Just got that YouTube link. Awesome, now I've got the transcript ;)
To let you guys know what Joppa feels about LAS, he summarises real early on: -
"the buzzword that continually came up over and over again was "strategy", "strategic"; you know this really - trying to carve this path of - I want to, you know, think carefully and consider carefully: What is about to happen? What could happen? What are the potentials? You know, who - always reflecting on, like - who do I have around me? What is my group makeup? What are we about to engage in?
And then, then thinking out from there in that low level design kind of way, like, okay; What what can we do to really accentuate that? What can we do to really bring that to the fore and develop a combat and a gameplay experience that accentuates that, that element?
And that I guess was was really, kind of, the genesis of this, this thought of, you know, limiting the action set available to the player, where that kind of pre-scription that pre-decision that pre-warming of your approach to how you're going to do something.
Not only invoking that strategy but then the really neat thing about it and - and the thing that I think people are going to resonate with more and more as they see things in action - is the kind of creativity and the kind of game play that, that issues from when you find yourself in that now situation: How do I deal with this particular thing that's coming my way that maybe I didn't anticipate? or, you know, when you get an "add" or you, you're, you're all of a sudden...
In a more unlimited kind of action bar way - we'll just say UAS for sake of simplicity - when you have every ability that you have in your arsenal on a bar and available to you then there's, there's really not a whole lot of creativity and how you approach a situation, because you have more of a one to one answer. When the environment - when the content - presents a question you have the answer.
Whereas when you don't have that one to one answer available to you the kind of creativity that it causes to happen, in terms of how you - what you do - and how you lean on other people and ways that you think about ability synergies and, you know, ways to get an effect in a roundabout way that you - because you don't have a direct answer for - those are the kind of things that start to add some of those ancillary layers to challenge that - and strategy - that we're really excited about"
disposalist said:
Whereas when you don't have that one to one answer available to you the kind of creativity that it causes to happen, in terms of how you - what you do - and how you lean on other people and ways that you think about ability synergies and, you know, ways to get an effect in a roundabout way that you - because you don't have a direct answer for - those are the kind of things that start to add some of those ancillary layers to challenge that - and strategy - that we're really excited about"
pip-****king pip mother*****ing what-what
in before stream, what I said mofo's *high-fives self*
"Unless there is an overlap between classes where the limitations as the devs put it, become more of a specific group dynamic based on the make up of said group that is not wholly dependent on the "quarternity"?"
disposalist said: ... is the kind of creativity and the kind of game play that, that issues from when you find yourself in that now situation: How do I deal with this particular thing that's coming my way that maybe I didn't anticipate? or, you know, when you get an "add" or you, you're, you're all of a sudden...
While I apprecate the hypotheticals in such theorycrafting, the reality of the implementation is: You fail. How do we deal with it? We fail.
If we don't have the loadout to deal with a disposition, we fail. In a PUG with no voice comms with the typical public player who isn't in my guild, and isn't in Discord, we fail. Completely, utterly, guaranteed.
If you have one enchanter, and you're mez'ing everything, and then two mobs come that you can't mez? They kill the Enchanter and the group wipes. Or 5/6 of you die, and the last desperate coward trains the zone and kills more players.
Everyone has already seen the damage output of these mobs in the past 6 years of testing. If a non plate class gets touched by them? They die. In 2-3 hits.
It's not fun.
It's not challenging.
It's not anything positive.
It's frustrating, annoying and artificial. You know you COULD win if you could press the button you can't, but the UI is preventing you from pushing it. Huzzah.
Also? It's been tried before, and failed before. Visionary Realms is repeating history without changing anything, and expecting a different result. There's a word for that, and it's not a good word.
The immediate response is going to be to nerf damage output so players can actually survive long enough to even attempt to press another button to try and "synergize" with their dead or dying teammates.
Well crap, that's just going to lead to a whole bunch of other negative implementation choices, and gut the whole challenge part of the combat loop.
I applaud them for doubling down on a bad idea, in a sort of "Well, at least you're brave enough to believe in your bad idea enough to stick with it for 6 years" but wow, it's been logically flawed from day one, in the face of random dispositions , random respawn of dispositions, and multi-dispositions.
The 2nd time will be random, philo. And every time after that. That's the whole point of random dispositions, random respawns of dispositions, and random multi-dispositions.
Especially true on boss fights when you get no prep time. The boss is triggered, and you're locked in combat. Which loadout did you pick? Oh right, you didn't, because you can't, because you're in combat.
This idea that players should be shielded against failure is exactly the attitude that has made the MMO genre a mess of watered down boring games in the last 15-20 years; it's not fun to always win.
There is the old proverb, "Necessity is the mother of invention." Another way to say that is, "Limitations spur creativity." Joppa is 100% correct in his assessment, we can go back and forth with hypotheticals and edge-cases all day long, but the fact of it is players being constrained in their available actions forces them to think of new and clever ways to deal with the threats they face. To say otherwise is to admit that you don't want challenge, and if you want a game where you always win, there's more than enough of that clouding the genre already, we don't need another one.
@vjek
Mobs will only have 1 disposition at a time...and the amount of mobs with dispositions is so tiny that I dont think it will make a huge difference.
If you want to make it about dispositions (which is a completely different topic from limited action sets but I get why you are making that connection) if you die the mob hasnt dyed so its disposition hasnt changed.
It sounds like your issue is dispositions vjek, not the LAS.
Unless it spawns mid-fight. Or it randomly respawns. Or it respawns while your puller is pulling.
Or is summoned as part of an open world competitive raid mechanic. Or is summoned/triggered as part of a Quest.
Or you're placed in a room with it, and it spawns after you enter. (which they've shown)
Yes, that's the whole premise. The whole shtick. The whole point of the mechanic.
If it doesn't guarantee people die, it's not doing it's job. If people don't die, it's a lame gimmick.
Either combos will have to be game-breakingly powerful, or you're guaranteeing failure, and everything else that is a challenge will have to be nerfed to let the average player respond in time to possibly win.
All of those changes are negative, in light of the public design goal of a spiritual successor to EQ1.
What they've outlined? It's forcing EQ2 Heroic Opportunities into every fight. Even LOTRO has a system that's better than THAT.
Also, multi-disposition mobs is a thing. It was revealed as a public design goal last year. It's still a design goal.
They will only have one disposition in PA5, but if Joppa has anything to say about it, multi-dispositions will be in Pantheon, eventually.
As always, if he's actually changed his mind in the face of simple logic, awesome, but so far.. nope.
vjek said:disposalist said: ... is the kind of creativity and the kind of game play that, that issues from when you find yourself in that now situation: How do I deal with this particular thing that's coming my way that maybe I didn't anticipate? or, you know, when you get an "add" or you, you're, you're all of a sudden...While I apprecate the hypotheticals in such theorycrafting, the reality of the implementation is: You fail. How do we deal with it? We fail.
If we don't have the loadout to deal with a disposition, we fail. In a PUG with no voice comms with the typical public player who isn't in my guild, and isn't in Discord, we fail. Completely, utterly, guaranteed.
If you have one enchanter, and you're mez'ing everything, and then two mobs come that you can't mez? They kill the Enchanter and the group wipes. Or 5/6 of you die, and the last desperate coward trains the zone and kills more players.
I'm not convinced this is an accurate assessment. While it certainly is a possibility, I remember plenty of groups in EQ where the runner got away because we didn't snare, or the boss got his heal off because we didn't stun, or where we had to fight the train because we couldn't evac, or where we had a druid main healing because we couldn't find a cleric. Sure, sometimes we lost, but often we managed to win - it was just hard. Point is, just because the group isn't fighting under optimal conditions doesn't mean that the fight is unwinnable. Dispositions aren't rock-paper-scissors. You shouldn't always need to have a hard counter for whatever you might run into in a fight.
The immunities are core mechanics, Nephele.
Immunity to taunt. Immunity to Stun. Immunity to Mez. Immunity to ... whatever other thing esnures a core combat mechanic is gone.
That's the reason they're there, to force the group to respond. If they don't have the counter, they lose. What other possibility exists? It's a binary state machine game. :)
@vjek
So now you only have the possibility to be unprepared against the few mobs that have dispositions...but out of those you are only unprepared for the ones that you dont know you will be fighting before combat starts.
You are right, thats way to few mobs to matter. That sounds super easy.
Maybe we need to increase the number of mobs with dispositions ten-fold and only have them spawn mid combat? That would still be less than 1% of the total mobs but at least it would be something...
vjek said:The immunities are core mechanics, Nephele.
Immunity to taunt. Immunity to Stun. Immunity to Mez. Immunity to ... whatever other thing esnures a core combat mechanic is gone.
That's the reason they're there, to force the group to respond. If they don't have the counter, they lose. What other possibility exists? It's a binary state machine game. :)
This obviously can't be correct, just becuase let's say a disposition can poison you doesn't mean if you can't cure it that you automatically will die, it just means you will be healing more due to not being able to cure the poison .
Or if it can't be stunned or snare/root doesn't mean it will run away and pull more mobs it means you could hit cds near it low health threshold and burst him down before he actually starts running or use another form of CC he isn't immune to, or maybe find a way to make him not wanting to run away to begin with.
You says it's binary which only shows me that you simply don't think things throughly through and just expect that if you can't cure a poison on a poison disposition that you simply can't win, which is well not correct, it can't be, it definately makes the fight harder I can give you that, but definately not impossible to come out on top.
Joppa spoke about the "you fail" point very directly and clearly.
He said it isn't the goal or the expectaition that, if you choose a loadout based on what an encounter is *likely* to be like and a different disposition turns up that you "will fail". He expects it will cause you to need to improvise and rely on (or synergise with) your group more. It most certainly is not some 'binary' thing that, if your LAS choice doesn't exactly match the encounter, you will fail.
So, yes, you absolutely can 'prepare' with LAS. It seems the intention is that you can't ever just 'know', 100%, by experience (or by Googling or visiting a Wiki), that, every time, your loadout will be absolutely 'ideal'. Oh noze!
I'm actually beginning to reaslise why this might be a very good thing. Doesn't everyone else see the potential? (even if they don't trust that it will work out)?
Joppa stated in the interview that just because you dont have the "best" loadout for a situation doesn't mean that you're guaranteed to instantly fail. That being said, I believe that we should die in game if we dont have the right loadout at the right time, that's part of not being prepared for everything. And I agree with eunichron, this game is being touted as a difficult game and you have to implement difficulty in there somehow and one of the ways they're doing that is with LAS. I'm personally excited to see how it plays out.
Past games have shown in can work and I trust Joppa when he says the intent is to not make the wrong skills guaranteed death. This will make the world a more dangerous place forcing groups take extra precautions. This could lead to some good things like filling in the empty group slots and communicating with your group members on what abilities they have loaded.
While I still have my doubts, I need to just try it before making up my mind. Joppa’s statement that once we are forced to play with this ruleset, we will adjust how we play seemed spot on. I liked his example of when we would switch our spell loadout will become something to think about. Not all places will be safe to pull up a bunch of none combat abilities. I could see how this could make the game feel more dangerous.
I have my own reasons for this to work out. I like having all my core abilities mapped to keys close to wasd. I am not a fan of using the number keys or the mouse to click. Having a limited ability set will make that much easer to do.
Food or consumable sounds really cool. I loved how it sounded like they will be a duration like a buff that can be saved for later at any point. It sounds like they would auto load with your saved abilities sets as well? Consumables in past games have felt ether too necessary like Diablo health and mana potions to indifferent like in EQ. Joppa’s description sounded very enticing to me.
It's making me think of the way Battlefield plays. There are 7 classes and all have a long list of different guns, sidearms, melee weapons, gadgets and specialties that make up their loadout. From 100+ 'things' you choose 1 gun, 1 sidearm, 1 gadget, 1 melee weapon, 1 grenade and 3 specialties. Each time you die, you can change class and/or loadout. The weapons, gadgets etc have very varied capabilities.
I change a lot more than most people. Most play their favourite class and their favourite loadout. I play whatever is needed by the team, but I still find I don't change class for *every* re-spawn and don't change class loadout often.
With that limited LAS you often come up against a situation that you are far from ideally equipped to handle. You have a shotgun when someone appears 20 meters away with a rifle. You have a rifle when someone appears 5 meters away with a shotgun, etc, etc, etc.
It actually makes your choice of class/loadout very important/meaningful/impactful *but* when you chose 'wrong' you don't just 'fail' as long as you think and alter your tactics.
Pantheon (and MMORPGs in general) are *much* more complex than Battlefield and you are *much* more likely to be able to lean on your group (BF *is* a squad/team/coop game, but you *so* rarely get a squad that actually works together).
The more I think about what Joppa said yesterday the more I am beginning to feel he may be right.
disposalist said:... I'm actually beginning to reaslise why this might be a very good thing. Doesn't everyone else see the potential? (even if they don't trust that it will work out)?No, I don't. Not even a little bit, because I've seen exactly this type of thing before, and it does. not. work.
Really enjoyed that interview with Joppa, personally liking the LAS set having had some good experiences with that setup, making ghetto cc to deal with unexpected circumstances, those were the memories that are most thrilling, the "oh $%$%" moments and finding a way to scrape through by the skin of your teeth (sometimes taking a long time) as you then get repops/adds/roamers add in just as you're almost back under control. Cheers Baz/Chris.
Haffer
vjek said:It's been discussed in the past, but starting testing with 12 would give me a wait and see attitude. 8? Nope.
I have to ask - Vjek have you watched the interview? I keep seeing a few posters here, on Reddit and a few other places with a very similar message: you only have 8 abilities.
What I made very clear in the interview is that you will have 8 Action abilities and 6 Utility abilities available to you in combat. That is 14 abilities total. Not 8, not 12 - 14.
When I see it consistently put forward that you will only have 8 abilities available in combat, it starts to sound like people aren't really listening, which means what could be a fantastic discussion coming from a place of clarity on both sides ends up being much less (personal jabs aside ;) ).
Joppa said:vjek said:It's been discussed in the past, but starting testing with 12 would give me a wait and see attitude. 8? Nope.
I have to ask - Vjek have you watched the interview? I keep seeing a few posters here, on Reddit and a few other places with a very similar message: you only have 8 abilities.
What I made very clear in the interview is that you will have 8 Action abilities and 6 Utility abilities available to you in combat. That is 14 abilities total. Not 8, not 12 - 14.
When I see it consistently put forward that you will only have 8 abilities available in combat, it starts to sound like people aren't really listening, which means what could be a fantastic discussion coming from a place of clarity on both sides ends up being much less (personal jabs aside ;) ).
And you explained that the 'action' abilities, of which you choose 8, are those causing hate on the target. I kinda assume that, even with between 20 and 30 skills per class, there will not be 20 or 30 action skills?
Let's say the proportion of action to utility matches the toolbars, then there will be 11 to 17 action and 9 to 13 utility.
Now I have to assume (and may be wrong) that there will be plenty of skills that won't be very... specific. Eg. A Cure Poison spell is quite specific and a Heal Wounds is not.
So, given that assumption, does choosing 8 of maybe 14 action skills and 6 of maybe 11 utility skills seem too restrictive?
And this is just me guessing. Why do people assume that VR is working on "hubris" and ignoring what might work well...? Why not assume they are playing the game, really enjoying it, and thinking we will too?
Or, since we just don't know, why not at least avoid jumping to the worst assumptions and insulting the devs?
vjek said:The immunities are core mechanics, Nephele.
Immunity to taunt. Immunity to Stun. Immunity to Mez. Immunity to ... whatever other thing esnures a core combat mechanic is gone.
That's the reason they're there, to force the group to respond. If they don't have the counter, they lose. What other possibility exists? It's a binary state machine game. :)
Unless it is 100% immunity, then it absolutely (pun intended) is not a binary state machine.
And even if it is, unless there is no other way to mitigate the 'immunity', then it is not a binary state machine.
Monster immune to Mez? Stun it. Root it. Snare and slow it. Burn it down with burst DPS, heal more and rest more after the fight than usual.
Any number of other improvational techniques that mitigate the effect of not having the perfect skill available at any time.
Some would call that stuff 'challenging' and 'fun'.
Maybe, because Pantheon has LAS and dispositions, a failed Mez doesn't cause as much hate as it would in EQ? And anyway, mezzes sometimes just failed in EQ, never mind dispositions. Did that always cause a wipe?
There are just *so many* things we don't know about Pantheon, yet you are somehow *certain* that one character with one ideal spell not loaded = group wipe guaranteed every time?
Maybe it just means more group improvisational fun guaranteed every time?
EDIT: I withdraw my statement as it was addressed in Discord to my satisfaction.
There seems to be many people on Reddit and these forums that haven't watched the video entirely. There is a lot of amazing information throughout the entire interview. I was under the assumption that there was only 8 ability bars, but after watching the video I learned there's 8 hate bars and 6 utility bars. As well as 2 standard bars that you can put all sorts of macros and other things on. CP also mentions that you can potentially expand those bars and have more than just 2 of those "standard" bars. So people complaining about action bars should watch and listen. Also having a LAS allows for more meaningful group interactions. This isn't wow where you can LFG and roll into a dungeon and not say a word to anyone and clear through content with ease. In my prospective you will be talking to a lot of people throughout your journey in Terminus. Constantly communicating with your group members through chats or voice chats should be a huge part of the game. This isn't going to be a solo game where one player can use all of their abilites when ever something goes wrong. You'll be relying on others to help you. I know its a strange concept for a lot of people who are used to solo content games, but group content is a huge part of this game. There is a lot of great content creators that have a bunch of videos explaining a lot of this as well as many videos created by VR. I recommend many of you to dig through some of that content before jumping to conclusions. It is tough not to jump to conclusions because we haven't had a chance to play the game and experience it for ourselves, but I think the information out there will really help if you take the time to check it out.
That was a great interview. I really appreciated Joppa's analogy of having a LAS and facing dynamic dispositions to an Arena match in WoW - Not knowing everything that your opponent is "going to do" doesn't mean that you will fail, because a good player simultaneously knows what their opponents are potentially "capable of doing" and are able to adapt accordingly. -=Thumbs up emoji=-
edit: These forums desperately need a spell checker.