Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Marathon Playing - Antisocial Menace or Who Cares? It's Fine!

    • 1860 posts
    July 12, 2019 6:21 PM PDT

    If there aren't drops that require a longer stretch than only 4 hours to acquire do you really feel like you accomplished anything? I know I don't... rare drops should be much more rare in order for me personally to get a feeling of satisfaction.

     

    • 3237 posts
    July 12, 2019 6:39 PM PDT

    philo said:

    If there aren't drops that require a longer stretch than only 4 hours to acquire do you really feel like you accomplished anything? I know I don't... rare drops should be much more rare in order for me personally to get a feeling of satisfaction.

    I'm not interested in participation trophies.  I'm interested in playing the odds and trying to hit the pick 3 or pick 4.  The most meaningful accomplishments I have ever been able to enjoy were always attached to the most difficult challenges/obstacles.  Open-world contested resources ... meet: challenging content.  No zerging and no killing everything on the first attempt.  Content is king, not the player.

    • 1399 posts
    July 12, 2019 8:20 PM PDT

    Chanus said:

    Vandraad said:

    Chanus said:

    oneADseven said:

    Do you have any examples of gameplay that require stretches of 12, 20, or 48 hours?

    Things like 12, 20, 48 hour respawn camps would be what I'd consider a required stretch for a single task.

    It's entirely possible you could get lucky and happen upon the spawn being up, but most people would interact with these camps by taking them when they're available, which would usually be after someone has gotten their drop. If you sit at this camp for 11.5 hours and then leave, you fail the task. I don't think that's good design. I would prefer to see three separate four-hour tasks required to complete the step than a single 12-hour task.

    Just because the spawn timer is 12, 20 or 48 hour repsawn does not, in an of itself, actually requires the player to stay there that entire duration. The decision to stay is wholly yours.  You have determined, in your own mind, that you must obtain whatever item (or complete whatever task) must be done in the least amount of time.  You have decided it must be done now.  The game isn't forcing that upon you.

    In your example you want 3 separate 4 hour tasks and not a single 12 hour task, yet respawn timers are not tasks.  Do not equate them as such.

    What definition of required do you have that isn't "either do this or you don't succeed"? 

    Continuously Kill 40,000 waves of rats until the mob you want spawns, if you stop you need to start over.

    What Vandraad is spelling out is exactly how it done. 

    • 1247 posts
    July 12, 2019 9:02 PM PDT

    philo said:

    If there aren't drops that require a longer stretch than only 4 hours to acquire do you really feel like you accomplished anything? I know I don't... rare drops should be much more rare in order for me personally to get a feeling of satisfaction.

     

    True. 

    • 1860 posts
    July 12, 2019 10:27 PM PDT

    oneADseven said:

    philo said:

    If there aren't drops that require a longer stretch than only 4 hours to acquire do you really feel like you accomplished anything? I know I don't... rare drops should be much more rare in order for me personally to get a feeling of satisfaction.

    I'm not interested in participation trophies.  I'm interested in playing the odds and trying to hit the pick 3 or pick 4.  The most meaningful accomplishments I have ever been able to enjoy were always attached to the most difficult challenges/obstacles.  Open-world contested resources ... meet: challenging content.  No zerging and no killing everything on the first attempt.  Content is king, not the player.

    So are you saying you don't want rare drops/time sinks? You are only interested in challenging content that gives a set reward when it is successfully completed?

    • 3237 posts
    July 12, 2019 11:10 PM PDT

    philo said:

    So are you saying you don't want rare drops/time sinks? You are only interested in challenging content that gives a set reward when it is successfully completed?

    I was mostly agreeing with you and extrapolating my own thoughts from your position.  I'm not sure why you would draw the conclusion that I don't want rare drops.  I mentioned that I'm interested in playing the odds to try and win the pick 3 and pick 4.  In other words, I enjoy the thrill of risk/chance.  You can't really play the odds of pick 3/4 (outside of accepting that you'll probably win, eventually)  --  but I brought those up intentionally as a contrast from playing the mega millions.  I want a reasonable chance to receive a reward for my invested time and effort but it should never be a sure thing.  In other words, even if I do manage to claim a contested encounter and then beat it, there should still be no guarantee that I'm going to get what I want.  I'm not interested in buying every possible combination of numbers (hold/claim a camp for as many hours as is necessary until I get what I want while willfully denying others the same opportunity in the process) just to ensure that I win because 1)  I'd go broke  ... and 2)  there is no fun in that.  When you add the nature of "contested resources" into the equation, there is a sense of the unknown.  You never know who is going to be where just like you never know if you'll get the coveted drop.  You make your way to a camp and then you assess whether or not it's worth spending time competing with the players who may already be there.  If you're at the camp first, and other players show up, you make that same assessment.  Is it worth sticking around, knowing that your chance to claim/kill an encounter has decreased?  Are there more lucrative opportunities elsewhere?  These thoughts are dynamic instead of monontonous.  They are thought provoking instead of sleep-inducing.

    I prefer an emphasis on open-world play where I'm free to adventure/explore without knowing who/what is around the corner.  The camp-check phenomenon is not something I endorse at all.  That is the merchandise in a grocery cart / stand in line at the concession stand / get your ticket stamped at the counter type of experience that I want no part of.  I think it's an obnoxious social construct that could never be enforced (and is directly responsible for the emergence of / emphasis on instancing in modern MMO's) without an overly burdening and fun-sapping PNP article that contradicts many of the elements that make open-world play so interactive and engaging.  People want to improve their "odds of winning" so badly that they think it's fair to lock down an area of an open-world game ... wut!?  They want to improve their odds so badly that they want "hotly contested resources" to become "it's common courtesy to /sh camp check whenever you zone into a new area."  Wut!?  People are so terrified of conflict in an open-world MMO that they prefer to avoid any/all interactions with other players as long as it helps them get what they want.  There is too much focus on winning and losing and not nearly enough acceptance of what a living/breathing world really is.  I prefer a world where players treat each other with respect and shake the hand of their opponent (friendly rival is more fitting) even after they watch them hoist the trophy.  I'll take that every day of the week over people looking at each other like invasive parasites that are trying to sabotage their day.

    I think it's important to add in the "challenging content" variable because at least then players have the burden of defeating difficult content before they can claim their rewards.  This creates a scenario where players may have to play a bit of tug-of-war to see who is capable of beating the content fair and square, and it can lead to standoffs where both sides wipe multiple times until they can claim their bounty.  When the bounty is claimed there is a measure of respect that is acknowledged between the players because they all realize that it wasn't an easy accomplishment.  So now you have to deal with the unknown factor of other real players in a deeply social game [gasp] while also having to prove your mettle in being able to overcome the challenges that are intentionally designed to make the encounter itself difficult.  That is legitimate risk vs reward in an open-world game, in my book.  It's not winning the lottery but there is enough of a thrill/chance factor there to keep things exciting and unpredictable.  You win some and you lose some.  As long as you aren't expecting to win the lottery you can afford to keep playing with your head held high.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at July 12, 2019 11:49 PM PDT
    • 1714 posts
    July 12, 2019 11:30 PM PDT

    Just like every_other_thing_in_life, a time investment should reflect(relatively, and to a point) a return on that investment. I will never be Kobe Bryant, but if I spend 50 hours a week playing basketball for the next 5 years, I will be  better than I am now. Time invested should absolutely be a #1 qualifying aspect of success in the game. 

    • 413 posts
    July 13, 2019 3:52 AM PDT

    Sitting is the new smoking.  One of the things I am doing, as I wait for Pantheon launch, is diet and workouts.  I know their will be long gaming sessions and I will need to maintain my fitness level.

    "Generally" not too many people under the age of 30 analyzes how long term gaming sessions will affect their health, the body can take a lot of abuse .  I would like to be gaming at the age of 70, that is if gaming does not kill me first.  What is the point of thinking you are an elite gamer if your dead at 50 years old.

    A stand up desk will help, but movement will help more.  Maybe Pantheon can get an app like Pokemon.  Then I can walk around the neighborhood and gain some ingame value for it.  Like a "Perception ping" or or a slight bump to endurance stats.  Or find a random pet with your phone.  Link it to a fitbit, and link a "crafting" research excelrerator to it.  Some people will just attach the fitbit to their cat or dog..lol.

    Devising a way to give a slight reward to players for taking care of themselves would be cool.


    This post was edited by Zevlin at July 13, 2019 4:00 AM PDT
    • 116 posts
    July 13, 2019 9:23 AM PDT

    @Nephele, well said!

    @Dorotea, agreed.

    @ the topic in general- risk, not time invested should yield the greater rewards

    Thats my 2 cents.

    Peace out. 

    • 1315 posts
    July 13, 2019 10:54 AM PDT

    @Dorotea

     

    I know you are proud of those pink panties but why are you wearing them on your head?

     

    @Philo

     

    More than 4 hours to obtain is not the same as more than 4 continuous hours to obtain.

    For example you want too get the pelt of albino gnoll with necrotic rot, necros are really weird.

    An example of non continuous would be:

    1. There are 25 gnoll spawn points

    2. Gnolls respawn ever 5 minutes

    3. The zone keeps a counter and every time 100 gnolls die an elite spawns

    4. The elite can be one of 4 different named elites

    5. There is a 1 in 6 chance that one of the specific elites has a Flesh Rotting Albino Gnoll follower

     

    On average assuming equall weighting you will need to kill 100*4 (different elites) * 6 (number of different follower configurations of a specific elite) or 2400 gnolls to get the Flesh Rotting Albino Gnoll. You could have the right combo of elite and followers spawn after your first gnoll kill if the zone was already at 99 kills when you arrived or it could take you 10k gnoll kills if you keep getting unlucky.

     

    A continuous play session would be the following:

    1. Every time you kill a gnoll you gain a splash of gnoll blood on your body

    2. Gnoll blood washes off after 5 minutes if you have not gotten more on you or if you log out or leave the area

    3. After you have 100 splashes of blood on you a gnoll elite will spawn

    4. Every time you kill a gnoll elite you gain a splash of gnoll champion blood on your body

    5. Gnoll champion blood washes away after an hour if you have not gotten more on you or if you log out or leave the area

    6. Once you reach 25 splashes of gnoll champion blood on you the Feared Gnoll Necromancer will spawn.

    7. If you have the blood of at least one Albino Gnoll on you when the Feared Gnoll Necromancer casts zone wide Tribal Zombivication then at least one Albino Gnoll zombie will be in the zone that you now must find and kill

    8. Oh btw the zone now has 1000s of gnoll zombies, good luck.

       

      Ok, now that I have written it I kinda like the second version a lot more but the kill count would need to be lowered for it to be viable and maybe no rent blood samples that can be traded will work better than an on character buff.

     

    • 10 posts
    July 13, 2019 11:54 AM PDT

    Personnaly I hope Pantheon gets away from Choke point questing/boss fights. In other words I hate the idea of competing with X Uber guild for X spawn for X item for my "epic item". My hypothetical minor guild is up to the task of killing X spawn because we're a talented bunch, but we can't compete with X Uber guild for X spawn point cause they can keep someone on it 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I don't mind the 100+ hours involved with getting my "epic item" if I can reasonably do it without having to compete with people that sit on spawns for their own or their guild's gain at the detriment of the small guy/guild.

    • 264 posts
    July 13, 2019 5:21 PM PDT

    Chanus said:

    I worry this topic encroaching on another thread might be getting off-topic, so I figured I would start a discussion of it in its own thread in case anyone was actually interested. 

    Personally, I have certainly been known to play games for extended periods of time over the course of a weekend, or a staycation, or what have you. I don't think it is inherently problematic to do so when you have the time and availability. Video games are entertainment and sometimes I needs to be entertained, like, rull bad.

    I do, however, think that there should be a design philosophy discrete "chunk" where no single task should take more than said number of hours to complete. Let's say four, for the sake of this being an entirely arbitrary and theoretical point I'm making. Anything in the game can take however long the developers deem necessary for it to feel like a rewarding and meaningful accomplishment. I have no problem with 100-hour quests.

    I do think any individual step of that quest should be able to be accomplished by most players in a reasonable play session. I think four hours is a decent enough baseline that it's not entirely prohibitive but allows for some step of meaningful challenge to be done. If it takes me 25 four hour sessions to complete the 100 hour quest, that's fine. That's ideal to me. It's something I can plan out and work toward and can reasonably expect to finish, given I put in the time, but doesn't feel like the experience is a cheap reward that didn't require adequate effort.

    If I want to complete the 100 hours quest in five 20-hour play sessions, that's fine too. I will likely get it done sooner than others because I devoted that much time to playing the game. Some people consider that an accomplishment and I don't really have much interest in disputing it even if I disagree it's a valuable use of time.

    I see no value in requiring players to sit at their computers for 12, 20, 48 hours at a stretch in order to accomplish a single task. To me that is an entirely unreasonable game design decision and rewards the wrong kind of behavior.

    Thoughts?

     It depends on the game and it's stated design goals. If it's slated as a casual game like WoW was from the beginning then I expect everything to be doable in 4 hours. If the game is described as hardcore like EVE online then I expect the greatest achievements to take ridiculous amounts of time and effort (along with a lot of luck) to achieve. I don't think there is a "right" or "wrong" type of player behavior in videogames. It is up to the developer however to determine the boundaries and enforce them. If Pantheon goes the route of requiring a 48 hour poopsock marathon for the endgame content that is VR's decision. And in my personal view having the extreme types of content is a net benefit because there is no way a developer can keep hardcore players entertained with sheer quantity of content. My main concern with Pantheon is having too much of a raid focus actually...and that sort of coincides with what you are talking about here because raiding usually takes a lot of time and most MMO players are not raiders. I'm fine with having the extreme content, just don't make it the main focus of the game. The 4 hour play session is fine for regular content, but I think it's a mistake to have the endgame stuff be that easily accessible.

    • 116 posts
    July 13, 2019 9:54 PM PDT

    I'm not sure I agree.  I do think just about every MMO requires at least a few hours to play, just because of the mechanics of finding a group, deciding on a destination, travel time, etc.  I don't think there's any issue with not being able to finish goals within that time period whether that goal is finishing a quest piece or obtaining a rare drop.  Sometimes it just takes more...

    I have no concerns with randomness or rarity and not sure what other ways you could still have a clearly iconic, unique and rare item while also making it not take X hours to camp it (depending on RNG)...  sometimes you get lucky... sometimes you don't.  If you are that determined and dedicated to camp it until you do get it, good for you.  I don't know you or your life circumstances so I don't judge...  If you don't have that kind of time, it's not the end of the world.  I've certainly passed on items I would have liked to have gotten but just wasn't up to spending that kind of time investment to obtain.  I always figured if I got lucky great if I didn't then some better item would drop from a raid at some point so it just wasn't a big deal to me.  I think the real issue isn't the mechanic its people obsessing over haves and have nots...  They're jealous because someone has something they want, and they don't have or want to spend the time/effort/money to get it and think it's somehow unfair...  I just never saw it that way and obsessing over fairness is a sure fire way to make yourself angry over something you can't fix.

    And in any case it always kinda made me shake my head to see the amount of effort on the last EQ1 progression server people would put into certain quests or difficult camps only to have that item replaced in a month when we raided the next expansion...  I always thought I was one of the best-geared bards on the last server before I left and I never camped any items when the camp was out of my level range and I never worked on any quests I couldn't complete in an afternoon or two (other than my epic)...  Excepting key pieces for raids of course.  I got lucky on a few rare drops and I bought the rest with DKP.

    I worry because I believe thinking like this is what leads to removing good mechanics while looking for perfection.  As they say, perfection is the enemy of good.  Just because a mechanic isn't perfect doesn't mean it's not a good one and doesn't mean you will find a better one.  All the games after EQ1 I think are living proof of what happens when you try to tinker too much with good mechanics.  People fight over camps... so they removed camps.  People fought over mobs... so they encounter locked mobs and other players couldn't even help.  People complained about long camps for rare drops so they got rid of rare items... right along with the feeling of having said rare item.  I think you just gotta change your mindset and you'll find the game a lot more enjoyable.  

    • 1714 posts
    July 13, 2019 10:28 PM PDT

    Chanus said:

    Thoughts?

    In what world ever was someone required to play for 12 hours?  Nobody is required to do anything. Additionally your thread title is quite the flame bait logical fallacy. You use the term "simple task" and that could mean anything. Getting a Ghoulbane or a piece of your epic quest  should require an investment and certainly is not a "simple task". Some will get lucky and some won't, but it averages out. This is a virtual world and breaking down gameplay into units of "tasks" destroys what makes a deep open world like this so rewarding. When getting from point A to point B is in and of itself a rewarding experience, why do we have to define explicit chunks of gameplay? 

     

    edit: wow these boards are awful. 


    This post was edited by Keno Monster at July 13, 2019 10:34 PM PDT
    • 1714 posts
    July 13, 2019 10:30 PM PDT

    double post

    double post


    This post was edited by Keno Monster at July 13, 2019 10:31 PM PDT
    • 413 posts
    July 14, 2019 3:34 AM PDT

    Risk, inginulity and exploration should be rewarded,  all the rest are non-factors.  Risk, inginulity and exploration already require time.  Time is already built in to the tasks, no need to evaulate it.

    Some Folks have plenty of time -They should state that fact before laying down an opinion for "Time investment rewarded game-play"  Folks who are retired, or don't have too work, or people that don't mind blood clots in their legs can be proponents of long time investments.  There is no expertise in going AFK to let the dog out between spawns (Time is not a skill).  Nor is /AFK cooking dinner, or /AFK laundry, or /AFK the baby woke up.     umm..ok that is a life juggling skill, but does not mean it fun and does not add to the game expierence.

    Life is a Balance, I need to level up my skills in real life, as well.

    Guilds are to serve the friendships among players, not players serving the guilds


    This post was edited by Zevlin at July 14, 2019 3:46 AM PDT
    • 145 posts
    July 14, 2019 2:23 PM PDT

    Chanus said:

    Well, rather than focusing on a pointless semantics argument over the definition of requires, my point is that there are people advocating for the game to be designed with specific 12+ hour play sessions in mind for single tasks and I think that is bad design, while at the same time I have no problem with shorter "chunks" or time being strung together into a task-arc that takes a total of 12+ hours. 

    Several threads have had people asking for these 12+ hour tasks to be in the game, which is why I brought it up and have been attempting to come up with a solution that will be suitable to the most people possible. If you want to knock out all the separate tasks in a 12+ hour arc, there's no reason anything should stop you. 

     

    My take on the situation is how bad do you want the item? I have never played an MMO where I had to have a specific item to succeed. Sure one item may make the world of difference but I've never been kicked out of a group because I didn't have a DonkeyPuncher 3000. The camps you're referring to are specific items, or even epic quests. Which brings us back to how bad do you want it? As someone who completed the BiC (Breakdown in Communication) quest on Everquest I can assure you that is the worst quest experience in all quests probably acrossed all games. Requireing a multitude of very rare spawns, maxed tradeskills, and multiple rare raid drops.

    I agree with what you're saying about breaking the quest up and finding 4 easier to get items instead of 1 really hard, but in the end it's a matter of how bad do you want the item and how much do you benefit from the item. A lot of times these camps you're referring to are bottlenecks. Just like raid dungeons, if you get passed them you are rewarded for it. For the time spent, and invested in such. While I'm more casual now than I ever have been in games, I was always one to advocate that there be a major reward for those willing to go the extra mile to camp something or go deep in a dungeon with a group to find an item that is above the rest. Risk vs Reward basically. If you break it up too much you make it easier for the common player to do and then the item loses it's value.

    • 411 posts
    July 14, 2019 2:53 PM PDT

    My worst experiences with long playtimes were rare mobs that were at predictable locations with long respawns. I have had much more pleasant experiences with rare mobs that spawn in varying places. If it's sought after and on a long respawn, it should have a variable respawn location such that it can't be camped.

    Raids can also result in marathon play sessions, but that's a pretty different beast.

    • 3852 posts
    July 14, 2019 7:55 PM PDT

    ((I know you are proud of those pink panties but why are you wearing them on your head?))

    Frankly I am not sure myself. It just seemed right at the time. 

    • 145 posts
    July 14, 2019 8:30 PM PDT

    Chanus said:

    I worry this topic encroaching on another thread might be getting off-topic, so I figured I would start a discussion of it in its own thread in case anyone was actually interested. 

    Personally, I have certainly been known to play games for extended periods of time over the course of a weekend, or a staycation, or what have you. I don't think it is inherently problematic to do so when you have the time and availability. Video games are entertainment and sometimes I needs to be entertained, like, rull bad.

    I do, however, think that there should be a design philosophy discrete "chunk" where no single task should take more than said number of hours to complete. Let's say four, for the sake of this being an entirely arbitrary and theoretical point I'm making. Anything in the game can take however long the developers deem necessary for it to feel like a rewarding and meaningful accomplishment. I have no problem with 100-hour quests.

    I do think any individual step of that quest should be able to be accomplished by most players in a reasonable play session. I think four hours is a decent enough baseline that it's not entirely prohibitive but allows for some step of meaningful challenge to be done. If it takes me 25 four hour sessions to complete the 100 hour quest, that's fine. That's ideal to me. It's something I can plan out and work toward and can reasonably expect to finish, given I put in the time, but doesn't feel like the experience is a cheap reward that didn't require adequate effort.

    If I want to complete the 100 hours quest in five 20-hour play sessions, that's fine too. I will likely get it done sooner than others because I devoted that much time to playing the game. Some people consider that an accomplishment and I don't really have much interest in disputing it even if I disagree it's a valuable use of time.

    I see no value in requiring players to sit at their computers for 12, 20, 48 hours at a stretch in order to accomplish a single task. To me that is an entirely unreasonable game design decision and rewards the wrong kind of behavior.

    Thoughts?

    while i agree that most tasks should not take more than a reasonable play session to do, I believe that some tasks should take longer, up to a certain threshold, for at least bragging rights. Not everyone should  be able to do everything there should be ppl with insane gear that shows there dedication to the game and skill. I do think like a said there should be some kind of cap so that if someone reallly wanted to do it they could so in a somewhat doable time frame but still somethings should be realllly difficult to acommplish.

    • 297 posts
    July 15, 2019 4:46 AM PDT

    stonetothebone85 said:while i agree that most tasks should not take more than a reasonable play session to do, I believe that some tasks should take longer, up to a certain threshold, for at least bragging rights. Not everyone should  be able to do everything there should be ppl with insane gear that shows there dedication to the game and skill. I do think like a said there should be some kind of cap so that if someone reallly wanted to do it they could so in a somewhat doable time frame but still somethings should be realllly difficult to acommplish.

    I don't mind there being occasional rare/prestige items that you may not have a guaranteed path to over a single attempt, like a boss having a rare chance to drop a special item.

    I don't think items necessary for advancement and progression should be left up to chance, or be unobtainable by someone who can't devote an entire weekend to sitting at a computer. I would consider something like an Epic quest to be character progression. If it is meant to be the pinnacle of your character's achievements, it should be guaranteed to obtainable by anyone willing to put in the effort, no matter how long it takes them to do it. Rare spawns with rare drops do not qualify under that condition to me. 

    And to be clear, since what I'm talking about may have been misunderstood, I'm not saying everything in the game should be obtainable in four hours. I thought I made that clear with an entire paragraph explaining what I meant, but it appears that's not the case. You should be able to advance meaningfully toward a goal by the end of a four hour play session -- get the kill on a mob for a quest, or obtain one of the drops you need for a quest, etc. Four hours I also explicitly stated was just an idea for what I mean, not a hard and fast rule.

    • 145 posts
    July 15, 2019 7:21 AM PDT

    I don't think items necessary for advancement and progression should be left up to chance, or be unobtainable by someone who can't devote an entire weekend to sitting at a computer. I would consider something like an Epic quest to be character progression. If it is meant to be the pinnacle of your character's achievements, it should be guaranteed to obtainable by anyone willing to put in the effort, no matter how long it takes them to do it. Rare spawns with rare drops do not qualify under that condition to me. 

    This is what I was referring to about how bad do you want said item. You are kind of conradicticting yourself, or at least that's the way I am interpreteing it. I may not be understanding what you're saying exactly either so I apologize if that's the case. I spent almost a month camping Phinigel on EQ for my wizard epic piece. Took me 24 kills on him to get the staff piece at a 12 hour spawn. I wouldn't have done this if it wasn't for my epic. Because it's epic. The risk vs reward was worth it to me. And most everyone for theirs. If this was just an armor piece that I would eventually replace I never really bothered to quest them. I knew that by pushing forward I would eventually get better.

    But that didn't mean there wasn't many people who stopped and did certain quests. To them it was worth their time. That's what they wanted to do. That's what they elected to do.  I guess I'm just having a hard time grasping your concept. Because I have yet to play an MMO where I absolutely HAD to do something to move forward that required me to camp endlessly for things. Everything I decided to spend that time on was because I wanted said item or key or clicky. Or I was bored and max level and had nothing else to do. 

    • 297 posts
    July 15, 2019 7:50 AM PDT

    I guess this will just devolve into another stint of running in circles disagreeing about the definition of "required".

    So, let me just say my definition of "required" in this sense is as follows:

    If something is intrinsic to the definition and advancement of my character, it is required. An Epic quest is intended to be the pinnacle item quest for your character. To me, that means it is required.

    To say it is not is akin to saying, "Well, you don't have to attain max level. You can stop at level 41 if you want to."

    Absolute nonsense.

    So, to me, there should be a fixed amount of effort required for me to obtain my Epic item. You can make that effort equal to whatever the designers believe is adequate to the challenge, but it should not ever be left up to random chance that I may never succeed at all. 

    The point of this thread, however, is not to debate whether or not Epic items should require random drops. It is to debate the limit, or if there should be one, at which point character advancement should occur after a set number of hours playing. My argument succinctly being it should always be the case that I can set a goal and achieve it in a reasonable play session, which I have arbitrarily considered to be four hours. I have tried to make it clear what I mean by that is the "goal" I set can be as little as a single quest or development step in a much longer term pursuit, but nothing should take me longer than [four] hours in a single shot to make progress toward a final goal, even if that final goal takes 100 hours over the course of many play sessions.

    • 368 posts
    July 15, 2019 1:56 PM PDT

    oneADseven said:

    Do you have any examples of gameplay that require stretches of 12, 20, or 48 hours?

     

    While it wasnt a requirement, I certainly remember 24-72 hour stretches on EQ1 during double xp weekends. 

    • 945 posts
    July 16, 2019 9:07 AM PDT

    Mornroc said:

    And in any case it always kinda made me shake my head to see the amount of effort on the last EQ1 progression server people would put into certain quests or difficult camps only to have that item replaced in a month when we raided the next expansion...  I always thought I was one of the best-geared bards on the last server before I left and I never camped any items when the camp was out of my level range and I never worked on any quests I couldn't complete in an afternoon or two (other than my epic)...  Excepting key pieces for raids of course.  I got lucky on a few rare drops and I bought the rest with DKP.

    I did the same with "skipping" contested level appropriate item camping because I knew I could get better by just progressing my character and then if I wanted to I could come back later (with way better gear) and deny others items like I was being denied by someone else that was higher level (only to sell the item or use it for an alt because my gear was better by that point).  This is poor game design in my opinion - camping of items should be meaningful to the players at the level they are intended for.