During the March developer roundtable, Brad talked briefly about the scenario where a group is deep in a dungeon and then their enchanter (or someone else) has to log out. He mentioned that they want to set things up so that the group can bring in a replacement and keep going, and so that this kind of thing doesn't end the adventure for everyone else.
I think this is a good topic for all of us to talk about. How could things be set up so that the ability to bring in a replacement to a group wasn't abused by players as a form of quick travel? Assuming that we get some kind of summon abilities to bring players to us for these situations, how should those work? Or should there be a different way to do this, like maybe having checkpoints in dungeons that a group could fall back to and where people who have unlocked that checkpoint could teleport down to from the entrance?
Curious to know what everyone thinks might work for Pantheon :)
Not fan of any mechanic that would allow players to bypass distance, difficulty or such.
Now once you've brought a way to complete a quasi full party in a deep part, you just get the possibility to summon there entire groups 1 character per one character, and why not, charge for the shortcut ? I think there are too many drawbacks to such systems, that will be twisted out to be full benefits instead of beeing a slight convenience to the targeted audience.
Distance should matter, depth too, and there is not real possibility to make a big world feel big if you can just assemble five players and start teleporting others where you want (or where they want). If it's dungeon limited then some dungeons close to points of interest will just turn into hubs where players use the number to summon others, etc...
Not to be a contrarian, but if we must have party member summoning mechanics I'd actually prefer it to be inside the dungeon as opposed to summoning players from anywhere in the world to the entrance.
The reason being that a summoning stone or w/e at the entrance can just as easily be abused to cheapen all overworld travel. Just contact some people on the other side of the world, group up with them and have them teleport you there.
What would be ideal in my opinion is a blend of party member summoning and the mid-dungeon checkpoints as mentioned by Nephele in the opening post. Not a fan of unlocking checkpoints and being able to teleport to those by yourself. Instead, the checkpoint would serve as a summoning stone from which groups of at least 3 players can summon a party member that's already in the same zone (and not in combat). This way, people still have to travel to the dungeon themselves before their group can summon them and the party doesn't have to leave their camp and fight their way back and forth through the dungeon just to pick someone up.
I think some classes should have the benefit of porting or summoning of players. That's a benefit of having that class in the group. But I do not support groups without these specialized classes to summon or port in whomever they want. We want to give classes benefits that groups may like.
There are many things people claim to be "QoL" improvements, like Dungeon Finders, that could instead be tied to class abilities to keep the old school flavor while bringing in changes that modern games have. That is a good compromise between old-school and new school.
Well the devs have made a point of this being a group centric game. At the same time they want to facilitate keeping groups together as well as intact.
Keeping in the spirit of what they have said replacing a group member that had to drop should not be a crisis. I mean 3 hours into a dungeon and your cleric needs to drop shouldn't be the end of the adventure. By the same token it is not reasonable nor good use of players time to make that same group go all the way back to the beginning of the dungeon to start over.
I agree with Kaeldorn that the summons should be to inside the dungeon. For the reasons given.
My first reaction is that this idea is a poor one - is it really *that* different from modern groupfinders where you queue up and are teleported to the action? Sure it is limited to groups needing a replacement but it isn't that hard for a group to have a member whose role is to leave the group so that they can then teleport the *real* group member who is nowhere near the dungeon. My second reaction is pretty much the same as my first reaction - just too similar to the ubiquitous teleports to the action so many MMOs have now.
My *third* reaction is to consider ways of limiting any instant teleport to the action so that the inevitable abuses aren't quite so bad. Which does not mean I like the idea even with these safeguards, I just like it more with them than without them.
1. Teleport only can bring you inside a dungeon. When you leave the dungeon you instantly are returned to where you were teleported from. Thus the teleport can not bypass the need to travel other than to get to that one dungeon.
2. When you leave the group or log-off you are instantly returned to where you were. The teleport is for the benefit of the group summoning you not for *your* benefit so you can *not* stay in the dungeon doing anything whatsoever outside of that group.
3. The teleport wears off and you are booted back to where you were after an hour. The teleport is an emergency vehicle to allow a group to complete something that it was in the middle of - any group that plans on a 10 hour dungeon crawl darn well better make plans for replacements the old fashioned way and not rely on an emergency fix like this. The only justification - a weak one - for the teleport is that it protects a group from an unforseen emergency. It isn't at all unforseeable that people will leave if the group is spending a *long* time down in the dungeon.
4. Very tentatively suggested - the teleport only works to teleport characters already in the dungeon. This obviates any use of it to bypass landscape travel and encourages characters to stay at safe camps inside the dungeon if they aren't already in a group - available as emergency fill-ins. Maybe there will be an "emergent" system that develops where people wait for the call and charge groups for the service. This assumes a decent size dungeon where there are places people can camp between groups.
I'd like to see choke points. Area's controlled by hostile NPC's or mobs. Once cleared the players have control and on a shrine or podium on it the group leader will find a tome of all. Which when opened lists available players by approriate level. The group leader will only see profession and name though so no cherry picking level. The tome can only be used as many times as the group has a shortage. Repop of mobs only occurs omce the conquering players leave.
Of course the drawback to this system is someone brought in will not gain experience or coin from previous parts of the dungeon. Maybe set it so you don't get credit for the dungeon or reward without completing a majority of choke points.
Not a fan. Anything that provides ease for a group (or indivdual) to circumvent in a dungeon defeats the point of it all in the first place and is a path to the decline which is modern gaming systems.
Tanix said:Not a fan. Anything that provides ease for a group (or indivdual) to circumvent in a dungeon defeats the point of it all in the first place and is a path to the decline which is modern gaming systems.
Well it doesn't allow a group to do anything but complete a dungeon they started without starting over. And it doesn't defeat anything as you don't complete the dungeon you don't get xp/coin/reward. You don't seem to understand there is no point to avoiding content, avoiding content you avoid XP/coin and any reward or any recognition or reputation. So you don't level up you don't make coin or get items/crafting drops. So if you are skipping content you won't be qualified for the next level range of content.
DracoKalen said:Tanix said:Not a fan. Anything that provides ease for a group (or indivdual) to circumvent in a dungeon defeats the point of it all in the first place and is a path to the decline which is modern gaming systems.
Well it doesn't allow a group to do anything but complete a dungeon they started without starting over. And it doesn't defeat anything as you don't complete the dungeon you don't get xp/coin/reward. You don't seem to understand there is no point to avoiding content, avoiding content you avoid XP/coin and any reward or any recognition or reputation. So you don't level up you don't make coin or get items/crafting drops. So if you are skipping content you won't be qualified for the next level range of content.
There are other groups that would like to camp that area as well. If you allow everyone to easily get back to those areas, it removes the advantgage of those who are already near (camping another room near that area) and wish to take over that camp they have been waiting for. There were numerous times in EQ (and other games that had contested content) where our group wanted to do a specific rare mob room, but it was camped by another group. When that group ran out of people to be able to do it, people were able to move in and get the camp. This keeps things open and moving. The more easy you make it to get people to the camp, the less likely those camps will be open, even if populations are reduced enough on the server. It is the these little subtle features that make a difference in the game.
Draxsis said: Also dont forget these aren't instanced dungeons, they are open to all. You dont just zone in, fight your way to the end and zone out. A CotH type spell or summoned temp item would be ok in my books. But we did fine without them in early EQ as alot of the zone was camped and with invisibility spells and potions you could make it to your group camped deep.
That is the exact point I am making. Without those spells, the camps will need to be "earned" by having and keeping enough people AND being able to hold the camp. If you wipe, if you run out of people to do the camp, or can't easily get someone back to the camp, this opens up the camp for other people waiting. It also promotes people planning ahead for grouping in dungeons and makes the deep, hard to get to areas more rewarding.
The one thing I liked about the sneak/invis/etc.. spells was that there were limits to them and dungeons could be easily designed to make using them to get in very far near impossible. Now if they want to make it where you can use the CotH spell or caravan (bleh) to get to some places, fine (I think it is bad for the game, but fine), then... they need to make areas of the dungeons where people can't use this spells. Similar to "The Deep" in SoL where CotH was banned in the zone forcing everyone to have to learn how to cross the invisible bridge.
On one hand I like the idea of a way to replace a member that needs to go, we have all been there. The BIG drawback I see is if a group or guild get to a Boss and start farming the "drop" and then start selling the slot to other players that are in need of said item. With any group replacement function this is a real and game ending problem. Any Ideas on this?
SooZo said:On one hand I like the idea of a way to replace a member that needs to go, we have all been there. The BIG drawback I see is if a group or guild get to a Boss and start farming the "drop" and then start selling the slot to other players that are in need of said item. With any group replacement function this is a real and game ending problem. Any Ideas on this?
Hard to say really. There might be many solutions, but each one will cause their own issues. This is the problem with trying to provide "convenience" solutions, they open up a can a worms and then you have to find ways to catch them all. Sometimes, I think it is best to just not open that can and let people deal with it. I don't think it would be healthy for the game to allow people to access all content quickly. There was a reason in games like EQ far away zones were mysterious and why a lot of people would just go to the hot zones. It was less effort, easy for fast grouping, but... on the other side the people who planned, who took the time , who were willing to go out of their way, there was a reward.
Where is the risk in these types of systems? I think they imbalance the concept of risk vs reward by trying to appeal to "non-game" demands.
Tanix said:DracoKalen said:Tanix said:
Well it doesn't allow a group to do anything but complete a dungeon they started without starting over. And it doesn't defeat anything as you don't complete the dungeon you don't get xp/coin/reward. You don't seem to understand there is no point to avoiding content, avoiding content you avoid XP/coin and any reward or any recognition or reputation. So you don't level up you don't make coin or get items/crafting drops. So if you are skipping content you won't be qualified for the next level range of content.
There are other groups that would like to camp that area as well. If you allow everyone to easily get back to those areas, it removes the advantgage of those who are already near (camping another room near that area) and wish to take over that camp they have been waiting for. There were numerous times in EQ (and other games that had contested content) where our group wanted to do a specific rare mob room, but it was camped by another group. When that group ran out of people to be able to do it, people were able to move in and get the camp. This keeps things open and moving. The more easy you make it to get people to the camp, the less likely those camps will be open, even if populations are reduced enough on the server. It is the these little subtle features that make a difference in the game.
But you're assuming that you could move a group that way. Times change and technology gets better. If they set the system up correctly you won't be able to move a group. The system is to replace a drop, so limiting it so that you can only do limited calls would be easy enough to do.
This is one of the times Tanix and I agree - that happens less than half the time I suspect but well over one quarter. To me this is "Modern Groupfinder Lite" and while the motive is good the law of unintended consequences will produce harms that outwiegh the perceived benefits.
DracoKalen said:Tanix said:DracoKalen said:Tanix said:
Well it doesn't allow a group to do anything but complete a dungeon they started without starting over. And it doesn't defeat anything as you don't complete the dungeon you don't get xp/coin/reward. You don't seem to understand there is no point to avoiding content, avoiding content you avoid XP/coin and any reward or any recognition or reputation. So you don't level up you don't make coin or get items/crafting drops. So if you are skipping content you won't be qualified for the next level range of content.
There are other groups that would like to camp that area as well. If you allow everyone to easily get back to those areas, it removes the advantgage of those who are already near (camping another room near that area) and wish to take over that camp they have been waiting for. There were numerous times in EQ (and other games that had contested content) where our group wanted to do a specific rare mob room, but it was camped by another group. When that group ran out of people to be able to do it, people were able to move in and get the camp. This keeps things open and moving. The more easy you make it to get people to the camp, the less likely those camps will be open, even if populations are reduced enough on the server. It is the these little subtle features that make a difference in the game.
But you're assuming that you could move a group that way. Times change and technology gets better. If they set the system up correctly you won't be able to move a group. The system is to replace a drop, so limiting it so that you can only do limited calls would be easy enough to do.
I am not following you? How will they not be able to move the group? Are you saying a group would not be able to fight its way to the next chamber?
Look at this for an example:
For instance, (3) was the Lord room, (4) the hand, (5) the Archmage. It was not uncommon for groups to come to Lower Guk and then find out the Lord, or some camp was already taken, BUT a camp near that was open. I often camped the Hand, or the Archmage while we waited for the Lord to open up. Getting from each location took some effort (they were fast spawn, you had to really be on task, etc.. with spawn times, resources) but you could as soon as you heard a group was leaving, head to the new camp. Because you were already near, it meant that you had "dibs" on it for the most part (unless some group was just killing trash near the room) as you could get to it the fastest.
Now if you allow players to be fast moved to camps, you will have a perm group cycling in without break. There were many times a group would start to fall apart, but because those sitting at the entrance to the zone could not get there fast enough, the camp was open and taken by the closest players. To the early bird goes the spoils.
Allowing players to essentially circumvent this with a spell like CoH or a caravan distrupts this balance in contested content.
Maybe VR has a plan, but you give such easy access to players and you only aid plat selling services.