Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

An Alternative to Progeny

    • 220 posts
    September 28, 2017 12:31 PM PDT

    Riahuf22 said:

    For one this wouldn't work, people could simply make this hardest core charcter and than have friends buy new accounts and make new charcters to have "easy mode" (that assumes allowing easy mode is even possible with a full group of new characters), while being powerleveled by other friends and simply level up by basically doing nothing, simply eliminateing the whole hardest core feeling your talking about, and also it would be a needless implementation of the game, becuase people like making alts and leveling them up for their own purposes (nothing would stop them from doing this), they shouldnt be punished for trying to see if they might like a bard more their main (did you not even read my post?  I specifically mention being able to flag any character as your "Main") but have to worry about the mobs they are killing are 2, 3, 5x harder than it was when their main went through their so they would have a unfair comparsion to see how effective they are when to keep raising the bar on difficulty on new characters, especially if it a player who doesn't know how to play the character. (or you just give specialized bonus skills to the mobs that only affect handicapped players, like I mentioned already)

    You did not give any actual reasons why it would not work.  Just assumptions about other systems you don't have supporting information to make.  You already want to control how many alts a player can have on a single account for database reasons.  This mechanic would just mask those limitations with an extra form of specialized progression.

    And what typically happens, when a player makes a new character, is they attempt to "twink" that character out with over powered gear to make the tedious grind of early character development go as fast as possible.  Specifically because it is boring.

    This would drastically reduce the sense of "boredom" and if implemented correctly would also reduce tedium.  The scale would be additive and only the last slot with permadeath would represent an overwhelming challenge.  Everything else would just be slightly more difficult than the last character.

    There is also no reason to assume the handicap would persist at maximum development.  Once you have reached the progression goal, the additive effects could just be removed from that character and applied to the next.  Sort of like New Character+

    Should not take much imagination for you to work out how this can be deployed effectively.

    • 1785 posts
    September 28, 2017 12:48 PM PDT

    Why does the system need to increase character power or grant additional assets to alts? I feel like players who want to do this will find ways to do it anyway (by trading items through a friend or something) even if the game tries to restrict what can be done.

    Would it be possible instead to incentivize the system through additional content? For example, if your first character gets to a certain level of faction standing with an npc group, his/her descendants have new, additional quests and content available to them? "Oh, you're Lord Byron's heir? Maybe you can help us with this problem we have been having..."

    Would that be enough to encourage people to start new characters, or does it truly need to be a power or progression boost?

    • 1584 posts
    September 28, 2017 2:15 PM PDT

    ZennExile said:

    Riahuf22 said:

    For one this wouldn't work, people could simply make this hardest core charcter and than have friends buy new accounts and make new charcters to have "easy mode" (that assumes allowing easy mode is even possible with a full group of new characters), while being powerleveled by other friends and simply level up by basically doing nothing, simply eliminateing the whole hardest core feeling your talking about, and also it would be a needless implementation of the game, becuase people like making alts and leveling them up for their own purposes (nothing would stop them from doing this), they shouldnt be punished for trying to see if they might like a bard more their main (did you not even read my post?  I specifically mention being able to flag any character as your "Main") but have to worry about the mobs they are killing are 2, 3, 5x harder than it was when their main went through their so they would have a unfair comparsion to see how effective they are when to keep raising the bar on difficulty on new characters, especially if it a player who doesn't know how to play the character. (or you just give specialized bonus skills to the mobs that only affect handicapped players, like I mentioned already)

    You did not give any actual reasons why it would not work.  Just assumptions about other systems you don't have supporting information to make.  You already want to control how many alts a player can have on a single account for database reasons.  This mechanic would just mask those limitations with an extra form of specialized progression.

    And what typically happens, when a player makes a new character, is they attempt to "twink" that character out with over powered gear to make the tedious grind of early character development go as fast as possible.  Specifically because it is boring.

    This would drastically reduce the sense of "boredom" and if implemented correctly would also reduce tedium.  The scale would be additive and only the last slot with permadeath would represent an overwhelming challenge.  Everything else would just be slightly more difficult than the last character.

    There is also no reason to assume the handicap would persist at maximum development.  Once you have reached the progression goal, the additive effects could just be removed from that character and applied to the next.  Sort of like New Character+

    Should not take much imagination for you to work out how this can be deployed effectively.

    My point is instead of increasing the difficulty of the game by having these difficulties you want in place besides for the perma death scenario why not have that for all the players to experience it.  so the mobs are naturally a lot harder than they are in other mmos, instead of them being called handicaps to a class, that is what the class is, not saying to make them sad and pathetic but not have them being feel like gods and rounding up 15 mobs and nukes them all down either with cease.  them implementation you want in they can do without this whole idea of the game gets harder with the more alts you make, makes the game harder period, from the beginning, not at the end. what you want is so pointless in my eyes i dont want the game to get harder becuase im on my alt, i want the game to be hard on my main, i want them to make me think of what im doing, i want to feel like when if im close to maxxed geared on my main i still cant pull a whole room and feel like i have a chance to survive, i want to be punished for bad play on my mian not just my alt.  im not against you wanting to make sure the game will be difficult i want it to, but i want it to be difficult across the board, i want people to play the game, be like wow that guy ****** us up, we have to do something about that.  

    • 1303 posts
    September 28, 2017 3:51 PM PDT

    @ZennExile 

    Is it really necessary to be condescending and demeaning? 

    • 220 posts
    September 28, 2017 5:31 PM PDT

    Riahuf22 said:

    My point is instead of increasing the difficulty of the game by having these difficulties you want in place besides for the perma death scenario why not have that for all the players to experience it.  so the mobs are naturally a lot harder than they are in other mmos, instead of them being called handicaps to a class, that is what the class is, not saying to make them sad and pathetic but not have them being feel like gods and rounding up 15 mobs and nukes them all down either with cease.  them implementation you want in they can do without this whole idea of the game gets harder with the more alts you make, makes the game harder period, from the beginning, not at the end. what you want is so pointless in my eyes i dont want the game to get harder becuase im on my alt, i want the game to be hard on my main, i want them to make me think of what im doing, i want to feel like when if im close to maxxed geared on my main i still cant pull a whole room and feel like i have a chance to survive, i want to be punished for bad play on my mian not just my alt.  im not against you wanting to make sure the game will be difficult i want it to, but i want it to be difficult across the board, i want people to play the game, be like wow that guy ****** us up, we have to do something about that.  

    I think because difficulty is relative to normal.  And without some sort of Normal to benchmark from you can't really establish a "hard" mode...  But more specifically, the game can only be so difficult before it becomes exclusionary or impossible.  Everyone hates that feeling when you know you should have won, but the game just decided you lost.  Should probably avoid that.

    But if you scale up an unlockable "nightmare" mode... people seem to love that even when it becomes impossibly frustrating.  So it is a psychological manipulation that has worked many times across many genre.

    And if you have never played an RPG with +Newgame mechanic, the way it works, is when you beat the game, you have the option to start a new game with +Newgame mode.  It would be a similar situation with the Character slots.  First character would be normal until you hit a milestone in the game for maximum base progression.  Something like max level, or finishing the main story arc for your character.  After that point a new character slot would have a +Character on it.  And once you got that +Character to max, then you could make yourself a ++Character, then a +++Character, and so on, until you make the final character slot that is a Permadeath enabled, and achievement ranked with leaderboards.  So the farther you get the higher you rank.  Or maybe there are lots of different rankings.  It could be anything really and people would still try to win.

    If you just make like 8 normal characters they would all be just normal characters until you maxed out the first one and got the +Character option to create a new character.  And the only slot that would be "unlocked" specifically would be the final 9th slot you unlock when you max out all the other characters.  You would have to participate in the process if you wanted to play the ranked permadeath mode, but nothing would be forcing the handicaps on you until you actually get the +Character option to make a new character on a slightly harder difficulty.

     

    And @Fey ... that is exactly how I would describe itemizing someone's ideas, and then responding with the word, "No", after each item.  Am I wrong?  forwardSlash winkEmoji


    This post was edited by ZennExile at September 28, 2017 5:36 PM PDT
    • 1303 posts
    September 28, 2017 6:06 PM PDT

    ZennExile said:

    ...   Am I wrong?  forwardSlash winkEmoji

    Yes. 

    • 411 posts
    September 29, 2017 5:29 AM PDT

    Unlocking character slots: This is not something that I can get onboard with. The example ZennExile brought up was newgame+ modes, but unfortunately I believe there is a big difference here. If this was a classless game like all newgame+ that I can think of at the moment, then I would agree with the concept. However, if you're a newer player or one who simply wants to explore what type of gameplay in Pantheon is right for you, then this is a prohibitive mechanic for you. In some games I was able to make my first character, get attached to the character, and push all the way to max level without a thought otherwise, but in others I've had to try multiple characters before I found a fit. Without the freedom of character slots you need to delete your experiments in order to figure out what type of character you want to play. That's not even getting into the topic of people who like alts or those who want to play with their guild, but also have a separate character to play with their kid/spouse/other. Locking character slots severely punishes certain types of players and those are not necessarily the same players that would want to take part in a high difficulty game. The progeny system is intended to be optional and locking accepted gameplay styles behind it makes it required.

    Game difficulty with progeny: The developers have made it clear that they want to provide a bonus for progeny in order to incentivize the mechanic. If you make the game universally more difficult for progeny, then this is in essence negating the benefits that progeny is intended to yield. At some point in the process (max level?), any increase in difficulty needs to be undone in order for the investment (taking part in progeny) to pay off (progeny bonuses).

    Some here argue that the difficulty of progeny characters should wane with each successive generation, while others argue that it should rise. The only argument that I have seen for waning difficulty thus far is that the tedium that is inherent in progeny would be eased by decreased difficulty and increased leveling speed. This route is resigning the mechanic to failure before it begins - why even bother if it's not fun? I believe that playing the game multiple times can be just as much fun as the first if there are reasons/motivations for you to enjoy it. It seems like a nearly universal tenet of gaming that difficulty should increase with time played in order to account for the player's increasing skill and knowledge. In all games with high replayability that I can think of, it comes from either increasing difficulty, varying content, or from yielding an advantage. MMOs often have content and advantage covered with alts of different class/race (different leveling experience and you end up with more options to fill group/raid needs), but with progeny they are extending the advantage portion to even the same class/race. This already covers the min maxers, content/lore lovers, but adding a moderately increased difficulty would include challenge seekers into the mix.

    Given that progeny will be both optional and won't provide overwhelming benefits, I think that a reasonable increase in challenge should be included with each successive generation. I wouldn't go so far as to say permadeath would be appropriate though.


    This post was edited by Ainadak at September 29, 2017 5:33 AM PDT
    • 521 posts
    September 29, 2017 1:46 PM PDT

    First I like this idea as an alternative to the proposed system, Second I don't understand how anyone could think the progeny system wont be forced upon players. One of the core features of this game is “group centric” content. Stat bonuses of any kind will become mandatory for raids, if not by the game itself(content Difficulty adjustments),certainly from the players running them.

    I’m opposed to any bonues for making alts, its not good, and punishes those who actually play the game for other reasons than leveling.

    • 172 posts
    September 29, 2017 4:37 PM PDT

    When first released, Final Fantasy 14 used a fatigue system.  After a certain amount of time playing(some amount of hours), you would receive decreased exp and skill point gains until you rested.  It was a disaster.  However, it was a disaster because it was utilized right from the start at level one.

    What if we assume that a character at max level is old.  They have some arthritis and need to take advil atleast once a day to function well.  They are wise, capable and very experienced, but need to take naps in the afternoon in order to stay up past 8PM.  As an alternative to the progeny system, or atleast the retirement aspects of it, why not add in a fatigue system for max level characters only.

    I am thinking maybe 25 hours playing time every two weeks.  Anything more will decrease your gains until you rest.  This could include loot gains, AA gains, and more.  For a casual player this might not affect them much at all.  But the hard core players will have all sorts of incentive to level up alts.  Especially if you couple this with some of what Fey has listed above concerning family status and such.

    Lots of incentives, but no permanent restrictions.  And if you want to stay on to chat with your friends or wheel and deal in the auction area, the penalties will not affect you.

     


    This post was edited by JDNight at September 29, 2017 4:54 PM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    October 1, 2017 6:00 AM PDT

    I am not a fan of any system that punishes/rewards players based on nothing but their playtime.  No bonus/rested XP for people who don't play much, and no fatigue for people who do.  The outcomes of our sessions should be based on how we spend our time, not how much time we spend.  Progeny should be enough of an incentive to get players to relevel.  The only alternative I would propose at this point is scrapping the idea of permanent retirement.  Let people swap back and forth between the parent/child ... if you want to limit this action to only being possible in player houses or by interacting with certain NPC's, that would be perfectly fine.  I really dislike the idea of losing progress to use this feature.

    Let's say 25 people grind to max level when the game comes out.  They start messing around with crafting, exploring new areas, and even dabble with raids.  There is still so much of the world for them to explore, and so many new doors open for them at max level.  Beyond that, though, there should also be plenty of content available in other tiers that they may have missed on their initial run.  They want to go back and experience all of that, while also taking advantage of the bonus bestowed by progeny.  But this is where it gets tricky ... don't make them choose.  Don't enforce a "You can continue progressing with your friends at max level" or "You can use Progeny."  Let people rotate back and forth.  Forcing someone to choose one or the other is truly unthinkable ... it creates a headache that no player should have to deal with in a community centric and class interdependent game.

    • 1584 posts
    October 1, 2017 10:51 AM PDT

    Riahuf22 said:

    ZennExile said:

    Riahuf22 said:

    For one this wouldn't work, people could simply make this hardest core charcter and than have friends buy new accounts and make new charcters to have "easy mode" (that assumes allowing easy mode is even possible with a full group of new characters), while being powerleveled by other friends and simply level up by basically doing nothing, simply eliminateing the whole hardest core feeling your talking about, and also it would be a needless implementation of the game, becuase people like making alts and leveling them up for their own purposes (nothing would stop them from doing this), they shouldnt be punished for trying to see if they might like a bard more their main (did you not even read my post?  I specifically mention being able to flag any character as your "Main") but have to worry about the mobs they are killing are 2, 3, 5x harder than it was when their main went through their so they would have a unfair comparsion to see how effective they are when to keep raising the bar on difficulty on new characters, especially if it a player who doesn't know how to play the character. (or you just give specialized bonus skills to the mobs that only affect handicapped players, like I mentioned already)

    You did not give any actual reasons why it would not work.  Just assumptions about other systems you don't have supporting information to make.  You already want to control how many alts a player can have on a single account for database reasons.  This mechanic would just mask those limitations with an extra form of specialized progression.

    And what typically happens, when a player makes a new character, is they attempt to "twink" that character out with over powered gear to make the tedious grind of early character development go as fast as possible.  Specifically because it is boring.

    This would drastically reduce the sense of "boredom" and if implemented correctly would also reduce tedium.  The scale would be additive and only the last slot with permadeath would represent an overwhelming challenge.  Everything else would just be slightly more difficult than the last character.

    There is also no reason to assume the handicap would persist at maximum development.  Once you have reached the progression goal, the additive effects could just be removed from that character and applied to the next.  Sort of like New Character+

    Should not take much imagination for you to work out how this can be deployed effectively.

    My point is instead of increasing the difficulty of the game by having these difficulties you want in place besides for the perma death scenario why not have that for all the players to experience it.  so the mobs are naturally a lot harder than they are in other mmos, instead of them being called handicaps to a class, that is what the class is, not saying to make them sad and pathetic but not have them being feel like gods and rounding up 15 mobs and nukes them all down either with cease.  them implementation you want in they can do without this whole idea of the game gets harder with the more alts you make, makes the game harder period, from the beginning, not at the end. what you want is so pointless in my eyes i dont want the game to get harder becuase im on my alt, i want the game to be hard on my main, i want them to make me think of what im doing, i want to feel like when if im close to maxxed geared on my main i still cant pull a whole room and feel like i have a chance to survive, i want to be punished for bad play on my mian not just my alt.  im not against you wanting to make sure the game will be difficult i want it to, but i want it to be difficult across the board, i want people to play the game, be like wow that guy ****** us up, we have to do something about that.  

    Yes but it seems like most games that actually do this are single player campaign game, and maybe have 1-4 player mmo, but not a worldwide mmo where there is thousands of people playing it the same time you are, sharing the same world, so like i said i want it hard, i want it to be playable as well, so it obviously cant be so hard to where it makes you regret very bad decision you make, but quite a few of them.  i just want it to be challenging, making adventuring feel dangerous again, without making an alt, my alt should have a easier time than my main not due to powerful gear, even he he gets some, or have extra money to buy his spells before he get to the level to use them, but simply becuase of knowledge, of where to go to get a certain item, or where to go to get some decent exp at a certain level, and all of these other things.  it always going to get easier, regardless of what you put in front of me, even if you increase the diffuclty of the mob in front of me if i know how to fight him he will still be easier than the moment i didnt at all.

    • 28 posts
    October 14, 2017 3:49 PM PDT

    My proposal on Progeny (couldn't find a better place to put it):

    When a player is max level, they have the option to create a new Progeny character. The option can only be exercised once per character. Upon creating the Progeny, there is a one time opportunity to pass along any "No Drop" items, such as bags/gear/etc. from the parent to the progeny. Only items that may be equipped by the parent can be passed to the Progeny (avoid people stockpiling no drop loot they can't use). The progeny will inherit the flags/keys/achievements of the parent. Tradeskills will also be inherited. However, only at the time of the progeny creation will the characteristics pass, any subsequently earned flags/keys/tradeskills on either the Parent/Progeny will not be linked. The parent will continue to be playable. In addition to the skill-based characteristics and gear inherited by the progeny, the creator will have the opportunity to select from a list of three abilities. The abilities will be akin to Dragons of Norrath AAs from Everquest (innate +3% chance to critical on any action, innate chance to resist spells, innate 3% increase to health/mana, perhaps innate 1% mitigation increase). The idea is that the abilities will scale as the progeny levels up and will continue to be useful for future expansions. They should also be useful for any race/class combinations.

    Here is the catch to encourage replayability and reward continued loyalty: The number of progeny abilities is limited to three, which creates the opportunity for someone to play through the content three extra times. Each time an expansion is released, a new set of three abilities are introduced and the old ones are lost forever. This will enable the progeny system to create replayability each expansion rather than driving everyone to secure all of the rewards in the first couple of months the game is out. It will also mean that folks are starting over from level 1 again as new expansions are released, significantly increasing the likelihood that lower level content from new expansions will be explored and populated. Gear earned will not become obsolete because it can always be passed down. In one of the gameplay streams, it will mentioned that gear would scale based on "recommended level" so the new progeny character would not be overly twinked. That said, let's be honest, any max level person has the opportunity to head to the market and buy a full set of twink gear for any low level character they start, progeny or not.

    Here is what it would look like using Everquest as an example:

    Initial Launch (Max Level 50)

    - Warrior levels to 50. Creates progeny Warrior. Selects one of: (a) +1% innate mitigation boost; (b) +1% chance to resist any spell; (c) +3% maximum health/mana.

    - Progeny Warrior levels to 50, creates progeny Shadow Knight. Can select one option from the two remaining options above that were not selected the first go around.

    Expansion: Ruins of Kunark Launch (Max Level increases to 60)

    - Progeny Shadow Knight levels to 60, creates progeny Warrior. Selects one of three new options: (a) +1% innate run speed increase; (b) +3% critical hit chance; (c) +1% reduction in mana/endurance costs.

    - Rinse and Repeat, up to three times per expansion.

    I understand not everyone would appreciate this structure. The actual abilities themselves would need to be tuned to what VR believes is fair for the reward. People would probably also potentially refute the concept of abilities only being available in the current expansion, although I would hope with 12+ months between expansions this would be more than enough time for people to secure the rewards if they care.

    Note that the above idea is just regarding the implentation of abilities and characteristics, passing along things such as faction or opening up new race/class combos could be done in conjunction. Also note that some of the above ideas are designed for ease of implementation, such as avoiding permanent character links by doing a one time item/flag transfer.

    Thoughts?

    -Taliche

    • 1315 posts
    October 18, 2017 11:53 AM PDT

    DDO had an odd take on a "Replay" system.  The replay system was broken into two parts, first time completion rewards each life and passive character upgrades only available through resurrection with an extra bonus if all classes had been played to maximum on one character.  You could unlock character options and zones with the first time completion rewards as well as cosmetic and quality of life consumables.

    It was painful to sacrifice your raider character in order to trigger your next life and you needed to raid in order to get the required items to trigger your next life.  Right before triggering your True Resurrection you would stockpile all the weapons and items that would help your next life character build level back to raiding level but now with more power than last time.

    To keep players interested, ok let us admit it to keep them addicted to logging in, there needs to be either a constant flow of content or a compelling reason to re-experience the same content.  It is nearly impossible for a small team of developers to keep a relatively small gaming addict player population flush with new content while staying financially solvent.  The only real solution is a replay system that benefits from new content but does not require it to keep the player population content.

    Tapping into many players obsessive vanity item collection tendencies is a good replay driver that requires no game balance.  If non repeatable quests throughout the game rewards players a choice of account bound collectable items then the only way to collect them all would be to use different characters/lives.  Once player housing is implemented the size and style of your house could be directly related to the number of characters or progeny at a specific level or perception progression.

    Outside of collection of cosmetic vanity items is the potential to gain character power through the progeny system.  For increased power to be relevant then there needs to be end game high challenge content that can utilize the increased power.  This feeds right back into the challenge of creating enough content fast enough to keep players interested.  An additional power boost that could possibly be pulled off from the progeny system could be a benefit gained from the primal scrolls the parent learned.  This could be especially interesting if a class has a total of 10 primal skills but can only learn a select number per life but your second character learns what their parent found and then is able to expand upon that learning more of them.

    Sorry for the long wall of text, there is just so much to be excited about at this point.

    Trasak

    • 1785 posts
    October 18, 2017 12:33 PM PDT

    So, the other day I was reading some news articles about "old money" communities (because there is that private island near new York up for sale for $125 million).

    This got me to thinking about progeny.

    I don't think we want a system that breeds more powerful characters, statwise, because that is really not fair to newer players. Imagine raiding guilds that say "sorry, you have to have a third generation character to join". But houses, assets, family connections? I could see those.

    So if I reroll an "heir", I might get:

    The contents of the first character's bank.

    The first character's house and everything in it.

    Some percentage of the faction standings of the first character, both good and bad.

    In all other respects it would be just like a normal new character, with all the same abilities and restrictions

    That said, I would still like to see special quest content that keys off the fact that this is a progeny character, like I mentioned in one of my posts above. Incentivize with content, not with power.

    • 1860 posts
    October 18, 2017 12:46 PM PDT

    Lets not forget that the reward has to be enough incentive to make players want to restart.  If the incentive isn't there players may as well just continue playing their primary character, and if they really want to re-run lower lvl content create an alt normally. 

    I don't see vanity items or some faction etc as incentive enough for most people to want to participate in the system. 

    If there isn't enough incentive to make players want to participate in the system it becomes a waste.  If the system isn't working in a way that extends the life/replayability of content for most players then it isn't working as intended.


    This post was edited by philo at October 18, 2017 12:58 PM PDT
    • 28 posts
    October 18, 2017 12:58 PM PDT

    philo said:

    Lets not forget that the reward has to be enough incentive to make players want to restart.  If the incentive isn't there they may as well just continue playing their primary character, and if they really want to re-run lower lvl content create an alt normally. 

    I don't see vanity items or some faction etc as incentive enough for most people to want to participate in the system. 

    If there isn't enough incentive to make players want to participate in the system it becomes a waste.  If the system isn't working in a way that extends the life/replayability of content for most players then it isn't working as intended.

    I completely agree with this statement. I believe Aradune has already commented that he intends to have a small but noticeable power increase for re-rolling. For me, this is an absolute requirement. Based on the streams and website, leveling is intended to be difficult and time consuming. I'm not sacrificing hundreds of hours of play time without a structural / irreplicable power increase. If aesthetics, faction, or keys are the only things passed along, the new character is simply a twink/alt rather than progeny.

    • 1785 posts
    October 18, 2017 1:47 PM PDT

    How do you make it so a power increase is meaningful enough to get you to use the system, without also causing players to make it a requirement?

    because let's be honest here, we all know that for each of us that would never exclude people just because they are on their first play through, there are a dozen people that ONLY see the numbers and will use it as a crutch to try and insure success in raiding. I mean, I used to see guilds in eq saying they wouldn't take people unless they were max level with 300 AAs, etc. Same sort of problem that other games have with gearscore or ilevel. If you give people a measuring stick, they will convince themselves that it matters and try to force everyone to use it.

    I want pantheon to be a place where new players can jump in and experience all the game has to offer a few years after launch, without being told that they all have to be on new game ++ mode to do anything meaningful. So, I want to avoid setting up situations that could encourage the server communities to become very stratified or hostile to new players.

    • 1860 posts
    October 18, 2017 1:54 PM PDT

    Because one guild considers it a requirement doesn't mean it actually is.  The rewards shouldn't be so beneficial that players are unable to experience content without them.  I don't believe that they will be.

    Players can create artificial regulations that don't effect others.  Maybe a roleplaying guild requires specific factions.  Maybe a collector guild requires a set group of items collected.  A tradeskill guild requires a master craft.  Those aren't actual requirements to play the game, just like progeny rewards.

    Like gear or spells or abilities or levels or AAs etc.  It is just another way to slightly increase your characters power.  To find fault with one system that slightly increases power while not finding fault with any of the others seems short sighted...as long as those power increases are available to everyone equally.

     

     


    This post was edited by philo at October 18, 2017 2:02 PM PDT
    • 28 posts
    October 18, 2017 2:05 PM PDT

    Nephele said:

    How do you make it so a power increase is meaningful enough to get you to use the system, without also causing players to make it a requirement?

    I really don't see this as a problem. Every guild has a set of requirements for accepting new members. The most hardcore raid guilds might require max level with maximum AA points. They might require someone to have completed their epic weapon. They might even require you to have a haste item. But does that mean that AAs/haste items should not be in the game? Power discrepancy needs to exist between players that have invested little time vs. those that have invested a lot of time. In MMOs, power is almost always granted through grinding experience. Some power is granted through camping very rare items (JBoots/Epics!). I view Progeny as a way of granting a dispropriately small amount of power in exchange for a massive amount of additional exp grinding. To me, it isn't much different than adding additional alternative advancement points that are extremely expensive but modestly beneficial. If Uber raiding guilds want to require this for membership, then so be it. It will be up for the developers to tune the incremental power increase as they see fit.

    • 1785 posts
    October 18, 2017 2:10 PM PDT

    Logically you are correct, but my point is that people in general are not logical.  They will seize on something like this and turn it into a requirement. And sure, there will be those one or two "enlightened" guilds that don't do that, but it's drops of water in the lake at that point.

    There are multiple examples of this kind of thing happening in MMOs, as well as the real world. People like simplistic things, that they can blame their success or failure on, and they will cling to those even when it doesn't make sense when they think about it.

    I know I am being cynical here, but this is a real thing that I have seen happen in many different games. Given the chance, I would rather pantheon do something different, that doesn't just set s up for false divisions in the playerbase down the road. We will create enough of those on our own without the game giving us extra reasons.

    • 1860 posts
    October 18, 2017 2:12 PM PDT

    Why do you feel differently about progeny rewards compared to other in game rewards Neph? 

    • 363 posts
    October 18, 2017 2:36 PM PDT

    HemlockReaper said:

    Second I don't understand how anyone could think the progeny system wont be forced upon players. One of the core features of this game is “group centric” content. Stat bonuses of any kind will become mandatory for raids, if not by the game itself(content Difficulty adjustments),certainly from the players running them.

    I’m opposed to any bonues for making alts, its not good, and punishes those who actually play the game for other reasons than leveling.

    Agreed, but will have to wait and see how all of this pans out.

     

     

    • 363 posts
    October 18, 2017 2:37 PM PDT

    Nephele said:

    Logically you are correct, but my point is that people in general are not logical.  They will seize on something like this and turn it into a requirement. And sure, there will be those one or two "enlightened" guilds that don't do that, but it's drops of water in the lake at that point.

    Exactly.

    • 3237 posts
    October 18, 2017 2:41 PM PDT

    Progeny has been compared to remort.  Here is the authority link on how remort worked in MUD's:  http://mud.co.uk/dvw/whatisremort.html

    A key takeaway that I found is that remort is used to "give higher level players something to continue to work towards."  Giving me faction or abilities that I already earned does not satisfy that.  It should be used as a form of progression.  In MUD's they actually allowed you to unlock new classes, new abilities, or even equip "remort only" gear.  The power progression of remort seemed to be on the high end ... I don't necessarily think that will be the case in Pantheon, but there definitely needs to be a sense of progression.  I'm not rerolling for cosmetic items or titles.  If you allow me to continue progressing my character, though ... I'll continue rerolling until I reach my progeny cap.  The whole point is to encourage higher level players to continue playing around in the lower level tiers to keep each population tier (and the player rerolling) fresh and active.

    As far as there being an argument of guilds using it as a measuring stick, they can do that with tons of things in game.  Most raiding guilds will require you to be max level ... should we do away with leveling?  Most raiding guilds will require you to finish certain important questlines ... should those be abolished as well?  The reason these requirements are put into place is because the rewards of fulfilling these tasks are meaningful.  I don't want Progeny to be a crappy fluff system.  It should demonstrate measurable progress to be worth it's weight ... if it isn't, what's the point of adding it in the first place?  I understand that people don't like the idea of feeling "forced" to partake in the system if it rewards power ... it's a weak argument.  Are you forced to complete your epic weapon?  Are you forced to know how to play your class?  Are you forced to farm situational gear to be extra effective, situationally?

    The forced vs optional argument usually stems from people who don't want (or don't have the time) to go the extra mile for their progression.  It's not the end of the world.  Why is it okay to have gear in the game that is super exclusive or extremely rare to obtain due to RNG, but not allow tangible rewards for long-term leveling progression?  There will likely be abilities or gear that will offer a tremendous power spike in the game, moreso than what you might be able to achieve through a full progeny cycle.  Leveling multiple times should 100% be incentivized.  If you don't want to relevel or don't have the time to, then this might just be an aspect of the game that wasn't designed for you.  It's okay to give the power gamers something to work towards.  Give them progeny so they can play the game as much as they want ... trust me ... it's way better than them blowing through content, getting everything on farm status, and complaining that stuff is too easy while the rest of the server plays catch-up.  How many times have guilds cleared bosses or zones, earned the loot ... and THEN those zones are made more challenging?

    If forced vs optional is to be taken serious, let's put the argument into context.

     

    Am I forced to roll a dwarf if I want to kill an ice dragon at the end of the game?  Their racial ability will give me a cold acclimation bonus!

    Am I forced to level up perception if I want to unearth a powerful quest line?  Egad, guilds might require me to have my perception skill maxed!

    Am I forced to unlock every dungeon key or access attunement in the game?  But they are required in order to participate in certain content!

    Am I forced to spend time farming, crafting, or playing the economy game to make money?  Stuff costs money!

     

    You aren't forced to do any of these things.  It's a player choice.  If you want to buy stuff, you need money.  If you want to participate in certain content, you might need to unlock it.  If you want an epic weapon, you'll have to do an epic quest.  If you want new and more powerful spells, you'll have to level up.  If you want to kill certain things, you'll have to group or raid.  To sum my thoughts up ... if you want to unlock a progeny bonus, you have to participate in progeny.  Get over it.  If you don't want it, or don't care ... hey, nobody is forcing you to ... but don't expect to get a free pass into a high-end raiding guild that might require it.  Guilds can impose whatever requirements they feel appropriate ... but like I said earlier, they usually do this when things are meaningful.  Do we want progeny to be meaningful or not?  There is a lot of value in getting power gamers to continue rerolling.

    Forgive my bluntness, I am not trying to be insensitive.  I see this forced vs optional argument come up all the time and if it's going to be valid then I want to start discussing all of the things that I don't necessarily want to feel forced to do based on my personal playstyle.  The world doesen't revolve around any single player type.  It's okay to create systems/features/mechanics that cater to a specific playstyle.  I prefer the wild wild west where the full game is contested and it's literally survival of the fittest.  Despite that, I have made a legitimate effort to try and share ideas that aren't aligned with my personal tastes at all because I understand that a lot of other players would end up missing out on a bunch of content.  When it comes to progeny, think about the big picture.  The goal is to get people to relevel.  If you want to accomplish that goal you need to reward people for doing it.  There might be an oddball here or there that grinds faction for eternity for the sake of saying "Woohoo" but for the most part people do it to unlock something special.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at October 18, 2017 3:12 PM PDT
    • 1785 posts
    October 18, 2017 2:53 PM PDT

    philo said:

    Why do you feel differently about progeny rewards compared to other in game rewards Neph? 

    I don't, not necessarily.  And I don't want to come across like I am just hating on the idea of progeny rewards. The truth is that players will find all kinds of ways to stratify themselves with or without progeny. Sometimes it will be justified (you really DO need that much fire resist to handle that fight), other times it will be bogus (no, our ilevel really does NOT need to be 20 over the minimum to succeed, that's a crutch). I just have seen and heard so many new players get discouraged by the bogus ones that I want to try and minimize them as much as possible, because I think it makes for a healthier game in the long run. I dont want to add feel to the fire, if that makes sense. That's why I ask if there is a different way to incentivize progeny that could work.

    Like every other important question the right answer here is probably some sort of middle ground or combination of everyone's viewpoints though.