Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Game Mechanics!

    • 160 posts
    October 23, 2015 7:07 AM PDT

    Pulling, with many and various techniques.This is the primary reason I mentioned it - it could be done in many, many ways, it showed some creativity.

     

    FD split. Snare/dot FD split. Pet FD split. Lullilng, mezzing, charming, all to split mobs. Kiting and tagging off. Running them to zone then tagging stragglers. Invulnerabilty (Divina Aura or Harmshield) pulling a bunch to a position. Debuffing (tash/slow) as they're being pulled (with SK spells so they don't turn on the tash/slow caster).

     

    It was a combination of snares, damage-over-time, running, zoning, feign death, CC abilities, pets, buffs, debuffs, layout of the land, learning which ones are linked, all sorts of things could be combined.

     

    • 409 posts
    October 23, 2015 10:51 AM PDT

    Raidan said:

    Another Management type mechanic I liked was the limited spell gems in Vanilla EQ (8 total), which made you have to strategize what spells would be best for each encounter versus having all spells readily available.  

    At current, with maxed Mnemonic Retention, you can have 12 from level 80 and up. The raw cost is 21 AAXP, but not sure off hand if MR has prereqs to it, as most of the good AA always do. Still, in the entire toolkit, only 12 gems still presents a management issue.

    • 383 posts
    October 23, 2015 2:30 PM PDT

    Attackable/killable any NPCs. None of this that is not a valid target crap you see in today's games. If I feel like the bar tender gave me a dirty look and needs to die... well I want to be able to attempt to kill him or her.

    This also made every zone a leveling zone of some kind.

    • 999 posts
    October 23, 2015 3:23 PM PDT

    Venjenz said:

    At current, with maxed Mnemonic Retention, you can have 12 from level 80 and up. The raw cost is 21 AAXP, but not sure off hand if MR has prereqs to it, as most of the good AA always do. Still, in the entire toolkit, only 12 gems still presents a management issue.

    Yeah, I played EQ up until the point they gifted Heroic Characters and AAs and I was around the level/aas with my character that you had mentioned yours was in another thread.  I don't believe MR had any prereq other than the previous level of MR and a character level requirement.  I'd be ok with 12 as well, but, I'd prefer to start with fewer and then add them through AAs/expansions/epic quests etc. as another form of progression instead of starting with more and end up ultimately playing the UI.

    • 46 posts
    October 24, 2015 5:59 AM PDT

    Most of these have already been said but:

    - Interdependency of classes which requires thought and skill to properly assemble a group/raid instead of grabbing 5 closest players and going. Tired of one-size-fits-all class systems.

    - Relevant travel: I don't want to be able to click a button and go anywhere in the world. If I want to go from the west coast to the east coast of a continent, it should take me a while and if I'm low level, I should be scared out of my mind dodging scary high level stuff in between (or, take a safer but longer boat ride around the continent). I think EQ1 pre-PoK had the ideal balance between having convenience options like wizard/druid/spires (which also creates more class interdependency), without making travel a trivial act.

    - Meaningful tradeskills

          - Harvest System with rares

          - Recipes that use epic raid drops to create epic quality gear (e.g. dragon boss at end of raid drops dragonskin which a master crafter can use to make dragon armor). 

          - Recipes for high quality items dropping as loot instead of automatically received/store bought (that epic dragon armor above to come from a very rare dropped recipe).

          - Basic equipment recipes with rare harvestables that can equip someone with enough gear to barely survive in that level of content. Advanced equipment (but below epic) using rare drops from group content in that level range to make good enough gear to start (and struggle) into raid content. 

          - Potions (waterbreathing, nightvision, healing (with cooldown), etc. 

    - Non-trivial consequences of dying, especially in raids. Because...well come on, who here doesn't remember having to get polish off your 2nd set of armor from the bank to re-break into PoFear and recover your corpse? I remember those EQ1 raids more than any other game because the consequences of failure were so much higher than anything that came afterwards...and having a high consequence of failure and then beating the content makes the victory feel so much more meaningful. 

    - NPC Guilds - I haven't seen too much of this lately in MMO genre. EQ1 had some great stuff with the magic/warrior guilds with quest lines that also almost served as tutorials for new players in their class. On the 'totally awesome but probably no resources available to implement,' I'd love a deep worldwide NPC guild system which players could join with lots of quests and immersion lore. I can't think of an MMO that does that, but I'm talking along the lines of the Elder Scrolls games like Oblivion and Skyrim. 

    - Flying Mounts

    - Putting a couple high level raid monsters in lower level or non-raid zones. This creates more fun/immersion for the solo player running around the zone who has to always be looking to the skies to make sure that dragon isin't flying towards them and also creates more social interaction between player segments as the level 10 guy solo'ing his way through the zone watches in awe as the big raid of geared up players comes through and does this epic fight in front of them. 

    - Player Homes/Guild Halls with the ability to place items, build, etc.

    - Meaningful factions/storylines impacted by player decision. Best Example: Thurg/Kael/Skyshrine dynamic in EQ Velious.

    - Guides/GMs being known by name on a server and regularly running small scripted events that players could join with small novelty rewards like a unique title for the winner or some item to place in your house.

    - Locked mob corpses for the killers. Contested spawns are fun. Contested looting is not.

    • 232 posts
    October 26, 2015 2:02 PM PDT

    1.  Dual targeting.  Being able to have an offensive and defensive target at the same time.  This is by far and away my favorite mechanic, and I'm very happy that Pantheon is including this.

    2.  Buffs that matter.  In old school EQ, buffs made a huge difference.  Im thinking specifically about mana regen and haste buffs.  Classes that brought these to the table were always very celebrated in groups because not having them meant slow kills and added downtime.   On the debuff side of things... slows.  Without a slower, some content was damn near impossible.  I really miss the interdependancy support classes brought to the table in EQ.   Support in some fashion was pretty much required for everything.  With modern MMO's it's at best a nice-to-have, but rarely a requirement, leaving support classes to compete dps for that last spot in the group.

    3.  Pulling and the need to split mobs.

    4.  Crowd control.

    • 1281 posts
    October 26, 2015 4:57 PM PDT

    A few other things I've thought about:

    Clickies with charges: One thing that bugged me in EQ was that I know more people that didn't ever click chargable items than those who did. If you could make a system where clickies with charges could be recharged, with tribuite coin or other, I think that would really help encourage players to use the charged clickies!

    Spell names: I really enjoyed how many original EQ spellnames were based on game lore rather than just generic "Heal I -> X"

     

    • 9115 posts
    October 26, 2015 9:45 PM PDT

    Great points folks, can see a lot of very popular mechanics and features in there :)

    • 36 posts
    January 15, 2017 1:06 PM PST

    Best mechanic in EQI was Area Mezz for the chanter stopped a certain wipe many times and controlled all the mobs until they had all been killed. First time I used it I messed myslf and we all wipped learnt and never happened again all my time in EQI also was great to use in Mistmoore nasty place that down deep. I got charmed there on my dwarf once that was a nasty experiance was unable to do anything for what seemed like 2 minutes and i was the healer...Loading please wait! Is all I rmember from that encounter...lol epic game play I miss those days...

    • 2130 posts
    January 15, 2017 1:50 PM PST

    Vanguard's customizable Bard songs.

    I honestly never want to play another iteration of a Bard after playing that. My only complaint was that they had difficulty keeping all of the songs equally powerful in comparison to eachother, but it was still a nice innovation over EQ's Bard. If that style of Bard, I would even be willing to abandon my aspirations to play a Monk or Rogue in Pantheon or at least make it my most played alt.

    • 121 posts
    January 15, 2017 5:39 PM PST

    My favorite game mechanic was EQ Kithicor forest where the lowbie mobs depsawned and the high level mobs spawned at night.  You always had to decide if you wanted to risk the run or wait until daytime.  So very many stories from so many EQers over the years regarding that game mechanic.

    • 134 posts
    January 15, 2017 7:01 PM PST

    Bards in EQ1 by a long shot.

     

    Second would be zones that become more dangerous at night.

    • 409 posts
    January 16, 2017 6:17 AM PST

    Kiting :)

    • 510 posts
    January 16, 2017 6:22 AM PST

    Vanguard Diplomacy.  Legends of Norrath TCG.  There was talk of creating a new mechanic based on lore actually learned by the player.  I think this would be awesome.

    • 89 posts
    January 16, 2017 6:41 AM PST

    Gemdiver said:

    Most of these have already been said but:

    - Interdependency of classes which requires thought and skill to properly assemble a group/raid instead of grabbing 5 closest players and going. Tired of one-size-fits-all class systems.

    - Relevant travel: I don't want to be able to click a button and go anywhere in the world. If I want to go from the west coast to the east coast of a continent, it should take me a while and if I'm low level, I should be scared out of my mind dodging scary high level stuff in between (or, take a safer but longer boat ride around the continent). I think EQ1 pre-PoK had the ideal balance between having convenience options like wizard/druid/spires (which also creates more class interdependency), without making travel a trivial act.

    - Meaningful tradeskills

          - Harvest System with rares

          - Recipes that use epic raid drops to create epic quality gear (e.g. dragon boss at end of raid drops dragonskin which a master crafter can use to make dragon armor). 

          - Recipes for high quality items dropping as loot instead of automatically received/store bought (that epic dragon armor above to come from a very rare dropped recipe).

          - Basic equipment recipes with rare harvestables that can equip someone with enough gear to barely survive in that level of content. Advanced equipment (but below epic) using rare drops from group content in that level range to make good enough gear to start (and struggle) into raid content. 

          - Potions (waterbreathing, nightvision, healing (with cooldown), etc. 

    - Non-trivial consequences of dying, especially in raids. Because...well come on, who here doesn't remember having to get polish off your 2nd set of armor from the bank to re-break into PoFear and recover your corpse? I remember those EQ1 raids more than any other game because the consequences of failure were so much higher than anything that came afterwards...and having a high consequence of failure and then beating the content makes the victory feel so much more meaningful. 

    - NPC Guilds - I haven't seen too much of this lately in MMO genre. EQ1 had some great stuff with the magic/warrior guilds with quest lines that also almost served as tutorials for new players in their class. On the 'totally awesome but probably no resources available to implement,' I'd love a deep worldwide NPC guild system which players could join with lots of quests and immersion lore. I can't think of an MMO that does that, but I'm talking along the lines of the Elder Scrolls games like Oblivion and Skyrim. 

    - Flying Mounts

    - Putting a couple high level raid monsters in lower level or non-raid zones. This creates more fun/immersion for the solo player running around the zone who has to always be looking to the skies to make sure that dragon isin't flying towards them and also creates more social interaction between player segments as the level 10 guy solo'ing his way through the zone watches in awe as the big raid of geared up players comes through and does this epic fight in front of them. 

    - Player Homes/Guild Halls with the ability to place items, build, etc.

    - Meaningful factions/storylines impacted by player decision. Best Example: Thurg/Kael/Skyshrine dynamic in EQ Velious.

    - Guides/GMs being known by name on a server and regularly running small scripted events that players could join with small novelty rewards like a unique title for the winner or some item to place in your house.

    - Locked mob corpses for the killers. Contested spawns are fun. Contested looting is not.

     

    All of this so much.  And also The mage/summoner and having persistent pets as part of the classes utility.   In early EQ a mage without his pet was a sitting duck.  


    This post was edited by ArchMageSalamar at January 16, 2017 6:41 AM PST
    • 393 posts
    January 16, 2017 7:30 AM PST

    1. Crowd Control.

    2. Levitation.

    3. Player created spells.

    4. Involved, multi-level crafting (EQ II).

    5. Weather systems.

    6. Player character alignment.

    • 1921 posts
    January 16, 2017 12:07 PM PST

    Personal loot, rather than static loot.

    Why? It changes the focus to achieving the goal, rather than taking rewards away from your guildmates / groupmates.

    • 89 posts
    January 16, 2017 12:18 PM PST

    YES!  Personal loot and not group-based for any quest-based drops.  Everyone does not need an award for participation!  Bring some comraderie back to the game.  I dont always have to be there for myself - I'm happy to be at a camp just to help out guildmates with a goal of their own.


    This post was edited by ArchMageSalamar at January 16, 2017 12:19 PM PST
    • 151 posts
    January 16, 2017 4:40 PM PST

    ONE mechanic only?? Making it hard man.

    But I think it would have to be CC, it opens up SOOOO many doors for gameplay both in PvE and PvP.


    Some "honorary mentions".

    Archage gliders were amazing! It was flying mounts, without the skipping of content by just flying over it and required some amount of skill and work put into it, it felt rewarding.

    Always been a fan of spells and abilities that have these odd utility applications. Movement abilities are probably the most common in this category. (Shame so many spells and abilities are being reduced to different kinds of damage dealing or damage mitigation)

    A bit related to the above one. Weird scaling abilities and spells, I remember playing hunter in old-WoW and having some abilities scale with Spell Power (NOT the stat hunters usually went for), lead to some interesting things to say the least.

    • 234 posts
    January 16, 2017 4:45 PM PST

    Kilsin said:

    Game Mechanics - if you could name one favorite game mechanic from an MMORPG, what would it be and why? :)

    Dumpster/Vendor diving

    Target Group buff/buff players out of group

    Long duration buffs

    Long duration debuffs

    Easter Eggs - hidden things/spells/items etc. around the world that may or may never be found but are worth finding.

    Purchasable/Craftable/Tradeable spell scrolls

     

    • 32 posts
    January 16, 2017 4:49 PM PST

    Capes.  Okay so that's not a mechanic, but I'm going with capes.  Reason:  capes are awesome, and make you look super.

    • 3852 posts
    January 17, 2017 8:28 AM PST

    The best mechanics are in EQ2 - mercenaries and agnostic dungeons. With mercenaries any class can play as well as any other class solo, which is the most important thing in a MMO. I can pick a class I enjoy without having to worry about how it performs, and never have to waste time grouping - that interferes with the true MMO experience of talking in world chat and with guildmates. Agnostics let me get to maximum level in a few days per character and I don't need to waste precious brain cells learning the world - fortunately most people pick one agnostic dungeon as the fastest and never queue for the others so all I need to do is learn that one. At maximum level I can do epic quests, language quests etc without having to worry about pesky annoying things such as mobs!

    ((Given that I often try to take a contrarian position just so the developers can see a side that most of us do not espouse - IMO informed debate provides better information than consensus - I probably should state explicitly that this is sarcasm - I did get 4 characters to level 100 in EQ2 in 4 days - then wiped all 4 as meaningless and went to the progression server which is the closest thing in EQ2 to the original experience, flawed as it may be))

    • 1 posts
    January 17, 2017 9:41 AM PST

    Nephretiti said:

    Vanguard Diplomacy.  Legends of Norrath TCG.  There was talk of creating a new mechanic based on lore actually learned by the player.  I think this would be awesome.

     

    I definitely agree that Diplomacy was a great game mechanic in Vanguard.  I think it provided an aspect of the game that if you had faction with a city you can gain benefits.  I also think that if Vanguard had of progressed, if you had bad faction with an area and entered it, you should get a debuff.  Muahaha.

     

     

    • 19 posts
    January 17, 2017 10:08 AM PST

    Everyone has posted such great mechanics so far.  This is rough...

    Kilsin said:

    Game Mechanics - if you could name one favorite game mechanic from an MMORPG, what would it be and why? :)



    I will try my best to name just my ONE favorite game mechanic...

    Ultima Online - Player owned housing in the open world.

    I have spent countless hours involving this one single mechanic.  From saving to buy a house, hunting locations to find a spot to place it, decorating the house, and even IDOC (In Danger of Collapsing) hunting.  Later in UO's life, you were even able to construct your own design for the house itself!  Owning a house in prime locations brought even further value to it.  SW:G did a great job with its housing as well.





    This post was edited by Jasper at January 17, 2017 10:15 AM PST
    • 6 posts
    January 17, 2017 10:22 AM PST

    Lots of good mechanics mentioned.

    Mez/FD pulling - you can build your group around pulling singles or pulling multiples and mezzing.
    EQ1 Buffing - imo still the best buffing system.
    Harvest system (w/ chance of rare) - I hate tradeskills, but I like spending downtime harvesting for rare materials($$).
    Named mobs for loot or rare quested items - I have trouble playing an mmo without name mobs. One of the best things to do during downtime. I've probably killed thousands of grachnist the destroyer (EQ1) looking for the earring. Stormfeather eludes me to this day, fun fact: the only time I seen him up was when I died and was bound at the nearby dock, I attempted to kill him naked but someone came by and KS'd me.
    EQ1 Taunt - had a love hate relationship with this ability. The thing never worked when you needed it! But that's what made tanking as a warrior interesting.


    This post was edited by Qailias at January 17, 2017 10:23 AM PST