Obviously spending my days thinking about my hopes for Pantheon. As a person who expects to be starved for playtime, I spend a lot of time thinking about how the game mechanics will impact me and if I can realistically enjoy this game. I want it to be challenging and hard. The recent post about Unrest made my lol thinking about naked death runs across Dagnor's. The majority of my MMO experience has been in EQ, so I tend to think in terms of that game.
The idea on my mind stems from trying to address a few overlapping problems. 1) letting a group quickly recover and regroup and 2) providing a means for people who meet each other and havve fun grouping together to keep that syngery when people have to camp out at different times and may not always play at the same times.
I'm envisioning some sort of ability that allows players to "bind" to each other and then use that connection to summon to each other. I can envision all sorts of limitations that would limit exploitation of such a powerful ability while still solving the two scenarios I list before, such as:
- You have to be grouped with the person for x hours before the bind bcomes available
- You can only bind to one person at any given time
- It expires after x days of real time
- doesn't work in raid zones
- has some sort of distance limit
- etc
Early on, there was talk of the caravan idea to keep groups together.
I don't want to entirely eliminate corpse runs, so don't misunderstand me. I am a huge fan of cosequence of death. But I also realize that if the game is too punishing for me to die, I will most likely find myself only going where things are safe/tried and tested to preserve my limited play time. To be honest, dying is the worst of my fears. My worst fear is making new friends, having a great time, but then not being able to play again together soon.
Thanks for listening. What other ideas might allow groups to remain together without compromising the challenge and risk/reward we are all looking for in our adventures in Terminus?
Interesting Idea, and definietly like the crafter item idea, gives them another "purpose" item.
At the least I would like to see more bind locations for non-magic classes. Not that they have to be all over, but rather than only binding in major cities, maybe some of the larger villages could be bind areas as well, which these could also be more nuetral locations for all racies/dieties than just the major cities.
I think that matchmaking tool, in its essence, was to solve most of this issue because one of the basic functions would be- time availability. You would select those with whom you would share the same time availablilty or ame time of say you play- among other things that you could choose to select. Some think that means match.com, I don't I take it for what it is at its basic level that can be added to at the users preference, the first being- maybe- sprts fandom if any. For instance: Timezone: EST playtimes: 7pm-11pm reliably 8pm-10pm weeknights. Weekends: flexible, 2pm-10pm, reliably 3pm-7pm. Jaguars football fan so when they play away or at home, will have game on in background or may not play at all (distracted play, crafting, socializing, soloing, harvesting)
So there never would be an time where you would have this problem with those you were grouping with where you would need to have something created with which to gather the same group. If however RL happens to one, there will be others with this same matching criteria that you may LFG for to fil the gap in the meantime.
I don't mind the idea of a summoning ability/tool/item/whatever. If it does exist I'd want it to have a cost that makes people ask "is it worth it?" though. At what point should it be worth it? To save a 2 minute run back? To save a 30 minute fight back to the group? To bring the healer back so he can rez a bunch of people? Etc. All kinds of scenarios where it would be great to be able to summon someone, but make the cost enough that people always have to weigh the pros and cons of doing it.
That's great input Ranarius. Having some sort of summoning sickness would help the cost/benefit analysis. My design goal is to make it so that groups that are playing together already have a way to continue to stay together and play together, even across a break in gaming sessions... You can look back at previous posts where I argue that meaningful travel has to be part of Pantheon. So, perhaps I should consider this idea within the context of travel and making sure we are maintaining the proper risk/reward while traveling with a group as well.
DagnyStout said: The idea on my mind stems from trying to address a few overlapping problems. 1) letting a group quickly recover and regroup and 2) providing a means for people who meet each other and havve fun grouping together to keep that syngery when people have to camp out at different times and may not always play at the same times.I'm envisioning some sort of ability that allows players to "bind" to each other and then use that connection to summon to each other.
I'm totally with you on the first issue, letting a group recover quickly from a wipe in a dungeon or just out in the wilds is important in multiple ways. I think there are various ways to accomplish this, apart from any player binding as you describe.
1. I have not heard anything definitive yet on whether players will or will not have a lifestone/bindstone that they can recall to or wind up at after death. So that affects this idea. It is feasible to have a player arrive at a nearby cemetary after death, which would usually be close enough for a quick return.
2. Possibly a Necro could - when in the presence of a corpse - summon the player to it, within time/distance/grouping limitations. I did not say REZ, just summon so the player could recover.
3. In some game I once played, any healer could manifest stones and give one to each other groupmate. If the healer died but somebody else survived the wipe, they could use the stone to rez the healer, to then rez the group. Again, time/distance/grouping limitations.
I would also have no problem with a mechanic that did let any players who survive a wipe either A. summon the dead players back to them, or B. transport the survivors to some safe starting point of the dungeon or area entrance, so that the group can meet up, rebuff, continue the adventure, etc. I'd prefer B, since it creates more of a challenge, but that's a fine distinction to discuss separately.
Now about the 2nd point, I'm not sold just yet. The Caravan idea, as I remember Brad explaining it, was a fine idea to me and I would have no problems with it as I understood it.
I have 2 concerns about the 'summon a player you have bound to' idea:
First, I just feel that it seems too powerful and open to exploiting on the face of it. The limitations you suggest don't allay my concerns. That doesn't mean suitable limitations couldn't be created.
Second, I feel that a close-knit group that is committed to playing together would not have trouble resolving this, either by the group agreeing not to move a great distance on the occasion of a member not present, or a member agreeing that they will - perhaps with assistance - find some brief time to log in and travel to the new location before the next session. For me personally and the kind of friends I hope to have in Terminus, if one of them can't log in on a given night, I'd much rather just adventure in the same place an extra time and then move with them next week (or whenever) than take off and leave them behind. My focus is on fun and exploration, not constant achievement. Of course others may not have that same approach.