Relying on players to police griefers will ultimately be ineffective. @EppE made an excellent observation of this about 12-13 posts above this one, but it basically comes down to: "we aren't in Kansas any more toto" - this is not 1999.
Player policing worked to prevent griefing back when cellular phones were considered an unnecessary luxury, there was no such thing as Google and it took players several months to reach maximum level because MMORPGs were new. Public shaming will not stop a griefer from griefing in a world where you can just reroll a new character, buy another account or just not care about other people's opinions because the player may have 0 skin in the game. What's to stop a lvl 30 ranger from sniping a lvl 10's NPCs all day long (on a PvE server)? Tattling? "/ooc Player X keeps killstealing me". "/whisper GM player X keeps killstealing me". (GM to player X "stop kill stealing") (Player X to GM "I'm just roleplaying, my character doesn't like Ogres... I pay a monthly subscription for this game to roleplay and signed the EULA that does not state that there is a level limit on which NPCs I can killl." End of discussion.) I also saw many many times "don't group with so-and-so he trained me!" and been like "oh that sucks, did you train that guy?" ("nope" or "Yeah, he was a deuche because of xyz.") "Ok, he does sound like a deuche. LFG?"
Or how about - warrior X and Cleric Y clear a camp for 12 hours to finally get that rare spawn to pop and rogue X was stealth the whole time waiting for the warrior to grab aggro and take all of the damage while simultaneously doing more damage, getting all of the xp, taking all of the loot, and taking off?
Relying on players to stop others from griefing is literally as effective as relying on players to maintain an /ignore list for gold farmers... it will work mildly, but ultimately be ineffective without game mechanics preventing it.
A "first to tag" would be very very simple. This would at least prevent players from very easily griefing lower levels or non-DPS classes.
Innovation.
I am not sure why it needs to be MDD *or* FTE and nothing in between. Part of the case for MDD is that it is, of course, not perfect, but solves more issues than it causes. The truth is, of course, no system over the years has been shown to be ideal. They are all a trade-off of one set of pros and cons for another.
In my infinite wisdom, I say this: Why are we arguing for MDD *or* FTE when we could use both and a combination? We could weight the damage done by those that are FTE. This would, for example, limit power-leveling and kill-stealing. We could use FTE for really important quest monsters and use MDD for less important and intentionally chaotic free-for-all areas. There could be different ruleset servers, some that have engagement rules that boost 'competitive' play and some that curtail it.
I say "infinite wisdom" with tongue-in-cheek, of course, because I have never really carefully analysed the area like VR will have. I will bow to their wisdom, but I hope they have thought about the potential for hybrid and side-by-side solutions.
They do keep saying that they will tune these things when we get to larger scale testing. It may well be that they systems and infrastructure they are designing can be dialled all the way from FTE to MDD and in-between relatively simply - that does seem to be what I'm hearing from devs like Jason when he talks about enjoying being involved at the early stages and being able to avoid the pitfalls of other projects where he was brought in and had to fix things that were wrong.
If VR make it so it's just a database setting to alter the kill credit mechanics then we can stop worrying so much and look forward to trying it and giving feedback.
To be honest I think a lot of the reason they are cagey about talking about certain mechanics are because they haven't really decided what's best yet, BUT as long as they are developing with that in mind, then, you know what? It doesn't matter.
As with other things VR needs to weight competing benefits and disadvantages. And they need to do so from the point of view of the game - not what is best for experienced and dedicated players. The two viewpoints may produce the same result but, then again, they may not.
My own comments are heavily weighted in favor of what will make the best first impression on potential subscribers without violating any core game tenets. I give this a higher value than what is the ideal system for the experienced player already committed to the game. Needless to say I would prefer both to be satisfied but that may not be possible.
Thus I see more harm in a system that causes many people to say "WTF - those dirtbags killstole the mob I pulled and this is LEGITIMATE??? If I wanted pvp I'd be on a pvp server. I am out of here!!!" than I do to the admitted imperfections in FTE. As disposalist properly says - perhaps there can be a blend.
Though it is amusing that my blend might be the precise opposite of Disposalist's blend. FTE for normal mobs to prevent people from feeling that killstealing is both ubiquitous and intended by the developers. But if VR likes MDD so much let them use it for some or all bosses. This would be a boon for customer service. Instead of hundreds of complaints about normal mobs being killstolen they would get a much lower volume of complaints about boss fights since there are far fewer bosses.
I will necessarily wait for alpha and beta and have this high on my list of things to comment on. Positively or negatively depending on whether their approach works regardless of my opinions going in. But test results may be *extremely* unrealistic on any matter involving so-called self-policing. We dedicated supporters are highly likely to treat eachother with far more courtesy to begin with and to stop any actions that others complain about than will be the typical player after release.
I have never been a fan of MDD because it basically amounts to zerging. PVE oriented challenges should revolve around being able to beat encounters from 100-0. I'm glad that we'll be able to enjoy that for raid content but seeing that Pantheon is mostly a group-focused game, I do question why FTE wouldn't also apply to group content. If an encounter is balanced/tuned to offer challenge to a specific number of players, allowing players to circumvent that intended challenge goes against the game tenets, IMO. FTE is far more conducive to PVE-centric gameplay and competition. It doesn't matter what class or level you are because the burden is placed squarely on the shoulders of PVE. Instead of 12 players DPS racing to see who can deal the most damage to an encounter designed for a single group, they must engage strategically and see who is capable of beating it first, as a single group. If you bite off more than you can chew, you or your group will die.
MDD causes plenty of issues when it comes to PVE competition. Group composition, hotbar management, situational gear, all of these things will revolve around being able to deal the most damage in a competitive MDD environment. In other words, the focus on preparing and strategizing for the content itself takes a back seat to the preparation that focuses on the pseudo PVP of DPS racing. You don't need to be able to beat content legitimately, you just need to deal the most damage. The more players that are added to the equation, the lower that threshold is. For all intents and purposes, MDD could end up rewarding kill credit to the group that deals 20% or less of the total damage to a boss. Risk vs Reward can never be properly realized in an MDD environment unless we are willing to accept that there is no real "floor" for risk outside of raid content.
MDD enables zerging, kill-stealing, and power-leveling. It also paves the way toward TLC (Trivial Loot Code) due to the issues that have been expressed in this thread. TLC seems all but inevitable for any content that is built around an MDD format. If a single max level player can stroll into a lower level zone and out-perform full groups of level-appropriate players in the name of competition, that isn't going to sit well with a lot of people. Again, this would likely lead to something like TLC which then shrinks the size of the world and funnels players into high-level bottlenecks. FTE creates a sense of fair competition regardless of what class/level you are because other players are a non-factor (unless you /yell for help, which opens up the encounter to everybody but removes rewards) after the point of engagement. This ensures that the full scope of the world can be enjoyed regardless of your class/level which helps spread players out and alleviates the problem of having "too much competition."
FTE isn't perfect but eliminating zerging, kill-stealing, power-leveling, and one of the main issues that leads to TLC seems extremely valuable, to me. It all comes down to having fun/healthy competition in a PVE-focused and non-instanced world. MDD compromises that in so many ways. It is what it is. If raiding is the only content that will be properly tuned/balanced for risk vs reward, it would seem inevitable, then, that raiding also features the absolute best rewards. If the rewards from group content are ever comparable to those from raid content, the spectrum of risk vs reward will be shattered. The difference in risk between zerg-able content and non-zerg-able content is absolutely massive. In the context of the MDD format for group content, I would love to know which hidden tenet is responsible for trumping all of those that are prominently displayed here: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/game_tenets/ ; -- the irony in this is that if raid content does indeed offer the best rewards, the hardcore raiding guilds will have an even bigger advantage when it comes time to compete for group content. In many ways, this reinforces the idea that raiding = end-game, even if you're mostly interested in a group-focused experience.
dorotea said:...Though it is amusing that my blend might be the precise opposite of Disposalist's blend. FTE for normal mobs to prevent people from feeling that killstealing is both ubiquitous and intended by the developers. But if VR likes MDD so much let them use it for some or all bosses. This would be a boon for customer service. Instead of hundreds of complaints about normal mobs being killstolen they would get a much lower volume of complaints about boss fights since there are far fewer bosses.
...
I was only really suggesting 100% MDD for areas where the atmosphere was intended to be a chaotic FFA - where the emergent behaviour might be expected and even desired. I wouldn't want that in a majority of areas at all.
I totally agree there is a good possibility that MDD being the standard mechanic runs the risk of unpleasant behaviour (killstealing) effectively being encouraged and Pantheon getting the reputation that the devs are fine with that kind of behaviour.
There has to be some blend where, for example, FTE gets a big weighting to subsequent damage, so in normal play it will be hard for someone to kill steal, but if someone throws a pebble at a monster, then does no more damage for a while (pulling very long range or kiting until friends turn up) and others take over, the original FTE weighting will have decayed enough for them to get credit.
That is just a quick example to show that quite simple mechanics could change the shape of how kill credit works. As I said before, I don't get why we seemingly must use 100% FTE or 100% MDD and no other additional innovations. Surely there is something else that will mitigate killstealing and powerleveling and the like.
Let's brainstorm some other possibilities. Off the top of my head: -
An encounter starts FTE, but becomes MDD at a rate that favours the FTE group in most situations (hindering killstealers), but hinders powerlevelers and poop-sockers and the like.
Damage done by the group that the FTE belongs to is weighted differently to non-group members.
XP, faction, loot, quest credit, etc. do not have to all be decided on the same kill credit calculation.
Does kill credit have to add up to 100%? Perhaps 'helpers' get something for their trouble, if not full credit (adding up to >100% in total). Perhaps if you get help the credit is shared but diluted (<100%)?
Should there be an elective 'opening' of an encounter? If you hit the PANIC button, you open up the encounter, but some portion of XP, faction, loot, quest credit is lost?
...
the game mechanics is MDD for normal mobs and FTE for raid mobs
but mechanics is not the norm of use that is what it seems that some do not want to understand
The standard of use is FTE for normal mob
Some may wonder why if the standard of use for normal mobs is FTE, it does not have an FTE mechanism
I don't know why the Dev chose this exactly but I clearly see the benefit of this supposed inconsistency
I can see two scenarios 1 that people play clean 2 that people play maliciously
1 it is clearly more beneficial the MDD has no problem but with FTE you can block mobs that do not correspond to you and it has no solution except to let you kill by the mob (which is not an option)
2 the MDD is also more beneficial if someone does KS can not do it without wanting can not apologize to a GM will not serve the answer of "play the role of my elf who hates ogres and that is why it is not a crime to make them KS "
but with FTE it is much harder to know if you are doing KS maliciously without wanting to or not
or I did not see that group I only saw the boss and I did not know that they have been killing the ph for 3 hours, I'm sorry
The issue of communal vigilance is not to stop the malicious players who are in the game to harm people
It is to guide people who may be lost with the operation of the game and direct it to fair and communal play to make a kind of filter among people who act incorrectly due to ignorance or being accustomed to other MMOs that other players are little more than NPC they deserve no respect and give them a second chance
For the malicious ones who just want to spoil the time of others there will be the GM BAN hammer
Regardless of which way it goes, if a mob has a quest item you need I would like to see you get it from tagging a mob. I'm not talking about rare epic quest items. If there is a quest to collect 20 orc pelts and you have that quest you should be able to loot the orc pelt from tagging the mob. Common quest items.
@EppE
I will be happy if they rarely or never have “collect 20 parts quests”. If they do have them, I would prefer there is so many monsters finding a free one is not an issue. In WoW I found at more than one time I had a quest the involved killing a type of monster and having more players then monsters to kill. I felt limiting the available monsters for a quest to such a low number was a very disappointing way of slowing down player progression.
My reason for not wanting just tagging a monster getting you the loot it is invites people to freely attack anything that is moving. I preferred the old way of respecting another’s fight. I feel this invites more dialog with other players. For example, you might ask to join a group that is killing the same thing you need.
I am all for group members sharing credit for low end quests.
I find there is little difference between FTE or MDD so I am fine with ether option. I like the idea some have suggested that both can be used depending on the situation or area. I also like the idea of some encounters being locked to the group or raid that triggered the fight. I could see this working well for epic quests or the like.
starblight said:@EppE
I will be happy if they rarely or never have “collect 20 parts quests”. If they do have them, I would prefer there is so many monsters finding a free one is not an issue. In WoW I found at more than one time I had a quest the involved killing a type of monster and having more players then monsters to kill. I felt limiting the available monsters for a quest to such a low number was a very disappointing way of slowing down player progression.
My reason for not wanting just tagging a monster getting you the loot it is invites people to freely attack anything that is moving. I preferred the old way of respecting another’s fight. I feel this invites more dialog with other players. For example, you might ask to join a group that is killing the same thing you need.
I am all for group members sharing credit for low end quests.
I find there is little difference between FTE or MDD so I am fine with ether option. I like the idea some have suggested that both can be used depending on the situation or area. I also like the idea of some encounters being locked to the group or raid that triggered the fight. I could see this working well for epic quests or the like.
I agree I'd rather not have any collect X or kill X quest but if they exist I don't want a situation where you get quest blocked due to over population.
@EppE
Could not agree more.
Love all these comments guys thank you.
Based on all the comments i have this to say.
I'm not a very sociable person and before you say this game int for you its focused on group content, please know it is something im working on and i have no issue grouping when i need to for raids and such, when it comes to my playstyle, everything i can do alone i will do alone, because group can add pressures i dont need, even if its just questing and levling up, i like to take my time and do things my own way, im sure im not alone in this way of thinking.
If anyone played classic wow at its relaunch, youl know they use first to tag system as as a human mage who started in northshire abbey the zone was packed with thousands of players so getting a tag on any mob could take ages, so the best way was to make a 5 man group and all tag together.
If wow used most damage done, im not sure how it would have went, with all new players being bad with no gear and few skills, probably the mages would have been doing the most damage with other spell casters.
Northshire abbey and elwynn forest are quite small maps in general, so congestion is an issue.
When pantheon launches and if the starter maps are small it may have the same issue as classic wow, though probably not to the same extent.
How would i go about this issue.
Any instance raid/dungeon where the group of player in are the only players there, first to tag obviously, it doesnt matter if your group is the only one.
Open raids or dungeons where your group is not the only one there but the raid/dungeon is still instanced, i think honestly first to tag still seems most fair, if two groups are in the same dungeon and this dungeon is massive the two groups cant even see each other, whoever got there first deserves the kill.
In theese open dungeons or raids, players should be able to reset the instances to try again, but by doing so, npcs and bosses drop no loot, only quest items would drop, this stops people farming gear to quickly but also means they can get their quests done.
rare mobs and world bosses out in the world.
Assuming no world bosses and rare mobs can be solod the group who tags vs the group that does most damage...once again just to me personally i think tag, looking at the game long term when we know where all world bosses and rare mobs will spawn, i do see it making that much of a difference, if a group tags the mob because they got their first and dies, the second group gets the boss anyway.
But if its damage done and one group who got their fiurst has just engaged, then another group storms in a does more damage, it seems abit unfair, it also means the boss will be nothing if two groups are killing it, there will be no challenge, whereas with first to tag, if you see a group has tagged a mob you usually dont help, in hopes they wipe.
Normal mobs out in the world.
This is the solo content, you wont need a group to quest except group quests and you wont need a group to kill normal mobs out in the world.
This is where healers, tanks and low level players could get trolled,I didnt play EQ im sure the community was great, but i have played everything else and i asure you people havent gotten nicer in the last 20 years, there are scum in EQ, scum in wow and there will be scum in this game also, reputation means nothing if you have a guild of people like you.
Look at classic wow, rep is supposed to matter but people dont care, this annoying troll can still be used to raid, as long as his guild likes him, it doesnt matter what the realm thinks.
This is the content i will be doing alone and depending on map size, we might not even be competing that much for normal mobs, thats why i think first to tag is stilll the best option.
If the maps are full on players and its hard to get a kill we will need to group anyway so it wont matter, but later on when it dies down and players spread out the maps shoudl be so big but i dont see 30+ people near me at all times.
I hope i dont seem biased as an ex wow player, i just cant see most damage done working better than first to tag.
There is also lotro that lets everyone get credit/gear as long as you hit a mob once.
Going to quote some of my previous posts on this topic separately:
oneADseven said:
I have shared my thoughts on MDD vs FTE before and I think they are related to this discussion:
An open-world game poses certain challenges. The important distinction for me is that there are several old-school MMO's that used FTE to solve some of those challenges, particularly FFXI and Vanguard. I think the concern is less about instancing vs open world and more about preserving encounter challenge (prevent zerging and balancing the risk vs reward of encounters by saying that Mob X is designed to be killed by a single group or raid) and limiting the potential for KS'ing with every worthwhile encounter. Seeing that Vanguard used FTE, I'm really curious about why VR is straying away from that model. I have spoken with plenty of people who played Vanguard for a long time and the vast majority of them were really happy with how mob tagging and lockouts were handled in that game. So just from a design standpoint, I would love to hear why FTE was used in Vanguard, but now we're circling back to MDD which is what was used in EQ. What caused this shift, specifically? Here are my thoughts on FTE vs MDD (Most Damage Done):
First To Engage (FTE) Mechanic
Pros:
- Can be leveraged to create a clearly defined "claim" mechanism that allows players to compete with minimal drama.
- Removes a large degree of potential petitions that require interpretative intervention.
- Creates an environment where all capable teams are encouraged to show up and compete for contested content.
- Allows the development team more control as it pertains to creating truly challenging content.
- Preserves the integrity and challenge of encounter design by preventing zerg-like behavior.
- Allows players to focus their efforts on tackling challenging content rather than out-performing other players.
- Allows more group/raid compositions to be viable by alleviating the inflated value of specific classes that are ideal in a DPS Racing environment.
- Allows players to utilize a larger portion of their kit by removing the "DPS Trumps All" mentality. #HotbarRealEstate
- Alleviates the insurmountable power gap that is often associated with the DPS Racing formula.
- Helps guilds retain their top players by ensuring that their efforts remain relevant. #CommunityMatters
- Creates an additional incentive to prioritize the disallowance of automated scripting software.
- Completely eliminates kill-stealing across every tier of content. (Not the same thing as leap-frogging.)
- High likelihood of having an impact on overall retention and profitability. #OpinionsMightMatter
Cons:
- Requires additional programming, funding, and design considerations. #ThreeBulletsInOne
- Can be difficult to implement down the road if above considerations are not factored into the early stages of development.
- Viewed negatively by players who desire a pseudo-PVP element to be integrated into PVE.
- Removes an element of player interaction depending on method of implementation and other design considerations.
- May encourage training due to the nullification of kill-stealing.
Additional Considerations:
- EQ2/FFXI/Vanguard all used FTE to great effect and were renowned for having challenging content. Beating that content felt extremely validating because it proved that your group/raid was capable of conquering content as it was designed and without outside interference/assistance, which is paramount in a true risk vs reward environment.
- If damage dealt is the only qualifier of mob "ownership" (like EQ), then "kill stealing" is an invalid term, because it inherently implies an alternative means of determining mob ownership, which invalidates damage dealt as a metric. Holding both positions at once is cognitive dissonance.
- Many players want a fair chance to experience content without being trampled over by others. A tagging system is fair and does not promote the rich get richer mentality that is painstakingly attached to the DPS Racing model. In order for this to work, the game needs to be truly challenging which leads to the next bullet.
- The FTE mechanism shouldn't be viewed as a tool that allows people to "first hit something" for "easy credit." Encounters should be really challenging, and the preparation phase should be vital to your success (which is something that has been emphasized a great deal for Pantheon). If we get to the point where players are more worried about securing the pull than they are with how they're going to deal with the challenging boss they just engaged, the game isn't hard enough. Your #1 focus should ALWAYS be based around a clean pull to prevent a mob from promptly destroying your group/raid. Winning the pull is a secondary consideration that should punish you if you're greedy & pull something while being underprepared.
- DPS Racing reinforces the "it's about the destination rather than the journey" mindset. Players will be driven to grind to maximum level, with no sleep, and kill everything possible until they beat the game. You can spend a solid 2-3 weeks focused 100% on getting to end-game and killing every boss while there is no real competition from players who would otherwise take longer to get to that tier of content. Been there, done that, and to be quite honest, I'm tired of playing the villain. Once you establish a lead in this race, you can basically coast your way to the finish line (any future contested content) as long as players continue to show up and leverage the power gap that can be achieved by rushing to max level.
- In order to prevent true long-term competition, ultra-hardcore players are encouraged to play in such a way that revolves around the above bullet. The common policy is to rotate sleeping shifts (4-6 hours) between multiple players. While one person sleeps, the other person boxes their character (albeit at limited efficiency.) When that player wakes up, they rotate duties with the other person who was boxing their character. It allows players to stay logged in, grinding, 24/7. There is a reason why people are willing to go through these extremes. It gives such a massive advantage toward the DPS racing model that it becomes nearly impossible for any other guild to compete with them. (Note that some guilds will do this regardless of what mechanic is adopted in order to secure WW position for various raid kills. There is no issue with that. There are major issues, however, with creating a system that rewards this behavior with an ever-growing chain reaction of power spikes to those who get there first. It's a simple formula that can be leveraged to unthinkable benefit, and has been for nearly 20 years.)
- If you want to give people a reason to show up because they at least have a chance to down a distinguished boss, first-tag is the way to go. I have watched second or third-tier guilds beat contested content due to the first-tag system and it's a truly awesome thing. It made competition feel alive because everybody had a real chance to win. A lot of people have voiced their concerns on how DPS Racing ultimately feels like "PVP" on a "PVE" server. Should players be more concerned about the epic dragon they are fighting, or the power of that other raid of "heroes" beside them? Should the underdogs have a chance or not? If they do, guilds have a much better chance of retaining their top talent rather than see them being assimilated by the DPS-Racing juggernauts that monopolize the entire competitive landscape of a given server.
- Systems are intrinsically tied to community politics. Without systems, the game wouldn't exist in the first place. Community comes after systems because the entire fabric of how the community can interact and behave is contingent on how the game itself is configured. It is of the utmost importance, in my opinion, that the game is not designed in such a way that it encourages degenerate behavior. If the game allows a single player to kite a named boss around for extended periods of time, the game isn't hard enough. There are plenty of ways to prevent this type of "cheese play" from working, especially with bosses.
As a side note, I also want to mention that EQOA, which is tied for my favorite MMO of all time (alongside FFXI) did use the MDD model. This is important because my two favorite games both used different models for kill credit and were both open-world games. So at the end of the day, I am not writing MDD off. But one memory I have with EQOA is that my guild always got kill credit on contested encounters whereas with FFXI competition felt more legitimate. Any time multiple guilds were DPS Racing against a raid boss in EQOA, it was almost inevitable that the mob would die because the encounters simply weren't designed to be killed by an unknown amount of people. As a hardcore raider, I think MDD will create a more favorable competitive landscape for my playstyle. I never saw an underdog story with MDD. You either rolled with the best guild or you lost every race ... and that is the crux of the issue.
If we're going MDD ... so be it! But that model basically encourages competition ... kill credit is defined as "most damage done" not "who got there first." I think it's important to accept that and own it. If there are going to be rules in place to prevent kill-stealing, that is also something that needs to be clearly defined. If it's open to interpretation, it will create an enormous burden for the CS team. Looking at Gnashurra in Halnir Cave ... there is a door locking mechanic. What is the purpose of that? To prevent competition, or overwhelming the mob (aka balancing risk vs reward of an encounter that is designed for a single group)? Will multiple groups be able to enter that room or will the room have a cap on how many players can be inside at any given point in time? Is there a solid commitment from VR to leverage ghosting in Pantheon, as was the case in Vanguard? I have seen it referenced quite a bit as a potential solution to some of the challenges of "too much competition" but Vanguard used FTE rather than MDD. If ghosting is going to be used, how will the system be evolved to accommodate for an MDD model that poses new variables that didn't need to be considered in Vanguard?"
It all boils down to what kind of competition VR desires. If they want raid forces to take turns then we should be using hard-coded FTE. If they want to encourage DPS-Racing then we should leave things exactly how they are. If they want unspoken rules to play a significant role in how people conduct themselves while vying for hotly contested resources, expect the worst. I expect other players to try and pull bosses onto the backline of their competition to kill them with AoE or frontal/barrage attacks. I expect players to mem-wipe at the worst possible time, to fear adds, break mezz, corpse-hump, teabag, emote/trade spam, so on and so forth. I would add intentional training to this list but since it's been identified as something that players can be suspended for it's fair to assume that it won't be a common practice. There will be plenty of people recording their sessions when Pantheon goes live so I think we'll see some solid recourse for those who are getting intentionally trained. In a nutshell ... everything is fair game unless it's strictly forbidden and considered a reportable offense.
Part 2:
oneADseven said:Here are a few reasons to lock encounters:
1) Eliminate zerging. This would have a positive impact on risk vs reward, the economy, prestige, challenge, balance, strategy, coordination, teamwork, and so much more. It would also reduce the efficiency of multi-boxing and power-leveling. As far as game tenets ... positive impact on 8/15.
2) Eliminate kill-stealing. Instead of having a system where it's possible to both "steal" and "earn" credit at the same time (he said, she said, but I, but ... not fair!!!), the term "stealing" is nullified. This would allow competition to be more fun/healthy and PVE-centric. It would alleviate a massive burden from the CS team and free up their time for more meaningful duties. Again ... true PVE-centric competition ... not pseudo-PVP. It's already been stated that kill-stealing in and of itself will not be considered a reportable offense. Trust me when I say this ... villains are licking their chops, savoring the bountiful meals to come.
3) If used in conjunction with the removal of FD (and FD like abilities) it would also reduce the griefing potential for intentional training. Rather than mobs adding every single player that enters their proximity (during a train) to their aggro table, they will instead chase the person/group who initiated contact. After they are done chasing that person they will start heading back toward their camp in a "live" state. This gives players an opportunity to counter-play the train. This is incredibly important when you have deep/dangerous dungeons, especially with tight corridors. Oh and the meaningful death penalty? Love that ... but a lot of people won't when they suffer at the hands of other players.
Encounter locking is not a tool used by griefers. I have seen that comment suggested before while referencing some ghetto-rigged version that was used on P99 for less than a week. Encounter locking ensures that if a person engages an NPC, they have an opportunity to defeat it, and based on their own merit. If a level 25 group engages a boss inside of a dungeon ... they get a chance to take it from 100-0. A max level player wouldn't be able to 1 shot the mob once it's down to 70% and get easy credit against a full group of otherwise "level-appropriate" adventurers. This will alleviate the demand for a "Trivial Loot Code" type system that I have seen implemented in several MMO's.
It would not be possible for a single player to quickly engage a mob and then earn full credit for it while other players do all of the work. I'm talking about hard-coded legitimate encounter locking. Once you engage a mob, other players are prevented from engaging it unless they are in your group or you /yell for help. When content is actually challenging, and the death penalty meaningful, winning the engage takes a backseat to "being prepared." This has been proven in multiple MMO's. Encounter locking ensures that the underdogs have a fair chance at taking down content. This goes a long way toward helping guilds retain their best players rather than seeing a single dominant guild absorb the less competitive ones and assimilate whatever players they want.
As far as this "meaningful reputation" talk ... let's consider history. If the larger community bands together and blacklists a smaller segment, what happens? The smaller segment will eventually band together. They don't really have much of a choice. So now you have all of these bad actors working together ... sharing the same ideas, philosophies, and goals. By banding together this "black-listed segment" ends up forming into its own niche community. A niche community of trolls, griefers, trainers, KS'ers, you name it. It's not like they become homeless. They are just encouraged to seek out other players who are more accepting of their ways and to then become self-sufficient, and with a vendetta. If anything, it probably makes things worse. Being on a community blacklist just strokes their ego. It puts their name out there ... it allows the bad guys to be notorious, and infamous. Some people might consider them villains ... but they will be glorious heroes in their own right. They thrive in the spotlight and will feed off of the attention.
I have yet to see anything that comes remotely close to justifying the use of MDD. I have seen countless retorts based on logical fallacy or misinformation. Fearmongering. Trigger words. Anything and everything that can deflect attention from the main issues at hand. I remain 100% convinced that this game will use FTE if the tenets are truly the core pillars that this game is being built around. If there is a hidden tenet that stipulates that the game must follow down the path of EQ ... "because EQ" ... then not so much.
It gets pretty goofy when people have no real argument and instead try to twist the conversation into saying that I'm scared. I'm scared of zerging ... and DPS racing. I'm a horrible MMO player and my opinion means nothing. I'm not even a human ... I'm an ape! I want an easy-mode game filled with hand-holding and participation trophies. I have seen and heard it all. It is what it is. I want a game that focuses and emphasizes cooperation over competition and conflict. The latter two can exist, certainly, as they are inherent in an open world game. But should players be more concerned about the mighty foes they are engaging or the band of "heroes" beside them? When players are planning and strategizing ... should they be thinking about how they should set up their group/raid composition and hotbars to counter the NPC's they're about to fight, or having an edge against other players? PVE or Pseudo-PVP? Is there really any question?
For a more comprehensive breakdown (MDD vs FTE with encounter locking) please see my post on this thread: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/9257/community-debate-two-guilds-arrive-at-an-overland-raid-mob/view/page/1
Is the writing on the wall? Check out this section of the stream with Jim Lee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnQD5xoQADE&feature=youtu.be&t=8345
"Let's do this legit. If we can't kill him with 12 people ... we don't deserve ... yeah, we need to go play a more casual game." They know it. We know it. Some form of encounter locking is necessary. The only reason they beat that content is because they zerged it. That's perfectly fine for a pre-alpha stream. At the same time ... it's already been demonstrated that content in this game can be trivialized. We have watched FD training occur on stream. We have watched zerging on stream. Are these things memorable pastimes that we're trying to bring back? Let's consider the following FAQ excerpt:
Pantheon is most definitely a modern MMO with modern graphics and new and exciting features and mechanics. There are already emulators out there that are clones of earlier MMOs and Visionary Realms has no desire to make another emulator. That said, we also feel that many of the features and mechanics of previous MMOs have been abandoned in more recent games, resulting in a less challenging, compelling, deep, and social experience. Pantheon, therefore, will indeed bring back some of these conventional mechanics and ideas but with a fresh perspective, some tweaks and revisions. We also understand that while gamers’ tastes don’t fundamentally change over time, their situations, lives, and responsibilities do. Likewise, some game mechanics often associated with earlier MMOs involved inordinate amounts of downtime, overly severe penalties, too much competition over content and resources, and even downright boring or overly repetitive gameplay. Our intention, therefore, is not to bring back ‘everything’ from the old days, but rather to pick and choose those which make sense and are needed to make a fun, social, cooperative, and challenging game.
Zerging ... kill-stealing ... FD training ... someone help me understand. I have dealt with all of this stuff in the past and am not the least bit excited to see any of it emerge in Pantheon. Not only do they not contribute toward making the game more fun, social, cooperative, or challenging ... they do the opposite. Thankfully all of these issues were solved in Vanguard, and seeing that Pantheon is also a spiritual successor to that game ... it makes plenty of sense to draw upon its strengths.
((Zerging ... kill-stealing ... FD training ... someone help me understand. I have dealt with all of this stuff in the past and am not the least bit excited to see any of it emerge in Pantheon. Not only do they not contribute toward making the game more fun, social, cooperative, or challenging ... they do the opposite. Thankfully all of these issues were solved in Vanguard, and seeing that Pantheon is also a spiritual successor to that game ... it makes plenty of sense to draw upon its strengths.))
This.
after reviewing some stuff with vjek, i think if vr is going to stick with a static loot system they need to put in a 'soft lock' and counter measures.
looting should take 3 seconds and character must be out of combat(stealth characters also reveal themselves).
there is a 5 minute timer in which said character can be killed and robbed upon another player/s flagging up(or righteously killed to repo item/equip that was ninja looted)
if they don't want to have it where players can justly be killed and repo'd item/equip, then change the looting time to 5 secs, in which case, gives pvpers adequate time to slay the would be thief.
sorry pvers, i don't have a good idea for this situation. i'm not a fan of report systems unless it is exploiting game mechanics. player issues should be worked directly from player to player. best thing i could think of is maybe a karma system for stealing other players loot in which they can't go into a major town for 24 hours or something like that. during this time, they can't sell or trade the item. if they are killed all ninja items are lost. in addition, they can't go into town or cities.
oh i got something else. the ninja looter gets flagged and can be attacked, but can't attack back lol. and can't stealth for a minute!
To be honest the biggest reason why open world and MDD worked so well is because at the beginning, no one knew had to play a mmo really, it was a first for almost everyone, and because of that the entire enviroment was different, we're their still douche bags sure, but nothing close to what we deal with today, they still had to learn how to play the game and what stats were what and everything. Like in eq when it first came out I remember warrior who didn't weapon high ac, or prioritize str and start for the most part and by today's standards that would be looked down on, but back than some people simply didn't know better, now don't get me wrong that phase ended quite quickly but it was still there regardless. Now I'm not saying MDD can't be an option, but I think if you truly want MDD to work as intended you would also have to reenforce camps and get truly involved if people start stealing from them, I know many might not agree with this, but if you truly go MDD and not have some guidelines in what is acceptable the community wl be nothing short of people KSing each other simply because realistically there is nothing "Wrong" in doing so, and than you'll run into the same problem Rage fire and Lockjaw had when it came to raids and other high camping spots of value and they simply just put muscle you til you leave and probably make you quit playing that day simply because the gane you were trying to play for "fun" got cut short simply because a guild or some random dbags decided stealing your camp was the "Right" thing to do.
oneADseven said:Part 2:
oneADseven said:Here are a few reasons to lock encounters:
1) Eliminate zerging. This would have a positive impact on risk vs reward, the economy, prestige, challenge, balance, strategy, coordination, teamwork, and so much more. It would also reduce the efficiency of multi-boxing and power-leveling. As far as game tenets ... positive impact on 8/15.
2) Eliminate kill-stealing. Instead of having a system where it's possible to both "steal" and "earn" credit at the same time (he said, she said, but I, but ... not fair!!!), the term "stealing" is nullified. This would allow competition to be more fun/healthy and PVE-centric. It would alleviate a massive burden from the CS team and free up their time for more meaningful duties. Again ... true PVE-centric competition ... not pseudo-PVP. It's already been stated that kill-stealing in and of itself will not be considered a reportable offense. Trust me when I say this ... villains are licking their chops, savoring the bountiful meals to come.
3) If used in conjunction with the removal of FD (and FD like abilities) it would also reduce the griefing potential for intentional training. Rather than mobs adding every single player that enters their proximity (during a train) to their aggro table, they will instead chase the person/group who initiated contact. After they are done chasing that person they will start heading back toward their camp in a "live" state. This gives players an opportunity to counter-play the train. This is incredibly important when you have deep/dangerous dungeons, especially with tight corridors. Oh and the meaningful death penalty? Love that ... but a lot of people won't when they suffer at the hands of other players.
Encounter locking is not a tool used by griefers. I have seen that comment suggested before while referencing some ghetto-rigged version that was used on P99 for less than a week. Encounter locking ensures that if a person engages an NPC, they have an opportunity to defeat it, and based on their own merit. If a level 25 group engages a boss inside of a dungeon ... they get a chance to take it from 100-0. A max level player wouldn't be able to 1 shot the mob once it's down to 70% and get easy credit against a full group of otherwise "level-appropriate" adventurers. This will alleviate the demand for a "Trivial Loot Code" type system that I have seen implemented in several MMO's.
It would not be possible for a single player to quickly engage a mob and then earn full credit for it while other players do all of the work. I'm talking about hard-coded legitimate encounter locking. Once you engage a mob, other players are prevented from engaging it unless they are in your group or you /yell for help. When content is actually challenging, and the death penalty meaningful, winning the engage takes a backseat to "being prepared." This has been proven in multiple MMO's. Encounter locking ensures that the underdogs have a fair chance at taking down content. This goes a long way toward helping guilds retain their best players rather than seeing a single dominant guild absorb the less competitive ones and assimilate whatever players they want.
As far as this "meaningful reputation" talk ... let's consider history. If the larger community bands together and blacklists a smaller segment, what happens? The smaller segment will eventually band together. They don't really have much of a choice. So now you have all of these bad actors working together ... sharing the same ideas, philosophies, and goals. By banding together this "black-listed segment" ends up forming into its own niche community. A niche community of trolls, griefers, trainers, KS'ers, you name it. It's not like they become homeless. They are just encouraged to seek out other players who are more accepting of their ways and to then become self-sufficient, and with a vendetta. If anything, it probably makes things worse. Being on a community blacklist just strokes their ego. It puts their name out there ... it allows the bad guys to be notorious, and infamous. Some people might consider them villains ... but they will be glorious heroes in their own right. They thrive in the spotlight and will feed off of the attention.
I have yet to see anything that comes remotely close to justifying the use of MDD. I have seen countless retorts based on logical fallacy or misinformation. Fearmongering. Trigger words. Anything and everything that can deflect attention from the main issues at hand. I remain 100% convinced that this game will use FTE if the tenets are truly the core pillars that this game is being built around. If there is a hidden tenet that stipulates that the game must follow down the path of EQ ... "because EQ" ... then not so much.
It gets pretty goofy when people have no real argument and instead try to twist the conversation into saying that I'm scared. I'm scared of zerging ... and DPS racing. I'm a horrible MMO player and my opinion means nothing. I'm not even a human ... I'm an ape! I want an easy-mode game filled with hand-holding and participation trophies. I have seen and heard it all. It is what it is. I want a game that focuses and emphasizes cooperation over competition and conflict. The latter two can exist, certainly, as they are inherent in an open world game. But should players be more concerned about the mighty foes they are engaging or the band of "heroes" beside them? When players are planning and strategizing ... should they be thinking about how they should set up their group/raid composition and hotbars to counter the NPC's they're about to fight, or having an edge against other players? PVE or Pseudo-PVP? Is there really any question?
For a more comprehensive breakdown (MDD vs FTE with encounter locking) please see my post on this thread: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/9257/community-debate-two-guilds-arrive-at-an-overland-raid-mob/view/page/1
Is the writing on the wall? Check out this section of the stream with Jim Lee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnQD5xoQADE&feature=youtu.be&t=8345
"Let's do this legit. If we can't kill him with 12 people ... we don't deserve ... yeah, we need to go play a more casual game." They know it. We know it. Some form of encounter locking is necessary. The only reason they beat that content is because they zerged it. That's perfectly fine for a pre-alpha stream. At the same time ... it's already been demonstrated that content in this game can be trivialized. We have watched FD training occur on stream. We have watched zerging on stream. Are these things memorable pastimes that we're trying to bring back? Let's consider the following FAQ excerpt:
Pantheon is most definitely a modern MMO with modern graphics and new and exciting features and mechanics. There are already emulators out there that are clones of earlier MMOs and Visionary Realms has no desire to make another emulator. That said, we also feel that many of the features and mechanics of previous MMOs have been abandoned in more recent games, resulting in a less challenging, compelling, deep, and social experience. Pantheon, therefore, will indeed bring back some of these conventional mechanics and ideas but with a fresh perspective, some tweaks and revisions. We also understand that while gamers’ tastes don’t fundamentally change over time, their situations, lives, and responsibilities do. Likewise, some game mechanics often associated with earlier MMOs involved inordinate amounts of downtime, overly severe penalties, too much competition over content and resources, and even downright boring or overly repetitive gameplay. Our intention, therefore, is not to bring back ‘everything’ from the old days, but rather to pick and choose those which make sense and are needed to make a fun, social, cooperative, and challenging game.
Zerging ... kill-stealing ... FD training ... someone help me understand. I have dealt with all of this stuff in the past and am not the least bit excited to see any of it emerge in Pantheon. Not only do they not contribute toward making the game more fun, social, cooperative, or challenging ... they do the opposite. Thankfully all of these issues were solved in Vanguard, and seeing that Pantheon is also a spiritual successor to that game ... it makes plenty of sense to draw upon its strengths.
Oddly enough, even though I wrote before this post I actually have to agree with you, I too don't really see Open world, MDD, and MMORPG working the way it used to, their is simply just to many variables, and like I said unless they actually enforce camping almost with a vengeance I think it would consume the community into grief in each other either indirectly or directly. But with FTE and some other things in place the devs and GM'S wouldn't have to work as hard to have the community work together, it would be more natural, but to a point I still think some kind of camp management would be still needed for those people who try to abuse FTE.
As long as we avoid really awful bottlenecks like VP keys, certain class epic spawns, etc. MDD will function just fine in 99% of content.
Having a degenerative open world raiding scene akin to P99, EQ TLP, etc. is unacceptable though in a modern game.
I'm quite happy to have FTE limited to high stakes content only. MDD/FTE is completely irrelevant in an xp camp, and the community is more than capable of policing that themselves.
Community policing it self? No the community shouldn't be responsible for deciding what is acceptable in a game that isn't theirs it should be the devs and the GM'S that enforce the devs decision to make those for us, as the communtiy in theory is completely biased, as in one time one group could arguably steal your steal and the community accept it because they like part of that group, but than at another instance they turn on you because you tried to defend what you were camping simy because part of the communtiy didn't like you, as for this simply fact the community shouldn't have any deciding factors on what is acceptable and what isn't, their should be a written guideline and we'll known throughout the game and if it does happen the community it can than pitch in based on what is actually written and not off of biased opinion.
Liav said:As long as we avoid really awful bottlenecks like VP keys, certain class epic spawns, etc. MDD will function just fine in 99% of content.
Having a degenerative open world raiding scene akin to P99, EQ TLP, etc. is unacceptable though in a modern game.
I'm quite happy to have FTE limited to high stakes content only. MDD/FTE is completely irrelevant in an xp camp, and the community is more than capable of policing that themselves.
Yeah I agree with this.
FTE breaks the world/community feel to me, small "instanced" combat encounters. Also people are more likely to snag mobs from under one another without thinking twice because if it ain't tagged then its fair game, never mind the player/group that was already clearing an area. Players hiding in spawn rooms ready to snag mobs/rares away from other groups and all sorts of other nonsense. Also if you don't have a ranged instant cast aggro spell then you can just enjoy your handicap. This is how you end up with multiple players sitting in rooms around the world all wasting time spamming target macros to be the first to tag. FTE is no cure all for rage inducing gameplay or toxic infighting, not by a long shot.
Riahuf22 said:Community policing it self? No the community shouldn't be responsible for deciding what is acceptable in a game that isn't theirs it should be the devs and the GM'S that enforce the devs decision to make those for us, as the communtiy in theory is completely biased, as in one time one group could arguably steal your steal and the community accept it because they like part of that group, but than at another instance they turn on you because you tried to defend what you were camping simy because part of the communtiy didn't like you, as for this simply fact the community shouldn't have any deciding factors on what is acceptable and what isn't, their should be a written guideline and we'll known throughout the game and if it does happen the community it can than pitch in based on what is actually written and not off of biased opinion.
the community can police itself as long as there's enough tools for it to occur. it's fine to have emergent gameplay like fd training, ninja looting, ksing, etc. etc. AS LONG AS THERE IS PROPER RESPONSES IN PLACE. better put that in bold since someone is going to take it out of context.
also, how 'open world' does vr want pantheon to be? because emergent gameplay is a part of the open world experience.
It makes things a little more complicated but I’m a fan of credit being decided by most damage done after the first 10-25% health is burned. That way you can’t have a mob tagged by a quick 1 damage ranged ability but also a raid encounter that takes 30 minutes to beat can’t just be snagged after 5 minutes by a zerg guild rolling in on top of you.
Its possible at that decision point the mob might change behavior or rewards based on which group has credit.
If we are going that far then maybe there is even a way to do a sliding scale loot table. Your group does 75% of the damage/healing then there is a 75% chance each dropped item will show up in your loot window with no reward being given for doing less than 5%.
Riahuf22 said:Community policing it self? No the community shouldn't be responsible for deciding what is acceptable in a game that isn't theirs it should be the devs and the GM'S that enforce the devs decision to make those for us, as the communtiy in theory is completely biased, as in one time one group could arguably steal your steal and the community accept it because they like part of that group, but than at another instance they turn on you because you tried to defend what you were camping simy because part of the communtiy didn't like you, as for this simply fact the community shouldn't have any deciding factors on what is acceptable and what isn't, their should be a written guideline and we'll known throughout the game and if it does happen the community it can than pitch in based on what is actually written and not off of biased opinion.
Let me rephrase: MDD/FTE is irrelevant on 99% of the content so the community won't even have to bother policing it.
Raid content, quest NPCs, etc. are the only content in which this discussion is even worth having. Nobody cares if a couple of nerds get into a dispute over orc_legionnaire_08, they can figure it out themselves.
mdd (most damage done?)
fte (first to encounter?)
i mean isn't this all irrelevant if it's static loot(meaning anyone can loot it once dead)?