I prefer a varied approach myself.
I like open world bosses becuase they drop stuff that is unique. Indeed, a person/guild could perma-camp it, but honestly there is no way to stop people from griefing/blocking content if they really want to. I think a lot of what we see in newer MMO's is a reflection of just such an effort and I personally hate the sterile feeling of them.
I also like the idea of lockouts. I think it adds an alternate way of dong things and I'm all about options. IIRC in Vanguard when you killed a boss the party that killed it got a lockout, but the boss would still respawn for others to kill.
Possible Innovation for alternative to 'lockouts'.
1. All Boss mobs are variants of a class or species of boss. Thus there is not an 'individual' boss mob that keeps coming back from the dead to be killed again... it is either an 'avatar' of a nasty demon/god, or is a type of (say) demon. Let us say the boss is a Lich-King. If you kill 'Lich-King Darius' then another will be anointed and emerge 1 week (or so - it would be a bit variable) later called, say, 'Lich-Queen Evaline' (we are equal opportunity annointers of nasty mobs!). Should Evaline be killed, then X days later, Lich-King Francis will emerge etc...
2. Should the Boss mob die, all present at his death will have their spirit affected by an echo of the boss-mob's spirit (or being behind the avatar). This would act like an un-dispellable Debuff. It would have no effect on the player *unless* they came into the presence of the boss-mob's spirit (ie fought the boss again). In the presence of the boss-mob, having this 'stain' on your spirit (ie having the debuff on) would affect you or the boss. This 'stain' on your spirit should take, say, 28 days to wear off.
Following the pattern of ideas about 'coloured mana' and the 'areas of envoronment' associated with them that are (potentially) harmful until you can build up a resistance to them... the same sort of thing applies. Thus entering into range of the boss mobs while still having the 'stain' present will have an effect. It may be:
A. Perhaps you have (severely) lowered resistance to the boss's spells/effects.
B. Perhaps you have something draining over time (maybe hp, RR, mana, chance of casting) etc
C. Perhaps it lowers your effective level for consideration of effect of your abilities/spell effects on the boss.
The strength of these effects may be related to how long left until the 'stain' wears off.
This kind of things doesn't actually stop the players who killed the boss from doing it again (ie before the effect wears off), but it means the 2nd time will be much harder. A third time straight after would be almost suicidal. Even a large guild would have to rotate its personnel to try to lock-down a boss for farming. this would need a huge guild of raid-ready people. This is unlikely.
3. Bigger Raid bosses and World Bosses may have a 'stain' type effect that is very strong and lasts a long time indeed. Months perhaps. Killing a certain type of demon may give a 'stain' that is also affected by another demon of that type (and not the same repeated encounter). Eg killing a big Death-demon might give a stain which causes a mild life drain when in contact with any death-demon. etc
This way all Raids are still contested. It merely makes it more dangerous to try to be 'greedy'. It would also stop 'farming' of lower level bosses.
PS Innovation again : would it not be nice to have lower level Raids? Level 30 Raids? Level 40 Raids? This (above) mechanism would stop people just returning at level 50 to Rofl-stomp the boss every time it popped.
Its an idea... maybe a bad one,... but it *is* an idea.
@Evoras, I was just thinking of something like that from another game I played somewhere.
Basically killing the boss would put a debuff on anyone in the raid encounter, which lasted over a week I believe in this case, where if you attempted to attack the boss again while debuffed you would certainly die since it gave the boss mob a huge plus to land its AE on you.
The boss itself would respawn every 3 hours or so, giving guilds that hadn't attempted it that week a chance to compete for the kill.
It's likely one of the best comprimises I've seen on this subject.
While I did greatly enjoy the extra rush you got in EQ racing to the encounters, poop socking becomes the norm after several guilds are in a position to lock down the content. That was highly unenjoyable as standing around with all your buffs fading/recasting for hours on end just to get the first hit in (P99 rules) or do the most damage and take the kill pretty much sucked.
Now in live version our server actually did a pretty good job of sharing the content and coordinating a kill schedule so everyone could get a shot at stuff, but thats not really a reality in today's world. I certainly hope this community will turn out to be as good and respectful of one another.
-Az
@Evoras
I like #2 the most. Thats an idea I could really get behind. I might tweak the amount of time for the boss, but that would mostly depend on how many other high end activities/encounters there were. But it could be a great way to spead people out and encourage them to move around and try different things as well (crafting/gathering/epic quests/ high end group encounters/ faction stuff/ other raids). But these activities in my mind need to be very rewarding too. Remember I like a varied approach so I dont think the only "endgame" activities should be Raids.
Mix it up. Have the best stuff come from varied places so in order to be "the best dressed" you cant only do Raids. You have to do high end epic crafting (or buy it). You have to do high end group encouters. You have to do epic quests. And you have to get your factions in order for epic rewards (or not!, shouldnt have pissed off that Goddess, no cloack of awesome for you!). But saying all this I still like the idea of certain mobs being contested, and others being triggered.
Evoras, this is probably one of the better alternatives to lockouts I have seen if not the best. And it would be nice not to have "people just returning at level 50 to Rofl-stomp the boss every time it popped". I think things like this along with anti-zerg mechanics Brad was talking about could be awesome.
Raidan said: I still just prefer being ok with not everyone being able to access all content, but, there being enough open world content that it would be impossible for 1 guild to lock it all down.
I would slightly edit this comment to this:
I still just prefer being ok with not everyone being able to access all content all the time, but, there being enough open world high end content of varying types that it would be impossible for a few guilds to lock it all down.
With this slightly edited version I could fully get behind this statement, IF it were possible to do so. Depending on server population and the amount of high-end content, then perhaps so. And Im not against low end or mid level content. Thats great along the journey, but you get max level eventually and when you do not everyone wants to be a wallflower or just progeny themselves into oblivion. I understand some people would probably love progeny and make that their "endgame" And I have known quite a few folks in FFXI that ONLY crafted, and Im happy for them. But you know me Raiden, I just want to wack all the very bad things and make them hurt.......... or have them hurt me and tell me to come back when I L2P lol. I dont want help from outsiders (durring combat), and I dont expect the Named to fall into my lap. But I do have the expectation that if I truly put in the time and effort it should happen some of the time.
Its really a different topic, but it relates to content access too: Bots suck too.
A single guild locking all content down rarely happened in EQ. You can even look back through some of the notoriously stingy guilds raid history (like Legacy of Steel) and see that the mobs they killed one after another were almost never contested in the early years. Their biggest raid days were following repops, they weren't just killing everything the second it spawned as is done on P99.
Its so easy to prevent guilds from being able to monopolize all content, I frankly don't even know why it still comes up so often. As soon as you take away predictability and the static nature of a server like p99 (years in a single expansion, players with half a dozen max level alts), it would literally never happen. I explained how to do it in the first page of the thread and I believe with 100% certainty that it would prevent total monopolization.
@Dullahan
But didnt Brad just say in the recent AMA that we could expect a certain level of predictability? Thats one thing I like about world knowledge is that there is a lot to learn but once you learn it you know it. You expect to know that this mob is weak to this and that mob can be found here, etc. I think this extends to Named as well. So while I dont think your #2 idea is bad it might be a bit too random.
Totally agree with numbers 1, 3 and 4 though. But are they enough?
If I could add a #5 though to your list?
5. Make it hard to get to the Named (bottom of a dungeon past a bunch of wicked mobs).
So even if you did have a scout the raid force might take an hour to get there (trash mobs that will eat your lunch)
Dullahan said:
- Occasional world respawns (akin to EQ maintenance and patch days).
- Variance - respawn windows (as opposed to static 24hr or 7day timers) on PvE servers.
- Prevent spawn camping, tracking or easily checking raid mob status. It should take TIME and a full raid to determine whether most raid bosses are up.
- Slower progression + faster development (as we had in EQ).
The single best way to prevent socking, is to make it not only un-profitable, but very hazardous. Similar to what I wrote in the thread on 'trains', simply make actions that go against the spirit of the game hazardous and un-profitable. Dullahan, myself and others have discussed this. There are ways to make it so that it will be a tremendous amount of work to dominate even a single spawn.
Make it so that raiding guilds will find it very difficult to dominate raid spawns by simply making the 'gamey mechanics' that were so prevelent in EQ1 not work anymore. Not because you cant do them (that would remove freedom), but because they are overly hazardous and un-profitable.
Amsai said:@Dullahan
But didnt Brad just say in the recent AMA that we could expect a certain level of predictability? Thats one thing I like about world knowledge is that there is a lot to learn but once you learn it you know it. You expect to know that this mob is weak to this and that mob can be found here, etc. I think this extends to Named as well. So while I dont think your #2 idea is bad it might be a bit too random.
Totally agree with numbers 1, 3 and 4 though. But are they enough?
If I could add a #5 though to your list?
5. Make it hard to get to the Named (bottom of a dungeon past a bunch of wicked mobs).
So even if you did have a scout the raid force might take an hour to get there (trash mobs that will eat your lunch)
By predictability, I mean mostly raid mobs spawning on exact timers. That is why we need timer variance (#2), at least on a PvE server. On a PvP server I have no problem with people knowing when a spawn is popping, because it encourages direct contestation.
Your 5 is already implied in 3. If you can't easily check a mob and it requires an entire raid, that means its hard to reach.
Also can't stress enough the importance of at least an occasional 1 - world repop. When all mobs are respawned, there is no excuse that at least 3 or more raid guilds get to take down a target.
Aside from adding more variance to spawn times/locations and a few repops from patch days, I dont think anything needs to change from EQ1.
I am a fan of contested raiding. However, my fear is that raid mobs will just not be available to enough guilds that want to attempt them.
Many raiding guilds (I would say most, but I don't really have any numbers to back up any claim I might make) operate under a weekly schedule where members are expected to be available for a substantial pre determined time block several days a week. If a full guild organizes during their scheduled raiding time only to find that there is nothing available to raid due to competing guilds having killed any potential targets, people are disappointed. Community is great, but a community that is built around raiding during their available play times needs to be able to raid during those times, or that community will not likely last long.
I am not advocating instanced raiding, although I'm not entirely against it, either. I just think there are some ways to make contested encounters more available to a larger number of guilds than classic EQ was able to. I like the idea of shorter, variable spawn times on raid encounters along with longer lockout timers for guilds/players that successfully complete them. I would love to see a system that incorporates one further step, though. A guaranteed percentage of raid encounters being available at any given time.
Under my proposed system, a set percentage of raid encounters (at a minimum threshold) would always be "up." Randomly chosen. For example, if the game launched with 20 raid targets, and no one was killing them, it could be possible for all 20 to be "up" at one time. But if guilds are taking them down, as stated earlier, it would be a shame for a guild to log in and find that all 20 were on respawn during their alloted time.
If there were a minimum threshold of spawned raid encounters (say 30% for examples sake) then no matter what, a random selection of 6 out of the 20 encounters would always be available. If a guild were to kill a raid mob, and that kill brought the world total to 5, a randomly selected raid mob that was not already up would immediately spawn, bringing the world total to 6.
Combined with lockouts, this would allow for competition on encounters without anyone ever feeling like they had no chance to compete just because their play times didn't match up with mob availability. They might not get to choose what targets are available, but they would always have a chance at competing for something.
First post here. Thanks for reading. Sorry if there are any formatting errors or confusing wording. Excited as hell for this game regardless of any system they choose!
Edit: phone typos
Calestah said:Many raiding guilds (I would say most, but I don't really have any numbers to back up any claim I might make) operate under a weekly schedule where members are expected to be available for a substantial pre determined time block several days a week. If a full guild organizes during their scheduled raiding time only to find that there is nothing available to raid due to competing guilds having killed any potential targets, people are disappointed. Community is great, but a community that is built around raiding during their available play times needs to be able to raid during those times, or that community will not likely last long.
Have to disagree with this bit of rationale here.
First, Pantheon is not a raiding game. Mainstream MMOs have evolved into that, and its fine, but Pantheon's focus is having a high volume of group content and activities from the start and up to and including at max level. I believe I can safely surmise that those non-raid achievements as well as the leveling process itself will take considerably longer than any popular MMO currently available. Again, I'm not just talking about the time hitting max level, but the time necessary to complete all available non-raid content and obtain your most important upgrades prior to the next expansion. The people who did reach such heights in earlier MMOs were probably somewhere under 1%.
As such, I don't see it being likely most players or guilds will be heavily involved in raiding. In early EQ, a very small portion of the playerbase participated in cutting edge raids. It was simply too demanding. Even in early WoW, less than 10% of the playerbase raided, and prior to WotLK, something like 2% actually completed all available raids.
This is closer to what I see being the case in Pantheon. If they stick to their guns about meaningful achievements that take more time, with challenging high risk versus reward content, its going to shift things back towards those old numbers we saw in the earlier genre. I just don't see the 'everyones a max level raider' scenario playing out in Pantheon. I think a lot of people are going to have to adjust their expectations on this.
...or maybe I'm mistaken.
For clarification, my comment on a community built around raiding being unable to raid during their play time was not focused on the Pantheon community as a whole. Players will join guilds for different reasons, and I understand that many "communities" (guilds, groups, what have you) will have little to no desire or ability to raid.
However, there will absolutely be in game guilds (communities) that will form with the goal of raiding. If such a community finds themselves regularly unable to raid due to spawn issues, that particular community (guild) is unlikely to last long. That was the focus of my above post.
As others have stated, it is possible that competition for raid targets will work itself out without having to change much from everquest. But many more people have played mmorpg games since that time, and raiding has become a more popular goal for players than it once was. Vanguard:SoH was modeled with many of the same principles as eq,and during my 2 years playing that game, there seemed to be a dedicated (and fairly large, considering overall population levels) raiding community. If Pantheon is as successful as I hope it will be, I would hate to see people left out of a community (raiding) that they desire to be a part of. That was the heart of my post. Just trying to propose a way to make sure it could never be an issue, whether anyone believes it would be an issue.
I mentioned much of what I stated in my post (above) for 2 reasons:
1. While it is true that early EQ/WoW the % of people raiding was low - even the amount of contesting from 'elite' guilds was fairly low (though servers varied significantly) - This interferes with a (hopeful) innovation to implement Raids *before* the 'End_Game (TM)'
2. IF we implement Raids before the 'End_Game' then there will have to be *some* mechanisms in place to stop early-adopter guilds from locking these down unopposed (for farming loot, which in turn gives them a big step up). Early use of Raids means a less stratified (more homogenous) level-band for the playerbase... but even so, there would easily be enough players at the 'bleeding edge' to put raids together. So these considerations, while mostly unneccesary for 'standard level 50+ raids', *are* needed for earlier adoption of Raids.
I (hope to) see Raids at Level 30, 40 and then 50. (Perhaps even start at 25?)
Level 25 and 30 Raids ... need 2-3 groups (more 'Dungeon Mini-Boss' and 'Dungeon Boss')
Level 30 and 40 Raids ... need 3-4 groups
Level 50 and 60 Raids ... need 5-6+ groups
But having these means *some* form of system/mechanism needs to be in place to make contention a 'fairer' fight.
Absolutely NOT stop competition, just make it real competition.
@Dullahan you may be right with your expectation, that the game will not be a raiding-centred game. At least some of Brad's answers at the AMA tend for me to going in this direction. If there is enough other content than raiding, this would be fine, and a lot of people have their entertaining without raiding.
And to be honest one separator of raid and group content is the group size. So if there is a lot of challenging and rewarding group content this could take the place of raiding content, as long as there is enough content for all. As a consequence the guilds which have their focus on fighting NPCs might have less members, but there will be a higher number of this guilds. Smaller guilds where everyone knows each other is maybe even better than real huge guilds where you are just one of many. On the other hand more guild than have a demand for more content. Looking forward to how this will be handled in Pantheon.
I for myself am a big fan of raiding or more generally player vs NPC content. But maybe VR could break the mouse wheel and offer different type of content (crafting, ...) which is as challenging, entertainig and rewarding as beating NPCs.
I feel what you're saying @Calestah and yes raid guilds will exist, but again, I think this trend towards raiding has been out of necessity. Its all that games really offer these days under the rush-to-endgame paradigm. Vanguard had a lot of stuff to do in contrast, but because of the lack of expansion content, everyone eventually became a raider out of necessity. You see this same scenario on project1999.
The point I'm trying to make is that this will be a less common situation in Pantheon. If everyone is sitting at cap in raiding guild in Pantheon it means a) there is a lack of content and/or b) leveling is too fast and/or c) expansion content isn't releasing in a timely fashion.
Hence I don't think mass contestation over raid content is as likely as people imagine (based on other games and emulators).
Hello all. I actually decided to buy the Patron's pack today. I am very interested in where this game is heading.
Anyhow, I recently put a post on the Pantheon reddit, and to my surprise, it was actually a decent discussion. I figured that the EQ fan boys would be out to destry me and to tell me that my vision is wrong. Well, they did not all agree with me, but they were respectful. So, I am very much interested to discuss the same thing here.
Basically, I cannot understand how people can think that camping a boss for hours on end, and then having to fight other people to get to that boss, and then having the actual fight not be that heavy on mechanics is that appealing. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that you should not like what you like. In fact, that is just the opposite. I commend people that are true to waht they enjoy. However, and I know I read this earlier in this thread, the VR Devs need to consider that most people who played EQ are older now. Hell, I am 39 years old. I want to raid. I want to kill dragons. And, I want those dragons to punch me in the face for 200+ wipes. But, I don't want to fight real people to get to thos Dragons.
I hear so many people say that instance raiding is not "hardcore". But, it seems to me that many people's definition of "hardcore" is more like tedious. Sure, wasting 3 months of real-life time to finally get that epic drop is dam awesome when it happens. But, would it not be just as awesome if you an your guild worked your asses off on a boss kill and got something just as epic? Also, I hear the argument that instances make all the content accessible to people and that takes away from people's e-ppen. But, I wonder how many people actually finish the instance. For example, Mythic raiding in WoW may be accessible, but not everyone can do it. Is this not enough to satisfy a person's ego?
Another thing I cannot understand is why people who want PVE raiding would want to PvP to actually do this. I need to be honest here and implore the Devs to think about this. The current MMO crowd is not going to play 24 hours a day. Now, I know the Devs said this game is not for everyone, and I get that. But, could this game not be amazing that it appeals to all players? Why do the Devs seem to want to make EQ1 all over again with better graphics?
These statements are all my opinion. And, so that the flame patrol does nto start, I want to say that I want this game to be awesome. I want this game to make me feel that awe I felt the first time I stepped into an MMO. But, I also want to raid with my guild. I want to set our raid times not by boss spawn times, but by our availability. This does not make us less "hardcore". it makes us have families, jobs, and lives.
I will end this post with two things. First, I would really like to hear from a Dev about why they are so against instanced progression raids. And secondly, I want to remind people of the last game that tried to go back in time and be "hardcore. Wildstar tried this. They brought back long-ass attunements, 40 man raiding, and all that other fun stuff. Take a look at how it is doing. Now, I am not comparing Wildstar to this game, I am just making an example. And, I am fully aware of who the Devs of this game are. I know very well that they are amazing at what they do. I am just hoping and praying that they move along with the times and try to cater to more people. If not, I really worry for how many people will stick around.
Anyhow, please be civil. Understand that I want this game to succeed. I want it to be epic. But, I just really feel that instanced raids are the way to go. And, PVE players should not have to fight other guilds to get a boss kill. They should get a boss kill because they worked hard on the fight. The mechanics should kill me. Not the old school design of a game. And furthermore, I get that people want a community. I am all for that. But, having to work out raid times with another guild, who may be in a different time zone, is not fun or engaging. It is tedious.
Landbert said:@Dullahan you may be right with your expectation, that the game will not be a raiding-centred game. At least some of Brad's answers at the AMA tend for me to going in this direction. If there is enough other content than raiding, this would be fine, and a lot of people have their entertaining without raiding.
And to be honest one separator of raid and group content is the group size. So if there is a lot of challenging and rewarding group content this could take the place of raiding content, as long as there is enough content for all. As a consequence the guilds which have their focus on fighting NPCs might have less members, but there will be a higher number of this guilds. Smaller guilds where everyone knows each other is maybe even better than real huge guilds where you are just one of many. On the other hand more guild than have a demand for more content. Looking forward to how this will be handled in Pantheon.
I for myself am a big fan of raiding or more generally player vs NPC content. But maybe VR could break the mouse wheel and offer different type of content (crafting, ...) which is as challenging, entertainig and rewarding as beating NPCs.
If there is plenty of other appropriately rewarding and challenging content of other types, then I could be okay with that. I dont have to have Raids, so much as a challenging encounters and enough alternatives in "down time". But I would expect rewards to be almost as good as Raid items as well. Besides when I think of my future perfect Guild I think family, not army. Im not in love with the idea of Raids bigger than say 5 groups of 6 (32 people). But then lets say there are good, rewarding, and challenging group encounters. If all things are contested doesnt that just bring the argument about access and availibility to content full cirlce, Dullahan? Contested mobs are great, but not so great if there isnt enough to go around so everyone on the server not doing raids are camping the handful of high end group encounters. I remember camping King Arthro one day and I showed up and there were 170 people in the zone, most of them were in that little clearing with me. For a named that takes 2-3 people that was a bit much.
I dont want to eliminate contested mobs, but as Evoras said want to make access to it a bit fairer. Thats why I think its crucial for there to be some limited mechanics in place (So does Brad apparently from the AMA). As well as a bit more variety in approach such as epic quests, epic crafts, and triggered Named. I definitely dont think Raids should be the end all be all of challenge or loot either though. My prefered appoach is that different high end gear slots come from different activities (this would also help fight the raid or die mentality): Raids - body and head, High end group encounters - hands and feet, Epic Quests - Weapons, shields, tools, instruments, High End Faction rewards - back, belts and legs, Epic Crafts - Jewelry and accessories. It wouldnt need to be this specific, it could be more random, but you get the idea.
Anticlergy said:
I commend people that are true to waht they enjoy. However, and I know I read this earlier in this thread, the VR Devs need to consider that most people who played EQ are older now. Hell, I am 39 years old. I want to raid. I want to kill dragons. And, I want those dragons to punch me in the face for 200+ wipes. But, I don't want to fight real people to get to thos Dragons.
First, welcome to the forums, but, I'm going to have to disagree with many of your points. :) I am older now as well, with two kids, and not nearly going to have the playtime that I once had. However, I do not want the world to be sanitized to meet my needs, but, rather, it exist, and I either find a way to make it work, or I don't. I'm ok with not having the epic gear anymore. And, I've repeated it ad naseum on these forums and others, it's players expectations that need to change, not, the game itself to meet player desires. You may not be the best, or have the best gear anymore, and that's ok - but you'll be able to appreciate the journey, not out level the content, and always have something to do. Why is that a bad thing?
Anticlergy said:
I hear so many people say that instance raiding is not "hardcore". But, it seems to me that many people's definition of "hardcore" is more like tedious. Sure, wasting 3 months of real-life time to finally get that epic drop is dam awesome when it happens. But, would it not be just as awesome if you an your guild worked your asses off on a boss kill and got something just as epic? Also, I hear the argument that instances make all the content accessible to people and that takes away from people's e-ppen. But, I wonder how many people actually finish the instance. For example, Mythic raiding in WoW may be accessible, but not everyone can do it. Is this not enough to satisfy a person's ego?
It has nothing to do with hardcore, but rather, for me, it provides rarity/scarcity to items - it allows items to retain/maintain their value and prestige. If everyone has the opportunity to obtain a participation ribbon, then all items lose their meaning. Again, refer to my first point, it's just that player's expectations that may not have as much time may need to change. Maybe with Pantheon you may just be the best at your class, but you only have time for hard 6-man groups. Just because you don't have the best gear doesn't mean you still can't have challenging gameplay elsewhere.
Anticlergy said:
Another thing I cannot understand is why people who want PVE raiding would want to PvP to actually do this. I need to be honest here and implore the Devs to think about this. The current MMO crowd is not going to play 24 hours a day. Now, I know the Devs said this game is not for everyone, and I get that. But, could this game not be amazing that it appeals to all players? Why do the Devs seem to want to make EQ1 all over again with better graphics?
The Dev's have said repeatedly on these forums that the game is going to be in the spirit of EQ and VG, not a clone. Check out the Pantheon Difference link at the bottom of the forum page. And again, I'll question you - why do you feel that someone who has the time to play 24 hours a day, assuming equal skill level, shouldn't obtain gear/progression, etc. at a faster pace than those who only have 2 hours to play? Why should the world cater to you?
Anticlergy said:
These statements are all my opinion. And, so that the flame patrol does nto start, I want to say that I want this game to be awesome. I want this game to make me feel that awe I felt the first time I stepped into an MMO. But, I also want to raid with my guild. I want to set our raid times not by boss spawn times, but by our availability. This does not make us less "hardcore". it makes us have families, jobs, and lives.
I can appreciate having real life obligations - I have my fair share. However, there are plenty of people who are our age when EQ came out that never were able to experience it (18-25 year olds). Why would you want to rip away their experience? Not to mention, there are many our age (30+) and older who also have much more expendable free time. While you or I may not have the time we once did, there will be plenty of people that do. And, I say this as one of the most competitive people you will ever meet.
Anticlergy said:
I will end this post with two things. First, I would really like to hear from a Dev about why they are so against instanced progression raids. And secondly, I want to remind people of the last game that tried to go back in time and be "hardcore. Wildstar tried this. They brought back long-ass attunements, 40 man raiding, and all that other fun stuff. Take a look at how it is doing. Now, I am not comparing Wildstar to this game, I am just making an example. And, I am fully aware of who the Devs of this game are. I know very well that they are amazing at what they do. I am just hoping and praying that they move along with the times and try to cater to more people. If not, I really worry for how many people will stick around.
Wildstar will be nothing like Pantheon, so it's really an apples to oranges comparison. There's plenty of discussions already existing on this forum of why instances are bad - just do a forum search and select the drop down of everything and start searching key words like instances, etc. and you'll find plenty of heated debates.
Anticlergy said:
Anyhow, please be civil. Understand that I want this game to succeed. I want it to be epic. But, I just really feel that instanced raids are the way to go. And, PVE players should not have to fight other guilds to get a boss kill. They should get a boss kill because they worked hard on the fight. The mechanics should kill me. Not the old school design of a game. And furthermore, I get that people want a community. I am all for that. But, having to work out raid times with another guild, who may be in a different time zone, is not fun or engaging. It is tedious.
We just disagree here - part of what makes an MMORPG a virutal world is because you are forced to interact with others, not be able to complete content in your own bubble, which, is why I would argue that all MMORPGs today are garbage as the MMO is false and it's really just a solo player game online.
@Raidan. I am terrible at these forums. So, I am trying to do my best to edit this post enough to be ledgible. First, thank you for your responses. But, I am going to have to disagree with you on a few of them.
As to your first point, I do agree with you that the journey should be just as important as the endgame. I am totally fine with the journey being just as epic as the ending.
As to your second comment, you said: "It has nothing to do with hardcore, but rather, for me, it provides rarity/scarcity to items - it allows items to retain/maintain their value and prestige. If everyone has the opportunity to obtain a participation ribbon, then all items lose their meaning. Again, refer to my first point, it's just that player's expectations that may not have as much time may need to change. Maybe with Pantheon you may just be the best at your class, but you only have time for hard 6-man groups. Just because you don't have the best gear doesn't mean you still can't have challenging gameplay elsewhere."
My answer to that is very simple, I get it. I don't want or need the best gear. I do think that you are not really seeing things clearly though. I will not argue with you, because many people who are fans of this type of gameplay are very defensive. They are unable to see the points of others. I am not saying that everyone participating is what I want per se. This is because even if they are participating, they will not be able to do the content. Basically, I want peoiple to be able to get there, but I don't expect it to be handed to them. I do expect them to wipe for moths. THAT is my definition of a challenge. Where a fight beats you and not the horrible design choices of the game. Boss spawns should not beat me in a raid. Other palyers camping those bosses and messing up my chance should not beat me. The actual encounter should beat me.
This is where so many people are confused. Why in gods name would I want everyone to beat content? I never once even suggested it. People seem to only hear what they want. Basically, I want the encounter to beat me. I want there to be long-ass progression fights. I don't want long-ass hours of waiting only to have to text everyone at 4 AM to get online. I am sorry, but this is not engaging or hardcore gameplay. This is tedious. I am sorry if you, or others are unable to see the difference.
You also mentioned this: I can appreciate having real life obligations - I have my fair share. However, there are plenty of people who are our age when EQ came out that never were able to experience it (18-25 year olds). Why would you want to rip away their experience? Not to mention, there are many our age (30+) and older who also have much more expendable free time. While you or I may not have the time we once did, there will be plenty of people that do. And, I say this as one of the most competitive people you will ever meet.
I also am able to see your points. And, I never once said that a person that plays more than I do should not be rewarded. This is just an assumption. Again, there is a HUGE difference between skill and time. Camping a boss for 16 hours is not skill based. And, while I respect the time of people who can do this, I just disagree that they should be labled as awesome players. Any encounter that is only able to be beaten becuase I have no life is not a well designed encounter. I would argue that this is lazy design hidden behind a time sink. I am praying, to anything that will listen, that the Devs here are able to see the diference.
Anyhow, I do appreciate your post. But, I do think that you are missing my points. And, it is not just you. It seems to be a pattern with this game. The fan boys are out in full-force ready to strike without actually reading what people say. And finally, I did not spend $150 to troll the Pantheon forums. I spent it because I believe in the game. I believe that this game can be amazing. And, I am hoping that my feedback can help it get there.
Again, thanks for the time you took to write back to me. I truly do appreciate it. I am cool with not seeing eye to eye, I just hope that people can at least entertain that my points are not insane.
Dullahan said:A single guild locking all content down rarely happened in EQ. You can even look back through some of the notoriously stingy guilds raid history (like Legacy of Steel) and see that the mobs they killed one after another were almost never contested in the early years. Their biggest raid days were following repops, they weren't just killing everything the second it spawned as is done on P99.
Its so easy to prevent guilds from being able to monopolize all content, I frankly don't even know why it still comes up so often. As soon as you take away predictability and the static nature of a server like p99 (years in a single expansion, players with half a dozen max level alts), it would literally never happen. I explained how to do it in the first page of the thread and I believe with 100% certainty that it would prevent total monopolization.
My experience is the exact opposite. Regardless of how predictable or random world spawns may be, it only takes one illegal third party application to ruin everything for everyone. It will happen. I've seen it too many times already.
The only way i can see monopolization not occurring is to either have so much content that it prevents guilds from being everywhere at once, or to lock players out from loot. One seems easier to do than the other even if i may not be a fan of it.
Aldie said:Dullahan said:A single guild locking all content down rarely happened in EQ. You can even look back through some of the notoriously stingy guilds raid history (like Legacy of Steel) and see that the mobs they killed one after another were almost never contested in the early years. Their biggest raid days were following repops, they weren't just killing everything the second it spawned as is done on P99.
Its so easy to prevent guilds from being able to monopolize all content, I frankly don't even know why it still comes up so often. As soon as you take away predictability and the static nature of a server like p99 (years in a single expansion, players with half a dozen max level alts), it would literally never happen. I explained how to do it in the first page of the thread and I believe with 100% certainty that it would prevent total monopolization.
My experience is the exact opposite. Regardless of how predictable or random world spawns may be, it only takes one illegal third party application to ruin everything for everyone. It will happen. I've seen it too many times already.
The only way i can see monopolization not occurring is to either have so much content that it prevents guilds from being everywhere at once, or to lock players out from loot. One seems easier to do than the other even if i may not be a fan of it.
Hacks can be stopped by preventing certain information from being sent to the client. That is just a matter of smart coding. Also because Pantheon isn't an mmofps, they can afford to have more stuff server-side. SOE was terrible about anti-hack and I believe I read that they actually incorporated a version of P99s spyware dll to eventually stop some of it.
While 100% unlimited, fully contested, content may be the Holy Grail... most on this board see both sides of the coin :)
Aldie said:The only way i can see monopolization not occurring is to either have so much content that it prevents guilds from being everywhere at once, or to lock players out from loot. One seems easier to do than the other even if i may not be a fan of it.
Which is why I, and many others, have suggest alternatives. I am not a fan of lockouts per se, and so I proposed a 2-prong solution which would not throw out the baby with the bath-water.
Prong #1: was to include lower level raids (think dungeon bosses) in addition to higher level 'end-game' raids.
Prong #2: was to use the 'Lore' to designate a long duration debuff which afflicts anyone who kills a particular (type) of Boss. The detrimental effects of this debuff only come into force when confronted by this (or possibly similar type of) Boss and these effects reduce in severity (perhaps) as the debuff 'stain' itself wears off through passage of time. This, *is* a form of 'lockout', but is not as intrusive or artificial as the standard 'go away for a week' type.
Between these 2, Raid contesting would likely be less unbalanced in favour of any one 'uber' Guild.
Anticlergy said:Hello all. I actually decided to buy the Patron's pack today. I am very interested in where this game is heading.
Anyhow, I recently put a post on the Pantheon reddit, and to my surprise, it was actually a decent discussion. I figured that the EQ fan boys would be out to destry me and to tell me that my vision is wrong. Well, they did not all agree with me, but they were respectful. So, I am very much interested to discuss the same thing here.
Most, if not all, responses I have seen on this board have remained on the 'reasonable side of impassioned'. That is to say, people do disagree ... often .... but the nature of these forums is to be (primarily) a 'Development forum' with reasoned arguements for or against certain topics or mechanics.
PS Welcome by the way.
Anticlergy said:As to your first point, I do agree with you that the journey should be just as important as the endgame. I am totally fine with the journey being just as epic as the ending.
Exactly on point.
Part of the strategy seems to be making the journey a far more interesting, lore-filled, slower paced, social one.
I, for one, hope the journey towards 'end-game' takes YEARS; as each distraction takes me meandering further away from the 'steep arrow straight path running from level-1 to Max-level' that so many modern MMOs have as the main railwayline through their theme-park.