Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

A thought about Movement Speed and Perception

    • 1315 posts
    April 9, 2020 7:55 AM PDT

    Vandraad said:

    Liav said:

    I don't really care for the idea of tying negative consequences into such mundane things. Not everything you do in a game should be a heavily weighted decision.

    Agreed.  Terrible idea and one that would mean nothing in the long run as, sooner than later, every location based perception trigger will be mapped out and posted on a thousand different wiki sites.

    It is to early to assume that all perception triggers will be static in location.  Sure certain quest/lore ones may end up being pretty static but harvest nodes, roving rare spawns and investigation quests could all be fairly dynamic.

    One of the biggest negatives to mounts is how they are abused to run past content quickly to nab harvest nodes and scout out huge areas quickly.  If being mounted makes it so that you will be unable to spot harvest nodes, tracking triggers and investigation points of interest then mounts become a lot more tolerable.

    Whether or not a specific movement speed will effect perception will likely be related to how much of a movement speed increase it is.  We could split movement speeds into three categories; walking speed, running speed, and sprinting speed.  Different movement enhancers could effect different speeds.  To investigate details you would need to drop to walking speed, running speed would be the standard movement rate and sprinting speed would consume stamina.

    At running speed perception may tell you that something is in the area but not give you the flag but at sprinting speed or mounted or spell sprint you do not get that notification.  To actually spot it though you need to turn on active investigation which drops you to walking speed.

    • 133 posts
    April 9, 2020 8:18 AM PDT

    Jothany said:

    OCastitatisLilium said: what does it matter what another person does in the game?

    Do you support the idea that when a new player creates a character, they should be able to choose what level that character starts at, even starting at level cap? Should they be able to have all skills and abilities capped if they wish? Perhaps they could also have the Best in Slot item for every piece of gear? Would you object to VR posting the exact details of every quest - how to start it, how to beat it - on the website, so anyone who chooses can just follow the instructions and have total success?

    If you disagree with any of that, then you know WHY it matters to me what other players do. The real question then is the matter of degree of limitation, not whether there should be limitation.

    OCastitatisLilium said:  (and within the rules of the game of course)

    So, you agree that a game should have SOME rules at least. That's good, no game would exist without rules. Rules are the foundation of every game. They are what make chess different from rugby. Pantheon is still being built. The rules have not been finished yet. VR shows us the rules they are creating, and ASKS us for our opinions on them. Do you object to us voicing our opinions on what rules we would like to have in the game (that we have paid and will be paying for)?

     

    Wow, you know, there is more to my argument than just what you quoted, but alright then. For one thing, everything is going to be on some website like Icy Veins or WoW Head eventually; so, to force others to walk is just adding tedium to the game that no one needs quite frankly. Aside from that obvious thing; I have yet to see anyone on here seriously asking or even theorizing that people should only run in the game or just blaze through the game, and anyone left behind that is going too slow should be punished with having quests or parts of the game taken away. I can tell you right now, that ANY thread like that would quite quickly be shot down (even though it's an opinion) and by some of the same people in here agreeing with this whole walk nonsense; even by someone like myself. I even stated it in my post that no one is going to force you to run to catch up or mount and if they do, tell them to kick rocks. This game is already slow enough as it is, WHY do you feel it to be a good idea to slow it down even more and then take content away from people that have paid for the game like yourself. So, should I advocate that if you are going to slow that content should be withheld from you? If you go too slow, oh, sorry, that Fae that just flew by in a hurry that has part of your epic quest is gone, better luck in 24 hours. Or how about, Oh no, because you were too slow, the boat left without you, now you have to wait a week to get that last piece of a quest. Sorry, you were too slow to grab that pieces of gear from the boss at the end, you took too long and now it won’t spawn. You weren’t going fast enough, so you didn’t notice that those flowers that were part of the illusion spell didn’t move like they should have if you were running by; unlocking a hidden grove part of your next quest. Does any of this sound reasonable to you? I can tell you right now, I would be one of the first people in here asking why do that to you and why withhold content from you as a paying customer.

    I understand why some things matter to people, but this opinion is forcing people to walk , not because it would benefit a game or because it’s part of a quest, this is because you and others don’t like that there are people that won’t walk. This is being offered up not as a solution to a problem with something to do with the game, but merely because some people don’t like that others like to go a little faster than themselves, and feel they should be slowed down, like how they like to play it, and then punished for anything outside of how they like to play the game. This isn’t being touted as an option from what I’m reading, this is being asked for. You’re right, it’s an opinion, but an opinion that is being asked for from behind the curtain of opinion. Your argument is just a strawman, a strawman that easily catches fire if you really read into it and read where my quotes came from.

     

    Hokanu said:

    Its a great question OCL

    Its just a shared experience with people here that MMO's seem to deteriorate into a perma rush. Rush to Endgame, Rush to the next Quest, Rush to the Boss, Rush to the Loot...

    The consensus amongst the people you're pointing out posting here on this thread is that a system that doesn't stop people rushing, but more so tries to give them a reason to slow down, is not a bad thing for the general feel of the game.

    We are not talking about a system that turns off your ablitiy to run, that would force people to play in a particular way. It's a system that says if you are more likely to stop and smell the flowers from time to time, you are more likely to catch a perception ping. The perception system is really about noticing things prior to being told to notice them, so really i cant see how this concept doesnt fit into it perfectly.

    Picture this, your running along a road at full speed, not too concerned about perception pings as there is nothing interesting around you, no ruins, no massive tree in the middle of a forrest, no dead bodies laying around... so you keep running at full pace. Up ahead on the path you see a broken down cart, with a few dead bodies littered around it, so instead of continuing to sprint and running through the middle of it, not really paying attention but just waiting to see if your UI tells you if you should be interested. You and your group members slow down to investigate and after walking around checking a few bodies you get a ping.

    I dont think there is any demanding going on here, it was just an idea that resonates with a bunch of people (including me) and clearly doesnt resonate with another bunch of people (including you) thats ok!

    If we continue to discuss the pro's and con's some of our positions might change!

    People stopping at something like that when there is nothing else around like it, is human nature, curiosity mainly drives people to already do something like this. So why slow a person down artificially when, in this scenario, people would already stop and take caution, if not curiosity. There is no need in this case to walk, as even if someone running by saw this, they would immediately either stop to wonder if this was part of another quest they don't have yet, if this was part of an event, if this was part of some epic quest for someone else, if there were enemies nearby that they weren't told about, etc.. This would already slow a person, if not stop them, just by pure curiosity and caution sake alone; there's no need to force them to be slow already to get it.

    As for MMO's being a rush game, they all eventually become a rush game the longer and longer they are out. That's just something that happens. The more and more people find out hints or hidden things about the game, the more and more people figure out what works best and what doesn't; it all gets put up on the web or in videos and the rush game is on. Even before in EQ, EQ had guidebooks and websites that stated how to do things, if not word of mouth from just friends and guildmates. The whole notion of trying to stop the game from being a rushfest is not going to happen, because in the end, at some point all MMo's become just that the longer and longer they are on the market.

    So then with this, I do have another question. If you all want things slowed down, then why optimize how to play your cleric, your paladin, your dire lord, your druid, your shaman, and anything else in between? Why tweak and pick at your character to be the best of their abilities? Would this being making them faster, making a group go through content smoothly and at a better speed and pace? By doing this with your character you are technically, by this logic of course, speeding up content and adding to the rushfest that people are claiming they don't want to have happen.

     

    • 1281 posts
    April 9, 2020 8:29 AM PDT

    OCastitatisLilium said:

    Jothany said:

    OCastitatisLilium said: what does it matter what another person does in the game?

    Do you support the idea that when a new player creates a character, they should be able to choose what level that character starts at, even starting at level cap? Should they be able to have all skills and abilities capped if they wish? Perhaps they could also have the Best in Slot item for every piece of gear? Would you object to VR posting the exact details of every quest - how to start it, how to beat it - on the website, so anyone who chooses can just follow the instructions and have total success?

    If you disagree with any of that, then you know WHY it matters to me what other players do. The real question then is the matter of degree of limitation, not whether there should be limitation.

    OCastitatisLilium said:  (and within the rules of the game of course)

    So, you agree that a game should have SOME rules at least. That's good, no game would exist without rules. Rules are the foundation of every game. They are what make chess different from rugby. Pantheon is still being built. The rules have not been finished yet. VR shows us the rules they are creating, and ASKS us for our opinions on them. Do you object to us voicing our opinions on what rules we would like to have in the game (that we have paid and will be paying for)?

     

    Wow, you know, there is more to my argument than just what you quoted, but alright then. For one thing, everything is going to be on some website like Icy Veins or WoW Head eventually; so, to force others to walk is just adding tedium to the game that no one needs quite frankly. Aside from that obvious thing; I have yet to see anyone on here seriously asking or even theorizing that people should only run in the game or just blaze through the game, and anyone left behind that is going too slow should be punished with having quests or parts of the game taken away. I can tell you right now, that ANY thread like that would quite quickly be shot down (even though it's an opinion) and by some of the same people in here agreeing with this whole walk nonsense; even by someone like myself. I even stated it in my post that no one is going to force you to run to catch up or mount and if they do, tell them to kick rocks. This game is already slow enough as it is, WHY do you feel it to be a good idea to slow it down even more and then take content away from people that have paid for the game like yourself. So, should I advocate that if you are going to slow that content should be withheld from you? If you go too slow, oh, sorry, that Fae that just flew by in a hurry that has part of your epic quest is gone, better luck in 24 hours. Or how about, Oh no, because you were too slow, the boat left without you, now you have to wait a week to get that last piece of a quest. Sorry, you were too slow to grab that pieces of gear from the boss at the end, you took too long and now it won’t spawn. You weren’t going fast enough, so you didn’t notice that those flowers that were part of the illusion spell didn’t move like they should have if you were running by; unlocking a hidden grove part of your next quest. Does any of this sound reasonable to you? I can tell you right now, I would be one of the first people in here asking why do that to you and why withhold content from you as a paying customer.

    I understand why some things matter to people, but this opinion is forcing people to walk , not because it would benefit a game or because it’s part of a quest, this is because you and others don’t like that there are people that won’t walk. This is being offered up not as a solution to a problem with something to do with the game, but merely because some people don’t like that others like to go a little faster than themselves, and feel they should be slowed down, like how they like to play it, and then punished for anything outside of how they like to play the game. This isn’t being touted as an option from what I’m reading, this is being asked for. You’re right, it’s an opinion, but an opinion that is being asked for from behind the curtain of opinion. Your argument is just a strawman, a strawman that easily catches fire if you really read into it and read where my quotes came from.

     

    Hokanu said:

    Its a great question OCL

    Its just a shared experience with people here that MMO's seem to deteriorate into a perma rush. Rush to Endgame, Rush to the next Quest, Rush to the Boss, Rush to the Loot...

    The consensus amongst the people you're pointing out posting here on this thread is that a system that doesn't stop people rushing, but more so tries to give them a reason to slow down, is not a bad thing for the general feel of the game.

    We are not talking about a system that turns off your ablitiy to run, that would force people to play in a particular way. It's a system that says if you are more likely to stop and smell the flowers from time to time, you are more likely to catch a perception ping. The perception system is really about noticing things prior to being told to notice them, so really i cant see how this concept doesnt fit into it perfectly.

    Picture this, your running along a road at full speed, not too concerned about perception pings as there is nothing interesting around you, no ruins, no massive tree in the middle of a forrest, no dead bodies laying around... so you keep running at full pace. Up ahead on the path you see a broken down cart, with a few dead bodies littered around it, so instead of continuing to sprint and running through the middle of it, not really paying attention but just waiting to see if your UI tells you if you should be interested. You and your group members slow down to investigate and after walking around checking a few bodies you get a ping.

    I dont think there is any demanding going on here, it was just an idea that resonates with a bunch of people (including me) and clearly doesnt resonate with another bunch of people (including you) thats ok!

    If we continue to discuss the pro's and con's some of our positions might change!

    People stopping at something like that when there is nothing else around like it, is human nature, curiosity mainly drives people to already do something like this. So why slow a person down artificially when, in this scenario, people would already stop and take caution, if not curiosity. There is no need in this case to walk, as even if someone running by saw this, they would immediately either stop to wonder if this was part of another quest they don't have yet, if this was part of an event, if this was part of some epic quest for someone else, if there were enemies nearby that they weren't told about, etc.. This would already slow a person, if not stop them, just by pure curiosity and caution sake alone; there's no need to force them to be slow already to get it.

    As for MMO's being a rush game, they all eventually become a rush game the longer and longer they are out. That's just something that happens. The more and more people find out hints or hidden things about the game, the more and more people figure out what works best and what doesn't; it all gets put up on the web or in videos and the rush game is on. Even before in EQ, EQ had guidebooks and websites that stated how to do things, if not word of mouth from just friends and guildmates. The whole notion of trying to stop the game from being a rushfest is not going to happen, because in the end, at some point all MMo's become just that the longer and longer they are on the market.

    So then with this, I do have another question. If you all want things slowed down, then why optimize how to play your cleric, your paladin, your dire lord, your druid, your shaman, and anything else in between? Why tweak and pick at your character to be the best of their abilities? Would this being making them faster, making a group go through content smoothly and at a better speed and pace? By doing this with your character you are technically, by this logic of course, speeding up content and adding to the rushfest that people are claiming they don't want to have happen.

     

    Do you notice more when you're running down the street or when you're walking??  Yeah.  Walking.  Nobody is REQUIRING you to walk.  You can blow right by those perception pings if you want.  The whole POINT of the Perception system is for you to take time, explore, and notice things.  Or did you miss that in the copious amounts of videos with it?  In addition, being a Keeper (someone wo partakes in the Perception system) isn't REQUIRED to play the game.  It's an additional, optional, mechanic.

    • 133 posts
    April 9, 2020 8:46 AM PDT

    Kalok said:

    Do you notice more when you're running down the street or when you're walking??  Yeah.  Walking.  Nobody is REQUIRING you to walk.  You can blow right by those perception pings if you want.  The whole POINT of the Perception system is for you to take time, explore, and notice things.  Or did you miss that in the copious amounts of videos with it?  In addition, being a Keeper (someone wo partakes in the Perception system) isn't REQUIRED to play the game.  It's an additional, optional, mechanic.

    I will have you know that I do walk faster than any of my game characters have. Second, I do notice just as much if I'm standing still as I do walking or running, and yes, if freaks people out and it freaked my parents out as a kid too ( I also know how this sounds, but it’s honest truth); but I digress on that matter, in short, you don't know me, just like I don't know you. In any event, you didn't answer any of my questions, really. The whole walking thing is the opinion and idea of all of you, not the developers. How do you know that's what they are going for? How do you know that they are going to require people to walk to catch it, and not just have it be something that can happen if you run by, walk by, or go by on mount? This just proves to me that you are asking for it to be required that people walk to catch it, whereas I don't think that should be the case.


    No one is REQUIRING you to run either to keep up with anyone or anything in the game, so again I will ask, WHY are you trying to impose that on others just because you FEEL they should have to because you do it or because you THINK that's how it should be or how the developers are going to put it? Let people walk or run and let them get the content how they want to get it. Again, my other questions still stand, what does it matter? Why does it matter?

     

    • 2756 posts
    April 9, 2020 8:56 AM PDT

    No one is asking for forced anything, just discussing some meaning being attached to different movement speeds. Low speed only seems tedious when there is no point to it. If it has a purpose and it is optional it will be improved, not worse. If it has no meaning then it will truly feel like anything but being mounted or getting speed spells cast is tedious indeed. Is that a good thing?

    So, you leave your city for a trip and can't afford a mount and couldn't catch a Spirit of Wolf spell? Oh, well, at least you can look out for dynamic events/pings and maybe you get better range on resource gathering awareness or reduced range on monster aggro etc. Without *some* meaning to low speed travel, yeah, it's going to seem like it's not worth traveling unless you get a boost.

    Sure, some static ping points will be noted in 3rd party sites, so all you have to do is mount up until you get there and get off to get the ping. So?... those that want to explore slowly and find those new pings (and other things) can do so and those that want to just read where everything is travel straight there can do that too.

    P.S. What is it lately that someone can make a "I just had a thought... what if?..." thread and it still causes arguments and upset? Can't people just discuss hypotheticals without hulking out?


    This post was edited by disposalist at April 9, 2020 8:59 AM PDT
    • 196 posts
    April 9, 2020 9:08 AM PDT

    It's that rush to get to level cap first...but didn't the devs say getting to level cap will take a while and they have made it known if you make levelcap in under a certain amount of time they know something is up? I forget where I seen or heard that as my memory is foggy. 

    • 3237 posts
    April 9, 2020 9:20 AM PDT

    Let's review some information posted here:  https://www.pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/2018_november_behind_the_design_perception/

    "The trend of most modern MMOs is to deliver story and quest content to players in a highly linear and directive way."

    "But a seed of an idea was planted under those constellations: there has to be a way to design a quest system that allows for these moments of discovery.  A system that gives players tools to find something when they feel like looking, not when they’re told to.  A system that could begin to unfold the what and the why of those constellations simply because a player found it and wanted to know more."

    "But this formula has also conditioned players to see the game world in a very different way.  The grand worlds MMO players inhabit have become less things to be explored for the sake of adventure and discovery.  Instead, they have become more like the line connecting two points on a map - if the points are all that matter then the only good line is a short one!"

    I think it would be a shame if the "objective-based mentality" that is discussed throughout that page would ultimately end up taking on another skin.  Instead of running from point to point as quickly as possible, players would feel compelled to walk through any area that looks interesting just to avoid missing something important.  (Or rely on a Wiki if at all possible.)  I don't think the perception feature should try to dictate how people explore the world or discover its meaning.  I don't want to feel conditioned to walk with an objective-based mentality.  I remember playing Witcher 3 and spending a ton of time walking while using the perception-like feature that allowed you to notice things in the environment.  The way that I explored and discovered felt extremely conditioned.

    As long as the world is dangerous to navigate, players will already have plenty of reasons to approach their surroundings cautiously.  If NPC's are balanced for groups, and cannot be leashed, it shouldn't be possible for players to mount up and blaze through areas with reckless abandon.  We don't really know much about how mounts will work in this game but another thing I would absolutely want to avoid is constantly unmounting/mounting because I enter combat or harvest something.  I think perception pings should be handled as fluidly as possible when it comes to insight.  If you want to stop and check on something specific, that is what the investigate skill is for, as notated here:  https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/9421/perception-system-what-we-know-so-far/view/post_id/180093?

    --  Can't I just bind Investigate to my movement keys and max it out in a day?

    Joppa says:  No. While the exact mechanics of the Investigate skill are still being tuned, I can share three important pillars of how this ability will function:

    1. Investigate will most likely be a channeled ability.  Therefore, the player cannot Investigate while on the move.

    2. Investigate will have a meaningful cooldown.  The sweet spot will be short enough that you are not dissuaded from using it when you are curious about something you see, but long enough to dissuade players from spamming it every few feet.

    3. This part is crucial: When you activate Investigate, it does not function like a radial, "sonar" effect. You will need to be looking at the discoverable thing, have it in your field of view, for Investigate to trigger the find.

    So it's a bit more than just an 'Active' ability you click and forget.  Once you activate Investigate, then your job is to use it to sniff out what's there to be found.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at April 9, 2020 10:18 AM PDT
    • 1785 posts
    April 9, 2020 10:16 AM PDT

    disposalist said:

    Low speed only seems tedious when there is no point to it. 

    This is part of what got me thinking about this in the first place.  In every game, all I pretty much ever see is players running as fast as they can.  Speed buffs, mounts, etc - even indoors.  As someone who really believes in and supports the worlds > games philosophy, that seems wrong to me.  I feel like running, sprinting, mounts, and so on should be gameplay features that serve a specific content-driven need and not simply a way to let players consume everything in the game faster.  By the same token, I also feel that if players are running everywhere then the game isn't doing enough to get them to slow down.

    There's a psychology concept called observational learning which maintains that we learn behaviors by watching what others do.  (I haven't done a lot of research so there might be a more specific term that explains this better).  But what I have personally observed in MMOs is that if people see other players doing something to any great degree, they will begin to emulate that behavior.  For example, if all you hear about in chat when you're in the game is raiding, then you'll be more inclined to want to raid yourself, even if it's not something you'd really enjoy.  Likewise, if you see people running everywhere, or harvesting everything, you will be more inclined to want to do those things too.  You'll feel compelled to fit in, and if you're doing something different, you'll at least subconsciously question whether you're doing things wrong because you are different.

    With this in mind, I feel that if there is a valid gameplay component that might be overused by players (run speed buffs or mounts) then there should also be reasons and situations where that gameplay component is undesirable.  That would create a more healthy balance around the use of that component.

    Anyway, hopefully, that explains why I had the idea in the first place.  I realize that there are probably many people among us who don't see anything wrong with *everyone* running at enhanced speeds all the time.  For me personally, it's a factor in overall immersion and making the world matter, rather than simply being a backdrop for people knocking out their punch list of levels, loot, and quest objectives.  Probably not the biggest factor, but a factor all the same.  With that said, it's an opinion, and we all probably know the old saying about opinions.

    I appreciate everyone in the thread who has engaged in a reasonable and respectful debate - even when they disagreed with my post.  I think that's the sort of conversation that can only be good for Pantheon in the long run :)


    This post was edited by Nephele at April 9, 2020 10:17 AM PDT
    • 2756 posts
    April 9, 2020 10:35 AM PDT

    There is always an element of whether you are forcing someone to experience your game in a way they don't want to, or whether you are presenting your game in a way that encourages and enables people to get the most from it.

    Some would say they prefer to have exclamation marks over quest-givers and glowing lines leading from one point-of-interest to another. Don't want to "waste time" looking around and talking to NPCs when only 0.01% of the time spent doing that will result in a 'quest'.

    With perception pings, there is a middle ground between having them all appearing on a minimap as soon as you enter a zone and making you crawl slowly on your hands and knees clicking on every pixel for each one.

    Clearly some don't like the idea of needing to slow down in order for their characters to 'notice' something.

    I would say it's hardly unreasonable, but the question is, by slowing down will you more greatly appreciate and enjoy the interesting point of a point-of-interest? Or will it be just as wonderful if you get a brief flash of pop-up text saying "you notice a subtle smell" when there was absolutely no chance you would have noticed it as you galloped by on your sweaty, stinking horse?

    What people enjoy and how they enjoy it is a subjective thing, I guess. Whether you take it as being punished for running or rewarded for walking is subjective too. There are certain and obvious benefits for moving quickly, if only saving time. What a shame slowing down shouldn't be beneficial and not just seen as tedious, pointless and to be avoided.

    Me, I know I love it when I have the chance to walk and enjoy a place I'm visiting and when I have to hurry to get from A to B I know very well I am missing out of exploring. That would and could translate to gaming in an MMORPG very well, no?

    @onADseven I understand your comment above, but I also know you are very good at coming up with innovative ideas. Can you think of a way that moving slowly (or just *not* having a mount or speed spell) could be seen as an alternative with benefits?

    Perhaps you can go at whatever speed you like, but to get a perception ping you have to be looking *at* the appropriate thing and have to do so for a couple of seconds?  In that way, you don't just walk slowly through everything waiting for a ping, but you have to actually look out for truly interesting things?

    If you are the kind of person that has excellent perception, you can run around at speed and will perhaps notice the interesting stuff fine when moving fast. Others will feel they need to move slowly or miss stuff.

    I wonder, though, if that might be projecting ourselves too much. The perception/keeper ability/skill is something that your *character* has, not you personally. If in-game ability were down to a players attributes, I dare to say swinging a sword would get pretty rough, never mind casting a spell.

    If the perception of a keeper is like every other skill then it should operate beyond our 'normal' ability, but of course, withing game mechanic limits... and we are back to the start of the discussion.


    This post was edited by disposalist at April 9, 2020 10:35 AM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    April 9, 2020 10:49 AM PDT

    disposalist said:

    @onADseven I understand your comment above, but I also know you are very good at coming up with innovative ideas. Can you think of a way that moving slowly (or just *not* having a mount or speed spell) could be seen as an alternative with benefits?

    I have always been a fan of the FFXI mount system.  Instead of mounts being something that you always have up while navigating an outer-zone, they are more of a feature that is used to help you get from point A to point B quickly.  Point A being an area where you can rent a mount for a limited period of time (usually in a town/outpost), and Point B being wherever it is that you are trying to get to.  If you dismount somewhere along the way, for any reason, you would no longer have access to that mount.  This includes the possibility of getting dismounted by NPC's who attack you.  So even then, while on a mount, you still have to approach the world somewhat cautiously in order to make the most use out of what the mount is supposed to objectively provide to the player.  If you see a harvesting node and want to dismount to interact with it, there is a cost for doing so.

    As far as run-speed spells, the implications will vary from class to class.  If you're a class that can cast a run-speed buff then turning it off isn't much of a consideration.  If you're a warrior who does not have access to such an ability, it would feel pretty bad to have to turn it off in order to better leverage the insight skill.  If you get a run-speed buff from a friendly shaman prior to leaving town, it already has a limited duration.  Beyond all that, I have always hoped to see a really challenging and dangerous world/environment.  I understand the concerns people have about players running through the world as quickly as possible.  In the end, I would want that type of play to have a wide variety of natural counters.  I am a big fan of NPC's having true line-of-sight mechanics where the direction they are facing has increased aggro range.  Even better if NPC's that are usually considered stationary still have a small radius that they roam, often changing directions and how you would play around their line of sight.  Moving around carefully and tactically should be the rule, rather than an exception.  This should apply to a survival perspective, risk/reward, and navigation/exploration.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at April 9, 2020 10:57 AM PDT
    • 133 posts
    April 9, 2020 11:31 AM PDT

    Nephele said:

    This is part of what got me thinking about this in the first place.  In every game, all I pretty much ever see is players running as fast as they can.  Speed buffs, mounts, etc - even indoors.  As someone who really believes in and supports the worlds > games philosophy, that seems wrong to me.  I feel like running, sprinting, mounts, and so on should be gameplay features that serve a specific content-driven need and not simply a way to let players consume everything in the game faster.  By the same token, I also feel that if players are running everywhere then the game isn't doing enough to get them to slow down.

    There's a psychology concept called observational learning which maintains that we learn behaviors by watching what others do.  (I haven't done a lot of research so there might be a more specific term that explains this better).  But what I have personally observed in MMOs is that if people see other players doing something to any great degree, they will begin to emulate that behavior.  For example, if all you hear about in chat when you're in the game is raiding, then you'll be more inclined to want to raid yourself, even if it's not something you'd really enjoy.  Likewise, if you see people running everywhere, or harvesting everything, you will be more inclined to want to do those things too.  You'll feel compelled to fit in, and if you're doing something different, you'll at least subconsciously question whether you're doing things wrong because you are different.

    With this in mind, I feel that if there is a valid gameplay component that might be overused by players (run speed buffs or mounts) then there should also be reasons and situations where that gameplay component is undesirable.  That would create a more healthy balance around the use of that component.

    Anyway, hopefully, that explains why I had the idea in the first place.  I realize that there are probably many people among us who don't see anything wrong with *everyone* running at enhanced speeds all the time.  For me personally, it's a factor in overall immersion and making the world matter, rather than simply being a backdrop for people knocking out their punch list of levels, loot, and quest objectives.  Probably not the biggest factor, but a factor all the same.  With that said, it's an opinion, and we all probably know the old saying about opinions.

    I appreciate everyone in the thread who has engaged in a reasonable and respectful debate - even when they disagreed with my post.  I think that's the sort of conversation that can only be good for Pantheon in the long run :)

    The highlighted section is very off-putting and all I get from this post is that, because you feel different, then everyone else should come to your level so that you don't feel different. What does it matter whether or not people digest information at your pace or at a faster pace? This is human nature for people to be able to do things differently than others. Just because you can't do it or won't do it at the same speed as someone else, doesn't mean that said person being faster should slow down because of someone else. putting someone else at a disadvantage for your benefit in hopes of getting on par or even surpassing them is not right.

    As for the comment on Observational Learning, there is a ton more that goes into this. The 4 basic things Observational Learning needs in order for it to take with anyone are:

    Attention: Observers cannot learn unless they pay attention to what's happening around them. So, the only way this works in video games is if you are paying attention more to what others are doing instead of being interested in the game and story, which then tells me the game is poorly designed for holding attention. This also plays into feeling different, if you are feeling different, then that means you are caring about who is around you far more than you are about the world you are supposedly slowing down for.

    Retention/Memory: Observers must not only recognize the observed behavior but also remember it at some point later on. If attention is there and they are watching said rushing gamer for a while, or many over shorter spans, this means they actually have to commit this to memory and use it sometime later. not only that they have to remember how said person rushed through the content. Honestly, with as many times as people here have said that today's "modern" gamers don't take the time to actually pay attention and just burn through things; do you really think they are going to sit and watch people do this and take the time to commit something like this to memory?

    Initiation/Motor: Observers must be physically and/intellectually capable of producing the act. Again, the people in the game have to actually be willing to sit and watch, be present for the majority of the rushing, and have to be able to gauge whether or not they have the intellect to pull off the same moves to get the same result if said moves are rather difficult to pull off on the keyboard for them; such as quick key changes, timing, etc.. To be clearer on this, it's one thing to carefully watch someone rush through a dungeon and get a super secret and rare item, but it is quite another to go ahead and repeat the same actions that gave the rushing person the same result.

    Motivation: The observer must have motivation to recreate the observed behavior. If the person that is watching all of this, retains it all, concludes that they have the same abilities as the person rushing in order to get the content, it boils down to motivation. Is that person REALLY wanting to take the time out of their playing schedule to ACTUALLY go about and do the same thing? Does it really interest them THAT much to copy some random person around them?

    Now, that’s not to say that said behavior isn’t impactful on the MMO populace as a whole, but not everyone who observes a person rushing is going to rush, some that see people rushing will encourage people to do the opposite, much like it does yourself. The observing of the rushing behavior can either increase or decrease not just the rushing behavior in others, but it can also lead to an increase or decrease in other behaviors that have some sort of link to it; for example resource gathering or even purchasing of other items. To assume everyone rushes because a few people around them do, that’s just not fair.

    The point is, if what others have said here in this thread, as well as in many others, that gamers today rush through things based on the game and players around them, and that they have no time for anything or to worry about paying attention to anything; how are they learning this behavior from others if they don’t have the time to follow the basic steps of Observational Learning? Why does it matter how a person gets this information to themselves? Some get something quickly and others get it a little slower, there’s nothing wrong with that. Why slow people down for it? You enjoy the game going at a slower pace, that’s fine, but other people might actually like playing the game at a faster pace that suits them. You are happy at taking things slow, why can’t others be happy at being faster in the game? Why make things harder or not enjoyable for people that play the game at a regular pace even then?

    Sorry, edited because the spacing was off


    This post was edited by OCastitatisLilium at April 9, 2020 11:33 AM PDT
    • 1281 posts
    April 9, 2020 11:46 AM PDT

    kelenin said:

    It could be made so that it effects your chance of noticing them based on your movement speed.  So the higher your skill, the more likley you are to notice easier ones even at fast speeds.

    Yeah good point.

    • 2419 posts
    April 9, 2020 12:38 PM PDT

    The solution is simple.  Location based Perceptions have a large-ish area where you get some hint that something is nearby.  You can pick up this hint no matter what speed you are moving.  But if you really want to narrow it down and find the damn thing, you'll have to move slower and more deliberately.  There is absolutely no need to have people walking everywhere just for the off chance you might run across some perception trigger.

    • 1785 posts
    April 9, 2020 1:12 PM PDT

    Vandraad said:

    The solution is simple.  Location based Perceptions have a large-ish area where you get some hint that something is nearby.  You can pick up this hint no matter what speed you are moving.  But if you really want to narrow it down and find the damn thing, you'll have to move slower and more deliberately.  There is absolutely no need to have people walking everywhere just for the off chance you might run across some perception trigger.

    I like this suggestion Vandraad.  It's a good refinement, I think.