Tanix said: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.
What I'm saying is it's 20 years later, technology advances. Some of the things you speak of can be coded out by doing things such as completion flags, area timers and there are other methods. I'm sure Brad is familiar with everything you speak of and he and the other dev's probably know how they are going to work around the issue already.
DracoKalen said:Tanix said: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.
What I'm saying is it's 20 years later, technology advances. Some of the things you speak of can be coded out by doing things such as completion flags, area timers and there are other methods. I'm sure Brad is familiar with everything you speak of and he and the other dev's probably know how they are going to work around the issue already.
Yep, you can do those, Trival loot code, level locking, daily timers, etc...
That is modern gaming design, social engineering, designing content to have people step right up, get their ticket, once they get their ticket, the machine pushes them on so the next guy can step in line and do the same all according to a perfect balance of social design.
That is the essence of modern mainstream game design.
You can't code out human behavior, nor can you get everyone to accept in "equalty of outcome" in game play. Some people are going to find advantages, some are going to have more time, some are going to plan ahead, some are going to be better players, etc...
Code that out and you kill the game for people like me (and many others).
Tanix said:DracoKalen said:Tanix said: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.
What I'm saying is it's 20 years later, technology advances. Some of the things you speak of can be coded out by doing things such as completion flags, area timers and there are other methods. I'm sure Brad is familiar with everything you speak of and he and the other dev's probably know how they are going to work around the issue already.
Yep, you can do those, Trival loot code, level locking, daily timers, etc...
That is modern gaming design, social engineering, designing content to have people step right up, get their ticket, once they get their ticket, the machine pushes them on so the next guy can step in line and do the same all according to a perfect balance of social design.
That is the essence of modern mainstream game design.
You can't code out human behavior, nor can you get everyone to accept in "equalty of outcome" in game play. Some people are going to find advantages, some are going to have more time, some are going to plan ahead, some are going to be better players, etc...
Code that out and you kill the game for people like me (and many others).
Well as you say, no matter what they do people will find a way around it. So there's no need to make a new game 20 years out of date. Help the folks who need it and do your best to minimize the abuses. That's the best you can do.
Nephele said: 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?
Since the purpose of this is to replace a player who is leaving, perhaps they could have a 'swap player location' feature only useable within a full group. Where as long as both players being swapped are in the same 'zone' (perhaps even within a specific range) their positions could be swapped. Perhaps with some sort of cooldown or debuff so that it can only be used by a group every so often. Perhaps also requiring the group to be 'out of combat' for a specific length of time, meaning the group would need to be in a safe location without regular spawns, or at least take a break from pulling for a few minutes to facilitate the swap. They could also code it so that a group can only use this ability after a specific length of time after the group becomes a full group. So a 'new' group wouldn't be able to swap player locations until they had been a full group for at least 15 minutes; so people can't just create a quick group just to transport people.
Just spit balling an idea.
Does anyone else feel like blizzard payed people to come into this game and suggest systems that blizzard uses in attempt to sabotage the game? Ive been coming to these forums ALOT to keep up, but man some of the **** people are suggesting really makes it seem like it the more and more i read here.....And the **** part is they are suggesting all the things that ruined WoW -_-..Not anything that made it better.
Riqq said:Does anyone else feel like blizzard payed people to come into this game and suggest systems that blizzard uses in attempt to sabotage the game? Ive been coming to these forums ALOT to keep up, but man some of the **** people are suggesting really makes it seem like it the more and more i read here.....And the **** part is they are suggesting all the things that ruined WoW -_-..Not anything that made it better.
Pretty sure you're just joking. No one is being payed to sabotage Pantheon. This game is not trying to dethrone it, so Blizzard has better things to do.
Back in the early 2000’s when the MMO genre was exploding I tried to go into forums of these games and suggest ideas that were similar to EQ. Of course, this was not the direction the game was going and it was not received well.
Fast forward, one thing I learned being older and wiser is that there are so many of these games now. There’s no reason to try to give everything that everyone wants. There can be niche products. There are hundreds of casual MMO’s that have these features out there and my recommendation to people who want them is to play those games. Pantheon is trying to fill a niche that doesn’t really exist right now. So, my rhetorical question to these people is why try to make it into a game like ones that already exist?
DracoKalen said:Tanix said:Yep, you can do those, Trival loot code, level locking, daily timers, etc...
That is modern gaming design, social engineering, designing content to have people step right up, get their ticket, once they get their ticket, the machine pushes them on so the next guy can step in line and do the same all according to a perfect balance of social design.
That is the essence of modern mainstream game design.
You can't code out human behavior, nor can you get everyone to accept in "equalty of outcome" in game play. Some people are going to find advantages, some are going to have more time, some are going to plan ahead, some are going to be better players, etc...
Code that out and you kill the game for people like me (and many others).
Well as you say, no matter what they do people will find a way around it. So there's no need to make a new game 20 years out of date. Help the folks who need it and do your best to minimize the abuses. That's the best you can do.
I find it rather interesting how you use "out of date" to explain EQs features in a game that is being spritually designed around the concept that EQ did many things right and is what is missing in games today.
Also, I never said that. You were the one I believe who is arguing for the feature and claiming they can stop people from abusing that feature you are arguing for by using mainstream design mechanics. I would say that not having the feature is the best way to avoid people abusing it, especially when the way to have the feature is to add mainstream mechanics to the game.
bigdogchris said:Riqq said:Does anyone else feel like blizzard payed people to come into this game and suggest systems that blizzard uses in attempt to sabotage the game? Ive been coming to these forums ALOT to keep up, but man some of the **** people are suggesting really makes it seem like it the more and more i read here.....And the **** part is they are suggesting all the things that ruined WoW -_-..Not anything that made it better.
Pretty sure you're just joking. No one is being payed to sabotage Pantheon. This game is not trying to dethrone it, so Blizzard has better things to do.
Back in the early 2000’s when the MMO genre was exploding I tried to go into forums of these games and suggest ideas that were similar to EQ. Of course, this was not the direction the game was going and it was not received well.
Fast forward, one thing I learned being older and wiser is that there are so many of these games now. There’s no reason to try to give everything that everyone wants. There can be niche products. There are hundreds of casual MMO’s that have these features out there and my recommendation to people who want them is to play those games. Pantheon is trying to fill a niche that doesn’t really exist right now. So, my rhetorical question to these people is why try to make it into a game like ones that already exist?
Because they get bored with the very game they claim they want. This is the problem. Look at the behavior of the MMO market. It is a cycle of bored people fast pushing through games, complaining that the game is boring and has issues, moving to the next game, demanding it be like the previous game only to plow thorugh the new game and complain about it being boring and having issues, rinse... repeat.
This is the mainstream market and it doesn't matter how many games they have to play, they will consume it like locusts and move to the next without ever the thought that the very thing that causes them to get bored with the game is the very thing they keep asking for in the new game.
That is what I noticed about human nature over the years. /shrug
Tanix said:DracoKalen said:Tanix said:Yep, you can do those, Trival loot code, level locking, daily timers, etc...
Well as you say, no matter what they do people will find a way around it. So there's no need to make a new game 20 years out of date. Help the folks who need it and do your best to minimize the abuses. That's the best you can do.
I find it rather interesting how you use "out of date" to explain EQs features in a game that is being spritually designed around the concept that EQ did many things right and is what is missing in games today.
Also, I never said that. You were the one I believe who is arguing for the feature and claiming they can stop people from abusing that feature you are arguing for by using mainstream design mechanics. I would say that not having the feature is the best way to avoid people abusing it, especially when the way to have the feature is to add mainstream mechanics to the game.
OK, so I was rushing yesterday let me clarify.
You were arguing against my coding restrictions because people would just find a way around it anyway. But no matter which way VR goes people will try to find ways around it. So, really not a valid excuse, it's better to help many people and figure out how to deal with the outliers.
As to EQ. Yes, they are trying to bring back the spirit. That doesn't mean the outdated models (and yes, I've seen the big block ogre in action) and coding issues need to be brought back. Technology and coding have come a loonngg way since then. And the issues you fret about can be overcome much more easily these days.
What VR is trying to accomplish is to reverse the dumbing down and oversimplification that exists in MMORPGs these days and bring back a more adventurous even slightly cerebral game for thei target audience. Which pretty much is the EQ crew, and if you do the math that means they are trying for the ~30-60 year old demographic. A large portion of that demographic are employed, have families and other responsibilities which eat up free time.
Personally I work a 10 hour day, have oncall every 6th week and elderly parents who need my help on occasion. So every 6th week I'll probably be relegated to crafting only and once a week I won't be able to play at all. Does this mean I shouldn't play? NO! VR realizes ignoring folks like me would paint themselves into a corner.
This doesn't interfere with your playing the game, I think it's great you have so much free time to play. But for those of us with constraints on our time we greatly appreciate VR thinking of us.
Tanix said:Because they get bored with the very game they claim they want. This is the problem. Look at the behavior of the MMO market. It is a cycle of bored people fast pushing through games, complaining that the game is boring and has issues, moving to the next game, demanding it be like the previous game only to plow thorugh the new game and complain about it being boring and having issues, rinse... repeat.
This is the mainstream market and it doesn't matter how many games they have to play, they will consume it like locusts and move to the next without ever the thought that the very thing that causes them to get bored with the game is the very thing they keep asking for in the new game.
That is what I noticed about human nature over the years. /shrug
IMO this has much more to do with the spirit of these games (they're bascially single player games while leveling up, then group/raid treadmill once at max level). I am very sceptical that it's purely the QoL features that cause players to get bored (although some are certainly part of the problem, like the dungeon/group finder).
But mechanics like CotH, or the call spells all healers had in VG are different. Did these cause significant problems? Not so much in my experience. Yes, CoTH (and its VG variants) could be used to circumvent content (by permanently camping a CotH alt somewhere). However if such abilities are high level, and are costly to earn (not just bought from the next spell vendor), then it may act as a deterrent to use such parked characters.
DracoKalen said:Tanix said:DracoKalen said:Tanix said:Yep, you can do those, Trival loot code, level locking, daily timers, etc...
Well as you say, no matter what they do people will find a way around it. So there's no need to make a new game 20 years out of date. Help the folks who need it and do your best to minimize the abuses. That's the best you can do.
I find it rather interesting how you use "out of date" to explain EQs features in a game that is being spritually designed around the concept that EQ did many things right and is what is missing in games today.
Also, I never said that. You were the one I believe who is arguing for the feature and claiming they can stop people from abusing that feature you are arguing for by using mainstream design mechanics. I would say that not having the feature is the best way to avoid people abusing it, especially when the way to have the feature is to add mainstream mechanics to the game.
OK, so I was rushing yesterday let me clarify.
You were arguing against my coding restrictions because people would just find a way around it anyway. But no matter which way VR goes people will try to find ways around it. So, really not a valid excuse, it's better to help many people and figure out how to deal with the outliers.
As to EQ. Yes, they are trying to bring back the spirit. That doesn't mean the outdated models (and yes, I've seen the big block ogre in action) and coding issues need to be brought back. Technology and coding have come a loonngg way since then. And the issues you fret about can be overcome much more easily these days.
What VR is trying to accomplish is to reverse the dumbing down and oversimplification that exists in MMORPGs these days and bring back a more adventurous even slightly cerebral game for thei target audience. Which pretty much is the EQ crew, and if you do the math that means they are trying for the ~30-60 year old demographic. A large portion of that demographic are employed, have families and other responsibilities which eat up free time.
Personally I work a 10 hour day, have oncall every 6th week and elderly parents who need my help on occasion. So every 6th week I'll probably be relegated to crafting only and once a week I won't be able to play at all. Does this mean I shouldn't play? NO! VR realizes ignoring folks like me would paint themselves into a corner.
This doesn't interfere with your playing the game, I think it's great you have so much free time to play. But for those of us with constraints on our time we greatly appreciate VR thinking of us.
Ok, it looks like you misundersood my response initially.
My comment was about your codding restrictions in that those are the restrictions (Trivial loot code, BoE, BoP, etc..) and that those are mainstream catches trying to stop behavior. I wasn't specifcially arguing that people will get around it, so why bother, rather it was to point out that if the only way to stop or limit abuse of such a feature is to put in a ton of mainstream features so that players can easily bypass content, well... I don't see that is beneficial to the game. The feature itself is the issue here. On its face it is a pretty blatant content bypass with no real restrictions (if we are talking about CotH), so why go to major lengths to implement a feature that is not really in the spirit of game play that will also require extensive mainstream features to protect from abuse? Mainstream is what we are trying to get away from.
I have stated this before, I was an adult when EQ was release, I had a family and was a professional with a 60+ hour a week career. I had limited time, yet.. I still played EQ in the capacity that I could. The argument that since people are adults, they won't have time to play is an argument made from the perspective that most of the people playing EQ at release were kids living at home with their parents or had no responsiblities. This was not the case as most of the people I played with were also adults, not children (everyone in my guild was a minimum of 25 years of age, most around 30+).
Mainstream design was built upon the premise that people had "real lives and a job" and so there was a need to put in cheats into the game so these "people with real lives" could actually play the game. That argument is a not a valid one as it concerned EQ, other than with contested raiding. In grouping, most of us still found time to log on, play the game for periods we set aside and we didn't need cheats put in the game to accomodate us. In fact, RMT is founded on the very principal of that argument, that people don't have time and should be able to buy their way rather than put in the time, so it really isn't an argument as much as it is an excuse to promote mainstream cheats into the game.
As for you, your personal life is irrelevant. If you have no time to play because of your life, then don't play games or go find a game that you can play that fits your schedule (there are plenty of mainstream games out there designed for you to get a 20-30 min fix). It is unreasonable to demand the game be turned into a mainstream clone with tons of content bypassing features because you personally don't have time. Your time is your problem, not ours. I have responsibilties as well, but I make a point to schedule my time as I can, just as I did when I was an adult when EQ was released. Welcome to being an adult, we do what we can, we play when we can and we don't expect the world to fit our individual desires. That is just how life works.
Sarim said:Tanix said:Because they get bored with the very game they claim they want. This is the problem. Look at the behavior of the MMO market. It is a cycle of bored people fast pushing through games, complaining that the game is boring and has issues, moving to the next game, demanding it be like the previous game only to plow thorugh the new game and complain about it being boring and having issues, rinse... repeat.
This is the mainstream market and it doesn't matter how many games they have to play, they will consume it like locusts and move to the next without ever the thought that the very thing that causes them to get bored with the game is the very thing they keep asking for in the new game.
That is what I noticed about human nature over the years. /shrug
IMO this has much more to do with the spirit of these games (they're bascially single player games while leveling up, then group/raid treadmill once at max level). I am very sceptical that it's purely the QoL features that cause players to get bored (although some are certainly part of the problem, like the dungeon/group finder).
But mechanics like CotH, or the call spells all healers had in VG are different. Did these cause significant problems? Not so much in my experience. Yes, CoTH (and its VG variants) could be used to circumvent content (by permanently camping a CotH alt somewhere). However if such abilities are high level, and are costly to earn (not just bought from the next spell vendor), then it may act as a deterrent to use such parked characters.
I was never a fan of excessive raiding, I did it, I ran the raids in EQ, but I always preferred the slow process of grouping in EQ. The biggest thing I saw with modern games over the years is people asking for more "conveniences", using the argument that they were adults, had little time, needed to be able to quickly get in and out of the game, that they didn't have time to waste with travel time, dungeons having trash mobs, leveling taking a long time, etc... Those expectations resulted in mainstream with people fast pacing the content then complainging they are bored. You would think they would be looking for changes, but they keep asking for the same features that result in it. So, rinse, repeat... That is mainstream.
I don't see it as a problem with the games themselves (most older cRPGs were very long and drawn out games, meant to take enormous amounts of time to play), rather it is human nature to claim they want a challenge and then cheat to win. It is why there were so many console cheat systems sold in the nintendo years. I see the same arguments here, people asking for challenge, meaningful play, etc... then they ask for all the features that invalidate that.
As for that spell...
The problem with "if it is high level and costly" is that eventually everyone will be high level and due to inflation the cost will be meaningless. In EQ the cost of things like potions, port stones, etc.. were EXTREMELY expensive, meant to only be used in rare occasions, but after many plat dupes, RMT farming, etc...plat was like copper and people were buying up (or making) the potions like they were cheap rations.
So, I think we need to consider the long run here. I just don't think the spell is beneficial to quality game play. Like I said though, if they want to put some risks into the spell, that makes sense. Make players have a chance to be dropped randomly during the port and end up anywhere in the dungeon. Spells like Evac and the like had a random habit of leaving a player behind and I thought that was an great balance, this spell should be no different, there should be risk, not some easy cheat feature where the negatives are all outgrown over time.
It doesnt have to try to dethrone it, its just going to due to the fact of its base, people are going to find comfort in knowing that their classes arent going to be getting completely reworked every expansion, class diversity, class role, the list is pretty extensive in why it will be an all around joyful experience, but these talks of instant gratification are just disheartening, nothing worth having is free and instant other than love, if it isnt worked for it leaves you empty inside. the idea of summoning people and teleporting people is fine and dandy as long as its done by the player base and not the system, that being said, i dont think every class should have access to these abilities, i believe in group anchors such as a cc or in this sense if youre going to a problematic area of a dungeon that you might need that class that can summon over a better dps which might make the camp more difficult to hold down as far as respawns or maximum experience efficiency, it gives everyone a place VS. making everyone a jack of all trade and balanced. And the world has to be the largest obstacle IMO it adds to the experience as a whole.
Nephele said: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?
I understand the desire for something like this, but don't think it's a great idea. One of the things that made EQ magical was situations just like this - the human interaction and all the good and bad that came with it. You had to put a group together, make sure you knew how long each person could/would commit, then head over there, fight your way to your spot. It was a pain when someone had to unexpectedly log out, but there were work-arounds. A caster could invis up to wherever the new member was, invis them both and run back to the group. The new person would run as far as they could get, die and a monk or rogue would drag their corpse to the group. If the new person had invis, they could head to where the group was on their own (assuming they knew the way). It was really special when you logged in on a Saturday morning, found five other people who were just as dedicated as you to a particular camp and you stayed there until it was time to sleep.
Then there's this:
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.
Tanix said: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.
This, imo, is the biggest reason to not make it too easy to replace someone who drops. I remember camping things for the different class armor pieces with friends. Some of those spawns (and worse still, the drop rate) were horrendous, at best. If it's easy to replace people, it would allow farmers to monoplize spawns and effectively block others from getting what they need to advance their quests and story lines.
From the FAQ today, section 7.0.1:
Will there be abilities, spells, and skills to help negate the pain of death?
Yes. You will be able to /drag a corpse (assuming you have /consent). There will also be spells like Resurrection and Call of the Hero so that groups can stick together and keep going.
It's worth mentioning that COTH does not appear on the Summoner class page, and from what's been revealed so far, it would appear that Escape Portal has replaced it, or supplanted it, or is available in addition to it. Not sure, as it's unclear why the ability would exist in the FAQ, but not on the class page, when ~all the other class defining abilities are on the class pages.
In any case: Escape Portal
You place a portal at target location that lasts for X duration. While the portal is active, when you activate this ability again your group will be transported through that portal to the location it was placed.
So, used in conjunction with evac, this would let you port your group back to the camp/place you just were, from the entrance, if you initially placed it at the entrance. As far as evac goes, if you had an evac'er, then of course you use it "first" at the camp, have them evac everyone, then portal everyone back to the camp once you picked up the replacement at the entrance. At least, that's how our guild is planning to use it. But whichever way, it appears the public design goal is to permit players both to get players to the group and/or move the group to/from the camp, once in zone, with relative ease, provided you're willing to endure eating Summoned Bread. ;)
In WildStar, only people who selected the scientist path and leveled it up received a summon ability. This was on a 1 hr cooldown and only worked for people in the same "instance" as the scientist. Since WS was open world, this meant you could summon people to different zones so long as they were on the same continent. You could not, however, summon someone into an instance - rather, the person had to zone into the instance first, and then the scientist could summon them to whatever point in the dungeon they were at.
Considering Pantheon will not be open world in the same sense - each zone will be its own instance with loading screen zone lines - a similar restriction seems to me a good compromise here for some kind of summon. That way, the player would have to get to the same zone/dungeon that everyone else in their group is in on their own, before they could be summoned. You could also tie the ability to summon to a particular profession or class, so that not everyone has access to it.
vjek said:From the FAQ today, section 7.0.1:
Will there be abilities, spells, and skills to help negate the pain of death?
Yes. You will be able to /drag a corpse (assuming you have /consent). There will also be spells like Resurrection and Call of the Hero so that groups can stick together and keep going.It's worth mentioning that COTH does not appear on the Summoner class page, and from what's been revealed so far, it would appear that Escape Portal has replaced it, or supplanted it, or is available in addition to it. Not sure, as it's unclear why the ability would exist in the FAQ, but not on the class page, when ~all the other class defining abilities are on the class pages.
In any case: Escape Portal
You place a portal at target location that lasts for X duration. While the portal is active, when you activate this ability again your group will be transported through that portal to the location it was placed.
So, used in conjunction with evac, this would let you port your group back to the camp/place you just were, from the entrance, if you initially placed it at the entrance. As far as evac goes, if you had an evac'er, then of course you use it "first" at the camp, have them evac everyone, then portal everyone back to the camp once you picked up the replacement at the entrance. At least, that's how our guild is planning to use it. But whichever way, it appears the public design goal is to permit players both to get players to the group and/or move the group to/from the camp, once in zone, with relative ease, provided you're willing to endure eating Summoned Bread. ;)
If that is true, that will make getting a camp a nightmare. So you get a wizard/druid for evac like spell, then a mage to summon portals. If things get to hairy, evac and then come back to the camp quickly. Not only would this be the perfect camp selling tools, but it would also make death less risky as players could easily escape and return without conquence.
That is, if that is how it works, it would completely bypass the risk of deep dungeon exploration. Not a fan at all.
Naunet said:In WildStar, only people who selected the scientist path and leveled it up received a summon ability. This was on a 1 hr cooldown and only worked for people in the same "instance" as the scientist. Since WS was open world, this meant you could summon people to different zones so long as they were on the same continent. You could not, however, summon someone into an instance - rather, the person had to zone into the instance first, and then the scientist could summon them to whatever point in the dungeon they were at.
Considering Pantheon will not be open world in the same sense - each zone will be its own instance with loading screen zone lines - a similar restriction seems to me a good compromise here for some kind of summon. That way, the player would have to get to the same zone/dungeon that everyone else in their group is in on their own, before they could be summoned. You could also tie the ability to summon to a particular profession or class, so that not everyone has access to it.
All of EQ was zoned, CotH was an EQ spell as well. The zone limitation doesn't solve the issue of a group being able to circumvent travel in deep difficult dungeon. A major component of the "game play", the risk vs reward aspect of a deep dungeon is the danger in getting deep in, yet the rewards for being able to accomplish such a venture are often meaningful (ie best items tend to be deep in a dungeon). The CotH spell invalidates that concept and destroys that balance in play.
I'm fine with CotH. It is in the same vein as teleporting and Bind/Gating. If its limited to specific classes and has its limitations of where it can be used I'm fine with it. If you wanted to be anal about it, teleporting and bind/gate allow a player to circumvent travel too... Wizard or Druid in your group? Gate out, pick up a new member, teleport back.
I don't like the idea of a "summoning stone" in PRotF but although I've come to hate WoW I feel that I have to defend their implimentation of the feature because it came out after the content was considered trivial and people started getting bored with traversing the world - not the other way around (because their game was never designed to be exploratory unlike PRotF, their game was focused on Dungeons and PvP - they did what was right for their game at the right time). Games since then started doing it out of the box and ruining their game out of said box. Because of WoW's success a lot of people referrence a lot of that game's features without really understanding how it could negatively impact a game that will rely HEAVILY on creating a sense of both fear and excitement just through traversing the world.
add: Corpse dragging and rezing was another way to circument content... Unique spells like CotH, Teleport, Rez, Summon Corpse made other players skill's highly desired.
I'm not terribly concerned with a feature like CotH, I am however very curious about the caravan system.
Darch said:I'm fine with CotH. It is in the same vein as teleporting and Bind/Gating. If its limited to specific classes and has its limitations of where it can be used I'm fine with it. If you wanted to be anal about it, teleporting and bind/gate allow a player to circumvent travel too... Wizard or Druid in your group? Gate out, pick up a new member, teleport back.
I was talking about that very thing in the above discussion as to why there is a difference between them.
Riqq said:Does anyone else feel like blizzard payed people to come into this game and suggest systems that blizzard uses in attempt to sabotage the game? Ive been coming to these forums ALOT to keep up, but man some of the **** people are suggesting really makes it seem like it the more and more i read here.....And the **** part is they are suggesting all the things that ruined WoW -_-..Not anything that made it better.
i wouldn't say blizzard directly, but 'strong supporters' would. business is a very vicious place and pvp happens. welcome to the retail world.
I know this statement is going to open another philosophical can of worms, but I am seeing several of you assume that camps will be static or plentiful as they were in EQ dungeons. I think you may want to consider how groups might behave if the camps are not static or plentiful.
For example, a dungeon might have 10 major "rooms" in it that would make logical camp spots where a group could stop to rest and wait. Seven of those rooms might not have a named mob tied specifically to the room. Named mobs could still appear, but only because those named mobs could replace a normal spawn of their type anywhere within the dungeon. The other three rooms might have specific named mobs, but in order to trigger and/or defeat that named mob, a group has to come from outside the room and do some things along the way. Sitting inside the room for an extended period might not accomplish anything.
Camping might still occur in a dungeon like this, but camps would be much more fluid. If you're sitting in one room and that named mob spawns two rooms down the hall, now you're moving to try and get there first. If you're after one of the static bosses, you have to come from the outside and work in each time, in order to flip all the triggers along the way to get the boss to spawn for your group. So after each kill you'd have to "fall back" to an earlier part of the dungeon.
How does our perspective change if camps aren't a matter of "Lord Room", "Barracks", "Throne Room", but are instead things like "East Wing", "Catacombs", and "Crystal Caves", and within those camp areas, groups are essentially doing a lot of mini-crawls?
I'm not saying that Pantheon dungeons will all be like this, but I think we need to consider the possibility. There were several dungeons in Vanguard that worked more like this, and the VR team has experience with that game as well as many others.
i revert my choice of a summoning stone. this game doesn't have instanced dungeons not to mention the design is starkingly different. i agree with tanix. let them all suffer. only the strong and dedicated will gain loot and glory. oh boy i can't wait to join on a pvp server in this game. pvp in a dungeon. pvp at bosses. we are going to be so unproductive it'll be so much fun.
Nephele said:I know this statement is going to open another philosophical can of worms, but I am seeing several of you assume that camps will be static or plentiful as they were in EQ dungeons. I think you may want to consider how groups might behave if the camps are not static or plentiful.
For example, a dungeon might have 10 major "rooms" in it that would make logical camp spots where a group could stop to rest and wait. Seven of those rooms might not have a named mob tied specifically to the room. Named mobs could still appear, but only because those named mobs could replace a normal spawn of their type anywhere within the dungeon. The other three rooms might have specific named mobs, but in order to trigger and/or defeat that named mob, a group has to come from outside the room and do some things along the way. Sitting inside the room for an extended period might not accomplish anything.
Camping might still occur in a dungeon like this, but camps would be much more fluid. If you're sitting in one room and that named mob spawns two rooms down the hall, now you're moving to try and get there first. If you're after one of the static bosses, you have to come from the outside and work in each time, in order to flip all the triggers along the way to get the boss to spawn for your group. So after each kill you'd have to "fall back" to an earlier part of the dungeon.
How does our perspective change if camps aren't a matter of "Lord Room", "Barracks", "Throne Room", but are instead things like "East Wing", "Catacombs", and "Crystal Caves", and within those camp areas, groups are essentially doing a lot of mini-crawls?
I'm not saying that Pantheon dungeons will all be like this, but I think we need to consider the possibility. There were several dungeons in Vanguard that worked more like this, and the VR team has experience with that game as well as many others.
I read it a while ago Nephele and it may have changed, but I think Brad (or one of the devs) mentioned that static camps (ie what we knew in EQ) would be a part of the game (as well as dynamic content). So this will still be an issue I think.
