Since stumbling upon Pantheon, I've been trying to think of what a fun time for me is, when playing an online game. My experience is pretty limited, so this is only based off of a couple of titles.
My idea is that you enter a zone, it's simple, yet awe inspiring. It sets a tone and has it's own personality; it's own theme. For this example I am working on, I will use a fantasy, land with lots of water, giant mushrooms, and swampy marsh.
As you navigate through the bulk of the terrain, the more open areas, it should be populated with wandering mobs. Some hostile, some not. Some only hostile towards each other? As you move further into the zone, it should become more dangerous, the environment less forgiving, and the detail more grandiose. The heart of the zone should have plenty of areas to camp, or even crawl.
Now that we have come across an entrance, to an easily distinguishable area (camp check), we can start the pulls. It begins with an entrance, heavily guarded. Roamers pathing down the corridors, making your pull strategic in timing. The first pull comes, it's two mobs. We need crowd control (because this is not a hack and slash), mana doesn't regen on the fly either, so if we want to be a successful group, we're going to have to play smart. The mob has a lot of hit points, there's no way to burn it down without using up our disciplines (which wont come back for an hour), this fight will take minutes. We're going to have to make sure we get it slowed and debuffed or else there's no way the cleric has enough mana before respawns.
We did a good job! The pulls continue, until we can advance up to another spot, an open area that is now cleared. There are corridors to pull from, and safe spots to hide. Now, an important part. If do not do a good job, well it's going to make for an unfun (fun) corpse run. Because in this game, you can't just run away and lose aggro. Mobs can snare you, they can root you, they can do all sorts of things to make turning around an running the worst choice in the world.
Once my party decides on a great spot to lay waste, the area should have enough mobs to accommodate an efficient group, with enough mobs to keep the fight steady and the puller busy. Pulling is a huge dynamic to me, and I think that camps and crawls should be designed with this in mind. You either need a specialized puller for your group, or a able body to handle crowd control. The camp should offer something, whether it's better exp, quest pieces, spell components, or a named that drops some loots. It should offer something that any class could benefit from as an incentive to be able to rally up a well balanced group for the task.
Now that we're here, the camp is broken, we can hang out. People can chat, AFK if they need to.
To me, that is fun!
Illustration of a fun area. Obviously, i'm not a graphic designer. But this can be used for reference of a layout and the steps necessary to conquer the camp.
Zoeii said:
Nice write up, this sounds like a fun time to me as well. I do not believe camp xp is going to be part of the design unfortunately. I have asked about it a few times and the answer given was basically "I do not like camp xp, it isn't fun."
What are going to be the leveling methods? Will it be like more on the move dungeon crawls then? or will it be a bunch of quests. Why couldn't we have a mixture, that way people who find static camps boring could do something else.
Quest should not give xp.. it is simply a lame way to progress through a game. The quality of quest that you are doing is defined by the amount of time put into developing it. The epic style quests that these are, are usually few and far between because it consumes too much resources.
If you want WoW style quests where everything you do is garbage and irrelevant I think you're backing the wrong game. Diving deep into a dungeon, or sometimes not so deep depending on your groups power, is the definition of fun for everyone. The opinion seems to differ once you reach a point where there is a valuable boss and the group decides to sit down and set up shop for hours on end.
On one hand this can be considered boring, and while I don't personally agree I see the merit to the argument. On the other hand having to constantly move about in a rotation around the dungeon, or at worst.. being only able to clear down once, then being artificially limited to staying there... is what a lot of MMO's in the past 10 years have done, and the crowd around here doesn't really like games like that
If you give quests an xp reward, EVERYONE will do the quests.. it's just a fact of life to choose the path of least resistance. If the path of least resistance is however the most fun thing in most people's minds... to delve down into a dungeon set up camp kill mobs that are hard enough that it's difficult for you to even stay there, then everyone will be attempting to do this and I believe that's what we all want.
TLDR:
Camp XP is bad because it's rewarding someone for doing something they already want to do, and camping an area should already be beneficial enough to not need this.
Quest XP is bad because it's rewarding someone for doing something they shouldn't be doing, and probably don't want to be doing.
Something the OP left out, that the world will have many groups seeking to dungeon delve, and there must be enough places like his example for players to go that people aren't standing on top of each other fighting over the only place to go. Players will always have squabbles about the best loot places, or the best exp places, but there should always be at least 3-4 dungeon options at any given level range.
Hieromonk said:
Rallyd..
Don't forget, and don't assume everyone will know where the quest starts, or ever come across it. With randomness involved, even 2nd year spoiler sites will have a hard time making Pantheon connect-the-dots.
I assure you nothing is random about coding quests, the only possibility of random is that the amount of outcomes is such a large number, it could be conceived as random. This type of coding would come at too large a cost for Pantheon, unless procedurally generated and we all know how much we hate that crap (Diablo 3 rifts).
No random is out of the question, and everyone WILL know where every quest is and how it is done, within days of the first people doing it, it will be all over the internet. This cannot be stopped, and if it could we would already have seen it.
Rallyd said:
Quest should not give xp.. it is simply a lame way to progress through a game. The quality of quest that you are doing is defined by the amount of time put into developing it. The epic style quests that these are, are usually few and far between because it consumes too much resources.
If you want WoW style quests where everything you do is garbage and irrelevant I think you're backing the wrong game. Diving deep into a dungeon, or sometimes not so deep depending on your groups power, is the definition of fun for everyone. The opinion seems to differ once you reach a point where there is a valuable boss and the group decides to sit down and set up shop for hours on end.
On one hand this can be considered boring, and while I don't personally agree I see the merit to the argument. On the other hand having to constantly move about in a rotation around the dungeon, or at worst.. being only able to clear down once, then being artificially limited to staying there... is what a lot of MMO's in the past 10 years have done, and the crowd around here doesn't really like games like that
If you give quests an xp reward, EVERYONE will do the quests.. it's just a fact of life to choose the path of least resistance. If the path of least resistance is however the most fun thing in most people's minds... to delve down into a dungeon set up camp kill mobs that are hard enough that it's difficult for you to even stay there, then everyone will be attempting to do this and I believe that's what we all want.
TLDR:
Camp XP is bad because it's rewarding someone for doing something they already want to do, and camping an area should already be beneficial enough to not need this.
Quest XP is bad because it's rewarding someone for doing something they shouldn't be doing, and probably don't want to be doing.
Something the OP left out, that the world will have many groups seeking to dungeon delve, and there must be enough places like his example for players to go that people aren't standing on top of each other fighting over the only place to go. Players will always have squabbles about the best loot places, or the best exp places, but there should always be at least 3-4 dungeon options at any given level range.
Did I miss something here? The OP wasn't talking about WoW style quests.
Also, you make this statement: "Diving deep into a dungeon, or sometimes not so deep depending on your groups power, is the definition of fun for everyone." How do you presume to know what is fun for everyone?
And then you go on to say: "Camp XP is bad because it's rewarding someone for doing something they already want to do, and camping an area should already be beneficial enough to not need this." I am asking for some clarification here. Are you saying they shouldn't give us XP for doing something we'd like to do? Or are you saying that we shouldn't get a bonus to XP because it is something we like to do? I agree if it is the later; however, I strongly disagree if it is the former.
I have to say, I really don't agree with much of what you said other than the fact that I also do not want WoW style quests. I also think telling anyone that everything they do is garbage because their opinion differs from your's, is not very friendly. Plus, I have no idea who you are talking to because no one mentioned WoW style quests. But to each their own. Cheers!
I wasn't really referencing a 'WoW' style camp or quest system. I don't really have any experience with WoW other than watching it be played. That said, I am not in favor of an illustrated quest system, with a journal/reminder pad telling you who you need to go see next. I'm not in favor of the go kill 50 bears and come back style quests either. Though, bringing crushbone belts to Kaladim was fun, even though that's kind of the same concept. Maybe because it had a supply/demand aspect to it and a value at market.
My point was simply that it would be nice to have multiple incentives for camps, that way, as you're constructing a group, it's easy to find a willing cleric, a willing enchanter, tank, etc. Say you're camping a Flowing black Silk Sash for example, not many enchanters want to wear that, unless their rolling to sell it.
I'd thought I'd share another fun camp scene that I was working on today. Goblins and errything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wQ-_9k6Xho&feature=youtu.be