@Sicario Heh I would hardly compare P1999 emu to Verant Interactive. It did make me LOL though ;) I couldn't play P1999. Why? Because imo it's total garbage and a very poor representation of Old EQ during Verant back in the day. P1999, ff, and WoW garbage just don't interest me. Sicario: when griefing happens in RL or in an mmorpg, then handle it like an A-dult would. If that doesn't work, then contact a GM if it occured in mmorpg (and I wouldn't put an emu gm in the same category as a successful corporation's gm's lmao). And I'll say it again: what you do NOT do is gut the game. Persistently complaining to do so may in itself be griefing to others who are enjoying said game. Cheers
stellarmind said:all these ideas reassure me that playing on a pvp server is the simplest solution.
I'm allways quite surprised most PVP affictionnados consider they will win their right in a Pvp situation...
What about beeing griefed and loosing repetitively to the griefer ? I'm not implying any of you are bad or what, simply that beeing right and beeing offended doesn't guarantee a victory at all.
((I'm allways quite surprised most PVP affictionnados consider they will win their right in a Pvp situation...))
Ah but when they get griefed and trained and killed repeatedly by other players that is why they *play* - for that experience (and to do it back to the others of course).
Whereas when I get trained on a PvE server I will get upset and curse VR for having such a crazy 20-year old mechanism because it *isn't* what I have in mind on a PvE server.
Okay I won't curse VR that would be foolish I will just vocally disagree with this particular decision and I will disagree loudly and at greal length.
Syrif said:@Sicario Heh I would hardly compare P1999 emu to Verant Interactive. It did make me LOL though ;) I couldn't play P1999. Why? Because imo it's total garbage and a very poor representation of Old EQ during Verant back in the day. P1999, ff, and WoW garbage just don't interest me.
If you think Pantheon will be a better representation of "Old EQ during Verant back in the day" than P1999, that says a lot about your expectations. You have said multiple times that you aren't asking for or expecting an EQ emulator. Yet ... here, while discussing P1999, you consider it "total garbage." Why? Because in your opinion, it doesn't represent "Old EQ" closely enough. I find that really interesting because the P1999 server is officially described as:
"Relive the classic Everquest MMORPG Gaming Experience as it was in 1999 and onward. Project 1999 is a free to play Emulated Everquest Server giving Players the opportunity to experience Classic EQ Once again, currently in the Velious expansion and a max level of 60, with the look and feel of the old interface and several modifications making game mechanics similar to how the game used to be. Project 1999 is the best and most popular classic Everquest experience."
The P1999 server was literally created to try and emulate "Old EQ" as close as possible. Whatever the differences between "Old EQ" and P1999 are ... they are so noticeable and egregious to you that you consider P1999 total garbage. You aren't interested in that, but you're highly interested in Pantheon. Is Pantheon supposed to fill that void? Do you see the correlation here?
I don't think FD really needs to be addressed. If the devs intend for it to be used as a pulling tool then changing it in any way would be hurt that intention. I remember playing EQ and not being trained by anyone that used the FD skill as much as people pulling to the zone. I have had a heckuva lot more unintentional trains than intentional. I think this should be handled by the community and if it gets out of hand, then GM intervention. I support the game direction either way though.
@oneADseven If you were to also quote the rest of my post........ I was discussing GM quality. That's what I was referring to in the piece you quoted. I'll let you judge an emu's quality for yourself. And yes, I am looking forward to Brad's Pantheon just as much as I did his EQ and VG. Other than that I don't know what else to tell you. Reopening your so called 'eq clones' debate is just silly. Nice try? *shrug*
Syrif, you're speaking in vague generalities without getting into details (like saying people should handle things like "adults" without elaborating on what you're expecting here with toxic people who don't even wish to speak with you to begin with since they're training you to steal your camp or whatever else). I really do want to engage with you in a productive discussion because I'm optimistic there's common ground for us to find, and I've outlined in detail how what you're saying doesn't hold true. I've provided evidence of the contrary, and if you desire more you can easily Google or browse through EQ official (or emulator) forums to see the numerous bad experiences people have had and how GM intervention has been consistently inadequate. Relying on GMs means that toxic abuse has already occurred. It's a reactive vs proactive band-aid to a problem that has been present in EQ since soon after its launch.
The true long-term solution is to implement mechanics/design choices in-game which mitigate against these things happening. It's not "gutting the game" to do so (another vague generality which you're not detailing exactly how that would happen). There have been plenty of great ideas offered which find a healthy balance in maintaining the integrity of an open-world while mitigating against toxic behavior. As for FD, which this thread is about, it's only fair to recognize that its current design (quick recast with high chance of success) causes problems in the realm of toxicity, providing a strong tool for griefers to use which can't be countered (counter-griefing isn't really a solution, by that point people have already lost their camp/mob, have died and suffered a penalty, and the griefers may very well be gone by the time they return to the camp, thus having a good amount of their available playtime wasted).
I'm thinking about who the majority of players are most likely going to be in Pantheon: adults who have maybe a couple hours each night after work to play. Reactive solutions aren't adequate for this demographic, they no longer have the countless hours necessary to deal with toxic abusers who could very well totally wipe out their entire play session with one FD train.
Walpurgis said:I don't think FD really needs to be addressed. If the devs intend for it to be used as a pulling tool then changing it in any way would be hurt that intention. I remember playing EQ and not being trained by anyone that used the FD skill as much as people pulling to the zone. I have had a heckuva lot more unintentional trains than intentional. I think this should be handled by the community and if it gets out of hand, then GM intervention. I support the game direction either way though.
Yeah I totally agree. Griefing could happen from FD, the invisibility spells, levitation, the popular "Gate" spell, Bard speed, Jboots, the Druid/Shaman/Ranger's SoW (speed buff) etc and etc. It would have been pathetic to gut FD just as much as it would have been to gut any of those other abilities and features. I never played a Necro or Monk, but FD was great.
MauvaisOeil said:stellarmind said:all these ideas reassure me that playing on a pvp server is the simplest solution.
I'm allways quite surprised most PVP affictionnados consider they will win their right in a Pvp situation...
What about beeing griefed and loosing repetitively to the griefer ? I'm not implying any of you are bad or what, simply that beeing right and beeing offended doesn't guarantee a victory at all.
if i lose a griefer is pretty simple: i say congrats the spot is your and i move on. of course best of 3! and i wouldn't consider myself an pvp affictionnados. not even sure what that means... i consider pvp a way to reslove conflicts. plain and simple.
@SoWplz What was SoW used for? That can just as easily be asked as well since SoW was also used by griefers. If SoW isn't always used as is intended, do you think it should also be fixed 20 years later? Do you think there should be no movement speed buff altogether because it can potentially be used by griefers? The point is SoW, FD, bard speed, levitation and so much more could be used be griefers. SoW and FD were both pretty popular. Wouldn't make sense to gut them. Anyway, interesting thoughts.
There's a very simple answer to FD training-proximity aggro doesn't occur with mobs more than x distance from their base location (you may also have to remove ae damage effects in areas where raid encounters generally require ae). It wouldn't affect "pulling" since the tank should be hitting the mob(s) they want aggro on before the fd and/or be reasonably close to the spawns but it certainly stops any "gather half the zone and train to blow up a raid" sort of thing. Players can easily avoid the train by not attacking any of it...
It's not a fair comparison, Syrif. I think it's common knowledge, but it's unreasonable to compare an ability that will lead to a group wipe or raid wipe with an ability that makes you run faster, that you can disable at will.
In point of fact, none of those other abilities affected other players negatively, at all. I could disband and someone can play all the bard songs they want, and nothing bad happens to me.
If I don't want SoW or Lev, i can click it off (and I did, a lot, over the years). And as far as Invis goes, that's why it was changed to group only, because it was being used to grief pet classes. So, yes, it should have been and was changed.
FD just didn't make the list because it's a class defining ability. It's also not fair to compare FD to kill-stealing. They're not the same thing. One is a class ability. One is a global combat mechanic choice. Both are fixable via a wide variety of new or old techniques, some heavy handed, some elegant.
However, if you're asking, in general, if *I* (along with SoWplz) think abilities that are actively leading to the reduction of subscriptions for the game, the way FD does/did, should be fixed/nerfed/adjusted as soon as possible? My personal response is a resounding Yes. Because I value the longevity of the game over my ability to PvEvP (or PvP via PvE) via FD.
Many community members, over the past 4+ years, have propsed several solutions that fix either training in general, or FD specifically, without gutting the class. Yet, people keep insisting everything is fine, and the powerless community will somehow stop players from doing something the game permits. It's illogical to me.
Eh idk vjek. It’s still same result. I remember major wipes and trains from speed enhancement for example, especially bard speed. Anyhow, I’m against gutting FD and other abilities. I think ’gutting this’ then ‘gutting that’ etc leads to the watering-down of a game. Single target and self-invis worked fine as well. Appreciate your input.
I prefer fixing training to fixing FD - I *like* FD.
But given the amount FD is used for griefing today - whether or not that was true in the first year or two of EQ - if VR cannot or will not do anything else to reduce the problem I agree that FD needs to be fixed. Heck from what I read things are so bad now on some EQ or pseudo-EQ servers that the game would be better if FD was flat-out eliminated. vjek seems to be right here.
Have you heard of bard speed? Rofl. How I miss great gaming. Anyhow, no to gutting. While I appreciate vjek's thoughts, I think vjek is wrong here. I've said all I care to on this thread. It's Saturday night. Have a good one.
Sicario said:Tanix, you are giving anecdotal examples without any substance whatsoever, implying that your experience is representative of the broader community and that these concerns are non-issues since the community can effectively self-regulate (untrue). I'd like you to read this, the actual statement from Verant Interactive on this matter:
Here is an explicit statement from those actually involved with running the game highlighting that the abuse you claim is counterable is in fact not, that the impact on player retention was so noticeable and traceable to this specific issue that real changes in policy had to be made.
It is possible to find a middle-ground between extreme protections like instancing vs. a free-for-all that will inevitably drive good players away. No one cared that you put them on your blacklist, whatever actions you sought to take didn't make a lasting impact. Did it temporarily solve your issue? Sure. Yet these players continued on, happily being toxic and abusive without any real consequences.
And please, you seriously believe that most players these days want to spend their limited game time dealing with griefers/trains/people abusing FD to grab their camps? Doubtful. Some level of in-game mechanics/design are necessary to mitigate against this behavior.
Community self-regulation is ineffective.
Anecdotal?
/facepalm
Would you like me to parse 1000's of hours of data and then present you with a detailed list of peer reviewd results? Seriously, that is an ridiculous response.
Ofcourse my responses are anecodtal, what do you think we use to explain the situations that occured in game play? People who actually played EQ and have an adults memory of the game know it was like this.
Everything I stated, while anecdotal can be understood by basic mechanics of play.
1) Locked encounters promote KSing as they guarantee the player who tags the encounter first the uncontested rights.
In my "anecdotal" example, I explained how in EQ, due to the way the mechanics worked (ie facts), a group could over power a player who tried to steal a rare mob pop.
2) While FD can be abused, it is a two way street as I explained. That is, what is good for the goose, is good for the gander. So, if some idiot wants to grief someone, they can easily be griefed back, ESPECIALLY in cases where someone is KSing, as I explained.
Seems like you do not understand how EQ worked.
Heck, most of the time with the monks I saw trying to train, they were idiots who didn't even understand how the mechanic work (mob agro, spell casting interupts, etc...) and so they would die most of the time before they could effectively train. Most of the "griefers" you are worried about were quite funny from my experiences when we served up to them their own medicine and this can not be done when you tie the hands of players. What usually happens is the rules screw the players and the griefers still end up griefing in some form or fasion, but as in modern games, under the complete protection of the restrictive systems.
I know I was an adult when EQ was released, I had a wife and a professional job I worked up to 60 hours a week on. Don't tell me how people "these days" are somehow have more responsibilty or what is unacceptable in dealing with as I lived it, I did it as most of the EQ players here did who weren't kids living with their parents. So this idea that somehow people are different is pure BS.
I don't want WoW or any other mainstream game where all consequence is taken away because people are too lazy or irresponsible to have to deal with social issues. It is a social game, if that bothers people, they know where the door is.
Sicario said:Interesting, Syrif, especially considering GM involvement has clearly been insufficient, as we can readily see in both TLP and P1999 servers today. There is ample griefing, KSing, training, monopolization of content, etc. that players aren't happy about and make it difficult to be able to enjoy all the content that's in the game, and that's due to toxicity and abuse that you're proposing should be handled by GM intervention. It's not.
And it's not gutting the game to implement reasonable, well-thought out gameplay design choices to maintain a community-based experience while mitigating against abuse and toxicity.
TLP is a mainstream game, lets call it WOWQ, not EQ. Using it as an example of anything is pointless.
P1999 is a private server, FREE, and on a game that is extremely old and on software that anyone can download and run themselves (I can start and run my own EQ server in less than 10 mins).
Point is, they aren't good examples, not at all.
Hey, if we are going to get on the bandwagon of how to stop griefers, and what changes to spells, skills, classes, game mechanics, etc... Then I can write a very logical list of arguments that can be used to turn the game into another WoW. I am sure that would make some people happy.
I think people forget (or didn't experience it) that all these arguments are not new. They were made back during EQ, then with each new MMO as they argued the need to stop other players from infringing on another players experience.
I swear I feel like I am listening to the same tune over and over and over. With each MMO, these EXACT same arguments were made and we ended up with the natural progression due to these arguments, which was modern MMO gaming as we know it.
Please stop... let VR make the game based on the old concepts. You are not innovating new ideas, you are merely recycling the same stuff that has been argued decade after decade.
I would not be surprised if FD does not work as people think it should or did back in EQ.
There was a post/video (can not remember which) where Brad stated they wanted to change stealth/invis to where players could not wander around a dungeon to explore without danger. Something along the lines of making it so if you walked in front of a creature with invis/stealth you would be spotted; however, if you stayed behind the creature your invis/stealth would still work. If that kind of change (or similar) is put into the game, then I can see FD being changed also (or the creatures reaction to FD being modified) because FD would be the only skill that could allow a class to explore a dungeon without danger if it was not changed.
How the change would affect others training people with FD would still need to be seen (if it affected training at all).
Chogar said:I would not be surprised if FD does not work as people think it should or did back in EQ.
There was a post/video (can not remember which) where Brad stated they wanted to change stealth/invis to where players could not wander around a dungeon to explore without danger. Something along the lines of making it so if you walked in front of a creature with invis/stealth you would be spotted; however, if you stayed behind the creature your invis/stealth would still work. If that kind of change (or similar) is put into the game, then I can see FD being changed also (or the creatures reaction to FD being modified) because FD would be the only skill that could allow a class to explore a dungeon without danger if it was not changed.
How the change would affect others training people with FD would still need to be seen (if it affected training at all).
You couldn't do that in EQ, that is... wander without danger.
The way EQ handled it was to put randomly spawned mobs throuhout dungeons that had "see invis" or were able to "see stealth" of a rogue. This added a randomness in exploration. If the mob could see invis, you had to end up pulling it, killing it, before the player could progress. It was an excellent tool of making travel while invis/stealth random and it also provided them with a means to block of areas they did not want players to be able to stealth past.
FD was modified a bit during the game. Before Velious, you could FD and instantly everything stopped and you were safe (if I am remembering correctly). The Velious code change added mobs being able to continue casting on you (ie ignoring FD) if you FD mid cast of a mob. This made FDing with numerous casters on you VERY tricky and resulted in numerous deaths and frustrations of a monk. That is, you would FD thinking you are good (the mobs chasing you would stop, EXCEPT the casters who were mid cast) and then all of a sudden a cast would land, FD would be broken and the mobs would continue chasing.
So Velious put in such mechanics and it worked to keep many monks from "easily" pulling certain encounters, but... the old saying... "Build a better mouse trap, and along comes a better mouse", to which monks learned how to deal with it (not perfectly, but we found ways to meet our goals with extensive experience and skill).
Now, I think putting numerous risk/reward, decision/consequence features into a mechanic is great, but it should follow that mindset, not that of trying to stop something, especially if it is an issue of trying to socially engineer player behavior.
Edit:
By the wau I want to also add that EQ was not safe to explore everyone due to other mechanics as well. Invis had a random timer, so you could be walking around and all of a sudden it would drop without warning. This made exploration risky, nerve wracking if you were in a heavy populated and dangerous area. All spells and abilities should have a random chance for failure. Add in mobs that can random have abilities to see through invis or stealth (or both) and you can easily keep areas dangerous to explore with proper risk/reward.
