Sorry is this has been asked but im not searching entire forum.
So yesterdays video there was a question about how who gets credit on a mob, will it be whoever tags ir first or who does the most damage, the answer they gave was whoever does the most damage gets the credit, xp loot etc.
I have these concerns.
1. What if someone follows me around and does more damage on every mob i tag? Especially if they are a higher lvl or a more dps focused build.
2. How are healers and tanks going to get any credit for kills at game launch when the zones will be most busy with everyone trying to lvl super fast.
3. Will this not stop people helping others, for example i see someone dying to a mob, im already in a group so i cant add him and i take agro and help him with the mob but end up doing more damage and get all credit.
4. what about quest mobs, if you do less damage than someone else do you need to wait for respawn because you didnt get credit.
Thanks for any answers.
This planned system seems exactly as it was in EQ and while at times, I did run into people that abused the system it was surprisingly rare. I also feel it added an etiquette to the game that people that cared about others or their reputation would follow.
It could make for some interesting encounters with others. I remember many times seeing someone that looked like they might be in trouble but before assisting asking if they wanted help. At times I would make a call that they just did not have time to ask for help and I would engage. But after I would always stick around and apologize if I was wrong.
I will say that I am worried about players that have only played newer MMOs might not follow the same etiquette. I know my experience with newer games has not at all been the same as EQ.
FTE will only be for boss encounters. The group/raid which gets first engagement will trigger certain elements of the encounter. This may prevent others from interfering, perhaps even banish people not in the FTE raid to another part of the dungeon. This isn't at all the same mechanic as normal group mobs and activity.
For normal mobs, whoever does the most damage will get experience and loot rights. This is the mechanic for classic EQ. There is a whole culture that grows up around it. We've yet to see what any sort of official Play Nice Policy from VI might look like, but community standards and social pressure may be the primary mechanism used to discourage people from kill stealing.
So far as how you get credit for a kill as a tank or healer, presumably you are in a group. Your entire group shares the experience and decides how the loot gets distributed. The same is true of a raid. If you are just looking for a faction tag from the kill, then typically healing someone who has agro is enough to get the associated faction hit/bump.
Anyone who played EQ back in the day or even played EQ via the P99 servers will be quite comfortable and familiar with this.
Personally I see it as a strong option and good choice on the part of the devs.
The thing is, while I see the appeal of a Play Nice Policy, and I see the appeal of reputation; as someone else has said, people have grown up with different games. That's not to say that all of the people playing those games like the way that the tagging system in those games is going, but something like this is going to be abused, and abused hard. It sucks to admit, but people aren't going to care as much about the reputation and policy, so long as they get the XP and loot. Sure, people will care about in-game factions, but honestly people aren't going to care about what others think of them. Again, that's not to say that's going to be everyone, but there will be a great increase from days passed.
On top of that, the Play Nice Policy was not only enforced by players in EQ, it was enforced by quite a lot of GMs. This took manpower and time, whether they were volunteer or not is beyond me, but they had a lot of them. On top of that, they could get away with having something like the Play Nice Policy as something verbally enforced and not so much a set of rules. EQ was the first there was, the only one in a world where MMO's didn't exist yet, so it could get away with a lot more things than it can today. Where people back then didn't want to lose faction with other players and adhered to the policy, it was because there was nothing else like it to play and the GMs would enforce it as well; now that's not the case. People complain now that there aren't that many GMs in games, and companies have stated that it's too resource heavy and thus, you have very little GMs in a lot of game. Some has resorted to volunteer work, which let's face it, volunteer work doesn't pay so there aren't that many people who are willing to do it. So there aren't going to be as many GMs to enforce a policy like that.
On top of that, while you can have it written that you need to "play nice" in your rules, having a system that is in the game that is clearly not a bug, can and will be exploited, and there isn't anything anyone can do about it at that point. People now, more so younger perhaps...maybe even a few older players might, but they will kick up a fuss about it. I can see it now happening "you can't ban me for using a system you willingly put into the game. I'm using a system that's there, I'm not hacking or using anything outside of what the game has offered. You can't ban me for it, nor can you report me for it because I'm not doing anything wrong." They would be right in their case. If you willingly put a system in the game that allows people to kill steal and take everything from someone that worked hard, then VR would have absolutely no place to enforce bans and punishments. That person made a choice based on the systems that are in the game, and if that person doesn't care what other people think of them...well what is there left to do?
Again, I love the appeal and the idea of Play Nice Policy, but unless you can find a way to actually have it be some enforceable rule that isn't reliant on moral standards, then you are going to have a lot more people than way back when that are going to abuse it, and you are going to have no real ground to stand on when it comes to removing that type of player.
I am not willing to dumb down Pantheon's model simply because "some people don't get it" or "some players grew up post-EQ and haven't had to get it" or "some people are just jerks and don't want to get it". That's a big reason we don't have games like EQ any more, because the least common denominator allowed these thinking patterns to seep into MMOs but added more player numbers which is all the game companies ended up caring about. Then they cry about how their games lose customers due to the inherent A.D.D. lack of loyalty new-shiny-over-there mentality that tends to go along with what they caused.
Make a game that elevates those peoples' thinking that can be elevated. Youngsters who haven't experienced it before, innocent folks who just don't know better but when faced with it try it and like it. Cooperate, have good rep, or suffer the consequences (both player-enforced and better yet game mechanics that punish jerks).
Realizing that some people will try to stand out and be jerks for whatever reasons, make the natural game mechanics penalize them where possible. Don't leave matters to "player enforcement" when it is something that clearly doesn't favor cooperative game play and can be handled by the game engine itself in a black-and-white way.
Game devs: It is simple. While testing on a character, pretend you are a vapid, selfish player who doesn't like cooperating with other players, want immediate rewards and loot always, and see nothing wrong with KS'ing others to get it. Also pretend that the world building, discovery, exploration, travel doesn't matter to you, you want shortcuts that ingore these things. Then invent game mechanics and content that stymies a player like that at every turn, and makes them want to either adapt or quit playing. I want to play THAT game.
I don't care how they do it, as long as:
If I am on the hate list of the quest target when the quest target dies, I get quest credit, via loot or flag, or whatever other thing constitutes quest credit.
If they do that? I don't care what other mechanic or system they use.
If they do NOT do that? Then it will be as horrible as EQ1 was, or worse.
IMO:
It is extremely bad game design to prevent a paying customer (due to another paying customers malicious interference) from advancing their personal quests, in particular, epic (or similar) quests.
It was and is bad game design in EQ1, and would be bad game design in Pantheon.
Having seen my guildmates, and myself, prevented from advancing Epic quests in EQ1 due to maliciousness and ignorance of other players for weeks, months or years? Never again.
Note: none of the above personal opinions apply to "normal" loot, non-quest credit, non-quest items, ONLY to quest credit / quest loot.
The old way worked for me 90% of the time and I am hopeful it would work again. But I do have my doubts. I also agree with vjek that while it worked 90% the time the 10% was almost always on an important mob. I am thinking cyclops for jboots quest for example.
Is there another system people have seen they like better? I for one really do not like system that equally reward everyone that tags a mob. I feel this invites everyone in the area to help without asking. This can lead to less dialog with people around you and trivializing the encounter.
First person to tag the monster seems to have similar issues as most damage. It might be even worse in that one person could KS from a group just by getting the first hit.
Again I do not see the old EQ way as perfect. But I am also not sure I have seen one I like more.
For me and mine, regardless of the persistent multi-player game, if it's an open-world/competitive quest mob? Why would you want to turn that into a queue that jerkface players control?
Those are the open-world quest mob options: Either make it co-operative, or make it a queue that jerkface players control. You either get to help someone else get the quest credit while you get yours, or you don't.
It doesn't have to be a common situation, and I hope it's not. Ideally, most quest mobs like this would be triggered spawns, locked encounters, instances-without-instancing, temporarily locked rooms, more, where no-one can interfere.
But to intentionally design in a queue that jerkface players control, for quest mobs, especially Epic Quest mobs? Not cool.
I am all for challenge. I hope the quest mobs, where appropriate, are incredibly difficult. I want difficult. I don't want a queue that jerkface players control. :)
Given the choice, personally? I'll gladly pay a subscription fee to play a persistent multi-player game with co-op Epic quest mobs over the other historically terrible choices. At least we'll have a chance, then.
If everyone can always get what they set out for on their own without ever being at the mercy of other players or otherwise having to wait/work for long periods of time then I expect we will have something similar to WoW just in a different shade. Why ever bother participating in a player economy as a buyer when you can fairly easily outfit yourself? The only reason I ever got into the player trading in EC back in Everquest was because of item/camp scarcity, because I couldn't reliably obtain any given item I might fancy.
This will absolutely be one of the mechanics that griefers will exploit... and it will likely destroy the game's population for the first several weeks of release if not addressed through game mechanics in the lower level areas where players should still be learning the game mechanics.
Iksar said:If everyone can always get what they set out for on their own without ever being at the mercy of other players or otherwise having to wait/work for long periods of time then I expect we will have something similar to WoW just in a different shade. Why ever bother participating in a player economy as a buyer when you can fairly easily outfit yourself? The only reason I ever got into the player trading in EC back in Everquest was because of item/camp scarcity, because I couldn't reliably obtain any given item I might fancy.
There were a couple reasons this worked in EQ. Let's not pretend like people were nicer back then, the internet has always had people looking to exploit the system for personal gains.
Leveling was VERY slow. This meant that you had a large amount of time invested in your character. You couldn't just reroll and start over, you would lose months of progress doing that.
Name changes and server transfers weren't really a thing. If you developed a bad reputation you couldn't simply change your name or transfer to run from it.
It was a GROUP based game. This means you needed to at the very least not be hated or groups simply wouldn't take you. This was a major factor in why I left P99. I ran into a couple people who were constantly kill stealing and I messaged a guild officer, like I would have done in vanilla EQ, and was basically told to f off. In EQ most guilds would have put a stop to it because guilds develop reputations based on players, and then entire guilds can get blacklisted. This happened on my server. The community HAS to be willing to black list people though.
The GMs were also very involved in EQ those early days. You could report someone and often times a GM would be on site invisible in 10 minutes waiting to see it happen. The combination of all of these allowed it to work. EQ's server community was a combination of multiple design decissions that let it exist. Removing even one of them lets the entire system break down.
Grimseethe said:Sorry is this has been asked but im not searching entire forum.
So yesterdays video there was a question about how who gets credit on a mob, will it be whoever tags ir first or who does the most damage, the answer they gave was whoever does the most damage gets the credit, xp loot etc.
I have these concerns.
1. What if someone follows me around and does more damage on every mob i tag? Especially if they are a higher lvl or a more dps focused build.2. How are healers and tanks going to get any credit for kills at game launch when the zones will be most busy with everyone trying to lvl super fast.
3. Will this not stop people helping others, for example i see someone dying to a mob, im already in a group so i cant add him and i take agro and help him with the mob but end up doing more damage and get all credit.
4. what about quest mobs, if you do less damage than someone else do you need to wait for respawn because you didnt get credit.
Thanks for any answers.
My take on your questions: -
1. Then they will probably get credit, but you will be justified in A) Asking then to stop. B) Threatening to report them. C) If they don't stop, asking a GM to stop them. D) If it gets unpleasant, letting the community know what a jerk they are.
2. It wasn't a *huge* problem in EQ classic, even, and with the class design in Pantheon will probably be less of a problem, but the answer is, tanks and healers make perfect duos. Join someone random. Make a friend.
3. That's actually an interesting dynamic and not a big problem. As far as I'm concerned if someone is in trouble and you help them you deserve the credit and the person will be grateful they didn't die. Sure, sometimes they will be miffed because they didn't actually need help (or they think they didn't) but as long as it's just one occasion, you just say sorry and move on. I'm the first person to not idealise contention in a PvE game, but you can't eradicate all possibility of it if it also loses all possibility of good interactions.
4. Important quest mobs should probably have different rules than normal related to shared credit and the like. I don't see why there should have to be one rule for every encounter. I could see there being different versions of important encounters, even. Let ultra-competitive guilds play pseudo-PvP content denial games with MDD FFA encounters and let normal PvE focused cooperative guilds have triggered encounters that repeat for those not involved or scaling ones you can all join in on, or whatever. There are a ton of different ways to go at it and I really don't see why there shouldn't be a mix of solutions depending on the importance/power/whatever of the encounter.
You could even have the content change on a schedule. Odd weeks, the Gold Dragon raid is the Gold Dragon of Strife (FFA contention) and even weeks it's the Gold Dragon of Accord (scaling multi-guild cooperative) or whatever.
The general answer, though, is: Plentiful and challenging content with good and varied itemisation.
The idea that other players should be the main thing, or even a significant thing limiting your access to content/reward is not healthy for a PvE MMO game/community.
You should have to *cooperate with* other players to get what you want. You should have to be good at playing your role and good at interacting with and coordinating with others. You should have to spend time and grow you skills and then contend with *the game*, not it's players.
Even if content *were* so easy it was like walking up to a treasure vending machine, adding a queue of squabbling players doesn't make it better.
But it won't be that way. Content will be hard. Content will be plentiful. Contention will be the exception, not the rule.
Contention is not the epitome of an Open World. Open World means *sharing* your adventure. It means playing *with* other people. It is the constant opportunity to see, learn from and help others.
As for scarcity, Chris spoke about the way monsters will do more than just roam a path in Pantheon. Scarcity will be the result of needing to spend time hunting your prey and to be prepared and capable and have friends with you when you find it.
If othes are doing the same thing, then, sure, some healthy competition is fine, but the nasty squabbling pretty often experienced in EQ and other games is not an ideal to aim for, it's a side effect to mitigate.
Having said all that, I know there are some folk that live for the contention, so *shrug* have versions of events and encounters that work that way too. Why just pick one set of mechanics that please one set of folks? Maybe have different servers, since it is a pretty fundamentally different ethos to gaming?
I have a serious question related to this topic. Hasn't there been enough innovation within the MMO genre over the last 20 years to, at the very least, prevent a flawed tagging system from being in place?
Pantheon's whole thing is about relying on player community and interaction to get things done. The combat system and the loot system sit dead center in this goal. So, shouldn't the combat system and loot system find a way to encourage and reward the player community for interacting with each other? While I am not a fan of loot pinatas, surely there has to be some way to develop a combat /loot system that can be a decently rewarding experience for everyone involved or again at the very least prevent griefing from other players who are not members of the group/ first taggers.
((I am not willing to dumb down Pantheon's model simply because "some people don't get it" or "some players grew up post-EQ and haven't had to get it" or "some people are just jerks and don't want to get it". ))
I find this statement somewhat shocking. Do you *really* feel that every other system for giving credit for kills is dumbed down and tailored for lazy people or stupid people or ignorant people that just do not understand the one true faith, er, I mean mob tagging system. Incredible!
I am not particularly stupid or lazy or "just a jerk" and yet I find most damage done to be the worst of all the major tagging systems.
It is terrible for the game itself because people testing the game and considering whether to subscribe are likely to be horrified by a ruleset that lets them run around looking for mobs to kill for quest credit or loot, but then lets other players who happen to be higher dps classes, higher level, or in larger or better groups run in and "steal" the mob from them. Not out of harassment but simply because there are people competing for mobs and the half-baked game rules *let* them legitimately take mobs from other players.
First-to-engage has weaknesses but at least it doesn't have players constantly feeling that their kills are being stolen - which is very demoralizing and drives people away from the game. Almost as important it does not tell me that if I want kill credit I had better roll a good DPS class - resulting in even fewer tanks and healers being in the game. And as most of us know there are usually too many DPS classes looking for too few tanks abd healers when groups are formed. Why in the name of every God of Terminus would VR adopt a ruleset that makes this imbalance even worse? Shared credit also has weaknesses and viewing that as a "dumbing down" of the game would in my very not humble opinion be a defensible position and I never though I would see it in Pantheon. Yet it has a major benefit - it rewards teamwork and cooperation and does not reward competition between players and killstealing.
If I am fighting a mob - and winning - and someone else or another group comes in and takes it away because they can outdamage me - how can any fair person NOT describe that as killstealing?
Please Visionary Realms - if this is your current plan for the game - reconsider it.
Baldur said:Yes, of course there's been innovation in the past 20+ years. Smart loot. Personal loot. Shared quest credit. More. All of these things were created in response to the social problems that developers and designers saw in EQ1. Namely, static loot, MQ'ing, ninja looting, kill stealing Epic quest mobs, malicious training, and more.I have a serious question related to this topic. Hasn't there been enough innovation within the MMO genre over the last 20 years to, at the very least, prevent a flawed tagging system from being in place?
Pantheon's whole thing is about relying on player community and interaction to get things done. The combat system and the loot system sit dead center in this goal. So, shouldn't the combat system and loot system find a way to encourage and reward the player community for interacting with each other? While I am not a fan of loot pinatas, surely there has to be some way to develop a combat /loot system that can be a decently rewarding experience for everyone involved or again at the very least prevent griefing from other players who are not members of the group/ first taggers.
dorotea said: ... If I am fighting a mob - and winning - and someone else or another group comes in and takes it away because they can outdamage me - how can any fair person NOT describe that as killstealing? ...Correct. This is designing in the ability to killsteal, intentionally, with history and logical proving it further. Just like malicious training. Being designed in, intentionally.
Just to add one general point - not that it is even remotely new.
Many things in more current MMOs were put in to reduce risk and give more immediate gratification. I think we can all agree on this.
Almost all of us prefer a game with more risk and the need to work - perhaps for significant amounts of time - for any rewards. That is why we are here, after all.
But let us all try to avoid the trap of brushing off any changes since Yserbius, and Ultima On-Line as simply being new-fangled tools designed by lazy developers for lazy people. By that standard we would brush off Everquest itself - it wasn't the first MMO. Or the second. Or if you count MUDs the third or fourth.
Some changes in game design were because developers can do far more than in 1995 or 1997 or even 1999. Some changes were because player computers can do far more. Some changes were because people learn from mistakes and I doubt if one single EQ developer believes that every single choice made was perfect. Does anyone here doubt this as well?
So newer systems of handling loot and credit for kills MAY be in games because they reduce risk and give more immediate gratification. Or they may be in games because they can be done now and couldn't be done before. Or they may be in games because they are better answers and developers learn from mistakes as we all do.
So there are many reasons to criticize and attack systems developed after the early games. But *merely* because the systems came later is not a valid reason for criticism.
another reason to play on a pvp server :D
but if i were to offer a pve solution then allow the chance for duplicate loot by order of activity(that way it's not based on a dps race, but active actions taken towards the mob) diminished by subsequent ranks.
of course this can be exploited and it becomes a loot off diminishing returns, but hey, everyone gets a shot at it.
1 they would be harassing you and you could tiked a GM as for any other type of harassment
2 in the same way as the rest of classes
3 not quite the opposite if you are looking to keep the credit of the mob would let the mob kill him and then limp the mob
another thing is that you "help" someone who doesn't need it if you did it in good faith with an apology and go your way
4 said that some special missions mob would have some kind of block for the one who has the quest and generates the mob
some basic clarifications I do not say that you need it and I do not intend to offend you
this is a grouping game the experience and credit of the death of a mob in a group is shared with the whole group the healer of the group does not need to do anything dps
The operation of the game in general is that the mob is the first to attack it, people are not going to be doing KS normally
dorotea said:((another reason to play on a pvp server :D))
I was not planning to do such unless it was faction based - which I know you do not want. But design decisions like this could change my mind.
as long as we get a fold out table and chairs with coffee mugs, i'm down for a session of change my mind lol XD
If I am fighting a mob - and winning - and someone else or another group comes in and takes it away because they can outdamage me - how can any fair person NOT describe that as killstealing?
Please Visionary Realms - if this is your current plan for the game - reconsider it.
First, if you go around kill stealing and bothering other players your reputation is likely to suffer and you could even be blacklisted such that people refuse to group with you. In terms of the actual mechanic, the player or group that does the most damage will receive the experience and loot (note: this is not yet set in stone and will be evaluated during alpha and beta testing).
Repeated griefing and harassment will become a Customer Service issue. If a player consistently ruins the fun and entertainment of other players he or she will no longer be welcome to play Pantheon.
For the people that do not like most damage done for claiming a mob and loot, can you please for my own curiosity post what you would prefer? I am all for change if it is an improvement but I am not clearly getting what people would like to change too. I get it if you are not sure and just would like the devs to find a better solution.
Pros and cons of the currently planed most damage system in my opinion. My opinion is heavily affected by my experience with this system in EQ and other games that used another system like GW2.
Pros
Cons
I've always been skeptical as to whether the community policing aspect of Pantheon was realistic. Yes it's a game that emphasizes grouping. No, if i've had a bad experience with you in the past, I'm not likely to group with you in the future. However, I'm not sure that anyone who is truly a gaming sociopath is going to care. Chances are that person will find a guild with like-minded cretons who ignore any sense of common courtesy. With boxing allowed, they will need fewer "friends". I don't think peer pressure means anything to these individuals.
Vintage EQ had a PNP and a CS team who did their best to enforce it in addition to the many other valuable elements they brought to the EQ community. The players overall had a sense of fair play, but in a competitive environment. There were lines you could cross and those that you couldn't. Not everything was enforced via hard-coded game mechanics. I can probably count on two fingers the number of times I had to get CS involved in a dispute from 2000-2004.
Regardless of whether the game uses FTE, DPS race or whatever mechanic at the code level, the real laws of the land are policy driven. This needs to start with a clear PNP from VI and consistent enforcement from it's CS staff and/or volunteers. From that base expectation level, the community can develop it's own emergent rules and agreements. This could take the form of establishing conventions for lists at camps, agreements between top end guilds about specific times they raid particular zones, etc...
I know that some of the TLP servers are completely toxic. You can blame the inner game mechanics if you like, but the root cause is they've let the community self-medicate with little to no supervision. Gamers ruin everything they touch if left entirely to their own devices.