Vandraad said:Dullahan said:The kicker is finding a way to prevent the uber guilds from locking down every spawn in the game. That may be a conversation for another thread, but suffice it to say you cannot allow players to merely drop a tracker on a boss spawn and be able to check it every few minutes. The process of even checking whether a raid boss is up should require a guild force. Not simply tracking or leaving a level 1 at a spawnpoint as has been done in the past.
I've yet to see that type of discussion not quickly devolve into a flame fest, but competition and spawn locking is something the developers need to be very aware of.
I totally agree here. While I believe my gaming organization will have a huge guild in this game we are a "white knight" style guild. We believe in sharing and everyone having an amazing gaming adventure. Being able to lock out every raid mob because you camp several toons across the world and constantly check for spawns can be a game killer and bring much hatred to guilds that do that and the gaming community in general.
I always thought about hidden world events, unlocked by some unfortunate (for the world point of view) players. For exemple, you are exploring some unknown place, and by luck (or studies of some books that didn't seem important at the time you found thme), you do the exact thing that gives you access to a secret place. Let's be original, an hidden temple (for those who are wondering, I'm being ironic here about the original part), after surviving deadly traps, fightings guardians of an ancient artefact, you reach it, the center of the place.
There's some kind of warning, but you don't care, this artefact looks so rare and powerful, what could you possibly risk ? Well, breaking a powerful spell that was keeping an ancient threat here. Some kind of demon, ancient wizard spirit or some dragon king. The moment you free him, something happen everywhere in the world, a huge cry, the sky changing color, or everything being like frozen in time for a few second. Now the world knows something awful happened, one day they'll probably learn it was you (look on the bright side, you'll be famous, your names will probably be written in history books, if the civilization survive this)
You have a powerful artefact, but now everyone in the world will have to face the consequences and fight for survival. Looks like the vilain summoned his allies, key locations in the world are being taken over by powerful generals, and it looks like a lot of people will have to work together to beat them before unlocking access to the main show ! Everyone's help will be needed, armies will need supplies, gathered or crafted, to help heroes reach the generals (maybe some kind of pnj global goal that will lessen the flow of ennemies preventing you from reaching the bosses). Wizards will need to do some rituals at some locations to weaken these powerful foes, and they'll need protection to survive until the end. Priest will need to pray their gods for their help and forgiveness,... you get the picture !
That's just a wild dream I had for a long time, I know these kind of events are at least f***ing hard to do, balancing it could be horrible, and it has meaning only if these are one time event, but that will probably last for days/weeks/months, because they need time to uncover all the "vilain fortress", research the rituals, gather the resources, etc.
Belmont1 said:I always thought about hidden world events, unlocked by some unfortunate (for the world point of view) players. For exemple, you are exploring some unknown place, and by luck (or studies of some books that didn't seem important at the time you found thme), you do the exact thing that gives you access to a secret place. Let's be original, an hidden temple (for those who are wondering, I'm being ironic here about the original part), after surviving deadly traps, fightings guardians of an ancient artefact, you reach it, the center of the place.
There's some kind of warning, but you don't care, this artefact looks so rare and powerful, what could you possibly risk ? Well, breaking a powerful spell that was keeping an ancient threat here. Some kind of demon, ancient wizard spirit or some dragon king. The moment you free him, something happen everywhere in the world, a huge cry, the sky changing color, or everything being like frozen in time for a few second. Now the world knows something awful happened, one day they'll probably learn it was you (look on the bright side, you'll be famous, your names will probably be written in history books, if the civilization survive this)
You have a powerful artefact, but now everyone in the world will have to face the consequences and fight for survival. Looks like the vilain summoned his allies, key locations in the world are being taken over by powerful generals, and it looks like a lot of people will have to work together to beat them before unlocking access to the main show ! Everyone's help will be needed, armies will need supplies, gathered or crafted, to help heroes reach the generals (maybe some kind of pnj global goal that will lessen the flow of ennemies preventing you from reaching the bosses). Wizards will need to do some rituals at some locations to weaken these powerful foes, and they'll need protection to survive until the end. Priest will need to pray their gods for their help and forgiveness,... you get the picture !
That's just a wild dream I had for a long time, I know these kind of events are at least f***ing hard to do, balancing it could be horrible, and it has meaning only if these are one time event, but that will probably last for days/weeks/months, because they need time to uncover all the "vilain fortress", research the rituals, gather the resources, etc.
You're right, they are very hard to do but it sounds epic and I have thought of a similar style of event for a long time too! :)
Deuce said:Vandraad said:Dullahan said:The kicker is finding a way to prevent the uber guilds from locking down every spawn in the game. That may be a conversation for another thread, but suffice it to say you cannot allow players to merely drop a tracker on a boss spawn and be able to check it every few minutes. The process of even checking whether a raid boss is up should require a guild force. Not simply tracking or leaving a level 1 at a spawnpoint as has been done in the past.
I've yet to see that type of discussion not quickly devolve into a flame fest, but competition and spawn locking is something the developers need to be very aware of.
I totally agree here. While I believe my gaming organization will have a huge guild in this game we are a "white knight" style guild. We believe in sharing and everyone having an amazing gaming adventure. Being able to lock out every raid mob because you camp several toons across the world and constantly check for spawns can be a game killer and bring much hatred to guilds that do that and the gaming community in general.
There is actually multiple ways to handle this quite easily, I have touched on a few idea's in other threads but simply put, lockout timers work, once you kill a raid mob you are flagged, the mob turns transparent for you and cannot be engaged or attacked again until the lockout timer ends, this can be set to any time but usually 3-7 days is appropriate, the mob respawns either instantly after the kill or within an hour or so, allowing elite guilds to hit the mob and move on, while the rest of the guilds take their time, communicate between themselves on good days/times to take turns etc.
There can still be some drama, but that is natural and completely up to the community to work out. It worked very well in VG and the more I hear people from EQ complain about this the more it sounds like the best solution for Pantheon.
I like a lot of what is already on this list, but I'd like to add a huge umbrella item of what the end game is going to need if this game is going to stay popular enough to have a stable community for years to come: VARIETY
There should be big raids, small raids, group content, (a small amount of) solo content, multi-group content (but not a big raid, like maybe something designed for 12 players for example). There should also be fun "things to do" that don't involved direct progression and/or gear acquisition. I also liked the idea that in some single player games, there's pointless mini-games that you can do like fishing in Ocarina of Time, gambling in New Vegas, various card games in FF. I know that EQ had "gems" for example, but how fun would it be if the Pantheon world had places to go in-game and play mini games! That would be a good way to build community outside of the traditional means, and also give people an option for a slow night when they're having trouble finding a group. I remember around the time I quit EQ, I would log in, get on my horse, cast levitate on myself, and run laps around PoK for about an hour and a half, then log out after failing to find a group because all my guildies only came online at raid time by that point. It would be cool if there was something to do to replace that (and I know for a fact I'm not the only one who experienced that. Even WoW players complain about that sometimes).
Here's a few other things I'd like to see this game do that I'm not sure I've seen in many modern games:
* Have a system/option to keep top gear (especially weapons) relevant when new content comes out. Maybe for a select few items like epic quest items, have a NEW epic quest with new gear, but also offer a seperate epic quest to "augment" your existing weapon, so if you really like the appearance of a certain item you can do a long quest to make it's stats competative in new content. I think there should obviously be new items with each expansion, but by the time I quit EQ, I had a whole bank full of "obsolete" weapons that took me months to get, that were trivialized in the next expansion by trash drops. Most epic weapons were cooler than the new raid drops that replaced them, but since the new items had better stats, you had to bank the cooler looking item in favor of the stats.
* Have end game content near newbie areas as well as in hard core only areas. I always thought it was cool how in vanilla EQ there could often be an EXTREME level difference of mobs in the same zone. It allows higher levels to be questing in the same zone as lower levels, giving newbies encouragement (and also teach them how dangerous the world can be when they accidentally stumble into a raid mob early on and get slaughtered). Think Kunnark where raid-level dragons would roam freely in various lower level zones, not just in Veeshan.
* Make "top tier" items truly different and special than lower tier items. In Kunnark era, you KNEW the epic weapons were special, because nothing else (with very rare expcetions) had particle effects. In WoW, way too much stuff looks awesome. When everything is special, nothing is special.
* Make sure some raid mobs are intentionally unkillable, just to see what the players do with it. The Avatar of War was un-fairly difficult, and should have been impossible to beat. Then someone invented the cheal chain, and suddenly a new raid tactic was standardized. Then you had "actually impossible" like Kerafyrm, which was a different kind of awesome (and then even more awesome when years later a variety of guilds actually managed to take her out).
* Make some raid mobs have actual consequences if you kill them to balance the reward. I really liked how in Velious, you had 3 possible sides and needed to choose who would be a friend and who would be a foe, making it VERY hard to get the best gear from all three factions. People would often choose what guild to join based on which velious faction they were aligned with. This whole era of "everyone agrees X is the bad guy, now go kill it" is fun, but there was an EXTRA layer of fun when you needed to be allied with a certain faction in order to get the top quest rewards. Not only did you need to kill the raid mob, but the "epic sword of leetness" didn't drop, the enemies head did, which you couldn't turn in if you had just killed the quest giver's king the week before.
* Make sure you need keys/flags to get into certain zones, and not just raid zones. I feel like a lot of modern MMOs make you get keys/flags, but the zone is specifically a raid zone. I liked how in PoP, you also needed keys/flags to get into the better exp zones which were a comination of raid/group zones like BoT and the elementals.
* I'm not 100% opposed to instancing, but it should be VERY RARE if it exists at all. (I know lots have said that in this thread, but it's important, so I will drum it on again).
* Have a huge variety of end game gear, and make all of it rare/hard to get. I loved how in EQ no one had the same gear. You needed to plan out what you wanted in each slot, and if a new item showed up, you needed to think and run the numbers to see if it was worth getting. The possibilities were seemingly endless, and there wasn't really a "right or wrong" way to have gear. I HATE how in games like WoW, there is a clear "best" gear, and they drive the point home by rewarding people who have matching sets with better stats. It makes everyone look the same/have the same stats, and that's less fun.
* Don't let me have all the stats. Make me choose and prioritise, with no clear "winner" as to what the "best" stat is. Classic EQ did this very well. By PoP, everyone was maxed out on all the stats, so HP/Mana/AC were the only stats anyone cared about, and 99% of the time they even only cared about HP.
* Make everyclass unique and useful in raids so everyone is needed, and any lacking class is noticed. Modern MMOs get way too generic with classes, and older MMOs like EQ eventually moved to a system where certain classes were either interchangable, or made useless. It'd be cool for example if there's 3 tank classes, if each one was vastly better at tanking a certain kind of mob, so that you can't just say "warriors are the tanks, paladins and SKs you're basically useless now k bye." By no means should the classes be balanced/generic like in WoW, but that doesn't mean that you should be screwed over for picking the "wrong" class like sometimes happened in certain eras of EQ. Various "DPS" classes should have a value to the raid beyond just DPS, so if the rangers don't log in, you notice the deficit and can't just replace them with more rogues.
Variety is a very good point, that's one of the interesting things about FFXIV, card games, chocobo racing, houses, aircraft, exploration points, faction quests,...
I also remembered about a thing I found cool in Lineage 2, there was a class quite hard to obtain, well more in the grinding type than difficult type to be exact. To unlock this classe you had to level the three other classes of the same races on the same character to something close to the max (until the level that let you subclass if I remember correctly). The method isn't really great, but having hard to unlock classes or specialization may be interesting :D I was a huge fan of prestige classes in D&D
Arksien said:* Have a huge variety of end game gear, and make all of it rare/hard to get.
I too like to see a wide variety of gear so I can decide what is best for me and what my guild is doing. I also like things to be rare so when you do finally earn it it is all that more rewarding. There is, however, one caveat: Do not have some buff, effect or other aspect attached to a piece (or pieces) that is so useful that you are then forced to adjust content as if everyone had that piece(s). What happens is either the item gets nerfed or the content gets buffed. Neither are desirable. What cleric item in EQ1 had right-click Complete Heal on it that had no cooldown that had to be nerfed serveral times because it trivialized so much content?
Dynamic end content.
It's been mentioned before, but stuff needs to be happening in the world. Different factions/cultures changing allegiances. Disputes arise, friendships are broken. Current events should also impact gameplay, and not just faction mechanics. That dungeon of kobolds in the mountain with a dragon at the bottom has been cleared out by an expanding nation with the help of many adventurers (I mean all that raiding eventually had to wipe them out, right?). It becomes peaceful for a while, with a mining operation, sorry, you'll have to raid somewhere else. Eventually disaster strikes, and the nation is under seige, they get lax on security at the mountain due to diverting resources elsewhere. A horde of undead wipes out the miners and they have a powerful lich leading them. This creates the opportunity for different raid encounters in the same geographic location, with different loot. It also creates actual rare and legendary items, because they simply cease to drop. Is it really necessary to have 1,000 Fiery Avengers in one community? Where's the prestige?
1 - Instanced Raiding with two levels of difficulty, normal and heroic / hell.
2 - Open World Boss' with an extremel level of difficulty, nobody clearing up the world of dragons 1 week after launch.
3 - Arenas / Zone PvP encouraged.
4 - Lack of 'dailies'. Having to log in everyday to do the same thing to get the same currency to buy 1 more piece of gear after 2 weeks isn't fun, at all.
5 - Dynamic 'RIFT' style world events with unique 1 time boss spawns and global server announcements when it happens. (Guild rushing / batcalling)
Kaelang said:1 - Instanced Raiding with two levels of difficulty, normal and heroic / hell.
2 - Open World Boss' with an extremel level of difficulty, nobody clearing up the world of dragons 1 week after launch.
3 - Arenas / Zone PvP encouraged.
4 - Lack of 'dailies'. Having to log in everyday to do the same thing to get the same currency to buy 1 more piece of gear after 2 weeks isn't fun, at all.
5 - Dynamic 'RIFT' style world events with unique 1 time boss spawns and global server announcements when it happens. (Guild rushing / batcalling)
Not really sure how I feel about raids having "modes." I sorta like the old EQ raid modes of "its really hard" and "that's your one option." I think what would be better would be to have interesting trial like group content and multi group content, that fills the niche of your proposed "normal" raid, and then entirely different "raid mobs" that fit the "heroic raid" aspect. I'm really not a fan of having the same boss tuned to different difficulties to cater towards those that can't handle the big guys. I also am in the "instances ruined mmos" camp. MAYBE one or two instances for things like "trials groups," but all dungeons/most bosses/etc. Should be unique and non-instanced. I do like the idea of a return to over world bosses, like the dragons roaming around Kunark for example. I also like "one out GM events," but they should be more in line with the Battle of Bloody Kithikor announcing the opening of PoHate than just a "here, we decided to spawn a bunch of pumpkins for halloween, free raid gear to all that show up!" (Which I'm sure is not what you're proposing, but some games actually pull that crap these days. I never played rift so idk where it falls).
Agree with Arksien's variety point and Valitor's dynamic content post. Another aspect of end-game I would like to see return is the "Best of the Best" GM sponsored tournaments. But, make in a wider scale "March Madness" style bracket (and, a time where I think instances "could" be used).
Have Warriors V. Warriors on the same server, then the winning Warrior on the server go aganist other servers, and do the same for the rest of the classes. And, ultimately, the "best of the best" of each class aross all servers be pitted aganist each other. Obviously, there would be some classes being better at PVPing, but, I think it would be a fun GM event to watch/participate in.
Raidan said:Agree with Arksien's variety point and Valitor's dynamic content post. Another aspect of end-game I would like to see return is the "Best of the Best" GM sponsored tournaments. But, make in a wider scale "March Madness" style bracket (and, a time where I think instances "could" be used).
Have Warriors V. Warriors on the same server, then the winning Warrior on the server go aganist other servers, and do the same for the rest of the classes. And, ultimately, the "best of the best" of each class aross all servers be pitted aganist each other. Obviously, there would be some classes being better at PVPing, but, I think it would be a fun GM event to watch/participate in.
We actually had this in the early VG days, a Tournament Champion title was given to the best of each class and was something to wear with pride :)
Kilsin said:Raidan said:Agree with Arksien's variety point and Valitor's dynamic content post. Another aspect of end-game I would like to see return is the "Best of the Best" GM sponsored tournaments. But, make in a wider scale "March Madness" style bracket (and, a time where I think instances "could" be used).
Have Warriors V. Warriors on the same server, then the winning Warrior on the server go aganist other servers, and do the same for the rest of the classes. And, ultimately, the "best of the best" of each class aross all servers be pitted aganist each other. Obviously, there would be some classes being better at PVPing, but, I think it would be a fun GM event to watch/participate in.
We actually had this in the early VG days, a Tournament Champion title was given to the best of each class and was something to wear with pride :)
Our bard won this event in VG! We threw him a raid party that night, where everyone blamed him for every wipe. It was awesome.
I also agree on lockout timers. They were great in VG and solve a lot of options.
One thing I am confused on though, is the objection to instances. I like having some raids instanced. Not all raids. Not even most of the raids. But maybe half. What's the drawback to the community to having both?
Zorus said:Kilsin said:Raidan said:Agree with Arksien's variety point and Valitor's dynamic content post. Another aspect of end-game I would like to see return is the "Best of the Best" GM sponsored tournaments. But, make in a wider scale "March Madness" style bracket (and, a time where I think instances "could" be used).
Have Warriors V. Warriors on the same server, then the winning Warrior on the server go aganist other servers, and do the same for the rest of the classes. And, ultimately, the "best of the best" of each class aross all servers be pitted aganist each other. Obviously, there would be some classes being better at PVPing, but, I think it would be a fun GM event to watch/participate in.
We actually had this in the early VG days, a Tournament Champion title was given to the best of each class and was something to wear with pride :)
Our bard won this event in VG! We threw him a raid party that night, where everyone blamed him for every wipe. It was awesome.
I also agree on lockout timers. They were great in VG and solve a lot of options.
One thing I am confused on though, is the objection to instances. I like having some raids instanced. Not all raids. Not even most of the raids. But maybe half. What's the drawback to the community to having both?
Lol, it's good practice to always blame the Bard's, it took the attention away from the Rogues ;)
We have said that we will try to avoid instancing where possible but there may be some need for instancing in epic/story based quest lines etc. if we need to use it for some raids then we will but the plan is to provide an open world feel within very large zones and instancing takes away a big chunk of player interaction and making the world feel alive and lived in.
Kilsin said:Deuce said:Vandraad said:Dullahan said:The kicker is finding a way to prevent the uber guilds from locking down every spawn in the game. That may be a conversation for another thread, but suffice it to say you cannot allow players to merely drop a tracker on a boss spawn and be able to check it every few minutes. The process of even checking whether a raid boss is up should require a guild force. Not simply tracking or leaving a level 1 at a spawnpoint as has been done in the past.
I've yet to see that type of discussion not quickly devolve into a flame fest, but competition and spawn locking is something the developers need to be very aware of.
I totally agree here. While I believe my gaming organization will have a huge guild in this game we are a "white knight" style guild. We believe in sharing and everyone having an amazing gaming adventure. Being able to lock out every raid mob because you camp several toons across the world and constantly check for spawns can be a game killer and bring much hatred to guilds that do that and the gaming community in general.
There is actually multiple ways to handle this quite easily, I have touched on a few idea's in other threads but simply put, lockout timers work, once you kill a raid mob you are flagged, the mob turns transparent for you and cannot be engaged or attacked again until the lockout timer ends, this can be set to any time but usually 3-7 days is appropriate, the mob respawns either instantly after the kill or within an hour or so, allowing elite guilds to hit the mob and move on, while the rest of the guilds take their time, communicate between themselves on good days/times to take turns etc.
There can still be some drama, but that is natural and completely up to the community to work out. It worked very well in VG and the more I hear people from EQ complain about this the more it sounds like the best solution for Pantheon.
I am totally against this solution, but would prefer that it just be extremely difficult for a guild to "lock down" and raid spawns, simply because there is no telling when it will be up, and to check and see if it is up requires a full raid force at their computers all the time, this means they can't keep eyes on it 24/7 unless they sit their entire raid there, and then everything else in the world is available to everyone else.
In this scenario I'll just powerlevel a ton of characters and my guild will set up multiple lockout timer raid forces to monopolize the raid spawns, and loot will be so abundant it will be like having instances.
Rallyd said:Kilsin said:Deuce said:Vandraad said:Dullahan said:The kicker is finding a way to prevent the uber guilds from locking down every spawn in the game. That may be a conversation for another thread, but suffice it to say you cannot allow players to merely drop a tracker on a boss spawn and be able to check it every few minutes. The process of even checking whether a raid boss is up should require a guild force. Not simply tracking or leaving a level 1 at a spawnpoint as has been done in the past.
I've yet to see that type of discussion not quickly devolve into a flame fest, but competition and spawn locking is something the developers need to be very aware of.
I totally agree here. While I believe my gaming organization will have a huge guild in this game we are a "white knight" style guild. We believe in sharing and everyone having an amazing gaming adventure. Being able to lock out every raid mob because you camp several toons across the world and constantly check for spawns can be a game killer and bring much hatred to guilds that do that and the gaming community in general.
There is actually multiple ways to handle this quite easily, I have touched on a few idea's in other threads but simply put, lockout timers work, once you kill a raid mob you are flagged, the mob turns transparent for you and cannot be engaged or attacked again until the lockout timer ends, this can be set to any time but usually 3-7 days is appropriate, the mob respawns either instantly after the kill or within an hour or so, allowing elite guilds to hit the mob and move on, while the rest of the guilds take their time, communicate between themselves on good days/times to take turns etc.
There can still be some drama, but that is natural and completely up to the community to work out. It worked very well in VG and the more I hear people from EQ complain about this the more it sounds like the best solution for Pantheon.
I am totally against this solution, but would prefer that it just be extremely difficult for a guild to "lock down" and raid spawns, simply because there is no telling when it will be up, and to check and see if it is up requires a full raid force at their computers all the time, this means they can't keep eyes on it 24/7 unless they sit their entire raid there, and then everything else in the world is available to everyone else.
In this scenario I'll just powerlevel a ton of characters and my guild will set up multiple lockout timer raid forces to monopolize the raid spawns, and loot will be so abundant it will be like having instances.
Power level 3-4 toons each and times that by whatever the raid limit or requirement is for every mob in game (say 30 for arguments sake) so 30 guild members need to power level 3-4 characters each, without factoring in slow leveling/progress, flags, keys and faction limitations etc?
Goodluck! lol
At best it would take you months to gear each character out to get to that level, let alone 30 people have 3-4 of each and even if for some crazy reason this happened, you would only hold up the progression of others by the amount of time it takes to kill the mobs 3-4 times each and that is IF you get the kill over some other guild and then all 3-4 character are locked out for 7 days, so others have a week of peace and quiet ;)
@Kilsin
I don't think you've witnessed the power of the neckbeard my friend, if it gets you ahead of other guilds, there are no lengths to which top guilds will not go to monopolize content.
On that note though I do hope you are right that it will take months to even powerlevel a character to max level, if that's the case maybe we wouldn't have the problem, but even in Everquest it would only take 24-36 hours to PL a character to 60 from level 1 under ideal circumstances (I've done it multiple times), and I haven't heard many people say they want leveling to be harder than EQ yet.
Rallyd said:@Kilsin
I don't think you've witnessed the power of the neckbeard my friend, if it gets you ahead of other guilds, there are no lengths to which top guilds will not go to monopolize content.
On that note though I do hope you are right that it will take months to even powerlevel a character to max level, if that's the case maybe we wouldn't have the problem, but even in Everquest it would only take 24-36 hours to PL a character to 60 from level 1 under ideal circumstances (I've done it multiple times), and I haven't heard many people say they want leveling to be harder than EQ yet.
Oh, don't get me wrong man, I have seen it in many games and have been known to min/mix and power level myself at a competitive level but I also play test Pantheon regularly and know it is just not going to be possible and even if they get at best 2-3 characters maxed level and geared enough (plus past all the possible content hurdles) it will take several months each character and its impact on the community will be negligible at best ;)
Again, this was just my personal suggestion and one of a few possibilities, it was not official discussion or suggested that it will be the method we will go with, I was just expressing my experience with that system and from playing Pantheon, I can see it working very well, as it did in VG.
I am used to Raids being the End game eventuality. I do like raiding, the social aspect of it, even the failing at initial attempts. I also like the idea of the end game targets becoming the new game quest givers like Venjens mentioned. I do like the mechanic in Fallout4, where settlements are created, and you improve them or build defences for the NPC average people, and are called occasionally to protect them. The idea of setting up a little caravan in the most out of the way place, with perhaps a merchant and safe camp area like a little oasis that needs to be managed and supplied- and maybe decays if no PC's use it often enough, that you stock/Maintain. What comes to mind is something like the suprise goblin bankers in runnyeye, or the forge in the bottom of the Sarnak dungeon. Dangerous, sure, but centering.
Kilsin said:Raidan said:Agree with Arksien's variety point and Valitor's dynamic content post. Another aspect of end-game I would like to see return is the "Best of the Best" GM sponsored tournaments. But, make in a wider scale "March Madness" style bracket (and, a time where I think instances "could" be used).
Have Warriors V. Warriors on the same server, then the winning Warrior on the server go aganist other servers, and do the same for the rest of the classes. And, ultimately, the "best of the best" of each class aross all servers be pitted aganist each other. Obviously, there would be some classes being better at PVPing, but, I think it would be a fun GM event to watch/participate in.
We actually had this in the early VG days, a Tournament Champion title was given to the best of each class and was something to wear with pride :)
Thing I didn't like about the Best of the Best tournies is that it only showed fighting prowess. It never proved who was the best enchanter, for example, just who could fight. Never showed who was best bard, just who could fight. Made sense for the combat classes to a degree, but a real 'best of the best' would be tailored to the class and what they do. For example: enchanter best of the best would be along the lines of how many mobs can they keep locked down and for how long?
Canno said:Kilsin said:Raidan said:Agree with Arksien's variety point and Valitor's dynamic content post. Another aspect of end-game I would like to see return is the "Best of the Best" GM sponsored tournaments. But, make in a wider scale "March Madness" style bracket (and, a time where I think instances "could" be used).
Have Warriors V. Warriors on the same server, then the winning Warrior on the server go aganist other servers, and do the same for the rest of the classes. And, ultimately, the "best of the best" of each class aross all servers be pitted aganist each other. Obviously, there would be some classes being better at PVPing, but, I think it would be a fun GM event to watch/participate in.
We actually had this in the early VG days, a Tournament Champion title was given to the best of each class and was something to wear with pride :)
Thing I didn't like about the Best of the Best tournies is that it only showed fighting prowess. It never proved who was the best enchanter, for example, just who could fight. Never showed who was best bard, just who could fight. Made sense for the combat classes to a degree, but a real 'best of the best' would be tailored to the class and what they do. For example: enchanter best of the best would be along the lines of how many mobs can they keep locked down and for how long?
While that is true it is just too hard to judge those types of skills in the exact same environment each time and the CC classes could CC each other, for instance, my Psi used to Mez another player and stack them with debuffs/dots then release them and get out of attacking range to watch them tick down, so there is skill involved, but only class vs class, one vs one combat can be judged fairly since it comes down to player skill and again, it was just a bit of fun, it wasn't meant to be professionally judged. ;)
Kilsin said:Canno said:Kilsin said:Raidan said:Agree with Arksien's variety point and Valitor's dynamic content post. Another aspect of end-game I would like to see return is the "Best of the Best" GM sponsored tournaments. But, make in a wider scale "March Madness" style bracket (and, a time where I think instances "could" be used).
Have Warriors V. Warriors on the same server, then the winning Warrior on the server go aganist other servers, and do the same for the rest of the classes. And, ultimately, the "best of the best" of each class aross all servers be pitted aganist each other. Obviously, there would be some classes being better at PVPing, but, I think it would be a fun GM event to watch/participate in.
We actually had this in the early VG days, a Tournament Champion title was given to the best of each class and was something to wear with pride :)
Thing I didn't like about the Best of the Best tournies is that it only showed fighting prowess. It never proved who was the best enchanter, for example, just who could fight. Never showed who was best bard, just who could fight. Made sense for the combat classes to a degree, but a real 'best of the best' would be tailored to the class and what they do. For example: enchanter best of the best would be along the lines of how many mobs can they keep locked down and for how long?
While that is true it is just too hard to judge those types of skills in the exact same environment each time and the CC classes could CC each other, for instance, my Psi used to Mez another player and stack them with debuffs/dots then release them and get out of attacking range to watch them tick down, so there is skill involved, but only class vs class, one vs one combat can be judged fairly since it comes down to player skill and again, it was just a bit of fun, it wasn't meant to be professionally judged. ;)
If it's company sanctioned that's profesionally judging ;)
CC was just an example but I'll stick with it just for illustration. X level mob spawns every Y seconds - cc has to keep as much locked down as possible in Z amount of time. Increase mob spawns rates as the tourney advances until you have your 'best'. I don't think it'd be hard to judge at all - pass or fail, no different than combat. Might be a little more time consuming, but it can be balanced out. Combat is just the easiest way.
In EQ people hated dueling my enchanter because I'd fire off a quick mezz and debuff them to the point they were useless. With casters I'd lock em up and drain their mana, forcing them to try and melee me. Combat classes I'd debuff till they couldn't move (when stats mattered) and step in and out of combat range.. great fun for me ;) Before finishing them off I'd cast "curse of the feeble mind" which displayed the message "X looks stupid." /nod emote. *nuke to kill them* :D
I think a big point was brought up here with instance vs. Open world raid bosses. The big problem with EQ was that there was a finite, predictable (and often concrete) spawn timer for every mob. If X guild killed a dragon Thursday at 8pm, all they had to do was show up Thursday at 7:50pm the next week and wait 10 minutes for the mob to pop. Other guilds only stood a chance then in they learned guild X's raid schedule and tried to compete, or guild X was bored of that mob. If they were the top guild, they could just setup a rotation where they knew who got what. If there was a variable respawning time, this goes away immediately.
Then you had mobs like Stormfeather. Set spawn timer with chance to skip, but guaranteed spawn within 36 hours...so people actually sat there and camped it for up to 36 hours... none of that in this game please. Make "rare" and "raid" mobs on long, unpredictable timers so there's no fruit in camping. Also, a diverse spawn loc so even if you wanted to try for luck, you'd never know where it's spawning.
Hell, why even bind a mob to one zone? Imagine if big raid mobs could walk through several zones, spawn in many parts of many zones, and had a variable spawn timer? This adds the competitor back in.
Instancing was a lazy fix that has been overly abused in every game since PoP EQ, driven into the ground by WoW, and ruined gaming ever since. I think there ARE solutions to it, such as what I said above, AND ALSO by having a variety or raid content where there isn't just "one final boss."
In velious, there were 3 potential raid routes. This meant that until Sleepers tomb, some guilds might strive for Veeshans, some might strive for Dane, and some for AoW. If different guilds aren't even agreeing who the raid boss is and who is their ally, then they're not competiting for pulls AND the timers are variable.
That's a fun, interactive world. None of this "everyone gets a chance, and we also have an easy mode if heroic is too hard for you" instance stuff.