Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Would You Rather - Wait in line to camp a named

    • 1281 posts
    January 30, 2020 2:46 PM PST

    Camp it myself, 100% of the time.

    • 2752 posts
    January 30, 2020 2:50 PM PST

    Ideally, join an open camp and earn money/items to go toward whatever other drop while waiting for a spot at the desired camp. If I end up making enough to buy the item first, then skip trying to get it to drop.

    • 255 posts
    January 30, 2020 4:15 PM PST

    This will all depend on how relevant loot is. I mean in EQ if you got a good BP at level 20 it could still be relevantly good at level 40. In WoW for example I would never camp something as leveling is too fast and in 2 levels what item you got was probably now worthless to your char.

    I recallun Lower Guk I think it was camping for a fabled BP I think for my cleric or warrior. You would join the group when a spot became available and go to the back of the queue and wait for the mob to spawn and drop the BP. It when to who ever had been there waiting the longest, and depending on the dynamics at the time, they would leave and another person joined. Or they would stay if they were helping someone else with them and they were helpful to the group dynamic.

    So really for me it comes down to the way the game is structured for equipment. Also would depend on how long it would take, if I could buy it with a simular amount of time spent as camping, then I would probably go that way so I wasn't stuck in one spot.

     

    • 10 posts
    January 30, 2020 5:06 PM PST

    Manouk said:

    I would not wait in line, for there will be no line to wait in, because iirc, the item may drop randomly off of any named in a certain area, and the named may spawn in an area in a certain region, not in a specific area, like Fion in Blackrose keep who could spawn in the kitchen, or upstairs iirc and does roam a bit. So if anyone is "camping" a static area  in blackrose keep they will not always get Fion.  

     

    This is the answer here. Having a rare NPC spawn in the same spot is not challenge its just a time sink and easily perma camped by a couple people on rotation. Better for the mob to spawn in multiple camp spots so it is a surprise and adds excitment to groups camping or moving through an area.

    • 116 posts
    January 30, 2020 6:40 PM PST

    I never minded camping in origonal EQ, but times have changed and the player base has shifted.  Going back to EQ1 progression servers now, people are not courteous like they used to be and willing to wait.  More than likely you will get a dps race, not someone that is willing to patiently wait their turn.

     

    That being the case, no I don't want to wait in any line.  I am hoping Pantheon has found some more comfortable middle ground.  Maybe camps that don't get so extreme like the VT keys, or the VP key quest.  Given that these are not just item drops but keying requirements to raid zones, they became massive bottlenecks with huge amounts of players competing for them.  That I would rather forget.  That said I do like keying for access to zones.  Just not in this particular way.  Certainly some item drops, but ones that aren't dropped from a single mob that only drops it once every 24 hours.

     

    But I never had much of an issue camping things like the FBSS or my epic mobs.  There was some competition but none that I felt was way over the top.

     

    All that to say, balance is key.

     

    • 1247 posts
    February 1, 2020 10:33 AM PST

    OCastitatisLilium said:

    EQ came out at a time when it was the very first of its kind and people had way more free time to play it (younger people anyways).

     

    Where do you get this from? That is false. Here is what is true: EQ came out at a time in the late '90s when computers were not cheap nor common (same with the internet). Who do you think mostly owned computers back in the late 90s? Hint: not the all the 'kiddos' you mention. Lol. Here is what is true: there was a HUGE diversity of individuals who were in Norrath and Daoc back in the day. These people were middle-aged adults, older people, parents, and yes - some younger peeps. They were professionals, students, artists etc. As a matter of fact, you would not even be considered to join my guild if you were under 18 years old. Most of my guild were working-age professionals, and this was quite common. My RL friends were professionals such as a teacher, IT professionals, and chemical/nuclear engineers at a local nuclear laboratory. We played with someone who was disabled and we played with students as well. The majority of people I knew and/or played with in Old EQ were middle-aged adults. Perhaps look at it from a different perspective. And furthermore, there are people (even right here on forums) who HAVE SINCE retired and now have EVEN MORE time to play. And, are looking forward to it!! 


    This post was edited by Syrif at February 1, 2020 10:37 AM PST
    • 2130 posts
    February 1, 2020 10:40 AM PST

    I'd rather wait in line for 107 hours doing AFK checks every 5-15 minutes, risking a pulmonary embolism to finally be considered a proper hardcore player.

    • 45 posts
    February 1, 2020 12:27 PM PST

    None of the options! Much rather just give the rare drop a small drop chance from a larger group of mobs in a zone so you can actively grind monsters with friends in a group, and have someone to talk with and play with while you "camp a rare item" - maybe even do quests while you also "camp for a rare drop".

    The idea of going into an area killing the same goblin at the same spot, over and over again for a 1 - 5% chance of Mr. Big-nose-goblin to pop seams SO boring to me. Add to that, that Mr- Big-nose-goblin only has a 1 - 5% chance of dropping item X that you are camping for... KILL ME!

    Dear Visionary Realms, you can do better than this!

    • 3852 posts
    February 1, 2020 3:42 PM PST

    Unless the item is insanely essential I will never wait endlessly to camp a named. Long waits and long spawn times was why original Everquest was quickly nicknamed Evercamp and the criticism was well deserved.

    Some will say this encourages socialization. With respect I disagree. I can socialize in world chat and guild chat and in groups actually doing something. I do not need hours with nothing to do to socialize.

    • 49 posts
    February 1, 2020 4:28 PM PST
    I wish there was new and interesting content that did away with the concept of having to camp.
    • 133 posts
    February 1, 2020 7:02 PM PST

    Syrif said:

    OCastitatisLilium said:

    EQ came out at a time when it was the very first of its kind and people had way more free time to play it (younger people anyways).

     

    Where do you get this from? That is false. Here is what is true: EQ came out at a time in the late '90s when computers were not cheap nor common (same with the internet). Who do you think mostly owned computers back in the late 90s? Hint: not the all the 'kiddos' you mention. Lol. Here is what is true: there was a HUGE diversity of individuals who were in Norrath and Daoc back in the day. These people were middle-aged adults, older people, parents, and yes - some younger peeps. They were professionals, students, artists etc. As a matter of fact, you would not even be considered to join my guild if you were under 18 years old. Most of my guild were working-age professionals, and this was quite common. My RL friends were professionals such as a teacher, IT professionals, and chemical/nuclear engineers at a local nuclear laboratory. We played with someone who was disabled and we played with students as well. The majority of people I knew and/or played with in Old EQ were middle-aged adults. Perhaps look at it from a different perspective. And furthermore, there are people (even right here on forums) who HAVE SINCE retired and now have EVEN MORE time to play. And, are looking forward to it!! 

     

    Nothing else about it being a waste of time bothers you? ok. To clarify I never said "Kiddos" I said younger people, that's you assuming I meant children. That's on you, not me.  Farther more, everyone I knew growing up had a computer and played this game. I had a computer but I didn't get the internet until sometime later, but most of my friends and even my husband played the game when it first came out. I don't know about you, but computers seemed to be pretty cheap back then too and everyone in his household had a computer, and they werne't rich to say the least. So I would like to have a source on that info. A lot of jobs back in the 90's could have a person work an 8 hour shift and have weekends off and have enough to pay bills. Not to mention that usually in a household there were two or more people working. All of the jobs you mentioned usually only had an 8 hour work shift back in the 90's, now, while the teachers as still largely the same, engineers and such might pull a 10 hour workshift, if not 12, again, not having any free time today.

    You talk about playing with a disabled person and now playing with retired people, again how does that have anything to do with anything that I said. It's still true that EQ was the first of its kind and that no one else had any real alternative to play, so if they wanted to play then that was the only game they could, it's how EQ got away with having the rediculous wait times on top of everything else that they had that was not great. The disabled person didn have to worry about bills being paid, going to work, and things of that nature, because I'm sure they got compensation for their injuury and disability, so they had all the time in the world to waste on EQ's wait times and things of the like. Even now, the retired people have all the time in the world to wait for that, as they have savings and pension that are going to be paying their bills. I'm trying to see how people that don't have to worry about where their food comes from and how bills are going to be paied, are equal in their amount of free time for people that have to worry about families, work, and bills and such? How come this is the only point that you adress and nothing else?

     

    Edit: Let me just quote the entirety of my post that you are quoting, just so no one has to go and try to wade through other posts to find it I'll even highlight the part that you quoted to make it easier for people to pick out what you quoted.

     

    OCastitatisLilium said:

    It honestly depends on how much time I have. If I have the time, I would wait for a camp, but not for more than an hour. I usually don't get that much free time these days what with work and taking care of a family, so I sadly can't be waiting for long bouts of time. If I had the money on hand and didn't have to grind too much for it, I would buy it from someone, so long as I had enough money left over from it afterwards. I can always grind a bit, but again I don't want to be wasting my time too much on that. I could always adventure somewhere else, but if that mob is the only mob that drop s what I need it to drop, chances are I'm not going to really find much else to do. You can only kill so many things and do so many other things while waiting for said mob. If there is nothing else for me to do on the game, I'm going to log off, because I'm not wasting my time on waiting, nor would I waste my sub on waiting either.

    I hope that there won't be long wait times for things like this, because if I'm being honest they would get one month of sub out of me and then that would be it. I, and many others, don't have time to be waiting and grinding for things. If another mob has a chance to drop it, then I can guarantee you that the other mob will have just as long of a wait time for it. Even if the mob moves around or spawns in different locations, chances are there will be people camping out those other locations as well. Honestly the only way this gets solved is if said mob is in a dungeon and that dungeon is instanced. EQ came out at a time when it was the very first of its kind and people had way more free time to play it (younger people anyways). Now it's a competitive market with people wanting the most for their money and their lessened free time. I hope that Pantheon realizes this and changes the game enough to accommodate, but doesn't lose the vision and dream they are chasing right now.

    In short, I'm not waiting for a camp for any longer than an hour, I'll grind if I need to but I'm not wasting my time. I would more than likely kill other things and do other things in the area, but even they are limited and can only go for so long; and if all of that fails, I'm logging off, simple.


    This post was edited by OCastitatisLilium at February 1, 2020 7:08 PM PST
    • 1247 posts
    February 1, 2020 10:15 PM PST

    dorotea said:

    Unless the item is insanely essential I will never wait endlessly to camp a named. Long waits and long spawn times was why original Everquest was quickly nicknamed Evercamp and the criticism was well deserved.

    Some will say this encourages socialization. With respect I disagree. I can socialize in world chat and guild chat and in groups actually doing something. I do not need hours with nothing to do to socialize.

    Epic quests or even some rare items are not going to be for everyone, and that is perfectly fine. I didn't do my epic, but I still could appreciate the people who did. I definitely didn't cry for certain things to be removed or changed so rare items would just simply be attained by anyone and everyone though. There will be a diversity of factors in keeping items rare, and camping will be one of them. There may be crafting, random spawns, random drops, raids/bosses, rare spawns, keys etc, but to think camping won't be part of certain things in Terminus is absurd. This is especially true in a world like this where not everything is going to be the same. 


    This post was edited by Syrif at February 1, 2020 10:19 PM PST
    • 627 posts
    February 3, 2020 10:04 AM PST
    Hate to wait.. With 2 kids, a dog and a waifu. When i play i need to be efficient, to keep up with my nolifer gaming mates :)
    • 3852 posts
    February 3, 2020 1:12 PM PST

    ((Epic quests or even some rare items are not going to be for everyone, and that is perfectly fine))

    I entirely agree. I was thinking of more ...normal .... boss encounters.

    • 2756 posts
    February 4, 2020 4:14 AM PST

    "Wait in line" doesn't sound like a great activity, but I'm sure there will be more to do in Pantheon than just wait around (and going and earning gold instead should be just one of them) and I would much rather "wait in line" than feel the need to contest, contend and compete with other players. Open World = A shared adventure.  Maybe there should even be a way to help/support rather than simply wait in line or contest/block each other?

    Having said that, if some kind of way of enabling *fair* and *healthy* competition were available, that might be interesting?  I've never seen contested content be much more than pseudo-PvP griefing or irritation in previous games, but VR might be the ones to work out how to make it a positive experience. #TrustInPantheon

    Also, I would like to see in-game UI tools to organise camp lists and group member waiting lists and the like.  If there are tools to enable playing nice, people will be encouraged to play nice.


    This post was edited by disposalist at February 4, 2020 4:15 AM PST
    • 2756 posts
    February 4, 2020 4:37 AM PST

    To respond to the discussion on "waiting" in general... I'm ok with it as long as it's not the only mechanism to produce "rare" items.  It is like many aspects of 'old school' games - often their worth was defined by the difficulty to achieve and sometimes that 'difficulty' was related to patience.  I don't see anything wrong with that, as long as it isn't the defining factor of every encounter.

    Some of my most memorable moments from EQ were from those multi-hour epic quest camps. One or two were incredibly frustrating, but then, of course, felt incredibly rewarding once complete. Some were very lonely and somewhat redious, but then, of course, others got me into excellent, memorable social interactions.

    I will never forget the multi-hour camp to kill that minotaur, Raster, deep in Guk. I was there so long I went up several levels. When I started doing it I had help and there were a few other monks and characters that came through and lent a hand, by the end I was *just* holding down the extended camp solo and was chatting with other players and learned a lot from other monks.  One monk I spoke a lot to who helped out for a while I stayed to help get his kill even though I'd been there many hours by then (I had a brief nap and then came back to help him).

    Things like these long camps, severe death penalties, rare fast travel, group-focused content, difficult content, etc. make achievements more meaningful and worthwhile.

    It's a tough job for VR to work out what is *too* tedious, difficult, punishing, etc, but I think it would be a big mistake to attempt to eradicate those aspects completely.  There should be at least *some* content (and some mechanics) that are truly 'old school', even if there are some aspects (weightless coins, auction trading systems, etc) that are more 'accessible' for a modern audience.

    • 124 posts
    February 13, 2020 6:14 AM PST

    waiting list and camp. But if it takes too long ill buy it anyway. 

    • 52 posts
    February 15, 2020 6:56 AM PST

    I would rather camp a named spawn under the following conditions. (This is just my humble opinion.  Please, no flaming.)

    1.) The named spawn has a definite spawn timing such that it can be killed in a single 2 hour play session if desired.

    2.) All who take part in killing the spawn become a valid looter for whatever special item is sought after, as long as they are in the XP recipient group.

    3.) The named spawn drops the sought after class specific item to each individual valid looter 50% - 100% of the time.  (The percentage should never be some ridiculously low percentage that's less than 10%)

    4.) The item dropped by the named spawn will be class specific to each valid looter, and will never drop again for that character unless that character destroys the item or sells it to an NPC vendor.

    5.) Once you have received your class specific item from the named spawn, you will no longer be able to attack that spawn unless grouped with other people who need their class-specific item.

    6.) Once your character has killed the named spawn, you will not be eligible to kill it again for at least 24 hours, unless grouped with other people who need their class-specific item. (This point seems somewhat redundant, but points 5 and 6 are really meant to allow characters who have already received their class specific item to help other characters get their's, and to reduce the chance for griefing as well.)

    Obviously those conditions could use some tweeking, but I honestly hate named spawns because they are so easy for other players to use for griefing, and they are so easy for game devs to use as time sink bait to unnecessarily extend time to build up a character.

    No player should be able to sell any class-specific item dropped by named spawns.


    This post was edited by gamexilor1 at February 15, 2020 7:03 AM PST
    • 888 posts
    February 15, 2020 11:27 AM PST
    Neither option is fun and we've had 20 years to come up with a better way to keep items feeling rare and giving a sense of accomplishment. Besides, the feeling experienced when finally getting the item is relief. Creating game elements so frustrating that we celebrate not needing to engage in it again isn't good game design.

    If you need a line, make it reasonable in length and at least somewhat fun. You can increase the spawn rate and proportionally decrease the drop rate. You get the same rate of item generation but people are playing, not queuing.

    And grinding should be prevented as much as possible since it leads to burnout and people leaving the game. Create a system of diminishing returns for repetitive tasks / farming and rewards for doing something new / less popular. Perhaps something like up to a 10% xp bonus of penalty for doing new / repetitive tasks /spawns /areas. And add in another 10% bonus or penalty depending upon how popular that task Iain general.
    • 145 posts
    February 15, 2020 11:51 AM PST
    If I have the time I’ll take the time if I have the money ill spend the money
    • 379 posts
    February 15, 2020 1:55 PM PST
    Wait in line? You mean just snipe it and take the loot? The road to the top doesn't have detours! :-P
    • 1584 posts
    February 15, 2020 2:48 PM PST

    In my honest opinion, i believe they're will be camps, I know we are seeing the devs running around and adventuring from camp to camp and killing everything in their way, and to a point we could be doing that, until we reach our destination, the main reason i say this is becuase, one their is a lot of order in the game if you can actually in a sense claim an area and kill what inside of it and have the community try to respect  the idea of camps, instead of having groups run around like they do in the dev streams, that would be basically complete chaos.  

    Another thing is the whole running around and killing everything in sight and killing named targets on sight without a single thought of anything else basically became a mindset in instanced content, becuaee it was simply yours and nothing to say it wasnt and you could roam freely and kill everything becuase those are your too, but in a open world do you really think your going to see multiple grps in a zone simply just roaming around and scraping the zone clean on mobs constantly, i don't, i see a puller pulling  mobs from there safe spot and going back to that safe spot and continue til the group is done, now to some that might sound a bit boring, but it would be better that the alternative.

    For one if you had a zone that could of 12 camping locations that could support 12 groups with camping involved, it wouldn't be able to support 12 groups if those groups are constantly rotating, they would simply starve each other out, at best i would say it would probably be like 5 groups or so, you could possible convince some it might be more but i can say it definately wouldnt support 12.

    • 363 posts
    February 17, 2020 12:55 PM PST

    Counterfleche said: And grinding should be prevented as much as possible since it leads to burnout and people leaving the game. Create a system of diminishing returns for repetitive tasks / farming and rewards for doing something new / less popular. Perhaps something like up to a 10% xp bonus of penalty for doing new / repetitive tasks /spawns /areas. And add in another 10% bonus or penalty depending upon how popular that task Iain general.

     

    What? Some people, myself included, love grinding and farming. Why should I be penalized because your opinion is that grinding leads to burnout.

    • 454 posts
    February 17, 2020 8:03 PM PST

    Syrif said:

    OCastitatisLilium said:

    EQ came out at a time when it was the very first of its kind and people had way more free time to play it (younger people anyways).

     

    Where do you get this from? That is false. Here is what is true: EQ came out at a time in the late '90s when computers were not cheap nor common (same with the internet). Who do you think mostly owned computers back in the late 90s? Hint: not the all the 'kiddos' you mention. Lol. Here is what is true: there was a HUGE diversity of individuals who were in Norrath and Daoc back in the day. These people were middle-aged adults, older people, parents, and yes - some younger peeps. They were professionals, students, artists etc. As a matter of fact, you would not even be considered to join my guild if you were under 18 years old. Most of my guild were working-age professionals, and this was quite common. My RL friends were professionals such as a teacher, IT professionals, and chemical/nuclear engineers at a local nuclear laboratory. We played with someone who was disabled and we played with students as well. The majority of people I knew and/or played with in Old EQ were middle-aged adults. Perhaps look at it from a different perspective. And furthermore, there are people (even right here on forums) who HAVE SINCE retired and now have EVEN MORE time to play. And, are looking forward to it!! 

     

    This is me exactly.  I was 44 when EQ came out.  I played with mostly working people, who maxed out at four hours play time per day (Saturday) and two was more normal. There were no all night camps.  I had a job, wife, two daughters, and little time for my hobby.   I was in a second or third tier guild and I had a blast. Now I'm retired and I have lots of time to play.  But I'm still into alts, and mostly casual play.  I can't wait for launch.

    • 20 posts
    February 18, 2020 5:43 AM PST

    random spawn locations in a given area. Made it much more exciting to camp the Ancient Cyclops in Everqust TLP servers while making money off gems. That's how i'd prefer it honestly.