that they will have two separate and distinct teams. One working on existing content (it weouldn't be a stretch to presume that would include break/fix) and one working on new content. Vanguard didn't have that. SoE stripped development resources down to a bare minimum. It wouldn't be difficult at all to force the mobs to follow the same traveling limitations that player characters have to follow. Arguably, it would be easier since they control everything soup to nuts.
Just because mobs may be bugged, at least until they are fixed, is no reason to limit their skills.
Grimix said: Couldn't you silence a mob(not excactly sure where the eq variant would be called) to prevent it from casting dispel? Effectively preventing the mob from casting spells...wouldnt that be a counter measure to dispel? Also, wouldnt there be stunning abilities or paralyze abilities to further tie up the mob, creating counter measures to the spell?
CCing a mob to prevent it from casting is perfectly viable, but it's equally applicable to all spells. The issues with dispell vs. other forms of spells still exists.
Unless you intend to give every class in the game a CC ability that prevents casting, the same downfalls of dispelling still apply. Not unlike coin weight, it's another mechanic I find really dumb that I don't see much independent justification for including. EQ is the only game I've played that puts that much emphasis on dispelling and it's easily one of my least favorite mechanics in the game.
Some people will read that and think it means that I hate all EQ mechanics. I don't know what to tell you in that case.
Nephretiti said:I hope to see penalties other than the standards we have seen in the past in most MMOs. When a person gets hit during a fight they take damage and loose health. We get it. That is core and ideal. Don't mess with that. But I would like to see other penalties apply as well. I think their should be some mobs that not only deal damage, but EXP-drain you too. Say you are fighting a Wraith and he hits you for 100 damage. You take that damage and lose 20% of that hit as a permanant loss to your XP total (in this case, a hit for 100 would be 100 damage and the loss of 20 XP). I would like to see some blob-type creature that hits you for damage and randomly creates areas on your screen that you can not see through (or it is just blurry) for a few seconds. Or in some cases, it becomes permantent until cured by a healer or a specific potion. I would like to see creatures that spit acid at you and it damages your gear. Not all the gear - just a random piece. Make it so that it can be countered for a short time (ie, whipe the acid off your shield before it damages it). I would like to see a LOT more dispels from the caster mobs.
What kind of penalties would YOU like to see?
Sounds like good ideas to ensure that no one decides to play a tank ever, and without a tanks you might as well not have a game. As most of the content is going to have a huge focus of interdependency between various group roles.
It seems to me that many oif you are focusing only only the tank - mostly because the tank taunts and is (usually) the target of most, if not all, attacks. I suppose my thinking was that this is not true at all. If you take your group up against an encounter - say in the tower somewhere - and the encounter consists of a group of mobs themselves, would it not make sense that one of the mages in the mob encounter would realize that the finger waggler in the back is a mage and would make an attempt of his own to SILENCE him? The rogue in the encounter would realize that the healer in your group is preventing any real advance against the tank and try to get a backstab on your cleric. No? So, these "penalties" was perhaps a poor word to use. I wanted to see something more than just damage. That rogue, for instance, should have a poison on his blade. Let's randomize that poison - maybe it does additional damage. But maybe it has a neuro-toxin that stuns it's target for about 9 seconds. Or maybe it affects eyesight. I really would like to see a more intelligent mob hit me with this. I fully expect that for almost everything out there (ie damage types) there is a counter. I bet my Cleric can overcome the additional damage from his poison. I bet him, or the druid, or even the ranger would have a quick counter for contact poisons that affect vision (think ready-to-go poultices). Armor damages could easily be removed by field repairs from the armorer in the group - or by armor patch kits you bought the last time you were in town. Most of the nay-sayers in this thread are confusing to me at best. You seem to think that only the tank will be damaged and that the damage type is permanent. Most of the things I mentioned are already in-game in EQ, EQ2, WoW, SWtOR, and many others. You probably just didn't realize it. The kinds of answers I was hoping to see was different. I wanted detailed efforts at what say, elemental damages could do. Four main elemental types: Fire, Water, Earth, Air. Fire equalsa a direct damage type. Water could be any kind of water-based damage in any water form, water, ice etc. Earth - think of magical launched boulders. Air? Think of some sort of concussion that would actually force movement in the target - including up and down (GravFlux). Now we can even combine attacks. Fire and Water would be steam. Causing less damage than pure fire, but it would also affect the vision of the target. Firee and Air would be HEATWAVE - again, less damage than pure fire, but it comes with a STA drain (trust me, living in the desert all my life THATS what fire air does!). FIre and Earth? Sounds like lava to me. Does damage but it would also damage your armor - at least until you get it off. Plenty of combos out there and that is only with elemental damage. Other damage types would be Nature (think root, lightening, etc.), Spiritual (Smite, Soul Drain, etc.), I would even call poisons it's own dmaage type. I beleive that every damage that we can throw at them - then they should be able to throw at us. Not everything from one mob - but globally speaking, if the players can do it - then the mobs should be able to do it to us.
Most of the threat-related things you're mentioning here were most certainly not in EQ or EQ2, at the very least. In EQ2 mobs would memblur and target other people, but they could be snapped right back to the tank with a positional threat ability. EQ and EQ2 mobs were (and are) extremely dumb, barring very few very unique circumstances. What you're describing here sounds like what EQNext was trying to do. Going beyond a traditional threat system to a more dynamic one. However, this violates the defined class roles in Pantheon (which EQNext attempted to cast aside).
Elemental spell types having unique effects, I mean, sure, but I wouldn't say that's groundbreaking considering all of the effects you're describing already exist in several titles, just not contingent on a given elemental type.
Grimix said: Couldn't you silence a mob(not excactly sure where the eq variant would be called) to prevent it from casting dispel? Effectively preventing the mob from casting spells...wouldnt that be a counter measure to dispel? Also, wouldnt there be stunning abilities or paralyze abilities to further tie up the mob, creating counter measures to the spell?
Stun spells work on caster/healer mobs ..EQ wizzies had a couple of those. First mob you do that to ..is caster healer mob, they can be quite annoying if you don't. :)
Cana
In EQ2 near the tower in Zek, there is an entrence to a zone opened a long time ago. The raid boss there does damage to your armor every time you get hit. He can render you armorless pretty quick sometimes. This is not the only thing liek this. Sometimes you have to go looking in many different titles, but they are there.
The elemental damages were just an example of what we could do with just one damage type. You can come up with a lot of possibilities with every type and I hope I see them. Not just on my UI, but from the mobs too.
Illies in EQ2 could do a lot of things to caster mobs that were pretty cool. We could stun mobs, we could mezz them, yes - we could silence them. In fact, most classes had a means of silencing mobs to prevent casting. Illies could and did drain mobs of their power. At first we copuld drain a mob till he was empty. Eventually they changed the way things worked so that we couldnt prevent mobs from doing anything.
I am all for Exp loss Make Death HURT, im even okay with Losing a level if you lose to much Exp, but some dont like that so i would be okay with Exp debt where you would otherwise have lost a level.
I want Death to mean something again, Something to be avoided at all costs.
In a lot of modern mmos people dont care about death, they use it as a tactic to beat mobs, rather than figure out what they are doing wrong and thus beoming a better player, they just Keep attacking mobs mindlessly until they kill it, ive seen this countless times, outdoor world bosses Especially everyone just shouts ZERG IT RUN BACK FAST KEEP ATTACKING IT!!! people also use Death as a mode of transport when they cant be bothered to run back, they just remove their gear get killed and rez at the grave yard because death means Nothing, its only a few gold which you can make back very quickly from doing 1 or 2 dailys or killing a few mobs.
IMHO I think the Lack of a meaningfull and painfull Death has made gamers for the most part quite lazy, because death basicly means nothing, there is no risk, you just run back get your corpse and away you go like nothing happened.. where there is no risk there is no adrenalin rush, there is no sence of accomplihment when you get through an area you shouldnt be in or kill a really hard mob or get away from that giant, griffon, inky guard Etc that was chasing you! people dont bother to use their brains and try and improve, they just continually die, res attack until they succeed because there really is no reason to do otherwise since there is no penalty.
I remember many a time in Eq dieing to some mob and then thinking Okay why couldnt i kill it, and it really annoyed me until i could figure out how to kill it, sometimes it was simply a matter of changing weapons to a blunt weapon or magic weapon, or chaging spells. I remember the feeling of excitment, the adrenalin rush, my heart thumping and sweaty palms each time i tried again to kill that mob, Will i kill it THIS time or am i going to lose more Exp? i remember punching the air and shoulting YES YES YES when i finally figured it out and killed it and then the feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, and then my sister coming into my room and thinking i had gone Mad LOL
So yes i think Death penalty HAS to hurt, Exp loss with either level loss or exp debt where a level would have been lost to be determinded by the devs, i prefer level loss to be honest not because i like pain LOL but because it really stings and you do everything you can to avoid death.
Tiberius said:I am all for Exp loss Make Death HURT, im even okay with Losing a level if you lose to much Exp, but some dont like that so i would be okay with Exp debt where you would otherwise have lost a level.
I want Death to mean something again, Something to be avoided at all costs.
In a lot of modern mmos people dont care about death, they use it as a tactic to beat mobs, rather than figure out what they are doing wrong and thus beoming a better player, they just Keep attacking mobs mindlessly until they kill it, ive seen this countless times, outdoor world bosses Especially everyone just shouts ZERG IT RUN BACK FAST KEEP ATTACKING IT!!! people also use Death as a mode of transport when they cant be bothered to run back, they just remove their gear get killed and rez at the grave yard because death means Nothing, its only a few gold which you can make back very quickly from doing 1 or 2 dailys or killing a few mobs.
IMHO I think the Lack of a meaningfull and painfull Death has made gamers for the most part quite lazy, because death basicly means nothing, there is no risk, you just run back get your corpse and away you go like nothing happened.. where there is no risk there is no adrenalin rush, there is no sence of accomplihment when you get through an area you shouldnt be in or kill a really hard mob or get away from that giant, griffon, inky guard Etc that was chasing you! people dont bother to use their brains and try and improve, they just continually die, res attack until they succeed because there really is no reason to do otherwise since there is no penalty.
I remember many a time in Eq dieing to some mob and then thinking Okay why couldnt i kill it, and it really annoyed me until i could figure out how to kill it, sometimes it was simply a matter of changing weapons to a blunt weapon or magic weapon, or chaging spells. I remember the feeling of excitment, the adrenalin rush, my heart thumping and sweaty palms each time i tried again to kill that mob, Will i kill it THIS time or am i going to lose more Exp? i remember punching the air and shoulting YES YES YES when i finally figured it out and killed it and then the feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, and then my sister coming into my room and thinking i had gone Mad LOL
So yes i think Death penalty HAS to hurt, Exp loss with either level loss or exp debt where a level would have been lost to be determinded by the devs, i prefer level loss to be honest not because i like pain LOL but because it really stings and you do everything you can to avoid death.
Good post, but wrong thread, we are talking nothing about death penalties but debuffs, dispels, and such that the mob can do to you, but other than that i am fine with exp loss with a possibilty of los of level.
To be fair the title just says Penaltys, and Exp loss and Exp debt Are Penaltys and are as far as i am conserned the only ones we need.
Not bothering to learn their class = Death = Exp loss which would punnish them harsh enough that they would think Okay maybe i should Learn my class.
same with not paying attention Etc etc Same result, same lesson Learned.
I dont think we need Extra penaltys if we are doing everything right, Let Death be harsh, it will be penalty enough.
A Harsh death penalty is a Swift Teacher!! :)
Liav said:I disagree that mechanics are to be "endured" as opposed to "enjoyed". Outplaying mechanics brings plenty of enjoyment. If we didn't enjoy overcoming obstacles, these games would be pointless to play.
For instance, rampage is a mechanic in EQ. If you handle it incorrectly, people die. If you set rampage properly and keep your ramp tank alive, you've outplayed the mechanic. If a mob debuffs you, you can cure it (usually). If you're doing PvP and you know your enemy can stun you, you can use a potion to make you immune to stuns.
These are just examples of mechanics with counterplay that reward you for overcoming them. Mechanics that are designed to simply waste time (dispells) or require death (DTs) are just awful design, though. It won't make or break the game for me, but I'd rather not see these mechanics ever again.
I think you may be splitting hairs to some extent based upon what you subjectively class as a "mechanic to overcome" and a "mechanic that is a waste of time" based (I would guess) on which ones you do and don't like in regard to how they play out within the context of an encounter. Because in the end, if you diligently dealt with the dispels, or if you planned accordingly for the DT and dealt with it... and you won the fight... then you overcame the mechanic, won the fight, and got all of the rewards that came from doing it.
I get that the way you dealt with dispels was clunky at best (and that I'm being generous when I say that), but I don't think that makes things like dispels by NPC's bad - especially since I'm one of those who is in the "more varied types of things you have to overcome, the better" camp.
I personally would welcome such mechanics, with a better way implemented for players to deal with them than keeping a clickie in my inventory to put junk buffs up that will get debuffed first or whatever.
id like to see things like charm, mez, fear, blind, stun, root, snare Etc but have them have deminishing returns so that eventually they no longer work. dont want an Npc to be able to do these things indefinatly that would really suck, But then the same goes for player characters too.
There is nothing worse IMHO than if your in pvp being perma stunned Etc or someone charming or mezing a mob endlessly, it breaks they just recast it over and over and over, ive been in groups at a camp spot for hours and then some A hole comes along and charms or Mezes one of our mobs to steal it, they just kept it mezed or charmed for what seemed like forever, Long enough for the group to get annoyed enough to say screw it just them them have it so we can get the respawn.
So yeah have all those things but Deminishing returns.
I dont think Mobs being able to Leach our Exp would be a good idea, unless the potential reward was totally insain and more than worth it, why would people even bother risk going near those mobs?
I HATED being dispelled and debuffed, but at the same time it also made paying attention and interupting more important.
Few things are more annoying to a player than dying after a fight where you are stunned/mezzed/charmed/rooted/disarmed or otherwise impaired to the point where you can't use your abilities for much of the fight.
Granted it is *fair* - we have no complaints winning a fight when that is exactly what we do to the mobs. But a fair game filled with very annoyed players isn't what we want Pantheon to be.
Wandidar said:Liav said:I disagree that mechanics are to be "endured" as opposed to "enjoyed". Outplaying mechanics brings plenty of enjoyment. If we didn't enjoy overcoming obstacles, these games would be pointless to play.
For instance, rampage is a mechanic in EQ. If you handle it incorrectly, people die. If you set rampage properly and keep your ramp tank alive, you've outplayed the mechanic. If a mob debuffs you, you can cure it (usually). If you're doing PvP and you know your enemy can stun you, you can use a potion to make you immune to stuns.
These are just examples of mechanics with counterplay that reward you for overcoming them. Mechanics that are designed to simply waste time (dispells) or require death (DTs) are just awful design, though. It won't make or break the game for me, but I'd rather not see these mechanics ever again.
I think you may be splitting hairs to some extent based upon what you subjectively class as a "mechanic to overcome" and a "mechanic that is a waste of time" based (I would guess) on which ones you do and don't like in regard to how they play out within the context of an encounter. Because in the end, if you diligently dealt with the dispels, or if you planned accordingly for the DT and dealt with it... and you won the fight... then you overcame the mechanic, won the fight, and got all of the rewards that came from doing it.
I get that the way you dealt with dispels was clunky at best (and that I'm being generous when I say that), but I don't think that makes things like dispels by NPC's bad - especially since I'm one of those who is in the "more varied types of things you have to overcome, the better" camp.
I personally would welcome such mechanics, with a better way implemented for players to deal with them than keeping a clickie in my inventory to put junk buffs up that will get debuffed first or whatever.
I have dealt with random dispels in other games and it was never an issue as described on this thread. Unfortunately, most of the conversations on this forum lead to "Pantheon is going to be just like EQ" and in this particular scenario, guess which game had the crappy counterplay option? If Pantheon is going to be just like EQ, as some people have suggested, then I agree with Liav and hope not to see this particular mechanic return. If we can think outside the box and understand that VR is actually evolving the genre rather than repainting a 20 year old car, we can easily get past these hurdles and explore improvements or upgrades. It's the incessant shoving of "EQ exactly like it was in 2001, nothing else matters!" down our throats that leads to people getting hung up on irrelevant details. Thankfully, as Brad pointed out in one of his blogs ... Pantheon is NOT an EQ emulator, nor is it being designed soley for the "oldschool" players. Fresh take, new ideas, new concepts, improved implementation, quality of life is important, let's bring in new players and focus on finding ways to keep them.
*Edit: Here is a link to the blog I referenced. It's a really good read: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/blogs/151/176/pantheon-new-features-and-new-players
Another thing:
The more different types of mechanics are removed from encounters, the more predictable and less varied encounters may become. Without becoming overly dramatic, the more that happens, the more the potential for over scripting rises because you need to give players somethng to contend with. I'm not sure we all want to end up learning the script dance for every fight.
I think my preference would be mobs having more or less the same set of abilities as players with, perhaps, greater chances to use some of those abilities than others... but with the chance to use all of them. Does that mean there would never be scripting? Probably not - but if there is scripting, I would prefer it to be sort of a loose scripting. Like maybe you know that you will need to contend with certain things every time you do an encounter against some mob or other, but you don't know everything you will have to contend with.
I would prefer to never feel like I'm square dancing in an encounter... Circle to the left, circle to the right, grab your partner and do-ce-do!
Oh I don't think this will be an EQ clone. That was one of the purposes to this thread - what do we want, what can we hope for etc. That includes a list of what we don't want.
Personally, I want it all. I want to be dispelled - I recall having to stack buffs for the AoE dispel. Not all mobs would dispel - in fact almost no mob actually dispelled. In a lot of cases the mob would perform some kind of emote that would indicate that the dispel was incoming in 3, 2, 1... etc giving the Enchanter a short time to counter it before it actually fired off. This can easily be done for almost everything. See that goblin over there? Notice he's rubbing two sticks together? He's gonna fire off a fireball in about 5 seconds - better do something about it. This type of activity gives you something to do during a fight rather than just standing there throwing the same damned spell every 35 seconds. I want things that make me PLAY the game rather than sit there pressing hte same keys every time.
EXP draining mobs? Hell yeah. But rarely. I believe in Risk vs Reward so yes - make it worth it. Quest completion type mobs, lore items required for crafting, or awesome-drop-sauce, that kind of thing. But every mob in game draining EXP during a fight? No friggen way.
I hope to see mobs that are way slower than we are to use tactics that bring us down to thier level. Like if we fight a treant and we start to kite him, he nails us with a root or snare - thus giving him the chance to hit us.
Dispells? Absolutely. But not from every mob. Let's use some logic here. Wolves should not dispel us. A crazy mage in the Tower? You know that it should. But give us a chance to counter it or stun it long enough to recast buffs etc.
Blinds? Yes! Imagine you are in the top of the tower and suddenly a mage slaps a blind on you - obviously he hopes you walk off the side. It's a three second blind that you cant see anything, but you have a cleric with an itchy trigger finger on his cure and pow - your three second blind lasts less than a second. That's not to say I hope the mage throws blinds out every 5 seconds. There needs to be some sort of timer obviously. And a blind doesn't stop someone from casting - even a blind cleric should be able to AoE cure his group if he is the target of the blind. And a blind Tank should be able to hold his shield a little higher for extra defense for 3 seconds - or the duration of the blind. There are a lot of ways to counter or absorb a spell (not just blind).
Maybe the EXP drain is a curse - if not dispelled in time it will drain you for X amount of Exp. I would love to see your screen go dark grey scale for the duration of that curse timer.
I would rather see these kinds of obstacles to overcome than the nonsense we saw in the Djinn Maste fight in EQ2.
Djinn Master fight in EQ2 was horribly designed. Only a single guild killed it during T6 and even that kill was invalidated due to them using an exploit. It's pretty sad when an encounter is made to be so artificially challenging that it was never legitimately killed from an appropriate level raid.
oneADseven said:Pretty sure deleveling is on the table Neph. If it wasn't, wouldn't the death penalty at max level be decreased? There was a conversation that came up awhile back about this: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5753/spiritual-conversion
I think it's very important that max level players continue to respect their environment. If XP loss is going to be a major component of death, it should continue to apply at max level. If it doesen't, then it should be replaced with something else. Death should never become trivial and that's exactly what has happened in many games that remove the ability to delevel. I like the idea of max level players needing a "buffer" before they set out on a dangerous journey. I would almost look at it like a "daily quest" but not your traditional kind. You would have to continue adventuring/farming responsibly before taking any major risks.
Put a debuff on a max character that actually hurts and cannot be removed. It would need to sting quite a bit. It shouldn't last for hours, but maybe 15 minutes. Just an idea. Deleveling DOES suck.
They could allow buffs to be dispelled in order like it was on P99 (dunno if fixed). That way you can at least bury the most important buffs at the bottom. More powerful dispells will still take off more buffs and you could potentially lose them, but it rewards players for preparation.