Gnog said:We really will never all agree on this. The only way to accommodate the various sides is (1) a mix of raid content (some of which is contested, yes stop whining about it), or (2) different server rulesets.
Even if VR does different rulesets, no server should have imstances. That would cheapen the accomplishments of servers without instances. That‘s probably a controversial statement, too. Really we just want different games, and I don’t even know why the “no-competition” crowd decided to support this particular MMO. But here we are. I guess we’ll see which game is made.
Because nowhere is competition mentioned as a focus or main point of what this game is about? Because this is being marketed as a social PvE game with a strong focus on teamwork and cooperation, not competition against other players or content denial/player gating. The only mentions of competition are those mentioning how it has been a large problem in the past and something they will work toward minimizing/mitigating.
"A sincere commitment to creating a world where a focus on cooperative play will attract those seeking a challenge.
A belief that the greatest sense of accomplishment comes when it is shared - and earned.
...We also understand that while gamers’ tastes don’t fundamentally change over time, their situations, lives, and responsibilities do. Likewise, some game mechanics often associated with earlier MMOs involved inordinate amounts of downtime, overly severe penalties, too much competition over content and resources, and even downright boring or overly repetitive gameplay. Our intention, therefore, is not to bring back ‘everything’ from the old days, but rather to pick and choose those which make sense and are needed to make a fun, social, cooperative, and challenging game."
Please stop twisting the FAQ to your narrative. We get it. You are too busy to play video games enough to compete with the no-lifer crowd and you don’t want them to have an impact on your own progression. That is all fine and dandy. But enough with trying to spin the FAQ into your narrative. The sections you’ve quoted are all premised on the decision to make an open world game without instances. They show that VR recognizes that their fundamental game design will create competition, and they make clear that they’re aware of the potential downsides to competition and there’s some healthy balance of competition that they will try to achieve. You are taking the next step to argue that VR wants to eliminate competition altogether. That just isn’t supported by any of the design Tenets or official statements. So yea, your forum lawyering is insufferable. But again, whatever, we will never see eye to eye on this one, and I will just keep my fingers crossed that the balance is nowhere near where you seem to want it to be.
I don't recall saying or suggesting VR wanted to eliminate competition altogether. They have hinted at shards/lockouts often in the past (lets jump to another extreme complain it is instancing), clearly they are working on ways to minimize conflict and player gating of content. From this very thread:
Kilsin said:CanadinaXegony said:Okay definitely not looking for "entitlement" here as my post indicated. Just fair access for the rest of the server to try their hand...all I am asking for. :)
If we fail so be it...at least we have the opportunity to try and perhaps make a better plan of attack or ally with other small guilds...to give it a shot again. :) To be honest the episode I was speaking about...I had been level 60 for a year...and after that year, could still not complete my epic weapon quest, due to being blocked by a couple of large guilds (Inner Circle and one other can't remember name) and quit EQ for several years. This is what I am hoping won't happen with Pantheon. :) Thanks for your response Kilsin :)
Cana
Yeah, I agree with you completely, no one should be blocked from content because of someone else or another group/guild (unless it is PvP which is completely different and part of the strategy in most cases), there are many ways to handle this, the lockout is one I have seen work well but if there is something better suited for Pantheon then we will definitely investigate.
You're very welcome :)
Fact of the matter is that if you create an "open world" game you are creating competition.
They don't have to say they are making a game focused on competition. By creating the game the way they are, there will be competition.
The only way to remove open world competition is with instances. Any other solution is just reducing the amount of competition.
If you don't want to compete, you should be pushing for instances, because there is no effective way to remove competition without them.
Iksar said:I don't recall saying or suggesting VR wanted to eliminate competition altogether. They have hinted at shards/lockouts often in the past (lets jump to another extreme complain it is instancing), clearly they are working on ways to minimize conflict and player gating of content.
They have also said that they will be implementing content for "competitive" players. Here is another quote from Kilsin:
"Just for clarification, raiding will be a small part fo the game but it will consist of multiple difficulties, some will be designed for the super hardcore folks, some for the medium every day competitive guilds and some for the more slower paced casual guilds who like to challenge themselves but don; thave as much time on their hands to all come together each week, so there will be something for most people. We can have different rulesets for different encounters to stop hardcore guilds locking down medium/casual raid content by implementing lockout timers but not implement them on the hardcore encounters leaving it open to competitive gaming for those at that high-end level.
There really isn't a black or white answer here, we will test and adapt accordingly to make the game as fun and challenging as possible for people within those different raiding groups, there will be something for almost everyone if they are willing to put the effort in.
And it should go without saying but the harder/higher the risk and danger, the better the reward, casual to medium raid content will obviously drop cool new shiny things to help those guilds gear up and get better but the hardcore raids for the small minority able to put the effort, skill and hours into learning and overcoming them will have the best rewards and should be something to admire knowing how hard it was to acquire those items and beat those raids, not something to complain over because people can't match that skill level or invest that amount of time, not everything is equal in gaming but everyone will have the same opportunity to at least try. :)
But please keep in mind raiding is a very small percent of our overall community, there will be so much to do between level 1 and level 50 across multiple zones that it will take a while to even get to the level and gear requirements for end game raiding, when people get there we will monitor and adjust accordingly if we didn't capture everything in testing, so there really is nothing to worry or argue over."
The takeaway I see is that there are three tiers of content being referenced. Super hardcore, medium every-day competitive, and slower paced casual. Contested content is absolutely going to be a thing and it isn't something people should be complaining about. It seems to me that the average every day guild is expected to compete on some level so we should really stop suggesting that competition is something that VR is trying to minimize. Embrace open world gaming. The arguments for instancing are valid ... just not for this game.
Porygon said:Fact of the matter is that if you create an "open world" game you are creating competition.
They don't have to say they are making a game focused on competition. By creating the game the way they are, there will be competition.
The only way to remove open world competition is with instances. Any other solution is just reducing the amount of competition.
If you don't want to compete, you should be pushing for instances, because there is no effective way to remove competition without them.
Again and again and again.
Open World = Cooperation. Sharing. Trading. Chatting. Socialising. Competition is a by-product. You see it differently? Clearly.
They dont say they are making a games focused on competition because *they aren't*. They mention every other aspect of Open World because they are definitely desirable and are selling points. They mention the negatives of competition and that they will counter them because that is also a selling point.
Competition *could be* a positive? Maybe. I'm *still* yet to hear someone define "fun/healthy" competition and, yet, everyone knows many many examples of bad and unhealthy competition.
The only thing I can think of is if it's somehow consentual like flagging for PvP otherwise half the people involved will be having a bad/unhealthy experience.
No one said they want or expect NO competition in any form. I'm sure VR will come up with something that keeps competitive types and everyone else happy.
And instancing is not the only way to resolve the negatives of competition as we all know by now if we've read any of these threads.
oneADseven said:Iksar said:I don't recall saying or suggesting VR wanted to eliminate competition altogether. They have hinted at shards/lockouts often in the past (lets jump to another extreme complain it is instancing), clearly they are working on ways to minimize conflict and player gating of content.
They have also said that they will be implementing content for "competitive" players. Here is another quote from Kilsin:
...
The takeaway I see is that there are three tiers of content being referenced. Super hardcore, medium every-day competitive, and slower paced casual. Contested content is absolutely going to be a thing and it isn't something people should be complaining about. It seems to me that the average every day guild is expected to compete on some level so we should really stop suggesting that competition is something that VR is trying to minimize. Embrace open world gaming. The arguments for instancing are valid ... just not for this game.
We'll see. To me it sounds like when he says hardcore raids he is speaking more toward encounter difficulty, skill requirement, and time spent learning the encounters more than it sounds like he is saying hardcore raids for those with the most time to play, batphone, or want to deny/block others access to content.
oneADseven said:Iksar said:I don't recall saying or suggesting VR wanted to eliminate competition altogether. They have hinted at shards/lockouts often in the past (lets jump to another extreme complain it is instancing), clearly they are working on ways to minimize conflict and player gating of content.
They have also said that they will be implementing content for "competitive" players. Here is another quote from Kilsin:
"Just for clarification, raiding will be a small part fo the game but it will consist of multiple difficulties, some will be designed for the super hardcore folks, some for the medium every day competitive guilds and some for the more slower paced casual guilds who like to challenge themselves but don; thave as much time on their hands to all come together each week, so there will be something for most people. We can have different rulesets for different encounters to stop hardcore guilds locking down medium/casual raid content by implementing lockout timers but not implement them on the hardcore encounters leaving it open to competitive gaming for those at that high-end level.
There really isn't a black or white answer here, we will test and adapt accordingly to make the game as fun and challenging as possible for people within those different raiding groups, there will be something for almost everyone if they are willing to put the effort in.
And it should go without saying but the harder/higher the risk and danger, the better the reward, casual to medium raid content will obviously drop cool new shiny things to help those guilds gear up and get better but the hardcore raids for the small minority able to put the effort, skill and hours into learning and overcoming them will have the best rewards and should be something to admire knowing how hard it was to acquire those items and beat those raids, not something to complain over because people can't match that skill level or invest that amount of time, not everything is equal in gaming but everyone will have the same opportunity to at least try. :)
But please keep in mind raiding is a very small percent of our overall community, there will be so much to do between level 1 and level 50 across multiple zones that it will take a while to even get to the level and gear requirements for end game raiding, when people get there we will monitor and adjust accordingly if we didn't capture everything in testing, so there really is nothing to worry or argue over."The takeaway I see is that there are three tiers of content being referenced. Super hardcore, medium every-day competitive, and slower paced casual. Contested content is absolutely going to be a thing and it isn't something people should be complaining about. It seems to me that the average every day guild is expected to compete on some level so we should really stop suggesting that competition is something that VR is trying to minimize. Embrace open world gaming. The arguments for instancing are valid ... just not for this game.
Cool. As long as 'competitive' doesn't involve content blocking and player gating or whatever.
Iksar said:We'll see. To me it sounds like when he says hardcore raids he is speaking more toward encounter difficulty, skill requirement, and time spent learning the encounters more than it sounds like he is saying hardcore raids for those with the most time to play, batphone, or want to deny/block others access to content.
Let's see if we can break it down more clearly:
"We can have different rulesets for different encounters to stop hardcore guilds locking down medium/casual raid content by implementing lockout timers but not implement them on the hardcore encounters leaving it open to competitive gaming for those at that high-end level."
It's amazing how competitive gaming is automatically lumped in with content denial and player gating. Is it really that farfetched of a concept to acknowledge that some content will be competed for, by design? I don't see how it can be spelled out any more clearly.
oneADseven said:Iksar said:We'll see. To me it sounds like when he says hardcore raids he is speaking more toward encounter difficulty, skill requirement, and time spent learning the encounters more than it sounds like he is saying hardcore raids for those with the most time to play, batphone, or want to deny/block others access to content.
Let's see if we can break it down more clearly:
"We can have different rulesets for different encounters to stop hardcore guilds locking down medium/casual raid content by implementing lockout timers but not implement them on the hardcore encounters leaving it open to competitive gaming for those at that high-end level."
It's amazing how competitive gaming is automatically lumped in with content denial and player gating. Is it really that farfetched of a concept to acknowledge that some content will be competed for, by design? I don't see how it can be spelled out any more clearly.
It's not *that* farfetched, but I would *really* like to hear how they think it would/should work.
It's really simple. Contested mobs spawn once every X amount of days/hours. While spawned, multiple players/groups/guilds can compete for kill credit. The current metric for kill credit is MDD (Most Damage Done) -- the team that wins credit gets the loot. Mob respawns X amount of days/hours later and the competition cycle renews. Rinse and repeat.
oneADseven said:It's really simple. Contested mobs spawn once every X amount of days/hours. While spawned, multiple players/groups/guilds can compete for them. The current metric for kill credit is MDD (Most Damage Done) -- the team that wins credit gets the loot. Mob respawns X amount of days/hours later and the competition cycle renews. Rinse and repeat.
And that avoids the negatives encountered in other games how?
You avoid the "negatives" by educating the player base. There are no victims when it comes to contested content. Content denial and player gating are invalidated as terms. Contested content is designed with a competitive spirit in mind. As long as players manage their expectations accordingly and accept what open-world contested content truly means, everything is working as planned. To be frank ... there are no real negatives, just perceived ones. Let us hope that our community will be in tune with what kind of game Pantheon is meant to be so that we can avoid complaints about things that are working as intended. To be clear, though, it's also been stated that there will be content for regular every day gamers and casual gamers that can't be locked down by hardcore guilds. There should be something for everybody. If casual gamers decide that they must absolutely have their chance to kill contested content ... nothing is stopping them from trying. If hardcore guilds find a way to block/deny casual players from content that is purposely made to be accessible for them then that would be a problem that needs addressed.
Folks, I have given our official replies in this thread, please don't argue over opinion or suggestions, we will be sticking to our plan and working with everyone to test it, that will be the time for feedback or discussing pros/cons.
So in the meantime, please be respectful of each other, no one reply will change the game or have influence over the dev team, so there is no need to fight so passionately to shut someone down if you see their ideas as a threat.
We are all in this together and all want the best for the game, including us! Let's wait and see :)
I'm fine with the competitor of the game I truly am but this is what I see, hardcore guild get geared up, does the casual raids, than the medium ones, than the hardcore ones, once they start killing the hardcore raids and they are the first and they get those select few items no one has, they instantly have an advantage, either it be by a person healing better or longer, to a tank taking less damage or hold aggro better it truly doesn't matter becuase they are better, and than if another team goes up against them and they did the same had the same amount of skill level as them they would more than likely still lose to them simply becuase of those items if they were even matched in gear before that hardcore raid boss died, and if they got him the second time the gear difference only increasing and making it easier for them to keep people from taking those bosses away from them, this is what I'm more afraid of than anything.
And this right here it what causes a power struggle, to where 1 to 2 guilds start dominating that content and what you call "competitive" at the beginning of the game starts to become simply blocking at the end of it, becuade yes at the beginning it is competitive becuase the well geared guilds will be too close in gear to effective block each other but once one of the guild or 2 start to keep winning than it lost its competitive nature, and simply just starts to cause problems in my eyes.
For the people who are hardcore raiding guilds but can't clear that content becuase of that difference and starts to join the 1 or 2 guilds that can and simply starts to absorb them little by little. Now this is simply just another fear of mine but a highly realistic one to me becuase I've seen in plenty of time in my mmo experience.
And I believe most of this can be avoided by lock outs across the board, now I understand that kilsin said they aren't changing things til it gets tested and everything, but unless if the hardcore raiding gear isn't much different is stats to the medium difficulty gear than I don't see how it could remain competitive.
Well I can't wait for feedback time. I really don't see the point or value in going back to this kind of thing (or why time substantially trumps skill as you reach the hardest and most rewarding content) to appease the .5% of players that will end up dominating the content:
*Other Guilds Besides Awakened & Aftermath Have Best In Slot Gear
That's an absolute lie. We are approaching a year into Velious and the top end Kunark content has been cleared by the big two guilds and BDA. That's it. Not a single guild has even stepped foot into the peak because the level of competition is a diet version of what you see in Temple of Veeshan, the new velious big bad raid zone. Concerning Temple of Veeshan, out of the hundreds of ToV dragon spawns only maybe 10-12 have been killed by any guild outside of Awakened or Aftermath. BDA has bagged a staggering 2 Ikatiars, 1 Eashen, 1 Dozekar, and only last week a Jorlleag, Cekenar, Zlexak, and Sevalak. CSG has killed maybe 1? Divinity/Anonymous probably 4-5 and 3 of them happened a few days ago. Even the West ToV dragons are on lockdown. The Sleeper has been woken, so there's no Warders, so that's off the table. If you're not in Aftermath or Awakened you're relegated to farming Halls of Testing, farming in Kael, or killing lessor targets like Velketor or Kelorek Dar. Outside of Velious feel free to gobble up all that irrelevant Kunark content that is trumped by even the worst Velious quest armor. Never mind the fact that Kunark was around for almost 5 years and people are eager to see Velious and all it has to offer. If Sirken pulls the database of Velious dragons with who killed them the number of times since launch I'll turn it into a pretty spreadsheet to hammer the point home.
*Git Guud, Work Harder, Earn It, Croot & Contest
The current raid scene is 16 hour windows, staring at someone screen sharing a face tracker, standing at the zoneline with 40 other people, hoping to win a race up to a dragon/giant to get FTE (first to engage) to get a chance to kill said dragon/giant. The big two guilds work their asses off for that content. That's their choice, but not every guild runs 100 deep on a raid, or even 60 deep at 4am EST, in order to get that dragon dead 3 minutes from spawn. We can't field 20+ racers for 12 hours every single week, hell most weeks we can't field 5. This isn't because we're bad at P99 raiding, it's because it's not fun for us. I won't speak for the other casual raiding guilds, but in BDA we want to experience content, but we want to actually play the game. Watching a screenshare instead of actually bind sighting because the bard needs to have selos going as soon as the dragon pops to win the race is very very gross, but it's what is absolutely necessary if a guild wants to earn those Velious pixels. In fact, it's what is also required to earn Kunark pixels in the Peak. For a Phara Dar the other week BDA sunk in over 120 man hours of tracking, being prepped and ready to run up for FTE across 14+ hours. That is the most hours we ever sunk into a single raid target, and it was a turning point for our guild. We aren't going to do that anymore. It wasn't fun. It made people angry. It sucked the life out of people. This isn't even a variance issue. Variance is a good thing to keep people honest, otherwise we'd have 500 people waiting at the zoneline waiting for a dragon to spawn. Variance also allows for spawns to fall into the Euro hours, which is great for Euro players, it's only fair that their primetime gets a chance for a dragon spawn. The guilds that put in more effort should get more loot, they deserve it, but they shouldn't hold a monopoly over the content and that's essentially what it is. Assuming BDA won the lottery and somehow got FTE on Vulak after a repop, we would then have 1 hour to somehow learn how to kite every single dragon in north (because Vulak summons) while trying the fight for the very first time. I sat through Kunark for 5 years hoping to someday see Velious. Now the Velious is here I've been lucky enough to see Veeshan's Peak, fighting tooth and nail for every kill. How long should I wait to see Velious top end content? That's not meant to be a snarky question, think about it.
At least let "casual" raiders have a means to spawn a locked version that they can attempt to learn and kill once every two weeks or something while the competitive types can earn more pixels contesting the content when it spawns "live" every 5-7 days.
Kilsin said:Folks, I have given our official replies in this thread, please don't argue over opinion or suggestions, we will be sticking to our plan and working with everyone to test it, that will be the time for feedback or discussing pros/cons.
So in the meantime, please be respectful of each other, no one reply will change the game or have influence over the dev team, so there is no need to fight so passionately to shut someone down if you see their ideas as a threat.
We are all in this together and all want the best for the game, including us! Let's wait and see :)
Is it documented somewhere?
Kilsin said: Folks, I have given our official replies in this thread
Keno Monster said: Is it documented somewhere?
His posts are in this thread if you read from the beginning. Should be noted that this was a necro'd thread (old one that somebody found and started posting on again) and his posts were made back before it was 'necro'd'.
Unfortunately these are limited forums at the moment and we don't have an easy way to see VR posts quickly in a thread. Once they move us to updated new forums I'm sure there will be features that allow us to see which threads have replies by VR staff and can quickly jump to those posts. (Much like you can on Blizzards forums).
For now you can always try going to his profile: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/profile/Kilsin and browse through his recent posts to see what Kilsin has said on these kinds of topics.
Kilsin said:Folks, I have given our official replies in this thread, please don't argue over opinion or suggestions, we will be sticking to our plan and working with everyone to test it, that will be the time for feedback or discussing pros/cons.
So in the meantime, please be respectful of each other, no one reply will change the game or have influence over the dev team, so there is no need to fight so passionately to shut someone down if you see their ideas as a threat.
We are all in this together and all want the best for the game, including us! Let's wait and see :)
Kilsin,
Thank you. It sounds to me like you have some ideas, but that decisions are not final and probably won't be until closer to launch. I want to leave a few final thoughts before leaving this topic alone for a while.
Raiding is important to me. I will put in many hours a day to try and clear new content. I love doing that. I may spend upwards of 8-10 hours a day (in spurts) putting in effort to learn a new encounter, with more time spent on weekends. But I also have real life responsibilities. What I won't do is leave my ringer on so that someone can call me at 2 am on a Tuesday to log in when a mob spawns. I won't play 20+ hours a day simply so that I can get ahead of the pack to ensure I DON'T have any competition. It's not worth my health. I am not willing to shave years off my life from sleep deprivation, or risk a life-threatening blood clot from sitting for long periods day in and day out for months on end, simply so that I can ensure I get a chance to raid each week. If I have to play a game for 20+ hours a day to stay competitive, then I guess my definition of "healthy" competition is much different.
I will happily race another guild toward content, but not at 2 am when the vast majority of the server is asleep. That's hardly competition. That's real-life neglect. I am dipping out of the conversation for now, but I am anxious to see what solutions the developers come up with over the coming months.
Thanks,
Para
Keno Monster said:Kilsin said:Folks, I have given our official replies in this thread, please don't argue over opinion or suggestions, we will be sticking to our plan and working with everyone to test it, that will be the time for feedback or discussing pros/cons.
So in the meantime, please be respectful of each other, no one reply will change the game or have influence over the dev team, so there is no need to fight so passionately to shut someone down if you see their ideas as a threat.
We are all in this together and all want the best for the game, including us! Let's wait and see :)Is it documented somewhere?
Earlier in this thread.
Gnog said:Please stop twisting the FAQ to your narrative. We get it. You are too busy to play video games enough to compete with the no-lifer crowd and you don’t want them to have an impact on your own progression. That is all fine and dandy. But enough with trying to spin the FAQ into your narrative. The sections you’ve quoted are all premised on the decision to make an open world game without instances. They show that VR recognizes that their fundamental game design will create competition, and they make clear that they’re aware of the potential downsides to competition and there’s some healthy balance of competition that they will try to achieve. You are taking the next step to argue that VR wants to eliminate competition altogether. That just isn’t supported by any of the design Tenets or official statements. So yea, your forum lawyering is insufferable. But again, whatever, we will never see eye to eye on this one, and I will just keep my fingers crossed that the balance is nowhere near where you seem to want it to be.
Personally I hope there aren't any instances unless it has to do with an epic quest, that can't be blocked or locked down by the uber over achiever crowd. I remember the days when there weren't instances ..walk by a cave or dungeon give a shout out see who is there and maybe they might need my help.
I prefer that. I am hoping that Pantheon will be like that. Not all of us are over achievers, nor people who never sleep. But being that a lot of us are backing this game, and will be paying the monthly sub, that at least puts us on an even par for access...minimum, even if we don't succeed the first time out..."if at first you don't succeed, try, try again."
Rework your strategies, your skills and try it again. The only thing stopping you is your own skills and perhaps time to do it. Nobody else should be able to consta block you from trying. Big guilds will have lots to do...from what I have been hearing and reading over the years since 2014.
And it behooves us to be a little community minded, help each other out...sometimes. #communitymatters ....I would like an achievement or two..just like anyone else, or that extra special staff that I have been covetting since the get-go. There is nothing wrong with that...and those that have "no lives" shouldn't begrudge the rest of the server our small achievements.
We are all in this together...this is OUR game..:) And that's why I have stuck it out here..this long. :)
Cana
