Regardless of how things were done in EQ, I have different expectations for Pantheon. No mob or camp belongs to any player or group. (VR can create exceptions to this with force-pop mechanics.) Kill-stealing is not a reportable offense. Players can create whatever social constructs they like but they should never expect everybody to follow them. For every person out there who thinks that a camp "belongs" to them ... there will be another player who is "opportunistic." The way that KS'ing was handled in EQ sounds like a nightmare. It shouldn't be an officially recognized term. Kill Credit is the term the game will recognize. As such, many players will form ideas, tactics, and their own "social constructs" that revolve around that realization. How can the game feature fun/healthy competition if players can't accept that resources can and will be contested? This is why I have stressed the need for sound game mechanics to be implemented. Create rules ... create a system ... but then set players free! Establish whatever guidelines are necessary and let players figure out the rest. Do not create a system where Player A is convinced they are "competing" while Player B feels they are being "stolen from." That will completely destroy any sense of legitimate open world competition and over burden the CS team. This has been done in the past ... right? GM's had to decide if Player A was "intentionally griefing" player B, or if they were "legitimately competing?" How could they determine the intent of the player? Mind-reading?
oneADseven said:No mob or camp belongs to any player or group. (VR can create exceptions to this with force-pop mechanics.) Kill-stealing is not a reportable offense. Players can create whatever social constructs they like but they should never expect everybody to follow them. For every person out there who thinks that a camp "belongs" to them ... there will be another player who is "opportunistic." The way that KS'ing was handled in EQ sounds like a nightmare. It shouldn't be an officially recognized term. Kill Credit is the term the game will recognize. As such, many players will form ideas, tactics, and their own "social constructs" that revolve around that realization. How can the game feature fun/healthy competition if players can't accept that resources can and will be contested? This is why I have stressed the need for sound game mechanics to be implemented. Create rules ... create a system ... but then set players free! Establish whatever guidelines are necessary and let players figure out the rest. Do not create a system where Player A is convinced they are "competing" while Player B feels they are being "stolen from." That will completely destroy any sense of legitimate open world competition and over burden the CS team. This has been done in the past ... right? GM's had to decide if Player A was "intentionally griefing" player B, or if they were "legitimately competing?" How could they determine the intent of the player? Mind-reading?
I agree 100% with your post. I would add that freedom is the most valuable commodity Pantheon has to offer gamers. Just about every game following Everquest has been linear, even the sandbox games in terms of progression.
Pantheon should be free, for people to invent shortcuts, or timesinks, to do as they see fit, a true sandbox MMORPG.
I agree with both Bloodfire and oneADseven.
But we don't need chaos and people engaging in pseudo-pvp on a pve server.
We need some competition but not unlimited and not too cutthroat, at least not generally.
We need it to be self-regulating with GMs bothered only by blatant griefing.
To me this says FTE so there can *be* no stealing of someone else's kill after they have pulled it. Yes this allows a *camp* stealer to come over and tag a mob other people have spawned but even back in the day camp stealing wasn't a violation of the code of conduct and GMs were generally not bothered by it. Not to mention that MDD makes camp stealing even easier if a higher level is doing it.
To me this says encounter locking - once a group pulls an encounter it is theirs. With or without a "wussy" /yell command allowing them to ask for help.
Either of these things or maybe both but not necessarily both.
To me this says no trains or since this won't happen "train immunity". Once someone has been trained, prevent chain training as we presumably will prevent chain stunning by giving the player an immunity for a reasonable period.
I'm curious as to why encounter-locking seems to be a popular idea in this thread, or at least that's my impression. I've stated that I'm vehemently against it, but I'm curious to know why others feel it would be preferable over a tagging system? Is there just a concern that with the simplest tagging system, it likely enables power-leveling/boosting?
I'd also like to point out that to my knowledge, MMOs with encounter-locking combat systems thus far have not been very successful, but correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not pointing at that being a specific reason for games like Vanguard (it had that right? It's been so long since I played, I honestly can't remember clearly) or EQ2 being hamstrung and at worse, ultimately dying, but you have to wonder why it doesn't seem to be a component of most significantly successful MMOs. I feel it chokes the world and infringes quite a bit on immersion knowing that everyone is in their own controlled little environment once they attack a monster.
There's a combination of factors at play, Rokuzachi, regarding the reasons.
Among them are: tagging for quest updates, shared XP, and personal loot. All of those together, like many MMO's have, means you don't care if someone is trying to 'steal' something from you, because, in reality, there is no stealing. If someone helps, you still get XP, you still get your quest flag/update/item, and/or you still get your loot.
Under those conditions, with those mechanics, you don't need to lock the encounter, because the game is entirely co-op. There's no pseudo-PvP-via-PvE mechanism possible.
Rokuzachi said:I'm curious as to why encounter-locking seems to be a popular idea in this thread, or at least that's my impression. I've stated that I'm vehemently against it, but I'm curious to know why others feel it would be preferable over a tagging system? Is there just a concern that with the simplest tagging system, it likely enables power-leveling/boosting?
Risk vs Reward. Challenging Content. Earned Accomplishments. I was just reading the WoW forums and apparently people are absolutely thrilled that you can get quest credit for "multi-tagging" an NPC. Players don't even bother to group up anymore. They are literally talking about how much more convenient the game is now that they don't have to waste time starting groups or talking with other players. They just run around and tag everything they can ... if they see another player doing the same, they converge and AoE everything down. This is perfectly fine in that game because players don't care about the journey. They view leveling as a waste of time. It's just one more way that players ended up getting spoon fed their updates or credit.
Prior to WoW introducing their "multi-tag" system where everybody got quest credit for whatever they touched, they used a traditional tagging system (without encounter locking) -- a lot of players weren't happy with that, either. It wasn't uncommon for someone to snipe a quick tag on a boss (or regular mob) right before another player engaged it. Once players got comfortable with the timing ... it became the ultimate troll tactic. You could tag an NPC with your weakest attack and cause it to "grey out" for the other player ... but since they hit it with a stronger attack right afterward, they would have more aggro. So now they have a mob beating on them that they can get no possible reward from. Players would run around and snipe as many mobs as they could ... training them through other groups (especially if they were using AoE attacks) in order to "mooch" free XP or quest updates.
Encounter locking does create a "controlled environment" in some senses, yes. The reason I appreciate this is because I know that these kind of environments are far more likely to be challenging. The design team can tune/balance content in ways that otherwise aren't possible. It's really that simple. I don't want a world with "no rules" because I know what that leads to. Players have proven time and time again that they will trivialize content if you let them. Whether it's zerging or training through countless mobs with the hope of eventually leashing them, players will circumvent the "intended challenge" whenever possible. Worlds that allow this to happen don't feel dangerous. They don't command respect. They lack depth and intrigue because "success" is usually measured by "gaming the system" rather than "playing the game." I have high expectations for Pantheon and none of them will be realized if the game isn't truly challenging.
vjek said:There's a combination of factors at play, Rokuzachi, regarding the reasons.
Among them are: tagging for quest updates, shared XP, and personal loot. All of those together, like many MMO's have, means you don't care if someone is trying to 'steal' something from you, because, in reality, there is no stealing. If someone helps, you still get XP, you still get your quest flag/update/item, and/or you still get your loot.
Under those conditions, with those mechanics, you don't need to lock the encounter, because the game is entirely co-op. There's no pseudo-PvP-via-PvE mechanism possible.
The last thing I ever want to see in this game is a personal loot system or multi-tagging for XP or quest updates. As soon as that happens ... say goodbye to the game tenets. I understand that some people don't like "competition" in an open-world game and I think that's too bad. Resources are finite. If "Boss Mob / Quest Update X" spawns ... it has purpose, and meaning. There is some sort of challenge directly associated with the accomplishment of beating it or claiming it as a resource. That challenge is tuned and balanced by the design team. Since they design, tune, and balance the encounter ... they also get to decide it's risk factor and then determine the proper reward.
When content is challenging ... and the rewards are properly balanced to reflect that challenge ... playing an MMO can be extremely satisfying. If the challenge isn't balanced or tuned properly then the risk vs reward is skewed. It's almost always neutered. You can't offer anything good when it's accessible to anybody and everybody. This is what leads to the gear treadmill garbage we see in WoW. You don't get your meaningful items or accomplishments. Everybody gets a medal ... and as long as they log on again in a few months, they will get a new one!
Agreeing with 1AD on thoses points. Any loot / lock system creates abuses. Wether it's snipe tagging for first damage done lock, Kill stealing for most damage done lock, or simply lazy tagging for shared encounters.
All the games supporting shared encounters, developped a low socialization and lazy player behaviour, just look at GW2 where people just tag bosses and stay AFK, making the encounter super longish (because mobs are scaling over players engaged in battle with them, without taking in consideration their actual participation in the fight). Even with medals ratings and such, a lot of people just do the minimal for the best rewards then nothing more, because every rule can be abused but the easiest is the one that will be abused the most.
Make people communicate, make them group together for harder fights and coordinate their action to a minimum for any chance of success. The more they are in need of each other, the more they will act like each other is someone and not just a mean to an end.
oneADseven said:Regardless of how things were done in EQ, I have different expectations for Pantheon. No mob or camp belongs to any player or group. (VR can create exceptions to this with force-pop mechanics.) Kill-stealing is not a reportable offense. Players can create whatever social constructs they like but they should never expect everybody to follow them. For every person out there who thinks that a camp "belongs" to them ... there will be another player who is "opportunistic." The way that KS'ing was handled in EQ sounds like a nightmare. It shouldn't be an officially recognized term. Kill Credit is the term the game will recognize. As such, many players will form ideas, tactics, and their own "social constructs" that revolve around that realization. How can the game feature fun/healthy competition if players can't accept that resources can and will be contested? This is why I have stressed the need for sound game mechanics to be implemented. Create rules ... create a system ... but then set players free! Establish whatever guidelines are necessary and let players figure out the rest. Do not create a system where Player A is convinced they are "competing" while Player B feels they are being "stolen from." That will completely destroy any sense of legitimate open world competition and over burden the CS team. This has been done in the past ... right? GM's had to decide if Player A was "intentionally griefing" player B, or if they were "legitimately competing?" How could they determine the intent of the player? Mind-reading?
Your position is not new, in fact there were some during EQ (even at release) who held your EXACT position on this. It didn't work out well for them as anyone being "reasonable" understands that once a camp is broke and held, it is that groups camp until they release it. If you decide to enter that camp and kill a rare after a group has broke it, all you wil end up doing is black listing yourself.
The fact is, most people don't find that to be very "social" in play. Sure, racing to a camp to see who gets there first to break and hold it is one thing, but once it is established, the deal is done. I can't tell you how many times players had poor attitudes, were socially inept and applied similar reasoning who were later whining in the zones because nobody would group with them. People can try it, but it won't work out well.
Edit:
Oh, and EQ 2 had a lot of these types of features and it was one of the many reasons the game tanked on release. You can't force good behavior, all you end up doing is messing over those who aren't the problem.
You're describing a social construct for what people considered reasonable in EQ. Things worked much differently in FFXI. (This is pretty interesting, too, seeing that FFXI servers were mostly comprised of Japanese players. Japanese culture is well known for manners, tradition, honor, etc.) It was officially stated there, just like it has been here, that players don't own content. Camps were not officially recognized. Players not only accepted that competition was going to happen ... they embraced it. The people who complained ... those were the guys who ended up being on a blacklist. They were known as whiners. Softies. Two different worlds and two totally different outcomes. I am not saying either one is right or wrong, I'm only highlighting that if the game is truly going to be run by the players ... people need to get a grip and stop assuming how countless players are going to behave. Again ... two very important distinctions here. If kill-stealing is not a reportable offense ... and camps are not officially recognized ... I expect competition, always.
I don't think it's reasonable that a group of players can kill a few NPC's and then "set up shop" to claim an area for an unlimited amount of time like they could in EQ. I don't think it's reasonable that players can impose boundaries on others in an open world game. When I zone into a dungeon ... I'm not going to use /ooc and ask people what "camps are available." I like to explore. I like to adventure. I like surprises. I'm going to enter that dungeon and go wherever I feel like going ... and when I encounter a situation, I will assess it. I'm not going to go out of my way to avoid other players. I play open world MMO's to interact with other players, for better or worse. I will look at the opportunity cost of competing for any individual piece of content and then make a determination if it's worth staying or moving on. For the record, I use FFXI as the standard for "rules" ... not EQ2. I played EQ2 extensively and I agree that they went overboard with some of their systems. Encounter locking wasn't one of them, though.
dorotea said:Yes this allows a *camp* stealer to come over and tag a mob other people have spawned but even back in the day camp stealing wasn't a violation of the code of conduct and GMs were generally not bothered by it.
Not exactly true, it was actionable by GMs (at their discretion) but attempted camp theft was pretty rare since few wanted to chance it with:
Contested Spawns
There are cases where two or more groups wish to kill the same thing. In these cases, the groups are required to compromise. If an equitable compromise cannot be reached between the players prior to EverQuest Customer Service Staff involvement, the EQCSR will mandate a binding compromise. Refusing to abide by a compromise mandated by an EQCSR will be considered disruption. It is therefore strongly suggested that the groups make every attempt to reach a compromise that they can live with prior to involving an EQCSR, who may mandate a compromise that does not suit you to the extent that a player-devised compromise would.
Note: A “group” in this case is defined as a party of one or more characters that are united in a common belief or goal and are capable of completing that goal.
oneADseven said:You're describing a social construct for what people considered reasonable in EQ. Things worked much differently in FFXI. (This is pretty interesting, too, seeing that FFXI servers were mostly comprised of Japanese players. Japanese culture is well known for manners, tradition, honor, etc.) It was officially stated there, just like it has been here, that players don't own content. Camps were not officially recognized. Players not only accepted that competition was going to happen ... they embraced it. The people who complained ... those were the guys who ended up being on a blacklist. They were known as whiners. Softies. Two different worlds and two totally different outcomes. I am not saying either one is right or wrong, I'm only highlighting that if the game is truly going to be run by the players ... people need to get a grip and stop assuming how countless players are going to behave. Again ... two very important distinctions here. If kill-stealing is not a reportable offense ... and camps are not officially recognized ... I expect competition, always.
I don't think it's reasonable that a group of players can kill a few NPC's and then "set up shop" to claim an area for an unlimited amount of time like they could in EQ. I don't think it's reasonable that players can impose boundaries on others in an open world game. When I zone into a dungeon ... I'm not going to use /ooc and ask people what "camps are available." I like to explore. I like to adventure. I like surprises. I'm going to enter that dungeon and go wherever I feel like going ... and when I encounter a situation, I will assess it. I'm not going to go out of my way to avoid other players. I play open world MMO's to interact with other players, for better or worse. I will look at the opportunity cost of competing for any individual piece of content and then make a determination if it's worth staying or moving on. For the record, I use FFXI as the standard for "rules" ... not EQ2. I played EQ2 extensively and I agree that they went overboard with some of their systems. Encounter locking wasn't one of them, though.
It isn't about "owning" content, it is simply the fact that you did the work to break it, and were killing the place holders, so when someone comes in and takes a rare pop you were working for, they are not being reasonable, in fact... they are being quite unreasonable, they are stealing it because they didn't do the work to produce the spawn. It is simple respect for another. I have played with the Japanese players and find that stereotype to be, exactly that... a stereotype (I have known quite a few who were absolutely disrepsectful at many levels).
Many EQ camps were often very difficult to break, in fact the problem with a lot of these KS types were they would not or could not do the work to break the camp and work it to get the rare to spawn. So, they would wait for some other group to do it, then rush in and burn it down (the rare pop).
As for FFXI, I couldn't stand the game. I disliked the systems, and I disliked the community as well as the cultural influence it had on the game (I never cared for Japanese gaming design) because they had the very attiude you display. If you want competition, then go play on a PvP server and you can have all the competition you like. I find it conflicting when people go on about "competition" and yet play under the safety of a PvE system.
So basically, we are at an impass due to our differences in gaming culture. Nothing wrong with that, but we won't be compatible in play and it will really come down to what the majority community holds concerning this. For me, if the social norm is to have it as you describe, I won't complain, I just won't play on that server and if all the servers share the same attitude as you, I won't play Pantheon, just as I refused to play FFXI.
I want more of a EQ culture, not an FFXI one and considering this game is designed in the spirit of EQ/VG, I think it is more reasonable that it would not change its mechanics and cultural designs to that of a game it has nothing to do with. /shrug
Iksar said:dorotea said:Yes this allows a *camp* stealer to come over and tag a mob other people have spawned but even back in the day camp stealing wasn't a violation of the code of conduct and GMs were generally not bothered by it.
Not exactly true, it was actionable by GMs (at their discretion) but attempted camp theft was pretty rare since few wanted to chance it with:
Contested Spawns
There are cases where two or more groups wish to kill the same thing. In these cases, the groups are required to compromise. If an equitable compromise cannot be reached between the players prior to EverQuest Customer Service Staff involvement, the EQCSR will mandate a binding compromise. Refusing to abide by a compromise mandated by an EQCSR will be considered disruption. It is therefore strongly suggested that the groups make every attempt to reach a compromise that they can live with prior to involving an EQCSR, who may mandate a compromise that does not suit you to the extent that a player-devised compromise would.
Note: A “group” in this case is defined as a party of one or more characters that are united in a common belief or goal and are capable of completing that goal.
Pretty much. There were times where we had conflicts with people and it usually was when both groups were rushing to the camp and were arguing over who had the hold on it. Usually though there could be some type of agreement (sometimes we would pass and let them have it, or in some cases if the person was looking for a drop that none of us needed, we would tell them they could come loot it). Most of the time, my friends and I didn't go to hot spots, rather we would go far out in the middle of nowhere to explore and find places we could camp without dealing with the crowds. We were dungeon crawling places like Dalnir, Sirens Grotto, etc.. long before most people realized it had some good items.
Bloodfire said:oneADseven said:
I agree 100% with your post. I would add that freedom is the most valuable commodity Pantheon has to offer gamers. Just about every game following Everquest has been linear, even the sandbox games in terms of progression.
Pantheon should be free, for people to invent shortcuts, or timesinks, to do as they see fit, a true sandbox MMORPG.
You do realise there is a fine line between freedom and anarchy. You are describing the latter. Freedom has rules to ensure that people can do the most they can without the hinderance of others. If you are going to steal a groups camp...be prepared to not have a good time.
oneADseven said:You're describing a social construct for what people considered reasonable in EQ. Things worked much differently in FFXI. (This is pretty interesting, too, seeing that FFXI servers were mostly comprised of Japanese players. Japanese culture is well known for manners, tradition, honor, etc.) It was officially stated there, just like it has been here, that players don't own content. Camps were not officially recognized. Players not only accepted that competition was going to happen ... they embraced it. The people who complained ... those were the guys who ended up being on a blacklist. They were known as whiners. Softies. Two different worlds and two totally different outcomes. I am not saying either one is right or wrong, I'm only highlighting that if the game is truly going to be run by the players ... people need to get a grip and stop assuming how countless players are going to behave. Again ... two very important distinctions here. If kill-stealing is not a reportable offense ... and camps are not officially recognized ... I expect competition, always.
I don't think it's reasonable that a group of players can kill a few NPC's and then "set up shop" to claim an area for an unlimited amount of time like they could in EQ. I don't think it's reasonable that players can impose boundaries on others in an open world game. When I zone into a dungeon ... I'm not going to use /ooc and ask people what "camps are available." I like to explore. I like to adventure. I like surprises. I'm going to enter that dungeon and go wherever I feel like going ... and when I encounter a situation, I will assess it. I'm not going to go out of my way to avoid other players. I play open world MMO's to interact with other players, for better or worse. I will look at the opportunity cost of competing for any individual piece of content and then make a determination if it's worth staying or moving on. For the record, I use FFXI as the standard for "rules" ... not EQ2. I played EQ2 extensively and I agree that they went overboard with some of their systems. Encounter locking wasn't one of them, though.
Correct it was a social construct. EQ gave you a ton of freedom and the community made up the camps and people abidded by those rules. People like you got black listed very easily if you disturbed a camp. Can you ruin a camp...sure..but just so you know you won't have a good time if you piss off a group holding a camp...especially if they have a monk. Whenever a conflict like this arose and the camp stealers got trained and then called a GM...once it was verified that they stole the camp GMs showed no sympathy toward them and usually left. So if you want to ks and steal camps..go for it..just warning you that many people going to this game are EQers and we like our camps and will protect our camps.
Edit: Also it is much easier to black list now with the availability of recording programs these days.
Tanix said:I want more of a EQ culture, not an FFXI one and considering this game is designed in the spirit of EQ/VG, I think it is more reasonable that it would not change its mechanics and cultural designs to that of a game it has nothing to do with. /shrug
Seeing that VG solved the various issues I have brought up on this thread (kill-stealing / zerging) -- and that VG was an evolution / spiritual successor to EQ, I have every reason to believe that those same issues will be solved in Pantheon, and using similar mechanics/designs.
oneADseven said:Tanix said:I want more of a EQ culture, not an FFXI one and considering this game is designed in the spirit of EQ/VG, I think it is more reasonable that it would not change its mechanics and cultural designs to that of a game it has nothing to do with. /shrug
Seeing that VG solved the various issues I have brought up on this thread (kill-stealing / zerging) -- and that VG was an evolution / spiritual successor to EQ, I have every reason to believe that those same issues will be solved in Pantheon, and using similar mechanics/designs.
VG solved those problems? In your opinion maybe, but we already established you and I are at odds in much of our expectations in design. Keep in mind, I don't view VG as an evolution of gaming concerning EQ. In fact, VG has a lot of flaws in my opinion. That is not to say it did not have some nice innovations, but to claim that VG is a linear progression of evolution to EQ is subjective only. Brad tried many new approaches, some worked, some failed (and a lot were SoE implementaitons that had nothing to do with initial VG design). I would make no assumptions about what to expect in Pantheon, I know I am not expecting it to be like EQ, in fact.. I am pretty sure I am going to be disappointed on many levels when it is released if some of the discussions here are any indication.
((I am pretty sure I am going to be disappointed on many levels when it is released if some of the discussions here are any indication.))
Almost certainly. I am going to be equally disappointed. Most of us are going to be disappointed. Many of us seem to have strong and divergent opinions on dozens of different issues and the chance of *any* of us seeing it go the "wrong" way on three or four or six significant issues is very high.
With no realistic hope that Pantheon will be perfect for any of us, let us all hope it is done the way we want on *enough* issues that it is significantly better not just marginally better than WoW and EQ2 and FFXIV and Rift and the others. That is something every one of us can hope for and every one of us may actually get.
You want a MMO where there is a lot of competition between players - for resources, for dungeon bosses, for raid bosses, for world firsts. Open world, no artificial limitations, competition with other players is what makes a MMO exciting even on pve servers where we can't kill each other. Your view is shared by others. I want a MMO where it is far more a case of players competing with the mobs, and almost every player can ultimately win because other players do not have to *lose*. Almost diametrically opposite. My view is shared by some others too.
We won't come very close to my ideal on this point. But although we may come closer to your ideal I am quite sure we won't be close enough to satisfy you and more than one point you consider important won't go your way. Much of life is like that - we both should, in the words of the Mule (Foundation and Empire by Asimov), resign ourselves to the acceptance of defeat.
dorotea said:((I am pretty sure I am going to be disappointed on many levels when it is released if some of the discussions here are any indication.))
Almost certainly. I am going to be equally disappointed. Most of us are going to be disappointed. Many of us seem to have strong and divergent opinions on dozens of different issues and the chance of *any* of us seeing it go the "wrong" way on three or four or six significant issues is very high.
With no realistic hope that Pantheon will be perfect for any of us, let us all hope it is done the way we want on *enough* issues that it is significantly better not just marginally better than WoW and EQ2 and FFXIV and Rift and the others. That is something every one of us can hope for and every one of us may actually get.
In order for it to be better to me, it has to not have many of the modern features that MMOs today have. Extremely long leveling, long travel, long endurance based fights, unforgiving death penalties, group focused (no solo designed content), no maps, hand holding, bouncing balls, etc.. and none of the modern play directive features of MMOs today (daily quests, BoE, BoP, locked encounters, etc...).
The reality is that much of that will likely be compromised, more so as the game becomes more and more popular nearing release.
dorotea said:You want a MMO where there is a lot of competition between players - for resources, for dungeon bosses, for raid bosses, for world firsts. Open world, no artificial limitations, competition with other players is what makes a MMO exciting even on pve servers where we can't kill each other. Your view is shared by others. I want a MMO where it is far more a case of players competing with the mobs, and almost every player can ultimately win because other players do not have to *lose*. Almost diametrically opposite. My view is shared by some others too.
We won't come very close to my ideal on this point. But although we may come closer to your ideal I am quite sure we won't be close enough to satisfy you and more than one point you consider important won't go your way. Much of life is like that - we both should, in the words of the Mule (Foundation and Empire by Asimov), resign ourselves to the acceptance of defeat.
Honestly, I could care less about the competition element in terms of the excitement of competition. That isn't why I play. The reason I like contested open world design is really because it limits the flow of items and progression in the game. If everyone can do an instance, it means everyone gets the items. If items are from a singular source, then the flow of items into the game is limited, which makes obtaining them more meaningful. It is also why I have always disliked player trade economies because it disrupts this balance of accessibility and achievement.
What drives my entertainment is grouping with friends to explore very dangerous harsh environments with difficult encounters with great risk and the chance for great reward. Fact is, I could easily run my own private server with 15-20 of my friends and be content with a game if it were designed exactly as I wanted. The competition element really never entered into the equation (I had enough of that back in the 90's perm-death MUDs I played). It is the subtle elements of design to which some call "inconveniences", "hassles", etc... to which I enjoy in a game. That is, something as simple as having to stare at a spell book while medding (release EQ) I think is an important game play mechanic that provided balance of risk/reward in play. That is why I think I will never be satisfied until they allow people like me to configure our own servers. /shrug
((In order for it to be better to me, it has to not have many of the modern features that MMOs today have. Extremely long leveling, long travel, long endurance based fights, unforgiving death penalties, group focused (no solo designed content), no maps, hand holding, bouncing balls, etc.. and none of the modern play directive features of MMOs today (daily quests, BoE, BoP, locked encounters, etc...). ))
Clearly you have higher hopes than I do. Nothing wrong with that and I am neither arguing nor criticizing.
Significantly better than WoW and other "modern" MMOs is a standard that you can rightly criticize as not fussy enough - as accepting too much that is not good as long as there are some things that *are* good. But I will stick with the standard as I expressed it.
One of the pleasures of these forums is exchanging views with people that think very differently. One rarely learns much talking to oneself. It is good to see why different people want different things even when minds are not often changed. And sometimes they do change even from the start of a thread to its end.
Tanix said:In order for it to be better to me, it has to not have many of the modern features that MMOs today have. Extremely long leveling, long travel, long endurance based fights, unforgiving death penalties, group focused (no solo designed content), no maps, hand holding, bouncing balls, etc.. and none of the modern play directive features of MMOs today (daily quests, BoE, BoP, locked encounters, etc...).
I think our preferences are far more similar than not. Of all the "play directive features" you mentioned ... encounter locking is the only one that I really want to see, and ironically, it's because of the impact it has on everything else. I can live without maps but I do think a good cartography system would add value to the game rather than detract. Please consider how encounter locking adds value to some of the early factors you mentioned.
Extremely long leveling: Encounter locking prevents power-leveling. I played EQOA which was very similar to EQ and it was extremely easy to power level people if you had high level friends. You would wait until a mob got down to 49% and then have your friend 1 shot it. Once you got to the higher levels it was no longer possible for them to 1 shot the final 49%. So instead, we would bring 2 or 3 friends. Same deal, though. Get the mob down to 49% and then watch it drop in 2 seconds.
Long endurance based fights: Encounter locking "locks this one in." It prevents the behavior described above. It prevents an unlimited amount of people from zerging content. It allows the design team to tune/balance the content so that endurance and resource management actually matters. If encounters aren't locked then you can bring an extra group ... or two, or three, or 10.
Unforgiving death penalties: Similar to the last two ... encounter locking delivers again. This is because content is actually more dangerous when it's properly tuned/balanced, and equipped with anti-cheese. Engaging an encounter takes more of a commitment. If you aren't able to endure from from start to finish ... you're probably going to die. This means that players need to be more selective with what encounters they engage ... when they engage them, and how they engage them.
Group Focused: Easy. You want group focused content, the same as I do. One thing I am particularly excited about is what Joppa described as "Really challenging raid tier single group content." The implication is that the content will be designed for, and limited to, a single group. At the same time, it will have raid-tier mechanics. This will likely be extremely challenging group content and preserving the integrity of "challenging" is paramount when it comes to risk vs reward. If players can "raid" the "single group content" then risk vs reward is compromised. To be honest, there would be no point in calling it "raid tier single group content" at all. Describing it that way means something.
In the end it's easy for me to think that I care more about all of these things than you do. Do you really, really care? It sounds like you care more about something else that you didn't mention. A lot of people call it "freedom." They don't want to deal with rules. That's fine, I can respect that as a position ... but you don't get both at once. You don't get to say that you want challenging content, endurance based fights, long level grinds, unforgiving death penalties ... and group focused gameplay. If you really want those things then you need to accept that there needs to be rules put in place that help facilitate that style of gameplay. Allowing zerging, IMO, is the hand-holding bouncing ball childhood toy that some EQ players can't let go of. This reminds me eerily of Shogun Assassin.
"Choose the sword, and you will join me.
Choose the ball, and you join your mother in death.
You don't understand my words, but you must choose.
So, come boy, choose life or death."
I choose the sword. When I read the game tenets ... it's sword, all the way. There is no bouncing ball tenet and that's why I pledged to this game.
oneADseven said:
Tanix said:
In order for it to be better to me, it has to not have many of the modern features that MMOs today have. Extremely long leveling, long travel, long endurance based fights, unforgiving death penalties, group focused (no solo designed content), no maps, hand holding, bouncing balls, etc.. and none of the modern play directive features of MMOs today (daily quests, BoE, BoP, locked encounters, etc...).
I think our preferences are far more similar than not. Of all the "play directive features" you mentioned ... encounter locking is the only one that I really want to see, and ironically, it's because of the impact it has on everything else. I can live without maps but I do think a good cartography system would add value to the game rather than detract. Please consider how encounter locking adds value to some of the early factors you mentioned.
oneADseven said:
Extremely long leveling: Encounter locking prevents power-leveling. I played EQOA which was very similar to EQ and it was extremely easy to power level people if you had high level friends. You would wait until a mob got down to 49% and then have your friend 1 shot it. Once you got to the higher levels it was no longer possible for them to 1 shot the final 49%. So instead, we would bring 2 or 3 friends. Same deal, though. Get the mob down to 49% and then watch it drop in 2 seconds.
I don’t power level personally, so I really don’t care if someone else does. If someone does they level faster, and push themselves to the end of the content faster. That is their problem, not mine. On the other side, I don’t want the game telling me I can’t help a friend out a little bit in some cases using such tactics (we did from time to time just to get a lower level friend his level or the like to help him catch up from some lost death XP). Fact is, if someone wants to use gimmicks to level, it really doesn’t bother me. It is on them if they reduce their experience in play.
oneADseven said:
Long endurance based fights: Encounter locking "locks this one in." It prevents the behavior described above. It prevents an unlimited amount of people from zerging content. It allows the design team to tune/balance the content so that endurance and resource management actually matters. If encounters aren't locked then you can bring an extra group ... or two, or three, or 10.
I don’t care if people zerg content. Again, I am the opposite, I try to do encounters with as little as possible, but I don’t like being told I HAVE to do them with X,Y,Z… In fact, this is what I despised about EQ2 in its forced group size mechanics. It forced a certain expectation in play. While there were “some” tricks to get around linked encounters, most of the time it was a hassle and it often created numerous issues in content. No longer could a small group of players figure out interesting ways to pull and split, to approach a difficult encounter, rather they were told “you must be this high to ride this ride” because the “encounter” was developed for a raid of a given size and level as a mass fight mechanic.
In the end though, if another group decides to cheese an encounter, so be it, it doesn’t bother me, it only makes them look like cheese players (FoH was one of the biggest cheese guilds in EQ). What I don’t want is them designing content that allows the cheese players to block content (which was very common due to some of EQ’s design).
Also, it is much easier for me to organize 30 people to take on an event than it is for you to grab your 72 people to zerg it. Many a times did my guild mobilize and take down a raid mob because we only needed 18-24 to handle it while the other guild would zerg with 60-70 and took time to organize.
The point is, I don’t care how other people cheese the game for themselves.
oneADseven said:
Unforgiving death penalties: Similar to the last two ... encounter locking delivers again. This is because content is actually more dangerous when it's properly tuned/balanced, and equipped with anti-cheese. Engaging an encounter takes more of a commitment. If you aren't able to endure from from start to finish ... you're probably going to die. This means that players need to be more selective with what encounters they engage ... when they engage them, and how they engage them.
See, I don’t want forced mechanics put on me. One of the key things about EQ was emergent game play. Since the game didn’t have tons of artificial mechanics forced on the players, you could experiment with many different approaches the developers didn’t expect which allowed you to handle the content with much less people and with much less gear. Some were exploits (which I don’t approve of) and those were patched quickly, but some were allowed because they were clever ways to defeat the content outside of the developers intent.
I want content where I can think of ways to beat it, not content that is designed to a very narrow and specific solution on rails. So again, I play a different way, with less people trying to handle content that most would consider “above” our ability. This form of closed content design would actually force a narrow form of solution, limiting clever solutions as my guild applied in EQ.
oneADseven said:
Group Focused: Easy. You want group focused content, the same as I do. One thing I am particularly excited about is what Joppa described as "Really challenging raid tier single group content." The implication is that the content will be designed for, and limited to, a single group. At the same time, it will have raid-tier mechanics. This will likely be extremely challenging group content and preserving the integrity of "challenging" is paramount when it comes to risk vs reward. If players can "raid" the "single group content" then risk vs reward is compromised. To be honest, there would be no point in calling it "raid tier single group content" at all. Describing it that way means something.
Encounter locking doesn’t even have to come into play here. You can design such an encounter in a manner where by the very basic design of the fight, having more will actually be less effective. Encounter locking is a lazy mechanic, similar to invisible walls to block progression, not a healthy solution to such designs.
oneADseven said:
In the end it's easy for me to think that I care more about all of these things than you do. Do you really, really care? It sounds like you care more about something else that you didn't mention. A lot of people call it "freedom." They don't want to deal with rules. That's fine, I can respect that as a position ... but you don't get both at once. You don't get to say that you want challenging content, endurance based fights, long level grinds, unforgiving death penalties ... and group focused gameplay. If you really want those things then you need to accept that there needs to be rules put in place that help facilitate that style of gameplay. Allowing zerging, IMO, is the hand-holding bouncing ball childhood toy that some EQ players can't let go of. This reminds me eerily of Shogun Assassin.
"Choose the sword, and you will join me.
Choose the ball, and you join your mother in death.
You don't understand my words, but you must choose.
So, come boy, choose life or death."
I choose the sword. When I read the game tenets ... it's sword, all the way. There is no bouncing ball tenet and that's why I pledged to this game.
The difference between you and I is that I don’t care what other players do. I really could care less. If they zerg content, so what? They then get the title of poorly skilled hacks, which a lot of guilds in EQ got. There were many guilds like mine who operating with small lean crews of good players and we used to laugh and tease the big guilds who zerged.
Also consider that they have to gear up ALL of those people when they go to higher content. This is why the idiots started content blocking in EQ. They zerged and then had to take months and months to gear up their raid so they could zerg the newer content. Smaller more efficient guilds started to excel over them, so they had to try and stop it some way.
A lot of your arguments seem to center around what other people would do and that is where we differ. I don’t care what other people do, I only care about what I do and a lot of your solutions weak havoc on my form of play. EQ 2 had numerous unintended consequeces on my form of play and my form of play was far from zerging, easy, or abuse, yet… my approach to gaming had to be destroyed because others were upset that someone else might be doing something they didn’t approve of.
Busy body design mechanics are at the center of modern MMO gaming design. It is a cancer where every behavior had to be approved by the social mob because someone might get offended at a solution someone applied to content and so they would whine and cry until developers put in artificial mechanics to curb the behavior, only to destroy many types of game play in the process.
I watched this happen game after game over two decades of MMOs. Your argument isn’t new, it isn’t special, and the only problem it solves is your expectations, but at the cost of other play approaches. IF Pantheon chooses to take this modern design directive, fine…I don’t have to be a part of it. /shrug
stellarmind said:there's going to be pvp and pve servers. nuff said. pick your place and play.
Yep, PvP does solve a lot of these problems in that people who have a problem with other peoples play style, well... they can do something about it.
I am going to play the game, if I enjoy myself, awesome. If not, I will eventually bail.
If it's a toxic radioactive soup of a community, I will bail.
I will leave it on the dev's to have a plan, and if that plan is not working, I will leave it on them to come up with solutions.
But I know, this game will not be everything for everyone, and most surely there will be aspects I do not care for or totally disagree with. In the end, all that matters is, "Does the good, outweight the bad."
Tanix said:See, I don’t want forced mechanics put on me.
Busy body design mechanics are at the center of modern MMO gaming design. It is a cancer where every behavior had to be approved by the social mob because someone might get offended at a solution someone applied to content and so they would whine and cry until developers put in artificial mechanics to curb the behavior, only to destroy many types of game play in the process.
I watched this happen game after game over two decades of MMOs. Your argument isn’t new, it isn’t special, and the only problem it solves is your expectations, but at the cost of other play approaches. IF Pantheon chooses to take this modern design directive, fine…I don’t have to be a part of it. /shrug
We clearly have different priorities and that is fine. At the end of the day ... I definitely do care that the world is constructed in a way where the super obvious cheese tactics aren't applicable. I understand what you are saying about "emergent gameplay" but let's keep things in perspective. Zerging is no longer emergent gameplay. Power-leveling is no longer emergent gameplay. These tactics were discovered a long time ago and it would be irresponsible to ignore them, especially if they trivialize any aspect of the game that is intended to be challenging. I mentioned that I pledged because of the game tenets. Whenever a topic is being debated for this game I think it makes sense to consider both sides of the argument and then weigh them against each and every tenet. "Artificial Rules" as a term is completely subjective. It's a new game ... a new world ... and when it comes time to create "rules" they need to enhance/reinforce the game tenets. I'm not going to argue about your "approach to gaming" or "style of play." To each their own.