Nanoushka said:tehtawd said:What ends up happening is people just 'put up with it' in which case ... if the game offers me the difficulty I was searching for but a 'harsh death penalty', i'll have to put up with a death penalty I do not care for just like somebody might put up with it if the game doesn't offer player housing.
That's how I read your first post, and you're absolutely right to throw it on the forums as I'm sure it's just good for the development of the game to see people express their (differing) opinions. I think, if a game generally speaking is good enough to draw you in and make you want more, that a lot of people will put up with some things they don't necessarily agree with or like. In that sense I'm not too worried about the younger crowd that never played EQ or anything similar. If the game rocks, they'll stay and learn to bear some of the more gruelling facets (and some may even enjoy them, like us oldies). I'm not too worried about it myself either, there will be things I won't give a rat's behind about (meaningful housing comes to mind :D) but they hopefully will be just details in an otherwise wonderful world.
I highlighted the part I am referencing in your post.
IMO, the death penalty is part of what made EQ good, it gave your accomplishments even more weight. That you cheated death to obtain uber_loot_001 or whatever. Knowing that every action you take has a consequence if done haphazardly.
No one likes having to repeat xp gain because something bad happened, but there just is no real way in a game to accomplish consequences for action other than time. It's the only thing that is even among all players, whether you have 10gp in the bank or 10,000pp, if you have epic_weapon_001 or a rusty_letter_opener, in the end, recoving xp is the only equal commodity all players have.
Some gain xp faster or slower based on group efficiency, helpful friends, zone/mob choices, but all things being equal, xp loss/gain is equal.
I have yet to see any other game accomplish the "consequence" attribute successfully without xp loss, and maintain that sense of achievment. Even EQ2's xp debt system was essentially xp loss, just without the effect when the loss caused de-leveling.
- An expectation that with greater risk will come greater reward.
- An understanding that a truly challenging game is truly rewarding.
As long as your killed fairly then a Death Penalty is perfectly reasonable. Put simply a death penatly instills significant excitement, we all have EQ stories where we just survived with a couple of hit points or from unconcious. With no penalty... hmm so what...?
WoW suffered significantly from no real penalty and as a result rarely got the blood pumping. When you go into a dangerous area it should feel dangerous, with no concequence.. who cares you can run around with no respect for the game and it takes away significantly imo and it's the sole reason I stopped playing WoW as I didn't care if I died... hence boring.
Yes it can sting when you die but it's damn exciting.. there is clearly a market for exciting risk based gameplay as Dark Souls proves, personally my favorite series ever.
So yes can totally understand people who don't wan't any death penalty but all my old EQ players friends always say they miss the excitement of EQ.. panicked runs to zone, helping someone clearly in trouble and saving their skins and visa versa, just surviving or even dying really.. the sole mecahnic for this was the Death penalty... put simply it gives it meaning and without it you end up with yet another WoW.
Don't like the DP .. welll then Git Good :) and it won't be an issue.
I'm going to try a different approach.
You are a watching the Superbowl, and your team has FINALLY made it.
Situation 1: There are 15 seconds left, your team is down by 4 points, and has the ball on their opponent's 20 yard line. (so 20 yards from scoring the go ahead touchdown)
Situation 2: There are 15 seconds left, your team is down by 20 points, and has the ball on their opponent's 4 yard line. (so 4 yards from scoring a TD that will let them lose by less)
Which situation has you on the edge of your seat? In the second option - if they score it means nothing. If they don't score it means nothing. In the first option, if they score, you will be extremely excited. If they don't, you will be extremely disappointed.
What's the difference in the situations? The difference is that in one, failure matters - in the other, it doesn't.
WEIRD made up situtaion that would never happen...
Situation 3: There are 15 seconds left, your team is down by 4 points, and has the ball on their opponent's 20 yard line. (so 20 yards from scoring the go ahead touchdown). The officials STOP the clock and give your team 10 free tries to score.
If they don't succeed after 10 tries, what do you feel? I'm guessing "annoyed." Having all those free chances takes the pain you would otherwise have felt, and transforms it. It still isn't a great feeling, but its not the PAIN of loss... it's being ANNOYED that there wasn't a win.
Today's MMO's are situation 3. You have infinite chances to win, with an expectation that you should win. You don't feel pain with each failure. You simply get annoyed if you never win.
tehtawd said: This is going to be important guys. Pantheon is going to attract people with different tastes but believe in the foundation of the tenants. Discuss with these people, don't tear them down. -Todd
Todd, you had to have been there when Pantheon was first introduced via crowd funding, its failure to secure said funding, and its miraculous rebirth afterwards. The people who have made this game possible--from the devs making it to the fans supporting it--have all pretty much had one thing in mind: a spiritual successor to EQ/VG. We pledged our money, time and faith in a game that would hearken back to a time in MMOs where mostly everything you seem to want did not exist. Not everything in EQ1/VG was great, to be sure, but the main concepts WERE great, at least to those of us who helped get this thing rolling. Now, in all seriousness, you honestly expect us to allow people with different tastes to roll in and try to change things? Not going to happen, not without a fight anyways. Look, I'm sure you do like a challenging MMO, but you sure seem to want to slip in alot of the more modern MMO features into Pantheon. And all I can say is that I do not agree with you and I hope that the devs stick to their guns on their expressed intentions with this game. Good day, sir.
tehtawd said: Pantheon is going to attract people with different tastes. Sent via mobile -Todd
Pantheon is being sold as the game for people who enjoyed the old school hardcore style of gameplay, that isnt available in todays market. Brad has said there will be the return of corpse runs. Unless we have been lied to, it is targeting a niche playerbase that share those same old school tastes.
Anistosoles said:tehtawd said: This is going to be important guys. Pantheon is going to attract people with different tastes but believe in the foundation of the tenants. Discuss with these people, don't tear them down. -Todd
Todd, you had to have been there when Pantheon was first introduced via crowd funding, its failure to secure said funding, and its miraculous rebirth afterwards. The people who have made this game possible--from the devs making it to the fans supporting it--have all pretty much had one thing in mind: a spiritual successor to EQ/VG. We pledged our money, time and faith in a game that would hearken back to a time in MMOs where mostly everything you seem to want did not exist. Not everything in EQ1/VG was great, to be sure, but the main concepts WERE great, at least to those of us who helped get this thing rolling. Now, in all seriousness, you honestly expect us to allow people with different tastes to roll in and try to change things? Not going to happen, not without a fight anyways. Look, I'm sure you do like a challenging MMO, but you sure seem to want to slip in alot of the more modern MMO features into Pantheon. And all I can say is that I do not agree with you and I hope that the devs stick to their guns on their expressed intentions with this game. Good day, sir.
I've been around since the Kickstarter days, and agree with most of what you’re saying, with the exception of the part about modern features. I’m not entirely sure what you meant by that. Are you saying you don’t want any new modern day additions to the game, or are you saying you don’t like what most of the modern MMORPG’s have done, and you think Todd aligns with that? In the first scenario, we already know Brad and Co. are going to add new and different (more modern) features into Pantheon, but that’s always been the case. The second scenario is likely what you meant, and I see where you were going with this, but I will say, in Todd’s defense, he’s been pretty constant in agreeing with most of the tenants of the game. He makes an effort to be vocal on the boards, presumably because he is excited about this game, and some of his ideas are outside what most of us are interested in, but it seems to me he posts a lot of his ideas out of excitement with good dialogue in mind.
That being said, I think this is the subject he is going to be the biggest minority on from the rest of the members on these boards. I’m in the camp of a death penalty somewhere between EQ and VG, I still want to really feel the sting of death. Honestly, I can’t even see there being a server type that allows a really weak death penalty for players who don’t like it. A real penalty for dying is crucial for the world to feel alive and dangerous, and making into something less undermines everything VR is trying to accomplish, regardless of server type.
tehtawd said: Hey guys. @wandidar I don't follow football. But what I do know is some of the suggestions I've been reading are akin to your football team losing and your tv explodes preventing you from even watching football. The tenants don't say anything about the death penalty, I didn't realize they were heavily implying a death penalty till that conversation came up. Which is fine, let's talk about it. Just for the record. I LOVE the tenants of the game. Its why I'm here. The more I play other mmorpgs the more I realize how much we have lost since the eq days. I want that difficulty to return. Lets agree on this. But when it comes to a death penalty, it's best to consider it like a person's taste for food. I've never liked them, I Havnt felt the value of the game I'm playing to be tied detrimentally to death penalties. To me ... The most important part of the game is the challenge. When reading responses I almost feel like I'm being told the good experiences I've had mmorpgs don't matter. When in fact, they do. My guilds first defeat of ragnaros in vanilla wow was such a big screaming deal. Imagine how one would feel being shouted to silence by a group of people who tell you that you don't deserve to be happy in triumph because a death mechanic is weaker. Months and months of hard work, being treated like that. Its shameful. When we talk about time investment. I find more value in the struggle to combat the puzzle or the enemy than I do in the time sink of losing exp. Its that simple. This is going to be important guys. Pantheon is going to attract people with different tastes but believe in the foundation of the tenants. Discuss with these people, don't tear them down. Thanks for the responses guys. Also, this big response wasn't directed at any one person. Sent via mobile -Todd
I think that what would be more accurate to say is not that your experiences don't matter... it's that a good percentage of the people here have had the experiences you have had, have also had the experience of playing in an older style game.... and prefer the older style. So we are proponents of it.
I think we often get caught up in sounding like today's games are "Bad" and yesterday's games are "good." I don't think it's that simple. WoW for example, is a brilliant game. It's just largely not aimed at ME or at most of the people here. Thus, some here ascribe "Bad" to it.
Here is where/why you feel the pushback.
In games like Vanguard (and, for a brief time, EQNext) this community felt like it was being promised one of those "older" style games - and have felt that an influx of "newer" style people ultimately caused those games they were hanging their hopes on to become something "less." So we can be, for better or worse, a tad defensive about it all.
You may have already been (and if you haven't may be in the future) directed to "go play a new game if you like them so much" - or similar. I would instead ask you to think about what from those new games has you looking for a different game.
For example - I can tell you that I left EQ because of the promise of WoW and EQII when they came out... and I went to those games with some of the community I had formed in EQ. That community, that thrived for years in EQ, faded fast in WoW and EQII. When I tried to go back to EQ, that community wasn't there... and so the game felt a little empty to me without them.
What does that amount to for me? Well, EQ was a game that held my community together... when we moved to the new games, it fell apart. What was it about those games that early on that didn't hold community together? I think it's summed up in the mantra of the WoW devs. They built around the idea of "Am I having fun now." - and the community I was part of was more interested in an immersive, rewarding world rather than "having fun now."
Why didn't we all go back to EQ? I have no idea.
tehtawd said: The tenants don't say anything about the death penalty
I respectfully disagree with that statement - there's a tenet that directly relates to the death penalty. "An expectation that with greater risk will come greater reward."
The death penalty, regardless if you can say it's good or bad, creates greater risk. It's one of the main arguments that people use aganist supporting it. Opponents of the death penalty will argue that too harsh of a death penalty causes people to be unwilling to take "risks" so they will avoid content. Which, I would argue, is exactly what the death penalty should be accomplishing, and, if that is occuring, then it's working as intended. People are respecting the content, and without a good group, great guild, and proper strategy - you will fail.
tehtawd said:When we talk about time investment. I find more value in the struggle to combat the puzzle or the enemy than I do in the time sink of losing exp. Its that simple. This is going to be important guys. Pantheon is going to attract people with different tastes but believe in the foundation of the tenants.
And that's great, but you're still not seeing the whole picture on exp loss. You're viewing it only through a negative lense.
It is a time sink, no one is arguing that. But, it creates risk, which can't be replicated without time loss. It is the only finite resource we all have. And, like I discussed in my earlier posting with you, even the NES games that you referenced tried to replicate that sense of "risk" by when you died, you also lost your progression up until your save point, or when you had to start over back at square 1. In a MMORPG, especially an open world MMORPG, you can't start back at a save point, or receive the "Game Over" screen, so, the easiest measure of progression to use and lose is experience, which also equates to time loss.
And, you also have to view it from the angle of the developers. Positive time sinks like corpse runs, exp loss, meaningful travel etc. are a win/win. They help create a virtual world and also keep players journey to 50 taking longer, which provides more time for developers to create meaningful content for future expansions versus players being content locusts making it to 50 within 2 weeks, being bored, moving on, and the game failing.
while the comments are largely respectful, i do think one thing todd is saying is getting lost.
he isnt asking for less time sink, simply it be shifted from xp grinding to learning a fight. if learning the fight takes 10 hours and you need to grind lost xp for 30 hours, you have the same timesink as if the fight takes 30 hours and the grinding 10. there are other points for/against to be sure. but the time difference is not a difference.
I respectfully disagree with that statement - there's a tenet that directly relates to the death penalty. "An expectation that with greater risk will come greater reward."
Hi Raidan, grats again on your interview. I was excited to read it.
The tenant indeed relates to the death penalty, what I was trying to say is the words 'death penalty' was not mentioned at all. Infact, when I realized it was heavily implied it felt like a kick in the head.
And that's great, but you're still not seeing the whole picture on exp loss. You're viewing it only through a negative lense.
It is a time sink, no one is arguing that. But, it creates risk, which can't be replicated without time loss.
I'm going to hands down agree with you. I think i'm only viewing it in a negative lense (I don't like it.) And I think i'm learning to respect it more because its not like I don't enjoy P1999, and this discussion helps. But Alephen just posted below me with something I've been trying to communicate but have failed thusfar in doing.
while the comments are largely respectful, i do think one thing todd is saying is getting lost.
he isnt asking for less time sink, simply it be shifted from xp grinding to learning a fight.
Thanks Alephen.
Story time.
I lead a raiding group to kill a boss called Warlord zon'ozz(That jerk below)
I lead my raid group into this raid and made about 4-6 attempts per night, three times a week for FOUR MONTHS to kill this MF'er ONCE. To keep my troops motivated I kept track of every percentage we did better than our last attempt. If we didn't do better at the percentages I could use DPS or HPS and see if those were better values than other attempts which were successful. I've spent a long, long time ... pouring over stats, working with people, re-arranging class leads, trying to figure out what to do to get this guy with my current group. There was no trick we had to learn, it was just ...keep at it, keep learning, eventually when you make ZERO mistakes and do your best, we could win. Once.
This is a lot guys. This isn't something I expect anyone to be able to just wash off as 'oh that's nothing'--This took a LONG time. And it was GLORIOUS!
We died .... sooo many times to his mechanics. And this wasn't the only time i've had to bang my head (and my raiders heads) against a wall so complicated and so frustrating that when we won, we about cried. (Garalon ...omg we won that fight from the last two procs off a damage over time spell after we all had died and were laying there.) This is the time sink I'm talking about.
When I can go into a dungeon or a raid and 'ignore' boss mechanics ... i'm sad. I mean, sometimes I get angry about it but honestly it just feels like i'm a ghost or a zombie going through the motions. My rotations and abilities don't mean anything if I'm not ...you know, struggling. I don't feel that way about re-killing trash mobs to get my xp back, or corpse running ... I just don't.
Like I was saying before, I'm willing to 'put up with it' when it comes to the death penalty, as long as I get a good fight. I'm just sooo not used to a time sink so 'boring' as that. Something I have learned from you guys though is if I guy pulls a train of mobs and gets killed, you believe the same amount of time sink should apply to them as the time sink i've found in repeatedly dying from a boss constantly. I guess I get it.
But anyway, I gotta do something else--hard day at work.
Again, much appreciated all you responders.
-Todd
alephen said:while the comments are largely respectful, i do think one thing todd is saying is getting lost.
he isnt asking for less time sink, simply it be shifted from xp grinding to learning a fight. if learning the fight takes 10 hours and you need to grind lost xp for 30 hours, you have the same timesink as if the fight takes 30 hours and the grinding 10. there are other points for/against to be sure. but the time difference is not a difference.
I have a few answers for that, but some of them will be a matter of opinion.
My favorite answer is simply realism/immersion. Respawning nearby with all of my stuff just doesn't make me fear death, regardless of how hard the game might be. The bind rush approach is not conducive to the suspension of one's disbelief. (opinion, yes) Its also problematic in an open world environment where multiple guilds may be vying for the same content.
Another answer is 'the internet'. If the struggle of learning a fight is merely knowledge and execution, then for those not on the bleeding edge, a big part of that equation is eliminated by the internet. With the ability to quickly return to the fight, your success is really inevitable.
The last thing and probably most important, however subjective, is that traditional RPGs, MUDs, and later MMORPGs, while often challenging, were never about the "skill check" that you are proposing. They were more about knowledge, planning, preparation, time devotion and overcoming social challenges (organizing a guild and coordinating a raid) than about pure skill checks.
While I definitely think we need to step up the skill aspect further, part of the novelty of the mmorpg was that anyone could succeed given the time and the disposition. That is simply not the case for games with a high skill requirement. No amount of time will give people the necessary reaction speed or ability to calculate statistical probabilities in their head. There are games for people who want that, but I don't believe it had anything to do with what made our favorite mmos so enjoyable.
Mitigating DEATH: (Ordered by 'estimated mean chance of death')
10%. Group/grinding
25%. Soloing
30%. Doing 'Known' Raid content
40%. Exploring
75%. Learning 'New' Raid content.
Only veterans and/or rangers with a death wish do the last two regularly. They accept it as the cost of being on the bleeding edge. Only experienced players tend to do any Raid Content as is unlikely to be available before level 25-35. This leaves Grouping and Soloing of 'regular' content. Since the game is aimed at group content, it is not surprising soloers will die more often.
SUPPOSITION:
If (new) players are repeatedly hit with a harsh death penlty they will quit.
SOLUTION:
As VR are well aware, it will be down to a race between 'educating players who have never played a challenging MMO before' vs 'them rage-quitting'. The KEY here seems to be to minimise their NUMBER of deaths, not the impact of ANY ONE death. I.e. Keep the penalty high, but get them to attempt to avoid it. To this end:
... get all players to group up by level 2-4!
By level 5 there should be NO player (apart from veterans who solo intentionally) who is not grouping 60-90% of the time.
This has the benefits of:
A. Learning from others
B. Lower chance of death
C. More socialising
D. Positive reinforcment of the 'acievement cyle'
E. Ultimately more likely to 'learn' to appreciate the game and stay.
TLDR: The problem is not the harshness of the death penalty, it is educating the new intake in how to avoid it.
alephen said:while the comments are largely respectful, i do think one thing todd is saying is getting lost.
he isnt asking for less time sink, simply it be shifted from xp grinding to learning a fight. if learning the fight takes 10 hours and you need to grind lost xp for 30 hours, you have the same timesink as if the fight takes 30 hours and the grinding 10. there are other points for/against to be sure. but the time difference is not a difference.
I get his point, but I don't think all timesinks are created equal. Once you learn an encounter whether that be through repetition or the internet as Dullahan said, the encounter will be learned, and challenge is removed. Encounters go on cruise control mode. The encounter will then in and of itself be on reptition/farm mode ans will take less time to accomplish. And, this scenario also applies mainly only to raids, and is ignoring the main focus of Pantheon - the group game.
If there is fear of loss, a fight will be approached differently - whether it be a raid or group - and, if death isn't trivialized at max level (like EQ) that would keep the encounter more challenging, more risky, even if the encounter was learned as you'd still have the fear of death and the timesink that would result from it that would remain constant.
And, neither concept is mutually exlusive - so why not both? I don't think you'll get any disagreements on challenging encounters here as long as they aren't overly gimmicky.
TLDR: Challenging encounters will be learned and the timesink lessened where death would be a constant.
I'm of the understanding that there will be a death penalty so ultimately were having a discussion about something already decided upon.. yes the "severity" is open to discussion but if it exists at all is already done and dusted. Like EQ I strongly suspect it will be tuned during the games lifecycle and become less severe as the game matures.... same as for "forced" grouping (at lower levels) .. you simply can't maintain this and maintain a population as new players have more limited grouping options.
I've always personally disliked the general rule of Raid mobs with a rigid fixed set linear pattern of "phases" at specific percentage health... no skill other than learning the "script".. I like the idea of multiple script paths to make the encounter more reactive with the odd "rare" extra hard phases which results in higher percentage chance on a mobs rare drops....
Several people in the camp desiring a lighter (or zero) death penalty have suggested that they really want the challenge to come from the mechanics of the encounter, and not the penalty from failure. It was specifically suggested that they wanted to figure out the puzzle.
When there isnt pain involved in failure, there's no reason not to try. Why not? If the worst I experience is that I'm kicked back to the beginning of the dungeon fully-geared and without xp loss or any coin required on my part to pay for repairs, why would I not give it a shot? If for no other reason than because pure dumb luck might bring success? This is not figuring out a puzzle, nor is it conquering a challenge. It is simply throwing yourself at a situation and hoping for the best. In the event of failure, what reason is there not to throw yourself back in with a tweak or two? And then again? And again? This is also not "figuring out the puzzle". It's simply a process of elmination to remove those factors that cause failure. It's not unlike that of a system with a notable death penalty.
In a worst case scenario I will realize that the 40 of us are woefully inadequately geared to even approach that dragon, and all I've lost is an hour or so of time in the process.
There need be no respect for the danger, because in all reality there is no danger. In that kind of a system there is no way to instill fear. What is there to fear? That you will hang out with friends for an hour and get no loot? What's the downside?
Conversely, if you know that failure will result in potentially hours of attempts to recover the gear it took you hundreds of hours to accumulate, you will be fearful. You will respect the dangers. You will consider your actions and you will not dive into the encounter without considering the consequences. You will not throw yourself at something you are pretty sure is beyond your league hoping for dumb luck. You will not repeat an encounter over and over and over with minor tweaks counting on process of elmination to eventually gaurantee success. You will carefully consider whether it is worth it to take the attempt, and consider every facet of your last attempt. You will scrutinize your strategy. You will focus, and you will demand that every single person with you do the same. You will not tolerate the people along for a joy ride, half-engaged in the plan and unconcerned with the outcome. Every person there will be highly motivated to pay attention, to pull their weight, and to do their part correctly.
With these factors the intensity of the engagement is ratcheted up for every participant. The pain of failure stings, but far more importantly the thrill of success is exponentially more significant.
There's a place for the minor risk encounters. But without a death penalty there's no way to introduce the exponentially more significant rewards from an emotional perspective. If your focus is just the loot there are games that will give you the monty haul with little pain. For the emotion, only fear from failure can provide the elation from conquering. And most of us didnt feel compelled to continue playing EQ or Vangaurd for years because of the gear. We felt compelled because of the emotion.
I, personally, am a fan of death penalty. I know i might be in the minority for saying this but I never minded it in original EQ, altho it helped I was a cleric with my click stick. I had a guildie that got so mad at SOE about their paladin chances he drown himself in a pool and his corpses spelled out FU SOE...he deleveled to 10 from 60...but eventually he realised how much he did still love the game and releveled. A death penalty is not bad if you have items like the cleric click stick in which you rely on the COMMUNITY to help. You remember the nice cleric that helped you, you would ask him to group later, it fostered a sense of community and you got to know people.
Grimvalor said:I, personally, am a fan of death penalty. I know i might be in the minority for saying this but I never minded it in original EQ, altho it helped I was a cleric with my click stick. I had a guildie that got so mad at SOE about their paladin chances he drown himself in a pool and his corpses spelled out FU SOE...he deleveled to 10 from 60...but eventually he realised how much he did still love the game and releveled. A death penalty is not bad if you have items like the cleric click stick in which you rely on the COMMUNITY to help. You remember the nice cleric that helped you, you would ask him to group later, it fostered a sense of community and you got to know people.
I think there are at least several, and maybe many here who would be perfecty happy with the old EQ death penalty. But I think we are willing to compromise.
Brad has stated that the penalty will be somewhere between Vanilla EQ and Vanilla VG. That seems to me to be a compromise that will please most folks who are interested in this game. It certainly is a compromise I will be thrilled with.