Geex said:I heard that in Pantheon there wont be lvl requirements on most of the items and also that they are tradeable. And I heard if you give these items to a low level character they get "scaled" down so they are a bit stronger but not overpowered.But wont people use this mechanic just to get gear on their main for other classes and hand them over to their twink characters and then have these items from lvl 1 to endlevel all the way? Just get this set of items and then 100% grind mobs to speedlevel.... i know this would happen a lot if this gets implemented like that. Isnt that practically the same crap like heirloom gear in WoW?And also not only for twinking... wont this mechanic make people just buy highlevel stuff and wear it until end level?
That's a possibly implication, yes. I'm not sure it's a terrible thing, though?
I don't like twinking (as it is in EQ) but only because it makes the twinks super powerful and ruins group balance and trivialises encounters. VR's solution for Pantheon fixes this.
What it doesn't do is force players to take alts through the same content they did with their first/main character in order to get items they already got.
Is that a bad thing? I think it might discourage re-play if players know they will need to re-do a lot of the same content.
I think that alts will end up doing different content naturally to some extent, though, because they will probably be a different class and need different gear (so probably different dungeons/bosses), but they will be able to concentrate on that new stuff and only re-do stuff if they enjoyed it.
What might well still be an undesirable aspect of twinking is high level characters monopolising content that gets them desirable gear for their alts, but is trivial to them. In EQ this lead to high level characters farming encounters and blocking appropriate level characters from that content. This can be easily solved though by not dropping significant loot if a character out-levels an encounter. I don't recall seeing official comment on this - others may know differently.
((What might well still be an undesirable aspect of twinking is high level characters monopolising content that gets them desirable gear for their alts, but is trivial to them. In EQ this lead to high level characters farming encounters and blocking appropriate level characters from that content. This can be easily solved though by not dropping significant loot if a character out-levels an encounter. I don't recall seeing official comment on this - others may know differently.))
All I recall seeing from VR on this is that they are aware of the concern and that they do not intend to use instancing as part of any solution. They may "leave it to the community" (translation - let the high levels do whatever they want in low level areas), they may block drops from enemies that are significantly lower level, or they may do something else.
We should keep in mind that gear is probably going to work a bit differently from many other MMOs.
First - something the community has pushed for, and the dev team has been receptive to, is not having a linear gear progression or a "best in slot" item. It's very likely that there will be choices and tradeoffs made in the gear that you use, rather than simply moving into a new set as you level up and then repeating that process. At the most basic level, attribute points are a good example of this. Do you go with more strength or more constitution? Or more dexterity? Each one will do things for you, and your choice might be different from someone else's.
Second - a few times now the team has mentioned the concept of upgrading or altering equipment through various means, instead of simply replacing it with a new item or drop all of the time. No one knows for sure but it's likely we'll see at least some equipment that enters the game in one form, and then can later be upgraded to another.
Third - we haven't seen it in action yet, but the planned salvaging system may mean that the market won't necessarily be flooded with cheap pieces of equipment. If crafters are using salvaging to get some of the things they use, then there's a potential that proliferation can be kept somewhat in check
Fourth and finally, the community has been very vocal with regard to bottlenecks and farming in the game. For the most part, we don't want to see a game where everyone is standing in line for a camp because it's the only (or best) place to get item type X, and we also want to see a much more evolved system for handling what spawns where and when than we have in previous games. Not entirely random, but far less predictable, and far less farmable than what we've been used to. While we absolutely want there to be interesting encounters and drops inside dungeons, at least from what I have seen, most people in the community want Pantheon to actively work to spread people out inside the dungeon, rather than piling them all up on each other fighting over named mobs. We have to trust that the dev team is taking this into account when they're building the game's content.
Everything is a balance and VR will have to do that balancing during alpha and beta but I think at least in this, both the community and VR themselves have been paying a lot of attention to history and how players have behaved in past games.
I think there's going to be enough situational gear, plus the mechanics mentioned by others above, that there won't just one BIS item that everyone is after.
I don't have a problem with someone twinking their alts somewhat. When taken to extremes though, it dramatically upsets the balance, particularly for newer players. On P99 there was a time when a level 5 rogue couldn't get a group if they didin't have their epic.
So I'm all for the creative approaches that Pantheon seems to be headed in this regard.
Geex said:I heard that in Pantheon there wont be lvl requirements on most of the items and also that they are tradeable. And I heard if you give these items to a low level character they get "scaled" down so they are a bit stronger but not overpowered.But wont people use this mechanic just to get gear on their main for other classes and hand them over to their twink characters and then have these items from lvl 1 to endlevel all the way? Just get this set of items and then 100% grind mobs to speedlevel.... i know this would happen a lot if this gets implemented like that. Isnt that practically the same crap like heirloom gear in WoW?And also not only for twinking... wont this mechanic make people just buy highlevel stuff and wear it until end level?
It is great for a game to be as alt friendly as possible especially with endgame systems that can act as a time gate for those alts. However, I think that if you make a game too alt friendly you end up reducing the replayability of your game and this then leads to a demand for more content to be released at a quicker pace.
I support free trade for the most part, but I also believe that there needs to be a reason for people to go out and get stuff on the character they are trying to gear. As you said if you can get everything on one character, there are no level requirements and gear scales what's to stop someone from fully gearing an alt through their main? It also raises the question: what appeal does the world have to the alt character outside of trying to rush to max level and only targeting areas required for skill acquisition?
I think this system could also cause an increase in ninja looting. Sure the community can police its self to a certain degree, but that still doesn't stop items from being ninja looted off mobs. With a system like this in place, there is even more added temptation for these types of players. Yes, someone could say that master looter and loot councils help to ward off this problem, but these systems are only good if you fully trust the master looter or the players on the loot council. I have seen these systems also be abused, and have left a few pugs high, dry, and dead on the floor in the middle of raid looking for a healer because they cheated someone out of loot which they deserved. Honestly, as a result of my experiences, I tend to shy away from pugs that have master looters who are the same class and role as my self, and I only pug with guilds who clearly state their loot rules before the first pull. I am definitely a person who tries to find a decent guild fairly early on and I try to stick with them for as long as possible through thick and thin.
I think that when the game goes into its alpha state the devs are going to have to take a deeper look into which items are tradable and which are not, especially items that are found in raids. It also might not hurt them to consider adding a facilitated need before greed rolling system on their end. This system could prevent any item that was needed from being traded making it useless to people who are just trying to get it for their alt or who just want to sell it.
I think that the overall abuse potential of this system is going to depend on 1. Which items are not tradable. 2. What measures are in place to route ninja looting from occurring frequently. 3. How the pantheon team plans to keep alts engaged in various areas of the world. 4. How will the progeny system affect character and item status? For example if I wanted to re-roll my cleric to another class what benefits does this provide (if any), and what gear am I allowed to keep after this process. 5. What item sinks are in place to prevent item inflation from becoming an issue for the economy.
SooZo said:I was wondering if you could do a search as groups where formed to chech for high level gear on members or their bank to see if they have "high level gear" or epic and flag the group to lower the chance of a high level piece to drop, This could lower the twinkel effect.
This would also negatively impact the spirit behind grouping and discourage grouping with these players thus causing them to be alienated. This also sounds like it could be a foundational stepping stone into something like a gear score system, which also would also limit grouping opportunities.
You say this...
Baldur said:I think this system could also cause an increase in ninja looting. Sure the community can police its self to a certain degree, but that still doesn't stop items from being ninja looted off mobs. With a system like this in place, there is even more added temptation for these types of players. Yes, someone could say that master looter and loot councils help to ward off this problem, but these systems are only good if you fully trust the master looter or the players on the loot council. I have seen these systems also be abused, and have left a few pugs high, dry, and dead on the floor in the middle of raid looking for a healer because they cheated someone out of loot which they deserved. Honestly, as a result of my experiences, I tend to shy away from pugs that have master looters who are the same class and role as my self, and I only pug with guilds who clearly state their loot rules before the first pull. I am definitely a person who tries to find a decent guild fairly early on and I try to stick with them for as long as possible through thick and thin.
But then say this...
Baldur said:This would also negatively impact the spirit behind grouping and discourage grouping with these players thus causing them to be alienated....
So if I'm reading this right, it wouldn't matter what system was implemented; peopel would still be isolated and alienated because they weren't part of a close group of friends that a person already knows, or family that have decided to play with said person. I have seen it said before here, and I really don't mean to derail the topic, but, again, I have seen it said a lot that people want to encourage, if not outright force socialization, build a game around meeting new people and talking to many people who play the game, to interact and not be like what they claim other games to be like; but this just reads to me that no matter what, people are still going to alienate and not associate with people they don't know.
I have seen a lot of talk about trust in people that play, to interact and socialize with people to get things done, and that you have to trust people which apparently peopel have lost that ability to do in MMoRPG's...but if this is any indication of the gut feeling I had about the socialization of the game, it's going to be the same no matter what. Unless I'm not understanding this, but this seems very hypocritical of what the spirit of this game is supposed to be that people keep harping on about and actively talking against happening.
Geex said:I heard that in Pantheon there wont be lvl requirements on most of the items and also that they are tradeable. And I heard if you give these items to a low level character they get "scaled" down so they are a bit stronger but not overpowered.But wont people use this mechanic just to get gear on their main for other classes and hand them over to their twink characters and then have these items from lvl 1 to endlevel all the way? Just get this set of items and then 100% grind mobs to speedlevel.... i know this would happen a lot if this gets implemented like that. Isnt that practically the same crap like heirloom gear in WoW?And also not only for twinking... wont this mechanic make people just buy highlevel stuff and wear it until end level?
There could be cause for concern about gear scaling down, allowing a high level player to hand off gear to a level 1 and it just keep that one set of gear until it then reaches the level of that gear. A valid concern and one that would be, I think, relatively easy to avoid.
The simplest means by which VR can a avoid this problem is be having level appropriate gear be better than scaled down gear. If we assumed that a level 50 sword was, stat for stat, 5X better than a level 1 sword and every 10 levels that sword's stats went up at a set rate until, at 50, it was at full power, if at any point (say level 30) you got a sword that had better stats, then clearly you would want to switch over. Replacing gear naturally throughou the levels would need to be a better solution than having level 50 gear scale up as you yourself level.
This does assume that 'better' is actually noticeable worth the effort of actuall obtaining it 'the normal way'. Unless the reward for using level appropriate gear is far and away the better choice, then using scaled down gear will be the more optimal solution. You can always use your high level character to get anything the alt needs far easier than the alt can obtain it.
In every game I have played that had some sort of mentoring/scaling system - the scaling algorithm was *always* not aggressive enough at reducing the power of characters, whether it was applied to character abilities and statistics themselves, or to their equipment.
I think this is an area where we really need to provide very vocal feedback during beta, if we want it to work.
EQ allowed most items to be traded/dropped and "twink" alts were common enough, and I don't think it was a massive issue (partly due to stat scaling, though weapon damage/delay could probably have used a more strict curbing).
It isn't (wasn't) as simple as having a high level character meaning you can just go get all these great items to deck out an alt. You had to be rather rich to buy all the items you might want to gear an alt OR put in extreme amounts of time (months even) trying to get lucky and farm them up yourself. Often enough players would settle with some low-mid level items to gear up their alt with maybe one high tier drop.
OCastitatisLilium said:You say this...
Baldur said:I think this system could also cause an increase in ninja looting. Sure the community can police its self to a certain degree, but that still doesn't stop items from being ninja looted off mobs. With a system like this in place, there is even more added temptation for these types of players. Yes, someone could say that master looter and loot councils help to ward off this problem, but these systems are only good if you fully trust the master looter or the players on the loot council. I have seen these systems also be abused, and have left a few pugs high, dry, and dead on the floor in the middle of raid looking for a healer because they cheated someone out of loot which they deserved. Honestly, as a result of my experiences, I tend to shy away from pugs that have master looters who are the same class and role as my self, and I only pug with guilds who clearly state their loot rules before the first pull. I am definitely a person who tries to find a decent guild fairly early on and I try to stick with them for as long as possible through thick and thin.
But then say this...
Baldur said:This would also negatively impact the spirit behind grouping and discourage grouping with these players thus causing them to be alienated....
So if I'm reading this right, it wouldn't matter what system was implemented; peopel would still be isolated and alienated because they weren't part of a close group of friends that a person already knows, or family that have decided to play with said person. I have seen it said before here, and I really don't mean to derail the topic, but, again, I have seen it said a lot that people want to encourage, if not outright force socialization, build a game around meeting new people and talking to many people who play the game, to interact and not be like what they claim other games to be like; but this just reads to me that no matter what, people are still going to alienate and not associate with people they don't know.
I have seen a lot of talk about trust in people that play, to interact and socialize with people to get things done, and that you have to trust people which apparently peopel have lost that ability to do in MMoRPG's...but if this is any indication of the gut feeling I had about the socialization of the game, it's going to be the same no matter what. Unless I'm not understanding this, but this seems very hypocritical of what the spirit of this game is supposed to be that people keep harping on about and actively talking against happening.
My second response was made in relation and context to a system that would scan a player to determine if it was twinking out and then penalize their whole group with a nerf to drop rate based on their play style. It really had nothing to do with being able to trust someone enough to group with them and was more in relation to penalizing an entire group based on how one person wanted to experience the game. My first response however definitely had to do with trusting others especially when there are added temptations due to how open the gearing system is planned to be.
I'll be honest though, trust is something that is earned, not freely given in my book. This is something that will never change for me regardless of the overall community outlook/disposition. I think that anyone displaying 100% trust towards someone they just met is an idiot asking for trouble. That being said people deserve the opportunity to gain your trust and while you can't completely reduce every risk associated with having that trust broken, you can limit the damage inflicted if it is based on the circumstance in which you test this trust. This is just me though based on my personal experiences and many hard lessons that I have learned from others.
I think that games that foster early grouping are great because they promote bonds being formed early between players. These bonds then lead to trust being formed between these players. I also think that early on there is a lot less risk associated should that trust be abused. This leads to players feeling more comfortable branching outside of their comfort zones and usual social circles. Despite my comment concerning trusting guild/pugs, guilds can also be great for fostering bonds and allowing trust to be built between players. Just like a player not every guild is untrustworthy, corrupt, or only out for self-gain. However, there are also guilds out there that are unfair, only out for self-gain, and do have corruption within their ranks. As such it never hurts to approach a new guild/ pug with an air caution.
As for players primarily choosing to associate with people who they know this is something this is going to happen regardless. Players tend to prefer sticking with people they know vs strangers when possible. They will always chose to look towards their family, friends, and guild before turning to strangers. This is human behavior at its best and no matter what type of community the game has this will always be present.
Going back to the loot system though. Any system has the potential to experience abuse no matter its implementation. Systems that are more open-ended and less restrictive typically have more abuse potential. I would be lying if I said I didn't find the free for all loot status, distribution, and ability to level scale somewhat concerning. The devs are still in the process of designing the world at this point and class systems. I don't think they have fully conceptualized everything regarding looting. I think their recent question regarding the communities feedback on BoP items kind of yields the impression of things being decided upon internally.
I don't believe a game that requires grouping necessarily ends up with most joining guilds and rarely trusting/grouping with strangers.
In fact, I know that's not the case. In EQ I was often having great fun in PUGs maybe more than I was with guilds. The guild tended to be the place for structured/organised events and efforts, but day-to-day I spent as much time with strangers as I did with guildies and a think a lot of people preferred it that way or just weren't into the raiding/event guild activities at all.
If we get back to a game where grouping is the 'normal' way of doing things, I don't think that grouping with strangers will seem unusual or undesirable and grouping with friends won't feel needed or necessary at all.
I'm not saying some people won't prefer that, but I don't think that has to be the norm at all.
disposalist said:I don't believe a game that requires grouping necessarily ends up with most joining guilds and rarely trusting/grouping with strangers.
In fact, I know that's not the case. In EQ I was often having great fun in PUGs maybe more than I was with guilds. The guild tended to be the place for structured/organised events and efforts, but day-to-day I spent as much time with strangers as I did with guildies and a think a lot of people preferred it that way or just weren't into the raiding/event guild activities at all.
If we get back to a game where grouping is the 'normal' way of doing things, I don't think that grouping with strangers will seem unusual or undesirable and grouping with friends won't feel needed or necessary at all.
I'm not saying some people won't prefer that, but I don't think that has to be the norm at all.
I agree, but I also think people will have to unlearn a lot of their current attitudes towards grouping. Many of us have years in games where your guildmates were about the only people you could trust to be decent people in a group situation. Even if we make conscious efforts, it's going to take a lot of time for people to overcome that.
I have an alternate perspective on this. One of my favorite things to do in the original EQ was buy/sell/barter with goods and services. I was able to WORK my way up in gear using this method. I enjoyed it and I feel like I earned it. I'm not sure I like the idea of scaling items down to your current level. Just because some people abuse the system (giving their alts very high quality gear) doesn't mean the rest of us that work hard for something should get that same penalty. There are times that you end up getting somethig outside your level range, whether your worked hard at it, got lucky, were just in the right place at the right time, etc. I think those are very memorable moments and should be part of the game.
Ranarius said:I have an alternate perspective on this. One of my favorite things to do in the original EQ was buy/sell/barter with goods and services. I was able to WORK my way up in gear using this method. I enjoyed it and I feel like I earned it. I'm not sure I like the idea of scaling items down to your current level. Just because some people abuse the system (giving their alts very high quality gear) doesn't mean the rest of us that work hard for something should get that same penalty. There are times that you end up getting somethig outside your level range, whether your worked hard at it, got lucky, were just in the right place at the right time, etc. I think those are very memorable moments and should be part of the game.
It's a good point. I assume, though, that anything VR come up with won't scale no matter your level, but only if you are significantly below the designed level for an item.
The way they explained it on one occasion (I think it was Chris) was that it would relate to your skills. So, if you got hold of a Sword or Power that was designed for a character of level 20, it would be expecting a 1-Handed or Edged Weapon (or whatever) skill of 200. Rather than diminish the power if you have anything between 1 and 199, I would hope it only starts to effect the potential of the weapon if you are, say, less than 150, maybe even 100. Something like the calculations used for what XP is earned when characters of differing levels group together.
Though maybe things like effects won't work at all below a certain level and then phase in according to your skill. It was similar even in classic EQ. You might well get a high level weapon, but its effect didn't start working at all until level 40 and the chance to happen depended on your stats. I would expect something a little more slick from VR, like the effect becoming active at lower level, but the damage and chance to happen scaling *shrug*
Nephele said:We should keep in mind that gear is probably going to work a bit differently from many other MMOs.
First - something the community has pushed for, and the dev team has been receptive to, is not having a linear gear progression or a "best in slot" item. It's very likely that there will be choices and tradeoffs made in the gear that you use, rather than simply moving into a new set as you level up and then repeating that process. At the most basic level, attribute points are a good example of this. Do you go with more strength or more constitution? Or more dexterity? Each one will do things for you, and your choice might be different from someone else's.
Second - a few times now the team has mentioned the concept of upgrading or altering equipment through various means, instead of simply replacing it with a new item or drop all of the time. No one knows for sure but it's likely we'll see at least some equipment that enters the game in one form, and then can later be upgraded to another.
Third - we haven't seen it in action yet, but the planned salvaging system may mean that the market won't necessarily be flooded with cheap pieces of equipment. If crafters are using salvaging to get some of the things they use, then there's a potential that proliferation can be kept somewhat in check
Fourth and finally, the community has been very vocal with regard to bottlenecks and farming in the game. For the most part, we don't want to see a game where everyone is standing in line for a camp because it's the only (or best) place to get item type X, and we also want to see a much more evolved system for handling what spawns where and when than we have in previous games. Not entirely random, but far less predictable, and far less farmable than what we've been used to. While we absolutely want there to be interesting encounters and drops inside dungeons, at least from what I have seen, most people in the community want Pantheon to actively work to spread people out inside the dungeon, rather than piling them all up on each other fighting over named mobs. We have to trust that the dev team is taking this into account when they're building the game's content.
Everything is a balance and VR will have to do that balancing during alpha and beta but I think at least in this, both the community and VR themselves have been paying a lot of attention to history and how players have behaved in past games.
the old way of gearing in mmos are dated. most of them are moving towards a systemic model. meaning anything that is bis is poor design. all items have purpose dependent on the situation. take zelda breathe of the wild. items/weapons/equipment have limited usage, however, always have relevancy based on rng environment. if it rains, fire arrows are useless, but lightning arrows become more powerful.
it's fundamentally different model. so kudos to vr for taking a stab at systemic model without a p2w or cash shop model lol.
some hardcore old school mmo players aren't going to like the idea of carrying 4 different weapons, one for when it rains, one for fighting undead, etc.
every game dev is jumping on this model right now, because frankly, it's a great interactive model that is exciting, however, no one has yet been able to design a good one in the mmo space(i should add that doesn't have p2w or cash shop).
bdo took a hand at it, but then deviated by barrier of convenience via cash shop(desert gear, soon to be artic gear, giving a huge advantage to players that purchased items).
the technical explaination:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZc7yGdahkY
the tldr version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnpAAX9CkIc&t
Ranarius said:I'm not sure I like the idea of scaling items down to your current level. Just because some people abuse the system (giving their alts very high quality gear) doesn't mean the rest of us that work hard for something should get that same penalty. There are times that you end up getting somethig outside your level range, whether your worked hard at it, got lucky, were just in the right place at the right time, etc. I think those are very memorable moments and should be part of the game.
I think scaling is very important, it doesn't negate the benefit of having higher powered gear and instead allows the game to maintain a certain level of difficulty/challenge (depending on the degree of scaling). Honestly I think it should be reined in pretty tight such that the difference between an average geared player for a level and a decked out alt (in the early to mid levels) is maybe 10%.
This very true @iksar I was actually thinking that as well, but didn't feel like posting 2 different ideas as I didn't have time at the time , but yes if they adjust the scaling by level so if a level 50 character had essentially the same stats as a level 1, the level 50 wpuld obviously be steonger and not simply because of level but because of the scaling you brought up, which would be a lot easier to implement as well.