Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

I hate QoL Features

    • 1315 posts
    July 16, 2019 8:25 AM PDT

    @dorotea

    I was working on a multi-player crafting system idea over on Pantheoncrafters.com.  It would not require you to group to craft except on special recipes otherwise it could just be a benefit. 

    The jist of it is as follows:

    1)      Crafters have crafting energy (maybe of multiple types)

    2)      Each stage of the crafty process requires an action to be selected and those actions take energy at different efficiencies and final product impacts.

    3)      Crafters gain crafting energy pool through items and crafting levels

    4)      There are many different crafting actions and not all classes have access to the “best” response actions to their craft.

    5)      Item level dictates the total amount of energy required to make the item

    6)      Items have progression points that must be reached or the item is ruined/doesn’t change.

    7)      The skill of the lead crafter dictates a multiplier on the total energy cost to create.

    8)      Energy regenerates when not crafting or regenerates faster with deliberate actions.

    9)      Players can join together to pool their energy and skills in order to make an item that would be otherwise outside of their skill.

    10)   Masters could work with apprentices to make better items than they would be able to solo.

    11)   Some truly mythic items will require some truly huge group work to complete.  Creating an artifact level item might require some raid boss drops, a special crafting station and a grand master crafter from each crafting class in order to have all the skills for a perfect crafting.

    P.S. all threads are potential crafting threads


    This post was edited by Trasak at July 16, 2019 8:28 AM PDT
    • 1921 posts
    July 16, 2019 9:30 AM PDT

    dorotea said some good stuff: ... vjek I took the liberty of trying to rephrase your points in a slightly different way to facilitate agreement and collegiality (chuckles) - if I got any of them wrong you are more than welcome to correct me. ...

    All good, and a fine further explanation.

    • 1785 posts
    July 16, 2019 9:52 AM PDT

    I confess that I've not really been paying attention to this thread recently but I wanted to say that I generally agree with dorotea and vjek here.

    I also think it's important that we keep context in mind when talking about interdependence in crafting.

    I am absolutely fine with requiring a small level of interdependence for crafters making individual items.  One should not need all of the crafting professions just to create a sword or suit of armor, but needing components from a few of them is entirely reasonable.

    However, larger projects, such as building a wagon or a ship, a house or a castle, should come with appropriately higher levels of interdependence.  The largest projects may even have a requirement that work be performed in parallel by multiple crafters, rather than individually and asynchronously.

     

    For basic equipment and consumable crafting however, we should insure that interdependence does not prevent players from being able to craft when they have time to do so, assuming that they have planned ahead appropriately.


    This post was edited by Nephele at July 16, 2019 9:53 AM PDT
    • 3852 posts
    July 16, 2019 10:33 AM PDT

    Nephele I agree - good examples being (as you perhaps had in mind) ships and houses and guild houses in Vanguard.

    Trasak I also agree. To this day I remember group harvesting as one of the good features of Vanguard. Group crafting could be a huge plus as long as it is limited as you suggest and doesn't require a group to do any useful crafting as Pantheon seems likely to require a group to do any but the most trivial adventuring.

    • 1584 posts
    July 16, 2019 12:00 PM PDT

    I'm fine with most of the items you can create within blacksmithing being done with just blacksmithing, I've never had a problem with this, but I think that if you still are able to master all tradeskills within an account than in the tradeskilling world of crafters nothing has really changed, they will still master all crafts eventually, and most probably wouldn't even talk in trade chat anymore cept to sell high end products or buy a  particular material they don't feel like farming.  But that would be it, they almost disappear once they get there, it's happened so many times, and that a problem, the crafters should always have to rely on the gathers and crafters alike to make high end products and not be completely self efficent.

    Now the system up above sounds interesting and I do like what it brings to the table, but I believe a combination of both would be a great system, as it one would make multi-boxing very hard so making multiple account to master all tradeskills have a little less meaning when it comes to be self efficent if you can't preform the actions good enough to a me the particular item at its best.

    • 1019 posts
    July 16, 2019 2:48 PM PDT

    Just imagine if you played Chess and all you ever had control of was the Queen.  

    To me, this is what many QoL features do.  They are gearing towards and are changing the core of games to take away every part of "Playing" the game except the most fun part.  But if you were to play chess and the only piece you controlled was the Queen, would it be fun?  

    Again, IMHO, (almost all) QoL features move every piece of your chess board for you except the Queen, and it's not fun because none of the game is me or my strategy anymore, it's all done with what the AI says is best.


    This post was edited by Kittik at July 16, 2019 7:12 PM PDT
    • 124 posts
    July 19, 2019 6:56 AM PDT

    I agree with Kittik, however, one feature I would really like to see is a comparison window between an item you're inspecting and what you currently have equipt. Trying to flick from one item to another remembering every stat difference to ascertain which one is better was a real pain in the rear end!

    And yes, I also agree that the AI automation trend is really draining the life / fun out of everything!

    • 1247 posts
    July 19, 2019 7:07 AM PDT

    @Kittik

    I agree - that’s precisely the problem. Good example.

    • 145 posts
    July 19, 2019 7:40 AM PDT

    dorotea said:

    Nephele I agree - good examples being (as you perhaps had in mind) ships and houses and guild houses in Vanguard.

    Trasak I also agree. To this day I remember group harvesting as one of the good features of Vanguard. Group crafting could be a huge plus as long as it is limited as you suggest and doesn't require a group to do any useful crafting as Pantheon seems likely to require a group to do any but the most trivial adventuring.

    Vanguard to me had the ultimate crafting/harvesting system. The way it was set up was nothing short of perfect in my eyes. You could only have one profession, as most crafters and professionals in a real world are. You don't see many woodworkers taking up tailoring and making clothes, they hone their skill their entire life. Sure they can learn to weld and do a few other things that other professions require just to make their profession more efficient, but for the most part It's a labor of love that people don't deviate from. I liked the fact in Vanguard that I had to be friends with other crafters. If not that at least I had to roll another character and craft something that I needed with them to produce high end items to sell.

    As a smither I needed a cloth tailor to produce the bales needed to weave into my armor. I could have bought them on the market, but knowing people and interacting with them got me better deals. The items I was producing was on par or better than what people had for their level so it kept my crafter busy by making more things. Towards the end there was pantheon armor. This armor required a ton of faction grinding and a raid or two, but it also required a crafter and lots of desirable harvested materials. This was such a beautiful implementation of crafting/harvesting and most importantly it was great for the community because other people were buying the items or selling items needed, so it made everyone useful. Crafters were useful in almsot every aspect of Vanguard from start to the end.

    The unfortunate part is anything less than Vanguards system will be a let down to me. I have never been hooked to a crafting profession, by the end of that games day's I had 3 max level crafters and probably would have made more if the game didn't shut down. I also spent an unimaginable amount of hours grinding out harvesting materials. I just can't stress what a beautiful marriage Vanguard had with its system and it's up to them to bring something similar or better to the table. Hopefully better because you want developers to reach for more all the time, but even something similar would make me a happy guy.

     


    This post was edited by Moloka at July 19, 2019 7:45 AM PDT
    • 193 posts
    July 19, 2019 8:07 AM PDT

    Kittik said:

    Just imagine if you played Chess and all you ever had control of was the Queen.  

    To me, this is what many QoL features do.  They are gearing towards and are changing the core of games to take away every part of "Playing" the game except the most fun part.  But if you were to play chess and the only piece you controlled was the Queen, would it be fun?  

    Again, IMHO, (almost all) QoL features move every piece of your chess board for you except the Queen, and it's not fun because none of the game is me or my strategy anymore, it's all done with what the AI says is best.

    To me, it's just the opposite. The right QoL features make the game better. Using your example, QoL things also give you access to a rook, bishop and knight. They allow for alterate ways of doing and managing things instead of just having the queen option.

    • 159 posts
    July 19, 2019 8:11 AM PDT

      You all have got to stop writing books. Start practicing the acronmy k.i.s.s.. These forums have turned into your typical social media junk. People wanting to write books arguing their opinion(s) and attacking any person that doesn't agree. I normally see a post & click on it. Scroll down to see how long it is if needed and if to long I ignore it all together. I'm not going down that path of misery.  Learn how to compromise while maintaining checks and balances. Do that and everything will be just peachy.

    • 3852 posts
    July 19, 2019 8:24 AM PDT

    Moloka - I totally agree. Couldn't have said it better and maybe not as well.

    Vander - sorry if three or four paragraphs seems like a book to you. Some issues are complex and not readily addressed in a few sentances. And while some threads do turn into post after post of people attacking each other and defending themselves rather than discussing the issues - that is the exception not the rule on these forums and certainly not the case here.

     

    • 113 posts
    July 5, 2022 6:37 PM PDT

    Sorry for the necro, I've read that's what I should do rather than create a new thread. (I've been around a few years but haven't necro'd like this before and I liked this title anyway hehe)

     

    Recently it seems that every thread I read has some tie to QoL features. Be it the dungeon summons, solo play, corpse runs, darkness, loot, tamable mounts, inventory management, etc etc. 

    Every mechanic in the game can boil down to Classic MMO vs. Modern MMO / QoL it seems.

    Then the sparks start flying about how those things are not fun, they are just time sinks and grindy, while the classic supporters attempt to explain how the struggle makes the rewards more sweet and the world feel like you inhabit it. 

     

    I've been playing some other "classic MMO" mechanics games for a few months now and I'm here to tell you that the pushback is real, as seen in this thread, but every single mechanic that makes a classic style MMO is going to be under fire by the masses come release of Pantheon. My concern is that with some of the more recent QoL leanings, we are on the slippery slope. I suppose VR is forseeing this and trying to mitigate but it's only going to get worse once the masses get ahold of it and complain.

    My reason for posting this is as a dire warning / prediction. Do not doubt for a second that these complaints will flood the forums / social media. What the devs will do I don't know.. hopefully stick to the vision and not the $$.

     

    The overarching theme that I've seen from the modern MMO player when coming in to a game with similar Pantheon mechanics are:

    (these are real from other current classic MMO games forums recently, and the devs caved on much of it)

     

    1. They have no idea what a classic MMO is and are confused: "I like your game but I can't do XYZ, bug? Where are number 2-9? Every game has them."
    2. Maps: "Why should I have to learn where things are? It is wasting my time to force me to be lost and have to figure out the zones. I don't want to run around learning landmarks. This is a problem that has been solved with maps in every other MMO, give me a map with GPS.
    3. Combat simulator instead of a World simulator: If I can't log in and within a very short period of time start slaughtering things for loot, the game isn't fun. "I don't want to run around looking at rocks and trees, wasting my play time". Totally miss the point of a world feeling large and travel matters. It's a waste of my time to have to travel an hour just to get to the thing I'm trying to kill.
    4. Darkness: If I can't just play all of the time the way that I want to play then it's bad. If I have to be uncomfortable for 45minutes then I will just log off. 
    5. Death penalty: Having to run to your bag at all is bad, (expect to see big glowing light beam above your corpse, if Pantheon keeps them in after Beta).
    6. Soloability: XYZ class can go harvest solo all day long in an even level zone and I can't do that as a Warrior. Everyone gets a participation trophy and should be able to run around whenever they want. The game stopping me from doing so is wasting my time. What if I can't get a group? Why can a Ranger with SoW outrun every agro mob but I'm stuck dying?
    7. Grouping: It takes too long to get from town to where I'm going. Need teleports. Wasting my time just to force me to run through "scenery MMO the game". You say  you want it to be a group central game, grouping should be easy!
    8. Inventory: I have to go back to town or start destroying loot too fast. I shouldn't have to stop my killing to mess around with inventory, Especially when I have to travel in the dark with no map. 
    9. Leaving these things out of the game hurts the games' subscribers: I see this so much. If we don't make the game more mainstream, we will lose the millions of subscribers and the game will fail. Totally not understanding that a game can be an MMO and Targeted to a specific audience. 

     

    You'll notice a theme here. Anything that is not playing "Phat Lewts Pinata action RPG online" is a waste of my time. Because they don't understand a living world as apposed to a speed-run modern MMO or cellphone game.

    These things 1 by 1 are okay.. but this thread was about QoL as a whole. The QoL features will without a doubt be foremost on gamers minds when they try Pantheon.

     

     

     


    This post was edited by GeneralReb at July 5, 2022 6:39 PM PDT
    • 2756 posts
    July 7, 2022 5:46 AM PDT

    Yeah, necro-ing is the way I think and, though some folk tire of the same things going around, I think times and situations change, new information becomes known, so it's fine (or those folk can ignore it) so...

    Good points, GeneralReb.  Yeah, the most controversial 'discussions' do tend to revolve around QoL/convenience/modern features - whatever people want to call them.  I think people see them as fundamentally contributory to the way the genre has changed and if one doesn't like the way it's changed, then, yeah, they'll be 'passionate' about those things. As long as we try and remain positive and constructive and allow discussion and opinion, that's all fine and good, I think.

    Personally, I would like to see VR 'take this on' more, but they are a small team and it would take significant effort.

    Today, I've spent the whole morning replying to YouTube comments and some of the forum posts here. To do this in all media as a job would be horrendous, would take several people, and wouldn't necessarily be that effective (or might even backfire) these days. A lot of people don't go to the internet for anything more than an echo chamber or to let off steam. They don't react well to a discussion or argument.

    All of the information to understand VR's tenets, vision, attitudes, features, mechanics, etc. are available on the website and in vids, but would, of course, take hours to consume and some 'effort' to comprehend and to be kind to 'people' they mostly don't have time.

    To be less kind, most people these days don't care enough to bother and gather info and understand, they want to make their point despite lack of knowledge or even despite some really quite easy to find info.

    That doesn't mean it wouldn't be good to maybe try to head that negativity off or have maybe some helpful 'standard' responses.

    What VR *could* do I think is expand, flesh out and make more accessible the FAQ.  Some are quite fundamental for example, like the tenets, but are just one FAQ link and could use some more detail.  Some are very 'hot topics' and have nothing there, like the "What is the ETA for alpha and beta" which just says "there is no ETA" and doesn't even link the Road to Alpha info.

    Then we could, when we (or VR) see misinformation or misunderstanding, just link the FAQ, knowing it will cover the issue if the commentor is truly interested and, if they aren't *shrug* well they don't really matter and you did your bit.

    I also think, though, that the FAQ isn't enough for some issues, as you highlight above.

    I would love to see them address the whole 'old school' issue.  In the FAQ there is the "Who is the targeted player (demographic) base for this game, and why?" link, but I feel this might deserve a re-hash and a whole roundtable at this point.

    Maybe it is still early. This is a new crowdfunded small team project and 'the public' wouldn't usually be involved at all in a 'pre-alpha' stage, or maybe even alpha, but when alpha comes along it will be more like a beta in polish and extent, so... it's hard to know what should be done re. 'public relations'.

    Personally, I think VR need to make it clear that they are intentionally making a game that doesn't follow the trends of the modern MMORPG genre. That though there are more 'casual' gamers these days that might very well prefer soloing, very short sessions, gamey and 'less intense' content, there are still more than enough gamers that want group, challenging, immersive content - an 'old school' MMORPG.

    Yes, the 'gamer' demographic has more casuals now, but has more of the more 'serious' gamers too. Maybe not as a proportion of the total, but it has grown. 'Everyone' games now - people that certainly would not have been 'gamers' 20 years ago - most on their phone and not MMORPGs. That doesn't mean Pantheon needs to be a phone-based shooter to be successful.  It's ok not to target the most popular mass market. There will be more than enough in the Pantheon demographic to make it loved for its differences *and* be a great success. VR do not even need to appeal to *all* MMORPG fans (especially as a lot of MMORPG fans don't even know what an 'old school' MMORPG feels like).

    Just because burgers are more popular the steaks doesn't mean burgers are better or that a good steakhouse will fail. Praise the gods my only restaurant choice is not MacDonalds, but my only MMORPG choice these days is pretty much the MMORPG equivalent of MacDonalds. If it please the gods, let's not have Pantheon prioritise 'fast food gaming' just because its convenience makes it 'popular'.

    I've gone off on one, but what I'm saying is what I think VR need to say perhaps a bit more publically these days. It's almost anti-hype. Publicity, but a challenge to the industry and to gamers.

    "This is what we are doing and it will be great. We know a lot of people will love it. You personally don't have to love it. We are ok if you don't, but we're confident if you try it, you will".


    This post was edited by disposalist at July 7, 2022 5:47 AM PDT
    • 3852 posts
    July 7, 2022 6:34 AM PDT

    Unfortunately we do not all view each of these features the same way. One "old school" player's unwanted QOL feature is another "old school" player's must have. 

    For essentially any feature some will criticize it harshly and others will say that we should follow the spirit of EQ and not the details - that because computers and programmers could not do a thing in 1999 does not make that thing good - it makes it primitive, and the EQ developers surely would have been happy as pigs in mud had they been able to do better at the time.

    Pantheon will surely have some quality of life features. Pantheon will surely not do things that we are all used to in other games. VR has to decide what features will support their vision and which will just make gameplay boring and tedious. 

    Most of us will judge them based on the gestalt. 95% quality of life features in the game - bleh - just WoW-lite.

    5% quality of life features in the game - hellishly unpleasant and a playerbase of 12 old school fanatics cannot support the game.

    My hope is that they not compromose on the most important features - whatever that means - but compromise liberally on things that aren't critical - whatever that means. 

    Since we all have different preferences I am not even mentioning any particular feature.

    • 2756 posts
    July 7, 2022 8:56 AM PDT

    dorotea said:

    Since we all have different preferences I am not even mentioning any particular feature.

    Hehe, absolutely - nor did I - and, yes, it applies to *all* the features perceived as 'old school' or unfamiliar to 'modern' gamers, but to a greater or lesser degree depending on who you talk to.

    All tend to agree on what is 'an old school feature', I think, but *how* important (and particular implementations) varies, sure.

    The important thing, for me, is that VR have a good handle of what is in that list - what needs to be included/considered to 'return what was lost' (or a similar phrase that would probably be misconstrued as nostalgia, but is simply a desire for features not currently popular, that used to be great) - and the depth of the implementation can come out in testing and/or VR will simply have to decide on a 'level' and then, equally importantly, not be persuaded to slip toward 'modern MMORPG' levels to make a grab for that demographic, because, just like other early MMORPGs, as they did, they lost their core fans.

    The special case with Pantheon is, VR have, of course, set some firm expectations and made some quite explicit promises in the FAQ. It's why a lot of us are backers at all. Not only what they say they are doing, but that they say they will stick to that. To relate back to the necro-OP, assuming they aren't going to go back on those promises (and, wow, they better not after all this time), they could do with being publicly up front about how they are intentionally returning particular features and foci (they have been on the website all along, but could do with perhaps making it more up-front and clear), add more and more detail as they firm the design, and unapologetically stick to their guns in order to make a distinctive game the best it can be.

    Sometimes the criticism gamers give are like vegetarians going to a steakhouse and complaining there are few vegetarian options and the place smells of meat. It's a steakhouse. Maybe it's not trendy these days, but it makes a good living and has plenty of happy customers (despite it not being trendy. *Because* it's not trendy). As long as it's clear it's a steakhouse the public need not waste their time complaining about the features and properties that actually make it a good steakhouse and the owners need not waste their time trying to deal with people that don't actually like steakhouses. It's free to be the best steakhouse it can be.

    In the old days you *might* end up in a restaurant and be surprised by the lack of a particular food you like or the way they prepare the food or the atmosphere or the service - you might have a grumble, justified or not. These days, there's no excuse. If you're picky, you check the website. There's the menu and a gallery and an About page, etc.

    If VR improve the FAQ etc in the Pantheon website they will head off and/or quickly be able to address complaints and negative publicity re. old school features or whatever. Whether that negativity has any justification or not, it's perhaps best to be more able to avoid or mitigate it, given Pantheon is crowdfunded.

    • 113 posts
    July 7, 2022 3:31 PM PDT

    The McDonalds and steakhouse analogies are apt. That is exactly what my post was about more-so than the QoL arguements themselves.

    It's like saying I'm coming out with an awesome record player to get back the old-school sounds but everyone complains that it's not portable and can't make a playlist on it. They miss the point because they don't know any better. They see the word music and assume it's an app for their phone.

    So yea they see the word MMO in their search, and simply expect it to have the modern MMO features they're used to. 

     

    Prior to me starting to follow the other old school forums and play testing, I had not thought this a real issue because of what you guys note about the Pantheon FAQ and clear statements that Pantheon is purposefully trying to be challenging, group centric, all of the tenets. I just figured "Great! an oldshcool style MMO with Brad, there are going to be plenty of players like me that want this game". I had not considered how strong the pushback would be from the 10million WoW players until seeing it first hand.

    They also have FAQs, they also have clearly stated on their websites their intentions towards old-school mechanics. Yet there is a huge amount of feedback against Every old-school feature. Name a feature that you consider old-school and there are more posts against it than for it, most of them confused that it's not in because it's "a basic feature of all games". Name a modern MMO QoL mechanic and there are tons of requests to add it.  

    Anyway I'm just concerned that we're already compromising on things and trying to mitigate the image. I'm fine with bag runs, good enough compromise for me instead of naked. But we also need a podcast saying "no we didn't really mean the word niche". Better talk about how just because it's a grouping game, you can still solo. Everyone wants fast travel, better get some mounts and port circles in. I'm concerned about the slippery slope or perhaps smart early marketing to soften the blow a bit to mainstream players I dunno.

    I'm okay with most of what I see as compromises, but where does it indicate we are heading once the real complaints come in from Beta?

     


    This post was edited by GeneralReb at July 7, 2022 4:10 PM PDT
    • 2756 posts
    July 7, 2022 5:00 PM PDT

    GeneralReb said:

    The McDonalds and steakhouse analogies are apt. That is exactly what my post was about more-so than the QoL arguements themselves.

    It's like saying I'm coming out with an awesome record player to get back the old-school sounds but everyone complains that it's not portable and can't make a playlist on it. They miss the point because they don't know any better. They see the word music and assume it's an app for their phone.

    So yea they see the word MMO in their search, and simply expect it to have the modern MMO features they're used to. 

    Prior to me starting to follow the other old school forums and play testing, I had not thought this a real issue because of what you guys note about the Pantheon FAQ and clear statements that Pantheon is purposefully trying to be challenging, group centric, all of the tenets. I just figured "Great! an oldshcool style MMO with Brad, there are going to be plenty of players like me that want this game". I had not considered how strong the pushback would be from the 10million WoW players until seeing it first hand.

    They also have FAQs, they also have clearly stated on their websites their intentions towards old-school mechanics. Yet there is a huge amount of feedback against Every old-school feature. Name a feature that you consider old-school and there are more posts against it than for it, most of them confused that it's not in because it's "a basic feature of all games". Name a modern MMO QoL mechanic and there are tons of requests to add it. 

    Yeah, the record player analogy is good. And record players have had a revival IRL. Still not mass market or mainstream, but more than enough to be successful and making enthusiasts very happy. Slowly becoming more widespread, but doesn't really matter if they don't. Successful because of the quality, not the QoL features.

    I made the analogy of classic bikes in another thread. They too have had enthusiasts happily making businesses work for happy loyal long-term enthusiast customers, but also become 'trendy' lately. There are quite a few examples. Stuff that is successful because of its quality, not its convenience and often despite some inconvenience.

    Looking forward to VR doing it for the MMORPG genre.

    It's all about companies choosing to make quality products that consumers will like because they are good, so they become popular; as opposed to the more widespread modern way of companies using marketing studies to design and marketing techniques to hype an homogenised mass market product that will be boring, average in quality, but still popular because consumers know no better.

    It's interesting to hear your experiences of other MMO forums. I played WoW until Wrath of the Lich King (Dungeon Finder was the final straw for me) but never got involved in the community forums (because of the less social nature of the game?) so I'm not really familiar with why it went so QoL heavy at the expense of immersion and meaning. I mean it started more 'casual' than predecessors but then took it even further. If it really was players that insisted on that 'progress' it's a bit sad that Blizzard caved in to it, since they had a wildly popular product already with enough 'old school' goodness in there to keep folks like me playing.

    It's further interesting that they 'listened to feedback' to make QoL changes, but then when fans famously talked about wanting classic servers, the devs famously answer "you think you do, but you don't", no longer listening? Makes you think they were pushing the mass market QoL ideas internally too, not just 'listening to feedback'. I suppose once they saw their casual fanbase went even wider with QoL changes, they bought in wholly? It's hard to tell what happened to the culture over the years I guess.

    And then, of course, they produced Classic servers... But now they are 'upgrading' those classic servers with QoL features, apparently... Seems a mess.

    Also interesting to hear "they also have clearly stated on their websites their intentions towards old-school mechanics. Yet there is a huge amount of feedback against Every old-school feature". Yikes.

    I didn't really appreciate this. I guess, if some of the folks here are familiar with that, it might explain why they can be quite reactive and senstive to people suggesting QoL features for Pantheon.

    I guess I kinda knew about the cliche or the stereotype of developers caving to vocal players, but didn't realise there was a more solid history of it.

    This is perhaps starting to sound overly reactionary and alarmist, though. Just discussing here. Let's take it easy and imagine we are sat at a bar sharing a pint. I mean, a pint each, not sharing one pint. Ah, that's better. I'll have a headache tomorrow, but I'm more relaxed now.

    • 810 posts
    July 8, 2022 12:07 AM PDT
    QoL is the worst banner to use, but that ship has sailed so QoL is invoked for everything. You can change almost any core game design and call it QoL if you want as long as you make the game easier or simpler.

    The problem in my eyes is every company tries a one size fits all design as they listen to the lowest common denominator. Make money on solo balanced cash shop server with instances if it will keep the game afloat. All I care about for the game long term is the server community.
    • 119 posts
    July 8, 2022 3:51 PM PDT

    As many have stated, QoL has a morphing meaning.

     

    I personally would be OK with:

    - UI customisation so people can get thier own setup

    - Things catering for real life disabilities (colour blind / partially sighted / deaf) not nessesaraly to totally remove the impact but to mitigate.

    - Things that remove unesseasry clicks in non challenging situations (e.g. click open inventory, click open bag, click item, click sell, cick confirm - could be reduced to open all bags , click item , click sell). As a note I also won't play combat that is too clicky .. I dont want diablo RSI - but this is more of a game design choice rather than QoL.

     

    • 3852 posts
    July 9, 2022 9:27 AM PDT

    The steakhouse analogy is a very good one.

    We here want the game to have plenty of rich, red, blood-dripping. old school steak. With matching sides. If the vegans don't like it let them go back to Vega 17 where they came from.

    If there are enough true believers to make the game profitable enough to attract investors and keep the VR people employed - we can stop there. So far no major investor has been convinced - not enough to invest enough to bootstrap the game to within a year or two of launch.So the hard decisions are how much VR needs to compromise. No, the hard decisions are how much VR can afford to compromise while keeping the game Pantheon not WoW-lite with just the name Pantheon.

    To me QoL has a more limited meaning than most of us are giving it in this and other threads. I think of it as non-gameplay elements that make it easier to play the game. Customizable fonts. Customizable UI. That kind of thing.

    Not whether there are naked corpse runs. Not whether the game can be soloed. Not wheter there are teleports in the game.


    This post was edited by dorotea at July 9, 2022 9:32 AM PDT
    • 113 posts
    July 9, 2022 11:07 AM PDT

    Jobeson said: QoL is the worst banner to use, but that ship has sailed so QoL is invoked for everything. You can change almost any core game design and call it QoL if you want as long as you make the game easier or simpler. The problem in my eyes is every company tries a one size fits all design as they listen to the lowest common denominator. Make money on solo balanced cash shop server with instances if it will keep the game afloat. All I care about for the game long term is the server community.

     

    dorotea said:

    To me QoL has a more limited meaning than most of us are giving it in this and other threads. I think of it as non-gameplay elements that make it easier to play the game. Customizable fonts. Customizable UI. That kind of thing.

    Not whether there are naked corpse runs. Not whether the game can be soloed. Not wheter there are teleports in the game.

    Hehe funny I was just reading your replies about this from 2019.

    Yes but it seems like anything that saves time or can be percieved as making the game easier falls under the QoL umbrella now in conversation. I mean part of why I chose this thread was because it was broadly talking about everything from play session time to corpse runs to crafting to banks and mail. 

    It seems to me that anything that isn't directly and immediately giving gains for my character is considered unfun, or a grind and a waste of time by modern MMO players, and that anything that "saves time" is QoL improvement. 

    Anyway at least there are 4 of us that agree haha. I realize this is a contentious issue but I really do worry what's going to happen when thousands of players get in the game and realize it's not insta-dungeon-speedruns nonstop. 

    • 810 posts
    July 9, 2022 6:33 PM PDT
    "what's going to happen when thousands of players get in the game and realize it's not insta-dungeon-speedruns nonstop." They call for QoL changes clearly. Some day we will be outnumbered 20 to 1 by people seeking instant gratification... I just hope they stay off the RP server.
    • 3852 posts
    July 10, 2022 8:13 AM PDT

    "Hehe funny I was just reading your replies about this from 2019."

     

    Probably better than anything I have to say today. So in the event of inconsistancy feel free to copy the old ones and let the older me correct the newer me.

    • 945 posts
    July 10, 2022 11:00 AM PDT

    dorotea said:

    because computers and programmers could not do a thing in 1999 does not make that thing good - it makes it primitive, and the EQ developers surely would have been happy as pigs in mud had they been able to do better at the time.

    ^ This 100%

    Let's not conflate "quality" with "difficulty".

    A lot of those "difficult" features in vanilla EQ were time sinks (means to generate ways for players to spend their time), they were not designed to make the game of better quality - it was one of the few tools they had to increase game longevity, not game quality.  A perfect example of this is how/why vanilla EQ had no map.  It's not because the map didn't exist (because we could see it as guides) it was because the game content was so small that there were invisible boundaries created to give the "sense" of a larger area (with the exception of the karanas) giving a sense of "exploration" - but if the content is large enough, a map doesn't lessen exploration, and a map (with fog areas to explore) in fact "encourages" exploration.  If a player knew that they could walk in a straight line from Ro to Upper Guk across innothule swamp (after first exploring the area) in 15 seconds it wouldn't have taken them 20 mins of skirting the zone wall (which isn't exploration, but in fact missing a vast majority of the entire zone - because they likely had no intention of staying in the swamp)... or if they knew the way through rathe mountains (because they couldn't go over the tiny mountains due to boundaries) it would've again taken them seconds instead of hours to traverse the zone unless that was their final destination (a.k.a time sink).

    My hope is that any anti-QoL features are essential to the game and not just designed solely as a time sink (as my above example).  Let's not forget that in a Role Playing Game, the Quality of the game is directly correlated to the player's QoL.  To intentionally make something anti-quality of game is counterintuitive to a game's success.  Let's not conflate "quality" with "difficulty".

    With that said, I think the devs have a great grasp of this and are spending a lot of their time fine tuning this exact aspect.  Some of the smart balances I think they have already made include removing encumberance from coin, having corpse runs be highly encouraged/desirable but not "absolutely" essential (if you're willing to lose your carried (not worn) inventory and experience), and most of all the reliance on other players to fully experience the game.  As long as they stay true to the group-centric core mechanics of the game without intentionally trying to degrade the quality of the game, I think the QoL will be fine.

    Let's not conflate high quality with high difficulty, they are not synonymous.  (Just because something is more expensive doesn't always mean its better, it just means some people can afford it and therefore creates exclusivity - which some people conflate with "being better").


    This post was edited by Darch at July 10, 2022 11:03 AM PDT