Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

I hate QoL Features

    • 1315 posts
    July 12, 2019 10:03 AM PDT

    Jabir's post https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/10836/i-hate-qo-l-features/view/post_id/209623 is where the 16-20 hour duration dungeon crawl was first brought up that my spawn rate math was modeled to match.

    @Watemper

    As far as the Sudo spawn vs 15 hour guarantee I do see your point and mostly agree the caveat is that there is still a maximum single continuous play session that should be expected of a player.  To me a truly continuous play session longer than 4 hours just seems unhealthy.  I would still only have rewards guarantee on quests and never on mob drops in said dungeon.  That doesn’t mean you could not have a goal that requires say 4 successful play sessions of said 4 hour encounters totaling 16 hours of game play.  I could see end game raid zones requiring a key that in turn requires completing 4 different endurance encounters of roughly 4 hour length but now you are getting into a severe access bottle neck to the key in open world (only a maximum of 42 keys a week with perfect up time) or getting into instances.

    • 1584 posts
    July 12, 2019 10:05 AM PDT

    15 hours of an encounter and running through an dungeon for 15 hours to get to a mob is very close to the same thing.

    • 696 posts
    July 12, 2019 10:09 AM PDT

    @Trasak

     

    The sudo spawn is boiled down to more RNG though while the 15 hour encounter is forced. The only people I know who actually waited 15 hours for the named encounter to spawn would be people who would do it on the weekend. I did it a few times. I had timer and would just browse the interent...do work...or watch a movie..play another game in the mean time..etc. until the timer went off when the placeholder...or the named mob, spawned.

    But I am not excusing the dumb bottle necks like VP keying and stuff. That was poor design...but tedious and poor design are two different things imo.


    This post was edited by Watemper at July 12, 2019 10:10 AM PDT
    • 1315 posts
    July 12, 2019 10:17 AM PDT

    @Watemper

    You kinda hit on a key point there.  Deliberately camping a named spawn is a little like gambling.  You are rolling against the odds that the mob will spawn for you faster than you could grind cash to buy it from another player at current market value.  That obviously gets a little fuzzy when we are talking about no drop items for priceless epics or raid key steps.

    While you can endurance camp a specific named it is not the ONLY way to get the named to spawn.  That at least in my mind is the difference between a guaranteed sudo spawn and an encounter that takes 15 continuous hours of play to complete that still has a chance of failure.

    • 1315 posts
    July 12, 2019 10:32 AM PDT

    I am honestly having trouble trying to think of an open world encounter that could take 4+ hours much less 16+ hours.

    The closest I can think of is the worst sort of escort quest where you meet an NPC at the entrance of a LONG dungeon and you need to escort them to the very end.  Once you enter the dungeon area you will be attacked by mobs from that section every 5, 10 or 15 minutes.  Additionally every spawn node on the primary path will respawn as your ward gets within x distance of them.

    Assuming a fight takes 5 minutes of combat and 1 minute of resting a 4 hour crawl will include passing through 24 spawn nodes and dealing with 16 sets of patrols.  A really efficient group might be able to do it faster and a poor group will get over run by a patrol while engaging a node and need to start over.  To counter zerging the patrols and node spawns size, level and composition will be proportional to the number of players in an area surrounding the escort ward.

    The dungeon in general could still have many side tunnels with camp points for named spawns but the nodes would be the primary travel path to the end of the dungeon.

    This setup could also work in an open field area as well with a required number of items that need to be collected from NPC camps in order to progress to the center.  The "dungeon crawl" would include the challenge of finding the right camps as well as just surviving.

    • 696 posts
    July 12, 2019 10:42 AM PDT

    @ Trasak

     

    True. I think if they have really long spawn cycles for named mobs...then it should be for a good piece of gear of some sort. If it is an epic quest...then you will have to take it on a case by case basis. But if an epic, like in EQ, takes months to complete...then it isn't because of the quest and more so the availability of the raid bosses. WIth encounter locking that will decrease dramatically in time. However, if someone likes 3 4+ hour tasks to complete for the same piece...and just break the time up...which is virtually every good piece gear in EQ...except way more tasks than 3...then I see no problem with how EQ did it. And regardless with how people want to break things up...as long as this game doesn't have a max time you can play in a day...or how much exp you can get in a day and crafting etc....then it won't matter how  you break stuff up...poop sockers will be ahead of you.

     

    I don't think it is wrong to have huge time sinks..like epic raid fights...or discovering a dungeon and spending the whole day with your group dungeon crawling for 10+ hours. There should be content for all types of players. If your life can't accomadate for it..then tough..there are other things you can do that is more your speed. 

     

    I am reminded of the Sleeper fight in EQ where the first encounter lasted like 3 hours. Making it soo tha the other dragons never spawned again. I really hope to see a ton of these types of events to where when I make an alt after a long while on my main that I can experience a somewhat altered and changed world.

    • 32 posts
    July 12, 2019 11:52 AM PDT

    Kittik said:

     

    QoL feautres like "Shard Banking"  being talked about in another thread, I won't rehash it, but it cheapens the play of the game.

    How so?  Shared bank slots allow the player to share gear/money with an alt.  Otherwise, you have to run to a part of the map where no one is, drop a backpack and hope no one grabs it before you can switch to your alt.  

    Kittik said:

     

    QoL features are less QoL features and more, I'm lazy and I just want to see flashy bloom effects on my screen and pretty, big, foating numbers.

    I agree about flashy bloom effects, but floating numbers are actually really nice to have.  Otherwise, you are just staring at a combat log the whole time.  If you wan tot just see a list of numbers roll by and miss out on everything else on the screen just play with a random number generator all day.  

     

    I see what you are saying and agree with keep the game challenging.  But there is nothing wrong with QoL features.  

     


    This post was edited by Rzar at July 12, 2019 11:52 AM PDT
    • 560 posts
    July 12, 2019 4:49 PM PDT

    Floating numbers were relatively easy to make using the built in EQ UI. I got so sick of looking at my chat window I made two chat windows that only showed incoming and outgoing damage numbers not text. I was able to place them near the center of my screen and it worked relatively well compared to the limitations of the old UI. I would hate to have less QoL features than the early days of EQ.

    • 3852 posts
    July 12, 2019 5:15 PM PDT

    Trials of Atlantis had multiple 3-5 hour raids where you could not go afk more than briefly because of frequent diving, swimming and coming back up. 

    Trials of Atlantis almost killed Dark Ages of Camelot to the point where they had a DAOC classic server or two way before such things were common. Classic meaning no ToA.

    Granted the excessively long raids weren't the only problem with that expansion but you simply aren't going to keep players beyond hard and medium core raiders if they *need* to block out that kind of time regularly.

    Not only do many players not enjoy that type of session - telling husband or wife or children that for the next 5 hours you will be lucky to be able to take a handful of 5 minute breaks for anything they need or want does not go over all that well.

    Much easier if one is living alone or with a roomate that needs nothing from you beyond half the rent being paid.

     

    • 1019 posts
    July 12, 2019 7:05 PM PDT

    Keno Monster said:

    To the OP. I love you. Keep fighting the good fight. 

     

    It's hard because everyone is spoiled these days.  Effort and work, knowledge and attention to detail are not things "gamers" want to have to worry about anymore.


    This post was edited by Kittik at July 12, 2019 7:14 PM PDT
    • 201 posts
    July 12, 2019 7:54 PM PDT

    This is one of those extremist nonsense arguments that really translate into "i want a game no one but me and a few other people will play because it is a chore and when it closes in 6 months, I am upset and confused as to why."  I want a game that harkens to old times in a lot of ways as much as most everyone else here.  I also know it is a niche and we all accept and want that, but we also know it needs to not be SO niche that it cannot survive.  Death penalty?  Check.  Meaningful travel?  Check.  Faction and exp grinding?  Dungeon crawls?  Group centric play?  Check check check.  Having to manually click food in your inventory because you do not auto consume?  AB-SOLUTELY MO-RON-IC.  Beyond imbecilic.  Stupid **** like that will doom this game.  Saying people who don't want nonsense like that are lazy and stupid is beyond belief.  People want a game and to have fun, not a ******* chore simulator.  Oh man, having to manually click each one of my pieces of gear one at a time after I die?! AWESOME!  I am so dedicated and hard working because I want that!  I don't like flashy effects at all!  OH YEAH! 

    If this game actually does get released, and they take that hard of a tack to making it a Windows 98 era clone, it is doomed to fail.  While we all don't want them to cater to the lowest denominator, we accept certain things will have to change compared to TWENTY YEARS AGO for a multitude of reasons, commercial viability and different expectations of players today.  Even among the original EQ style lovers like me, I would say there are VERY VERY VERY few who want dumb things like having to click food manually or you what?  Forget to eat? Have to manually click on 20 pieces of gear to put them on rather than just hit one button to do it?  Those are not challenging nor do they add to the game experience.  If you think those things are "challenge" you need to research what challenge is.  The only challenge that will add to the game is making it profitable.


    This post was edited by antonius at July 12, 2019 7:55 PM PDT
    • 313 posts
    July 12, 2019 9:16 PM PDT

    Are we even sure that we'll need food and water at all?   They already said that they won't be requiring rangers to carry arrows.  It seems to me that if you're not doing that, it would be stupid to make people carry around rations and water just for the sake of "realism".  

    • 116 posts
    July 13, 2019 8:58 AM PDT

    This not going to be EQ circa 1999.

    There are going to be changes that some will consider non-QoL features that they find to be a waste of their time.

    And there will be features that some may consider as pandering to the easy mode crowd that no ’real’ gamer would want. 

    The truth is somewhere in the middle.

    Stay true VR and give me the Pantheon you envision.  I’ll be happy to play it. 

     

    • 1479 posts
    July 13, 2019 9:56 AM PDT

    I think the 16h dungeon crawl is a misinterpretation, you're not meant to crawl 16h for a single reward. You will get rewards constantly (experience) and every other time (loots), there is no need to reward a 16h playing session because it's just long continuity of a 1h playing session repeated 16times.

    • 1247 posts
    July 13, 2019 10:03 AM PDT

    Kittik said:

    Keno Monster said:

    To the OP. I love you. Keep fighting the good fight. 

     

    It's hard because everyone is spoiled these days.  Effort and work, knowledge and attention to detail are not things "gamers" want to have to worry about anymore.

    So true.

    Anyway, good OP Kittik! 

    • 3852 posts
    July 13, 2019 10:38 AM PDT

     

    Extremism in the defense of "old school" is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of the spiritual successor to EQ and Vanguard is no virtue.

    That line didn't work for Barry Goldwater in 1964 (OK he didn't refer to EQ or Vanguard at the time) and it won't work for Pantheon now.

    We need a game that is *significantly* more old school than other MMOs today, or why bother?

    Equally we need a game that makes whatever compromises it needs to so that its niche is large enough to let it  live long and prosper today, or why bother.

    This means some so-called quality of life design features but not nearly as many as current MMOs.

    I don't see what more can be said without debating individual features one by one by one.

    • 1247 posts
    July 13, 2019 10:52 AM PDT

    @Dorotea

    I think you fail to see the point. People aren’t saying they want “old school.” What we are saying is we want a new MMORPG to go in the direction from old school that it should have gone from in the first place; and that sure as heck ain’t mainstream. So yes, a spiritual successor is completely adequate. As for Old Everquest and Vanguard, some similarities are not surprising given the Visionary Realms team either made and/or played those games. I think VR is doing terrific work. 

    Add: I believe mainstream went extremely in the wrong direction. Their subscription declines (in the millions) do not surprise me at all. 


    This post was edited by Syrif at July 13, 2019 11:29 AM PDT
    • 1019 posts
    July 13, 2019 4:23 PM PDT

    antonius said:

    This is one of those extremist nonsense arguments that really translate into "i want a game no one but me and a few other people will play because it is a chore and when it closes in 6 months, I am upset and confused as to why."  I want a game that harkens to old times in a lot of ways as much as most everyone else here.  I also know it is a niche and we all accept and want that, but we also know it needs to not be SO niche that it cannot survive.  Death penalty?  Check.  Meaningful travel?  Check.  Faction and exp grinding?  Dungeon crawls?  Group centric play?  Check check check.  Having to manually click food in your inventory because you do not auto consume?  AB-SOLUTELY MO-RON-IC.  Beyond imbecilic.  Stupid **** like that will doom this game.  Saying people who don't want nonsense like that are lazy and stupid is beyond belief.  People want a game and to have fun, not a ******* chore simulator.  Oh man, having to manually click each one of my pieces of gear one at a time after I die?! AWESOME!  I am so dedicated and hard working because I want that!  I don't like flashy effects at all!  OH YEAH! 

    The shortsightedness of this users thinking is the reason "QoL" is the doom of games.  He thinks "Loot All" is a quality of life feature that is just the feature looting gear.

    Loot All is a lazy mans way of minimalizing death.  As I've said before.  Loot all is a QoL feature for people who don't want to have to worry about bad choices they make, they don't want to have to put effort in, in getting all their gear back when they mess up.  They only want success to be handed to them and if it's not easy enough they want a QoL feature that allivates their mistakes so they can get back to trying a differt approach again as quickly as possible. 

    (A tedious unfun actvity that no one wants to do, doesn't have to be done, EVER, if people are careful with the choices that they make.  Having to pick up all your gear, re-mem all your spells and earn back lost exp ONLY has to be done if you die.  Know what happens when you die two or three times with all of these horrible mechanics in the game?  YOU STOP DIEING!  You learn limits, you tread carefully, you pay attention and avoid dieing so you don't have to do any of those horrible actions.  AND you learn your characters better!) 

    Also, a "QoL" features that allows the cartoon character in game to do things for you (the person playing that character and supposed to be keeping them alive) like choosing to eat or drink food when you (the cartoon character) are thirsty or hungry is a lazy persons way of saying "Why do I have to pay attention to something when other games give it to me!?"    These QoL features that everyone wants makes games stupidly simple.  In a game where raiding will detirmine who's the best of the best, where fighting for gear and camps is common practice, features that seperate the ones that can do everything from those that can't "oops, I forgot food, or I forgot reagents, or I forgot how to get there, I'm used to being teleported" are why some QoL features are unwanted by non-simpletons.

    • 264 posts
    July 13, 2019 5:09 PM PDT

     If Pantheon is full of QoL features I won't be playing it. That's not hyperbole, I want a world not a themepark. I want immersion, and I want forced player interaction. If Pantheon has lots of QoL features it isn't going to be the kind of MMORPG I will want to spend time in. I don't expect permadeath, nor do I expect the characters to take bathroom breaks in game or anything radical like that. But it can't be anything remotely similar to MMOs like WoW or FF14. That's not what I'm looking for, and if I was I would be playing those games.

    • 470 posts
    July 13, 2019 5:17 PM PDT

    Kittik said:

    So many threads now and everyone's bringing up, "Oh, but it's QoL, no one wants to play a game with the mechanics of game from 1776!"  

    I do!  I'd rather see zero flippin' QoL features in the game and just point me on my way.  (ok, slight over exageration there)

    QoL features like "Equip All" after death, cheapen's death.  Know why you feared death in EQ, the dread of knowing you had to re-mem all your spells, loot all the stuff off your corpse and reequip all your gear.  That subcouncious knowledge of knowing all that work lie ahead of you if you died, was a driving force for doing all you could to avoid death.  (And don't give me the "What if I get DC'd and it's not my fault" bruh, if you get DC'd and it's not your fault, we all about to die becasue the only way someone loses connection now is if there is a giant meteor coming at us and it took out 7 or 8 satillites.)

    I don't mind some QoL features. Really depends on what they are. But this statement right here. I just have to talk about a story that relates specifically to this one, and no meteors were involved (that I know of lol). I was on a 24 person raid in EQII a good long while back. Had about the best Internet I could have at the time. Our raid set up, I was main tank. We discussed the strat and the guild/raid leader said ok, Tuk, get it! I charge, hit the mob, and right away go link dead. Internet died on contact. lol Stayed down about 10m and I come back to a wipe. lol Now in this case, I just want to say, no meteors or crashed satelites were involved (that I know of =p) But Time Warner cable at the time had this fond habit of randomly dropping at the most inconvinient moment.

    What's this got to do with the rest? Probably nothing. But I figured someone might get a chuckle out of it at my, and my old guild's, expense. lol

    • 3852 posts
    July 13, 2019 6:02 PM PDT

    Syrif said:

    @Dorotea

    I think you fail to see the point. People aren’t saying they want “old school.” What we are saying is we want a new MMORPG to go in the direction from old school that it should have gone from in the first place; and that sure as heck ain’t mainstream. So yes, a spiritual successor is completely adequate. As for Old Everquest and Vanguard, some similarities are not surprising given the Visionary Realms team either made and/or played those games. I think VR is doing terrific work. 

    Add: I believe mainstream went extremely in the wrong direction. Their subscription declines (in the millions) do not surprise me at all. 

     

    Maybe I am missing the point - it wouldn't be the first time. Let me try again.

    Pantheon needs to have most of the features that we all hope it will have. Slow leveling, slow travel, complex non-afk crafting, a large and interesting world, primary focus on group play, extensive support for guilds, real death penalties and the like. This is far from everything and apologies if I overlooked someone's favorite feature. Without most of this there is no point to even releasing the game.

    Pantheon needs to succeed. This is the sine qua non - without this, nothing.

    If VR decides that a few "quality of life" features are needed for success I will be happy as long as we get most of what we all want. This is where I disagree with some of us - after 30 years as a lawyer I accept as an article of faith that compromise is far better than losing the case - or the game - because you hold out for a better but not practicable deal. The old saying that if both parties are unhappy the settlement was a fair one is often wrong - but far more often right.

    Thus if I get 80% EQ/Vanguard style features and 20% WoW I will not say "Ridiculous - why play = might as well be playing WoW". As some *have* said here in these debates. I will say 80% better than anything else is one heck of an achievement for VR - let me at it!!


    This post was edited by dorotea at July 13, 2019 6:03 PM PDT
    • 1247 posts
    July 13, 2019 8:11 PM PDT

    @Dorotea

    I’d say mainstream is pretty tired. It would be silly for mainstream to be any sort of a guideline for Pantheon. The community (many of which have stopped posting on various forums) has been through this so many times in the past 20 years that it’s gotten really old already. I‘ve seen the same debates over and over up to now. It’s no surprise that mainstream is as bad as everyone says it is. The community that follows Brad and VR is pretty sick and tired of it. It gets annoying repeating ourselves and arguing with people over the same past failures that seem to keep coming up. So, here we are. This is why myself and others have come to Pantheon. 


    This post was edited by Syrif at July 13, 2019 8:23 PM PDT
    • 1247 posts
    July 13, 2019 8:15 PM PDT

    Ziegfried said:

     If Pantheon is full of QoL features I won't be playing it. That's not hyperbole, I want a world not a themepark. I want immersion, and I want forced player interaction. If Pantheon has lots of QoL features it isn't going to be the kind of MMORPG I will want to spend time in. I don't expect permadeath, nor do I expect the characters to take bathroom breaks in game or anything radical like that. But it can't be anything remotely similar to MMOs like WoW or FF14. That's not what I'm looking for, and if I was I would be playing those games.

    Exactly. Not even remotely similar. Everything about those games is terrible. That‘s why I am here not there.

    • 521 posts
    July 13, 2019 8:43 PM PDT

    Vandraad said:

    Chanus said:

    Entertainment and challenge are not mutually exclusive.

    Their definitions are also entirely fluid.

    So very true. I wish more people understood that fact.

    Sorry but your both wrong, Entertainment is the action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment, and challenge is a call to take part in a contest or competition, but more specifically challenging is testing one's abilities.

    Individuals can find entertainment in challenging ones abilities, but their not fluid, as in interchangeable. I find entertainment while watching a movie, theres nothing particularly challenging about it, I find it challenging to “bite my tongue” around certain people, but its certainly not entertaining to me.

    • 59 posts
    July 13, 2019 9:30 PM PDT

    HemlockReaper said:

    Vandraad said:

    Chanus said:

    Entertainment and challenge are not mutually exclusive.

    Their definitions are also entirely fluid.

    So very true. I wish more people understood that fact.

    Sorry but your both wrong, Entertainment is the action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment, and challenge is a call to take part in a contest or competition, but more specifically challenging is testing one's abilities.

    Individuals can find entertainment in challenging ones abilities, but their not fluid, as in interchangeable. I find entertainment while watching a movie, theres nothing particularly challenging about it, I find it challenging to “bite my tongue” around certain people, but its certainly not entertaining to me.

     

    Given your points of view, one has to ask, what drew you to a game that is claiming to follow the spirit of old EQ, which was definetly intended to be challenging? Your concepts of what a game should be seem to me like they would lead you to other games. Just curious.