Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Round 2 Developer Pod....So good

    • 671 posts
    March 5, 2015 10:11 PM PST
    Xonth said:

    Obviously we could argue about this point forever but all I can say was I was 100% sure Pantheon was going for uncapped raid based on everything the Devs had been saying and the tenants and such so I was just so shocked when it was not. This was my main selling point to allot of people and honestly I still have not seen a good reason to have locked raids beyond it makes it easier to balance the encounter for a developer.

     

     Really a locked encounter is nothing more than instancing a single encounter without giving its own zone. That’s why I I’m in disbelief.

     

    I have a 7 month old so raiding probably off my plate for a while anyway. Guess I’ll just have to stop campaigning for Pantheon till I know more about the game because obviously I have been way off.

     

    Your Son will be Three and a Half years old when Pantheon is released. We are not even in pre-alpha...   good times ahead.

     

     

     

    Coincidentally, as some other have hinted to, if Brad mentions something, it is never a yes/no proposal.. (ie:locked encounters). And ideas can have gradients or degrees. Additionally, many of the deep-raid boss events, really won't matter as much, because even after release, it might be a year before any Guild/Clan gets there anyways.

    Quick note: Many are forgetting that they, or their guild.. are not entitled to anything... nor is anyone else, or any other guild. The world is bigger than You. (meaning us)

     

     

     

    I think VRi will take the first year to monitor the spiderweb...  and lock down the game's bugs, etc.

    Then, I would expect, a "full-on-chinese" first expansion about 11~13 months into release, featuring more outward content, (not tiered upward keys stuff...).  As I believe VRi's first 3 expansion should be outward content. So there will be capacious amounts of geography and time...   before any guld to build up sufficient (credible) numbers, to be taking on any of the Darker Secrets that Pantheon holds. I can't wait to remember how frustrating it is to know it will take you 20 trips of beetle eyes, to buy a 4 slot bag.

     

    You grow from there...

     

     

     

     

    I will stress this again though..   for a larger base of players and diversity and sheer "worldness"... the first 3 expansions from VRi needs to be outward content, not upwards. Pantheon needs an expansive foundation for a wide spectrum of distinct cultures & factions and a sense of World about it, before Pantheon's Lore heads up the "quest-elvevators" into heavily keyed content. The mystery of the world ends, when you bump into the end of the world, with a keyhole staring you back.

     

    SO much going on, in so many places, across such greats expanse, that 3 years in, Friday night, there is no one hot spot, or 12...   there are too many options for one guild, that they (& you) will always be missing something. That is what outward content brings.

     

    All ideas expressed, are my own... lol

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


    This post was edited by Hieromonk at March 6, 2015 5:31 PM PST
    • 179 posts
    March 6, 2015 7:21 AM PST

    I've raided in about every MMO game that has been released since I started Everquest after making fun of my friends at work. I would come in everyday and listen to them talk about their EQ characters. I finally had kids and started thinking about taking time off from playing sports. So I settled down and started reading Science fiction fantasy again and thought what the hell I'll purchase EQ. So on this old system my wives family gave us I loaded up EQ and immediately died because my screen was pretty much completely black and I drowned outside my trainers house in Surefall glades. I eventually leveled up on my own and made it into raids. As somebody mentioned you learned how to play your character in EQ1 and when I eventually hit raiding in the game I could hold my own. The positive thing here is that raiding guild could take in a player like me without worrying I would drag them down because of me making a mistake that wipes the guild or making somebody sit out that night to allow me to learn the encounter.

    I eventually moved over to EQ2 because mainly my guild was moving over and I really enjoyed finally being in a Oceanic guild. In EQ1 I would sit for 2-3 each night looking for a party because their wasn't any Oceanic guild on the server I created my first character on. In EQ2 this was all organized ahead of time and the server and people were amazing. I leveled up in a family guild and then eventually joined a good Oceanic guild and we kicked butt I was the first monk in the guild and did very well for myself. Eventually I moved back to Japan and I would have to log online an hour late. We basically had two monks in the guild and we were both very well geared and pulled great DPS for our classes but every time we both showed up on time one of us would sit out. The guild would take 3-4 necro players but only 1 monk even if we were better players because they thought one class had better skills over another. I took the advice some have mentioned above and moved to a hardcore guild who only had like 26 members and the raiding in EQ2 was for 24 people. I kicked butt and constantly was top 3-4 on DPS meters and saved the guild plenty of time with FD. But I eventually switched shifts and had to work swings. Because I couldn't raid any longer I lost my guild membership and had to move on. EQ2 only allowing 24 members to raid drove me away from the game. I lead my own pick up raids but most of the time I would be forced to baby sit undergeared playes and people who lacked any skill at raiding. I would two box and play main tank and main healer at the same time just to clear some old raids. I eventually got tired of this and had also heard about a game in development called Vanguard. So along with some friends from EQ2/EQ2 I created a guild named Reverence prior to release.

    In Vanguard we all leveled up and eventually started raiding APW. At first we had to manage the raid roster and allow some folks into raids and sit others out. It wasn't too bad because we did it as fair as possible. We did however lose members regularly and eventually we got to a point were most of the time we didn't need a full force to complete raids. This didn't hurt us initially but later on some of the harder targets you could tell that the ability level wasn't spread across the raid enough to carry some of our less skilled, crappy connection, or old system players. Eventually I gave up on SOE I never gave up on the game.

    I created Reverence in Rift and listened to the advice of officers that I had picked from players who moved over with me from Vanguard. We didn't always have a full raid force in Vanguard so we over recruited incase when we got to 50 and started raiding we would have enough people. This was a mistake because of lock out timers and raid limit size set at 24 at release. Raid leaders/Officers would have to take time away from raiding in order to set up raid set up. We would sometimes have 12-18 people sitting out each raid night. Trust me I sit out more raid nights then I should have and so did my officers. These players were great players and having them sit out just honestly hurt the raid more then having them allow somebody the chance at raiding. For example the type of raids in Rift intitially if I would have brought in those extra people they wouldn't honestly have made a huge difference. They had certain mechanics in the game that would just instantly kill you if you were a bad player and didn't know what you were doing. Eventually over time yes once they learned the mechanic they would have helped and made the encounter easier but that would have been a long time. Having a smaller raid force (guild) allows a team to get geared up more quickly and push their raiding team further into progression then a large raid force (guild). But honestly IMHO this should be managed by the guild and not the developers.

    I agree that if I had the perfect 24 people I wouldn't mind limits on raiding if the size was set to 24. But managing a guild and a raid force shouldn't be a job and I lost just as many players and officers because the game wasn't fun because we were spending to much time managing people it felt like a job.

    The guild I created in Rift eventually split into 3-4 great guilds that were at the top of the raiding scale on the server.

    Having a set limit of players who can engage a target in Pantheon will probably work if the number of players is as low as the Vanguard community was. But it will be a terrible system and although I will play it I'll probably lose interest in raiding. In a game with raid caps you are competing against your friends and same class players who are normally your best friends (In EQ1 Rangers always communicated with each other and became very close friends even across multiple guilds) in order to get a raid spot. And in some games if you are a DPS and two classes are states as being DPS Rog vs Wiz you might have 2 Rog and 4 Wiz and only one of the Rog get into the raid you aren't even competing against other rogues but all the other DPS classes just to get into the 24 raid size cap party. I'd rather play a game and raid with a community of like minded players and if it takes us a year to gear up our players vs. 3 months then so be it. I didn't lose a member because I could only fit him in once every two weeks. He raided with me the entire time and felt like he was a member of the guild and game.

    Today unlike the past we have way too many options. Don't push away paying customers who fully want to pay you to make games. Let the players decide how they want to raid. TRUST me bringing more players doesn't make an encounter any easier. I'd take 24 quality players over 72 semi-skilled any day of the year.

    • 44 posts
    March 6, 2015 9:12 AM PST

    Good post Anasyn, i wish it could be like this somehow


    This post was edited by Gelax at March 6, 2015 9:14 AM PST