Fast travel should not be a class mechanic. It should be a world achievement, and yes this include the beloved spirit of the wolf which I think should not be in the game at all.
Movement speed is one of the best ways to tune different combat encounters lethality. If you are faster you can get away before the mob runs out of patience. If you are slower then they catch you. If you time your sprint right and have enough endurance you might be able to just barely get away from a the first faster mob but not the second group. You know unless they also have the sprint ability and endurance to use it.
If movement speed enhancements are only a function of traveling on well paved roads with and without killable mounts then the world gets a ton larger and more gritty and open up the need and desire for disengagement abilities.
Likewise teleportation of any type drastically shrinks the world. There should be no teleport, no gate, no evac, nothing. The ability to jump at will from one location to another cuts the world at least in half if not much smaller if you can bounce from one location to the next Teleportation should be just a function of connecting 2 points in space in a known way that is part of the traffic flow of the game. They can be used to make it so that you can get from anywhere to anywhere in 2 hours or less but should not make it shorter than that. You will basically have multiple “outer regions” that are the extremes and it should take 1 hour to get to a teleport that moves you to a location that is an hour away from a different “outer region”. The other way to look at it is that no two teleports should be closer than a 2 hour walk from each other.
I would also not put any teleports near major cities. Connect major cities with coach trains that in turn can get you to any other city on the continent within an hour but give you limited actions while on the train other than mini games and the ability to jump off (offline travel will drop you off at your purchased destination).
All of this requires the world to be very big relative to character movement speed. Movement speed minimums are usually dictated ironically by animation rather than mechanics. Figure out the lowest movement speed that is reasonable for a non-endurance draining movement and that becomes your metric for world building.
Feign death can be revised very easily to make it useful for the player and his or her group but useless for griefing.
Have any mob that loses aggro because of feign death return to its spawn point without attacking players that are near where it was released.
Trivially easy fix and now one of the iconic abilities of EQ is harmless to other players.
dorotea said:Feign death can be revised very easily to make it useful for the player and his or her group but useless for griefing.
Have any mob that loses aggro because of feign death return to its spawn point without attacking players that are near where it was released.
Trivially easy fix and now one of the iconic abilities of EQ is harmless to other players.
And now you get a tool to skip content because you can train mob a cross them with a full raid instead of killing trashs.
The simplest idea isn't allways the best.
Sometime
There's been many ways to 'fix' feign death presented on these forums since 2015.
Yet, it remains a public design goal, directly from VR developers, that FD will be used for pulling in Pantheon.
They have many videos where they show it's intended to be used for pulling.
In some of those same videos, completely unrelated, they also one person or group training another person or group.
Clearly, training is going to be in Pantheon, due to the current chase & leash mechanics demonstrated.
Also, FD is intended for pulling, due to the current demonstrated pulling mechanics.
Once the developers change their mind regarding either of these, adjust those public design goals, then it might be worth the community coming up with solutions.
Until that exact moment, all the ideas in the world won't help. :) They are determined to code in social toxicity, and nothing is going to stop them.
I mean, something as easy as: FD only has a 1% - 49% chance to work if there are no zone lines, other players or player corpses within sight and/or within 200m, whichever is larger, and has a 1 hour re-use timer.
That's a skill that might save you from a death, if you die alone. No way to use it for training if the only way it can be used is if there is no-one to train.
But that wouldn't stop the average train, from a player just running for their life. That would require adjusting chase & leash mechanics, which also have theorycrafted fixes and solutions on these forums.
Personally? I'm in favor of 100% mute/stifling and snaring players being chased by 20% per un-named chaser, ignoring speed buffs, and/or 50% per named chaser, ignoring speed buffs, in general. And if that wasn't enough, increase those percentages until it was enough, right up to 100% if necessary. In other words, if you have 5 mobs chasing you, you're literally paralyzed with fear, and you cannot move, escape or cast or use any ability while being chased.
But I really don't like trains, so.. yeah. My bias is certainly showing. :)
vjek said:There's been many ways to 'fix' feign death presented on these forums since 2015.
Yet, it remains a public design goal, directly from VR developers, that FD will be used for pulling in Pantheon.
They have many videos where they show it's intended to be used for pulling.
In some of those same videos, completely unrelated, they also one person or group training another person or group.
Clearly, training is going to be in Pantheon, due to the current chase & leash mechanics demonstrated.
Also, FD is intended for pulling, due to the current demonstrated pulling mechanics.
Once the developers change their mind regarding either of these, adjust those public design goals, then it might be worth the community coming up with solutions.
Until that exact moment, all the ideas in the world won't help. :) They are determined to code in social toxicity, and nothing is going to stop them.
I mean, something as easy as: FD only has a 1% - 49% chance to work if there are no zone lines, other players or player corpses within sight and/or within 200m, whichever is larger, and has a 1 hour re-use timer.
That's a skill that might save you from a death, if you die alone. No way to use it for training if the only way it can be used is if there is no-one to train.
But that wouldn't stop the average train, from a player just running for their life. That would require adjusting chase & leash mechanics, which also have theorycrafted fixes and solutions on these forums.
Personally? I'm in favor of 100% mute/stifling and snaring players being chased by 20% per un-named chaser, ignoring speed buffs, and/or 50% per named chaser, ignoring speed buffs, in general. And if that wasn't enough, increase those percentages until it was enough, right up to 100% if necessary. In other words, if you have 5 mobs chasing you, you're literally paralyzed with fear, and you cannot move, escape or cast or use any ability while being chased.
But I really don't like trains, so.. yeah. My bias is certainly showing. :)
I literally LOVED trains! I find them Incredibly amusing!
To watch, To avoid, To escape, To survive, emergent game play extreme!
((And now you get a tool to skip content because you can train mob a cross them with a full raid instead of killing trashs))
If you are right - and I assume you may be - this is definitely not the result I had in mind. But if a monk can take the trash somewhere else and let them kill other people, isn't that better for allowing the raid to skip content than if they return to the area the raid is trying to get through as soon as the monk flops? What am I missing here?
vjek yes I know VR has its heart set on allowing the use of feign death to grief other players. But when the subject comes up I cannot resist.
dorotea said:But if a monk can take the trash somewhere else and let them kill other people, isn't that better for allowing the raid to skip content than if they return to the area the raid is trying to get through as soon as the monk flops? What am I missing here?
The key word in all this is this: Skip. Players should not be allowed, able or capable of skipping content. That is bad and only hurts the long term health of the game. Content is there to be experienced, not skipped, not bypassed, not ignored, not made irrelevant.
Teleporting and its variations can be seen as another means of skipping content.
Trasak said:Fast travel should not be a class mechanic. It should be a world achievement, and yes this include the beloved spirit of the wolf which I think should not be in the game at all.
Movement speed is one of the best ways to tune different combat encounters lethality. If you are faster you can get away before the mob runs out of patience. If you are slower then they catch you. If you time your sprint right and have enough endurance you might be able to just barely get away from a the first faster mob but not the second group. You know unless they also have the sprint ability and endurance to use it.
If movement speed enhancements are only a function of traveling on well paved roads with and without killable mounts then the world gets a ton larger and more gritty and open up the need and desire for disengagement abilities.
Likewise teleportation of any type drastically shrinks the world. There should be no teleport, no gate, no evac, nothing. The ability to jump at will from one location to another cuts the world at least in half if not much smaller if you can bounce from one location to the next Teleportation should be just a function of connecting 2 points in space in a known way that is part of the traffic flow of the game. They can be used to make it so that you can get from anywhere to anywhere in 2 hours or less but should not make it shorter than that. You will basically have multiple “outer regions” that are the extremes and it should take 1 hour to get to a teleport that moves you to a location that is an hour away from a different “outer region”. The other way to look at it is that no two teleports should be closer than a 2 hour walk from each other.
I would also not put any teleports near major cities. Connect major cities with coach trains that in turn can get you to any other city on the continent within an hour but give you limited actions while on the train other than mini games and the ability to jump off (offline travel will drop you off at your purchased destination).
All of this requires the world to be very big relative to character movement speed. Movement speed minimums are usually dictated ironically by animation rather than mechanics. Figure out the lowest movement speed that is reasonable for a non-endurance draining movement and that becomes your metric for world building.
There are people here commenting on druid/wizard teleports that seem to be unaware that there will be portals that let all players travel from one continent to the other anyway (without the aid of a druid or wizard).
I think part of the issue some are having is due to being uninformed. Maybe those people have issues with the portals that will be useable by all classes as well? Unsure?
I'm not sold on this players should have to manually travel to a location before they can be teleported to it becouse they will be skipping content.
Real life story here. That I have shared before.
Early EQ Euradite Mage (RL mother playing EQ with her son) her son arranged her a port to Freeport so he could group with her... then basically ditched her. She soon out leveled her spells and could not compete or stay viable as a group member. She had no idea how to get back to her home city, not even a clue which way to head out. So she would just hang arround "spending time in game with her son"
This is how me and my Druid partner found her. I talked it over with the Dwood and we offered to make the run with her (of course with the help of EQ-Atlas) and off we went. To make a long story short, death, victory, lost,death, found, (repeat several times over, a several day journey) and you never seen anyone so excited when we entered her starting zone and she knew where she was. And was able to get her spells. Still know this lady today.
So I understand the whole travel to the portal on foot thing first, but I also understand VR wanting to create a world where real life friendships can be made. Of those I can name my two most obvious and one of them wouldn't have happened if this Euradite mage couldn't have been ported outside her home city getting her lost and needing assistance to find her way back.
May just be a rare one off occurrence, but I've also found I'm not all that unique, so there is likely other similar stories.
So I'll reserve opinion on it and go with whatever VR desides.
philo said: There are people here commenting on druid/wizard teleports that seem to be unaware that there will be portals that let all players travel from one continent to the other anyway (without the aid of a druid or wizard).I think part of the issue some are having is due to being uninformed. Maybe those people have issues with the portals that will be useable by all classes as well? Unsure?
Zorkon said:I literally LOVED trains! I find them Incredibly amusing!
To watch, To avoid, To escape, To survive, emergent game play extreme!
i love trains too =D especially on pvp servers ^.^ it'd be a real shame if they were to get cc'd right about now. a REAL shame. *drools while watching a monk attempting to train into a wizard sitting down recouping mana for his next pull*
best.
emergent.
play.
evar.
Flapp said:100% disagree with ALL of this. sow and ports should be in the game as well as Gate.
Why? What purpose do they serve other than to avoid content and shrink the world. What game function do they fill? How do they make game play better that couldn't be done with world systems over class powers? Why do certain classes have access to them and others do not, if they do not have access to them what will other classes have as a balance? How easy are they to be part of game exploits? Would the concepts even be in your vocabulary if Everquest did not have them? "Because EQ had it" is a terrible design basis.
Trasak said:Why? What purpose do they serve other than to avoid content and shrink the world. What game function do they fill?
Isn't this understood? VR has always talked about players being able to feel like the can make progress in short, 2 hour, play sessions. Part of that is allowing players to find a group using the group finding tool and traveling to that group in a relatively short amount of time. This has always been the design.
Trasak said:Why? What purpose do they serve other than to avoid content and shrink the world. What game function do they fill? How do they make game play better that couldn't be done with world systems over class powers? Why do certain classes have access to them and others do not, if they do not have access to them what will other classes have as a balance? How easy are they to be part of game exploits? Would the concepts even be in your vocabulary if Everquest did not have them? "Because EQ had it" is a terrible design basis.
What is wrong with avoiding some content, with cutting out *some* of the middle tedium between point A and B that in most cases poses little to no engagement/threat? No game will have travel so engaging that running through multiple level zones for tens or hundreds of times is enjoyable or feels good in any way, the higher level a player gets the smaller the pockets of realistically threatening areas that will exist.
At a certain point the question is: why are we making players spend upwards of 1-2 hours just to get from point A to B, likely while hitting autorun and watching a show/movie/stream on another monitor? What is added really by forcing such tedium compared to what is lost? It's easy to say "screw em" when it comes to players with less hours to play, to those who one day might think of the hour run they have to do and just never log in again, but honestly is it really worth it just for the tedium of largely uneventful long distance running?
Certain classes having access to unique powers isn't limited to teleports, resurrection spells will likely save players more time than teleports so what of them? What about call of the hero type spells?
Trasak said:Flapp said:100% disagree with ALL of this. sow and ports should be in the game as well as Gate.
Why? What purpose do they serve other than to avoid content and shrink the world. What game function do they fill? How do they make game play better that couldn't be done with world systems over class powers? Why do certain classes have access to them and others do not, if they do not have access to them what will other classes have as a balance? How easy are they to be part of game exploits? Would the concepts even be in your vocabulary if Everquest did not have them? "Because EQ had it" is a terrible design basis.
we can look at the affects of teleportation and easy access by looking at wow. everyone just sits in the major cities que via menu box with 95%(this is an exaggeration of numbers i don't know the exact figure) of the world not even talking to each other.
i get where you are coming from. that spirit of adventure is a beautiful thing, but not everyone that goes hiking likes it.
i'd say teleportation is part of the lore on terminus
many civilizations have risen and fallen and dd da d ada~
as long as it's limited(hopefully by crafted reagents only, support crafters/lifeskillers hut hut) i'd compromise with having them.
hell some days a person may want to ride an uber instead of walking, but that sucks away resources one may not want to use XD (long live crafters! may they have moar powah to influence the world MUAHAHHAHAHAHAH)
philo said:Trasak said:Why? What purpose do they serve other than to avoid content and shrink the world. What game function do they fill?
Isn't this understood? VR has always talked about players being able to feel like the can make progress in short, 2 hour, play sessions. Part of that is allowing players to find a group using the group finding tool and traveling to that group in a relatively short amount of time. This has always been the design.
The only tool that can be used to make the world feel large is the minimum time it takes to travel from one area to another. Now that is not saying you need to go very far at all to adventure. If the current zone you are in goes from 25-35 it could have a dozen camps at each level spread across an area that takes 15 minutes to walk from one edge to the other. There would be no need to travel to another area to have a play session if you were in that level range.
If there were then 4-8 sequential zones of this size between ports then you have reached the size I am suggesting. The caravans would then be the primary way to move between the city zones in these mega zones as a base of adventuring. You use a combination of caravans and ports to get to anywhere in the game in an hour or so but no faster, unless of course your just going to the next zone over in which case you could get to almost anywhere in it with 30 minutes of walking.
Sadly I don't think VR will be making zones remotely this big. If that is the case then it is absolutely imperative to keep travel speed low and content density high in order to maintain any feeling of size. Otherwise Vjek is completely right and localization will be an absurd and annoying concept if you can get anywhere in the world at any time in 15 minutes or less. Ports, gates, SoW and go-anywhere mounts all contribute to removing travel time as a concept.
I think you aren't accounting for how difficult it can be to find a group at times trasak. VR is trying to minimize some of that LFG downtime by allowing players at least some fast travel (though not to the extent of dungeon queues that port you there instantly).
I'm not saying I disagree with you. Fast travel does make the world seem smaller but this type of fast travel is a system that we have known will be in game from the beginning and I think we all understand the reason why it is instated.
Unless you are ok with players sitting LFG for hours, you can't create a game that requires grouping and not let players have a way to join together to group when they are spread across the world.
The LFG issue will actually be helped by giant zones with the centralizing filter function of the caravan train to the mega zone hubs. If it takes a while to travel and there is always going to be enough content for your group to grind through in the area you are at then there is no reason to leave the mega zone on a whim. You are more likely to build relationships with people who are going to consistently be playing in that zone over a 2 week period before they level out of it. People usually run all over because the level zones are often over camped and or very distant from each other. If zones were large with plenty of content and in a fairly linear progression with multiple adjacent options then travel between mega zones will be limited to once or twice a week.
The E-harmony caravan system not to be confused with the caravan train transport system would also help with the grouping. In theory your group would move from one mega zone hub to another over time and your group members would always be around. This would be really functional if the matching system was good at placing you with people with very similar play times and styles so you wont likely vastly out level each other. The teleport to your caravan stable is the one type of teleport I would be ok with but thats a once per day type tool not a common travel tool.
Raiding is a different beast but I would be happy to see raiding be much more of a long term campaign where your guild builds up in an area to do basically a long term raid quest rather than bouncing around the world to kill one random target that may or may not have been killed by one of the other dozen guilds trying to do the same thing at the same time.
Darch said:All of the points Neph made were very legitimate concerns and frankly I "personally" feel (opinion incoming) that the game will have to cater to the modern style of MMO players in order to increase and even maintain a sustainable player base (which means trivializing those concerns);
Edit: A lot of people on these forums aren't thinking about the long game and are only thinking (like a new MMO player) about the first 6-20 months of playing an MMO. Some of us are looking at the long game.
Once, again I respectfully disagree with that way of thinking and believe it is 100% completely false. Look at WoW for example --> Retail is in a downward spiral. What did they do? Oh, they brought back Classic WoW servers! Guess what? That has been a tremendous success. And yet, people are already quiting because they realize it's too easy (& also may have already done that). Visionary Realms needs to remain 100% focused on Pantheon being the ALTERNATIVE to *and NOT being Mainstream.* Mainstream is tainted, yuck!!!
May Pantheon progress on being the alternative to mainstream in every way possible, and may Pantheon take mmorpg's in the new direction from "old school" that many of us years ago said should have happened in the first place! Thank goodness this game is being developed by Visionary Realms lol.
Trasak said:
The LFG issue will actually be helped by giant zones with the centralizing filter function of the caravan train to the mega zone hubs. If it takes a while to travel and there is always going to be enough content for your group to grind through in the area you are at then there is no reason to leave the mega zone on a whim. You are more likely to build relationships with people who are going to consistently be playing in that zone over a 2 week period before they level out of it. People usually run all over because the level zones are often over camped and or very distant from each other. If zones were large with plenty of content and in a fairly linear progression with multiple adjacent options then travel between mega zones will be limited to once or twice a week.
The E-harmony caravan system not to be confused with the caravan train transport system would also help with the grouping. In theory your group would move from one mega zone hub to another over time and your group members would always be around. This would be really functional if the matching system was good at placing you with people with very similar play times and styles so you wont likely vastly out level each other. The teleport to your caravan stable is the one type of teleport I would be ok with but thats a once per day type tool not a common travel tool.
Raiding is a different beast but I would be happy to see raiding be much more of a long term campaign where your guild builds up in an area to do basically a long term raid quest rather than bouncing around the world to kill one random target that may or may not have been killed by one of the other dozen guilds trying to do the same thing at the same time.
lul lfg is the eharmony of mmos XD the modern day dating. some people just want to swipe instead of a wipe.
yes i want a max level warrior with max gear score and must be a ogre for the racial hp.
oh and he needs to link the achievement indicating he's done this 20 times already.
also i would like a healer equivalent, but it's gotta be a gnome for the extra racial mp. let's them cast 2 more heals.
everyone else: but you're only a lvl 20 subpar dps.... trying to do a lvl 30 dungeon.
me: uhh hello? it's called i'm entitled to play with the best, not be the best? noobs.
stellarmind said:Zorkon said:I literally LOVED trains! I find them Incredibly amusing!
To watch, To avoid, To escape, To survive, emergent game play extreme!
i love trains too =D especially on pvp servers ^.^ it'd be a real shame if they were to get cc'd right about now. a REAL shame. *drools while watching a monk attempting to train into a wizard sitting down recouping mana for his next pull*
best.
emergent.
play.
evar.
*Drools more as the Wizard Shadow Steps then Gates to safety
Trasak said:Fast travel should not be a class mechanic. It should be a world achievement, and yes this include the beloved spirit of the wolf which I think should not be in the game at all.
Movement speed is one of the best ways to tune different combat encounters lethality. If you are faster you can get away before the mob runs out of patience. If you are slower then they catch you. If you time your sprint right and have enough endurance you might be able to just barely get away from a the first faster mob but not the second group. You know unless they also have the sprint ability and endurance to use it.
If movement speed enhancements are only a function of traveling on well paved roads with and without killable mounts then the world gets a ton larger and more gritty and open up the need and desire for disengagement abilities.
Likewise teleportation of any type drastically shrinks the world. There should be no teleport, no gate, no evac, nothing. The ability to jump at will from one location to another cuts the world at least in half if not much smaller if you can bounce from one location to the next Teleportation should be just a function of connecting 2 points in space in a known way that is part of the traffic flow of the game. They can be used to make it so that you can get from anywhere to anywhere in 2 hours or less but should not make it shorter than that. You will basically have multiple “outer regions” that are the extremes and it should take 1 hour to get to a teleport that moves you to a location that is an hour away from a different “outer region”. The other way to look at it is that no two teleports should be closer than a 2 hour walk from each other.
I would also not put any teleports near major cities. Connect major cities with coach trains that in turn can get you to any other city on the continent within an hour but give you limited actions while on the train other than mini games and the ability to jump off (offline travel will drop you off at your purchased destination).
All of this requires the world to be very big relative to character movement speed. Movement speed minimums are usually dictated ironically by animation rather than mechanics. Figure out the lowest movement speed that is reasonable for a non-endurance draining movement and that becomes your metric for world building.
Two hours? That's a terrible idea and way too fast. We need to slow it down more. At least 4 hours walking inbetween major places so it takes a lot of us a few gaming sessions just to get where we need to go. This way, we know who the real gamers are.
beautifully said:Two hours? That's a terrible idea and way too fast. We need to slow it down more. At least 4 hours walking inbetween major places so it takes a lot of us a few gaming sessions just to get where we need to go. This way, we know who the real gamers are.
I don't seem to be conveying my point very well. Its not about the time as much as about the size of the world. I would like to see a world so large that you can walk in a straight line for an hour from any port and not enter the one hour walk time from a different portal. In reference to above posts this would mean only one portal for roughly every 16 zones.
Faster travel can exist on NPC operated caravan trains traveling from one mega zone central hub to the next in a line at 4x walking speed but on a say 15 minute schedule. What this really means though is the zones are so large and densely filled with content that you may not need to leave the zone for an entire week of play time at which point you may have finally leveled out of the zone.
@stellarmind
The P-Harmony I suspect will just be a way for people with no friends to find a caravan group to join or a bunch of unknowns to randomly form one. It will likely include a weekly play time calender you can fill out, how aggressively you want to level and challenge content, and maybe your tradeskill. Additionally there may be more personal things like a simplified Meyers brigs, a hobby selector, preferred age group you wish to play with and the like but that would all be optionally and I suspect rarely indulged in.
The Caravan groups I see likely to be mini guilds of a more temporary nature where people naturally join and leave them on a fairly regular basis as they leave the average level range of the caravan. One will likely be able to skip both the P-Harmony and Caravan system entirely but then you have no room to complain about it taking 2 hours to find a group.
