Dullahan said:In light of the topics on local economies, trading gameplay, and convenience in general, it occurred to me more poignantly than ever just how much fast travel of any kind, including player spells, damages so many aspects of a virtual world. Creating this illusion of another place and the suspension of ones disbelief is predicated on giving meaning to the entire world, its environments and inhabitants, rather than just hotspots like dungeons or cities. Its about making far off places and mysterious locales truly mysterious often by their geographic estrangement from the places commonly travelled. The easier they are to reach, the less special they become.
In the early years of EQ, finding a portal was the exception, not the norm. Until one became higher level and friends or guildmates with many kind wizards and druids, one never expected to be ported where they wanted to go. The world actually meant something and travel took time. This was all but lost over the years and portals have become expected on project1999.
Now this isn't to suggest that there ought not be any fast travel whatsoever. I just feel like the convenience of travel should come at a greater price if Terminus is to truly feel like a proper world.
My suggestion is twofold. First, as was done in other games, a player should have to visit any portal area and attune before traveling back to it via portal. Second, a portal should require a reagent, and it should not be cheap. Being ported around the world should not be something done frequently or flippantly. It also shouldn't be affordable for low levels.
I agree with your line of thought on this Dullahan.
The race to "end game" has many people wanting the journey to be almost given to them, when the journey is the game. How can you ever hope to really care about your character unless you have experienced the journey and the hardships. It needs to take time to do things and get places; the pace of leveling should not be like WoW. Folks should relax and enjoy the time playing/tradeing/helping each other.
Porting should be expensive and dangerous for a lower level character, as the amount of energy that would need to be channeled is staggering and would just outright kill a very low level person.
Porting should have meaning too, and be a special and possibly dangerous undertaking. Things in this game are not necessarily going to be safe, A wizard is not a perfectly stable being and fooling around with the power required to port to another place may not be a good thing.
While many Wizards are driven mad through study of the arcane, those who emerge stable under the weight of this power wield a force barely imaginable in awe and effect, i.e. something or somebody might get hurt.
You know it will take a full mana bar to port a group of fat assed Ogres to the other side of the planet, no way that could be exactly safe or cheap to do.
Dullahan said:In light of the topics on local economies, trading gameplay, and convenience in general, it occurred to me more poignantly than ever just how much fast travel of any kind, including player spells, damages so many aspects of a virtual world. Creating this illusion of another place and the suspension of ones disbelief is predicated on giving meaning to the entire world, its environments and inhabitants, rather than just hotspots like dungeons or cities. Its about making far off places and mysterious locales truly mysterious often by their geographic estrangement from the places commonly travelled. The easier they are to reach, the less special they become.
In the early years of EQ, finding a portal was the exception, not the norm. Until one became higher level and friends or guildmates with many kind wizards and druids, one never expected to be ported where they wanted to go. The world actually meant something and travel took time. This was all but lost over the years and portals have become expected on project1999.
Now this isn't to suggest that there ought not be any fast travel whatsoever. I just feel like the convenience of travel should come at a greater price if Terminus is to truly feel like a proper world.
My suggestion is twofold. First, as was done in other games, a player should have to visit any portal area and attune before traveling back to it via portal. Second, a portal should require a reagent, and it should not be cheap. Being ported around the world should not be something done frequently or flippantly. It also shouldn't be affordable for low levels.
I know this will go over like a lead balloon with our WoW players and convenience enthusiasts, but I just thought I'd throw that out there because its something that so many threads of thought continually lead me back to.
Excellent post, Dullahan. I've actually been having very similar thoughts while reading threads the last few days. And a lot of the points you make here tie in to Aradune's comment in the Non-Global Game Economy thread:
Aradune said:I respectfully remind you guys about the idea vs implementation dichotomy that is really important to keep in mind. Just as some of you pointed to games where the local economies had issues, others of you pointed to games where it's worked fine. Pointing to a failure in implementation does not necessarily invalidate an idea.
How features are implemented in Pantheon is going to depend tremendously on how travel is handled in the game (and vice-versa). In the context of a game like modern-day Everquest, or Neverwinter or so many of the MMO's available to us right now, features like global auction houses make perfect sense. In these games, getting from point A to point B has been reduced to the annoyance of zoning. There's NO RISK involved, NO COST, and so punishing players by not implementing these features amounts to nothing more than wasting their time.
However, in the context of a game where there is no quick and easy means of getting from point A to point B--the script gets flipped on a lot of features. In a game where it may well take you a few hours, possibly even a few gaming sessions to get from one side of the map to the other--the presense of features like a global auction house are actually at direct odds with the game's design. They bypass meaningful content. As long as the journey from A to B retains it's risk, then that trip is a part of the excitement that makes the game what it is, and that should not be trivialized by the implementation of any other features.
With all this in mind, I'm hoping the game-world stays 'big.' Fast travel should be limited and, as Dullahan says, should be costly for those capable of providing the convenience.
I don't think wizards should be solely DPS. That never made sense to me based on what I believe a wizard should be. However, fantasy isn't set in stone and there's many variations of everything. I think more utility could easily be given to wizards based on what lore is used to explain it. If we assume that they've got the mastery of magical knowledge, how about a temporary reagent they could create and fill with their excess mana and trade to group mates as clicky mana regens. Or maybe they could have a buff that increases another caster's spell potency/supercharges them, giving bigger dmg and heals and faster cast times but consuming more mana per cast.
I think summoner's getting ports would work of there was something in the game that made sense on how they could do it. EQ used wizard spires and druid rings. As far as how a summoner could port a group to an alternate location vs summoning group members to their location, there's a number of rationalizations you could come up with to have it fit a fantasy world. One example that would fit into the EQ style of having something static in the environment would be a summoning anchor of some sort. Then the summoner basically does the reverse of a summon and sends the entire group to that anchor in a similar manner that they might use when releasing a summoned creature.
I'm not saying that any other classes shouldn't have ports because summoners have them. Maybe summoners should have them either and they should go to clerics! Clerics call upon the divine gods to use their power to move players! Sure, that's ridiculous but this is a fantasy game and it's all make believe anyway. Any other fantasy lore you know doesn't necessarily apply here.
I generally don't play casters so it doesn't impact me much any way that goes. I hope there's a limitation on porting so people don't go bouncing all over the place and kill all other forms of travel / exploration. If summoner's do get ports, I hope that a melee class or two get a 'forage ale' ability.
*Arkoll looks around and finds a half full bottle of ale*
If a summoner summons a mug of ale and I drink it, what happens if they unsummon/dispel the summon?
We are most definitely making Pantheon its own game, many fans of Brad's older games are here expecting to see something just as great and we intend to deliver but it will not be a copy, clone or sequel to any of the previous games, even as much as some people want it to be, Pantheon is its own game and has some awesome new ideas that we feel will drive the game and the genre forward :)
Thanks Kilsin, that is music to my ears. I can't wait to explore the world you guys are so lovingly creating for us. I expect that there will be a multitude of variations on all the classes while remaining true to the tenents of the game. It is my belief that Terminus will be a new and vibrant world with a foundation based on the great games of the past. An evolution of the genre that melds the heart and soul of games like EQ and VG with new ideas and innovations to give us all the challenging and entertaining game play we hunger for.
Dullahan said:In light of the topics on local economies, trading gameplay, and convenience in general, it occurred to me more poignantly than ever just how much fast travel of any kind, including player spells, damages so many aspects of a virtual world. Creating this illusion of another place and the suspension of ones disbelief is predicated on giving meaning to the entire world, its environments and inhabitants, rather than just hotspots like dungeons or cities. Its about making far off places and mysterious locales truly mysterious often by their geographic estrangement from the places commonly travelled. The easier they are to reach, the less special they become.
In the early years of EQ, finding a portal was the exception, not the norm. Until one became higher level and friends or guildmates with many kind wizards and druids, one never expected to be ported where they wanted to go. The world actually meant something and travel took time. This was all but lost over the years and portals have become expected on project1999.
Now this isn't to suggest that there ought not be any fast travel whatsoever. I just feel like the convenience of travel should come at a greater price if Terminus is to truly feel like a proper world.
My suggestion is twofold. First, as was done in other games, a player should have to visit any portal area and attune before traveling back to it via portal. Second, a portal should require a reagent, and it should not be cheap. Being ported around the world should not be something done frequently or flippantly. It also shouldn't be affordable for low levels.
I know this will go over like a lead balloon with our WoW players and convenience enthusiasts, but I just thought I'd throw that out there because its something that so many threads of thought continually lead me back to.
I tend to agree with this. Attuning I've brought up before. A reagent or something expensive may be in order. Also, not sure if anyone attuned to the portal and possessing the reagent can just activate the portal.... Actually activating it may be limited to a couple of classes.
(ATTENTION: just thinking out loud still -- not setting anything in stone)
FAST TRAVEL methods, a thought...
(Using EQ terminology here for easy of conversation. PTF will obviously have different names/strutures/paradigms)
Limited to specific classes (with different 'flavour' each).
1. Personal Spells: Typical single-person teleport.
Allows caster to TP to a 'attuned' 'World Object'. (See below for more)
There is a 'distance' cost in both 'mana' and 'skill'. TP'ing to a 'World object' on the other side of the planet will need a HIGH skill rank, *and* consume MASSIVE amounts of mana. This is perhaps where 'coloured' mana may play a big part. A specific colour of mana may be 'more efficient' or 'additive' for mana used for TP'ing. Likely different colours for each class that uses a specific 'flavour' of TP. Eg 'Yellow' for the 'Druid' version, 'Purple' for 'Wizzy' version.
Reagents should be used... but based on 'TP mana' used, not 1 TP = 1 reagent. They use 'TP mana' to power themselves, drawn from your 'TP mana' crystal. Perhaps a 'small mana crystal' = 100 'TP mana'. 'Medium mana crystal' = 250 'TP mana'. 'Large mana crystal' = 500 'TP mana'. These should be primarily crafted. Don't see a need for them to be available from NPCs (perhaps your trainer may sell them for 5x cost, and only 'small' ones at that!)
2. Multiple Spells: Group level teleports.
Work in the same way as single-player versions, but the 'TP mana' costs is MUCH higher. This means group TPs would need a fair amount of 'regular' mana to start the port, plus bigger 'TP mana' crystals from which to draw the power for the travel phase. Again, distance travelled would have impact. This, as for all TPs, would be assessed by looking at the 'world objects' as making a linked network. To TP to point D would, perhaps, need you to go to the nearest point, say B, then go to C then on to D. To do this in one hop would need 'regular mana' to link to the nearest portal (here = B) then the 'TP mana' to move from B -> C -> D.
3. World Objects/Gates/Portals
These form a network (like ley-lines) with a 'World object' at each node. There should be a 'network' for each 'flavour' of teleport. Thus, our EQ equivalent would have a 'Wizzy' and a 'Druid' network. Where the nodes overlap, there should be a 'World Object' of significance/difference. This may be a 'Planar Gate' or merely a 'World Object' node capable of being used to move multiple groups at once.
A. Stone Circles: (EQ equiv = druid circles)
Much like the druid circles in EQ, but perhaps with a reinforced identity. These may have 'Druid' NPCs who are the ones to help you attune to that circle. They may also be the ones who will ask tasks of you, the more you use them. Perhaps a 'sacrificed' item every so often, dependent on your usage.
The idea is to make them something the Druid would have to actively choose to put some time and effort into.... not just a 'yeah, PL'd my Dr00d to 29 so I can setup a taxi service'. They *can* teleport, but they should have to work at it in order to make it efficient. Each Stone Circle should have a distinct personality (person in charge). Each will have different wants etc before the Druid can use that circle. Opening a circle should be almost a quest in its own right. There should be some circles a player doesn't *want* to open up, since this would help the group that runs that circle - perhaps a faction/race/individual they consider 'evil' ... or their Deity does. Perhaps there are 4 (of the 7 Druidic factions) factions vying for power over the Stone Circle network. Which do you want to help? Will you get access to one of their nodes at the expense of making thast faction stronger?
What if these factions get 150 'votes' for people completing 'Open the Stone Circle' quests and 1 vote for each use? Once a Month the balance of power shifts as the votes are tallied..
B. Portals (EQ equiv = wizzy pyramids)
Intrinsically the same issues with Druid circles. In other words, Wizzies need to work at skills related to teleports - not just 'automatically' get them to work properly as soon as they ding. Again - some 'attunement' is needed to open a pyramid.
Personally I would like to see the concept taken further - Eg: The pyramids use an entombed Demon/Lich to act as the focal point for a pyramid. There may be a sect of 'guardians' who want to keep the entombed Demons/Lichs where they were sealed. To do so they need help - Wizards can undertake these quests to reinfoce the prisons... which mainly requires the use of power (perhaps obtained through sacrificing items). This is because using the pyramids for teleporting actually weakens the bonds. Weaken them enough (lots of TP use and nobody doing any remedial quests) and 'stuff' starts to happen. Low level undead may rise.. perhaps local undead may get stonger.... as each of the 7 layers of defence are worn away, these effects become more pronounced.
Perhaps there is even a sec out there *actively* seeking to break these prisons open. Nutters perhaps? But, dangerous nutters.
C. GATES: (EQ equiv = later portals / planar gates)
Where these nodes exist, they should act as doorways.
Opening them should need MULTIPLE Wizzies/Druids acting in concert.
BIG cost in mana and 'TP mana', and a headache (debuff) for a while after from the strain!
Enough caster may thus be able to either open a gate to a plane, or perhaps from 1 of these portals to another one (maybe a 'receiver' in a big city/sanctuary). It should take a lot of hassle, a lot of casters and only be possible once every few days at most because of these limitations. Opening it should need no less than the total average mana of 6 x level 50 wizzies. Thus lower level wizzies may be able to do it - but it would take lots of them! Eg 12 x Lev40's, or 48 x Lev25's. (My open 'formula' = 750,000 points. Each character provides 'level cubed' in points.)
PS there should be a (small) chance of 'something' waiting to try get through to Terminus!
I tend to agree I think porting is overpowered and impacts many aspects of a game... An additional simple example is if the death penalty incorporates any form of corpse recovery mechanic then specific classes being able to port essentially means an uneven death penalty. Yes you could argue for certain classes it could make sense but I like things to be as fair as possible, especially wrt the DP. Just from convenience I like the idea of being able to return to bind point/starting location.. just a nice quality of life (were older now and have got stuff to do) but it needs to be seriously restricted as being able to just port yourself out of trouble is pretty much game breaking IMO.. you get lost .. who cares just port back, you get into a bad location .. no problem just port out.. etc makes exploration that more exciting if you simply cant just port out.
Main thing is the game is apparently going to be very group focussed so there clearly needs to be some quick mechanism to form groups and this pretty much means some form of quick travel in this situation is required.
However saying all this there are a large number of classes and only so many useful abilities to dole out... so I suspect some classes will get porting due to this?
I'm absolutely against wiz, druids or any class getting group teleport, or even translocate type spells, I think it's too much overpowered, especially in the hands of hegemonic guilds in a non-instanced game. My opinion is that when you lead a guild and make the choice to go hunt in a specific zone, you have to assume the fact not being able to kill a boss that is one the other side of the world.
I also hope that there will be mechanics to stop the exploitation of corpses used as fast teleport.
Khendall said:I'm absolutely against wiz, druids or any class getting group teleport, or even translocate type spells, I think it's too much overpowered, especially in the hands of hegemonic guilds in a non-instanced game. My opinion is that when you lead a guild and make the choice to go hunt in a specific zone, you have to assume the fact not being able to kill a boss that is one the other side of the world.
I also hope that there will be mechanics to stop the exploitation of corpses used as fast teleport.
Then how do you propose we get around long distances?
Khendall said:I'm absolutely against wiz, druids or any class getting group teleport, or even translocate type spells, I think it's too much overpowered, especially in the hands of hegemonic guilds in a non-instanced game. My opinion is that when you lead a guild and make the choice to go hunt in a specific zone, you have to assume the fact not being able to kill a boss that is one the other side of the world.
I also hope that there will be mechanics to stop the exploitation of corpses used as fast teleport.
I think this would be awesome, but probably too extreme.
Khendall said:I'm absolutely against wiz, druids or any class getting group teleport, or even translocate type spells, I think it's too much overpowered, especially in the hands of hegemonic guilds in a non-instanced game. My opinion is that when you lead a guild and make the choice to go hunt in a specific zone, you have to assume the fact not being able to kill a boss that is one the other side of the world.
I also hope that there will be mechanics to stop the exploitation of corpses used as fast teleport.
I think it a good that they had it in EQ, now Pantheon they could change it up. Some classes having the ability are nice to be able to get around when a guild needs to get somewhere fast. Hopefully for your non-instanced problem they bring back the old EQ standard of no KSing or come up with a very pain punishment for guilds or players that do. I like to travel and see the world, but there are times if I know I won't play for hours and hours, that I don't want to waste traveling the whole world. It is better to get my port, and then get killing solo or find that group so I can get going on EXP.
I disagree with the OP. Summoners in Pantheon seem like they will be like a Mage in EQ. I'm not on board with giving them teleports.
I'm OK with Druids and Wizards getting self and group teleportation spells, and other spellcasters/priest recieving teleport to home (gate).
The Druid teleportation I think is a throwback to the AD&D days where high level Druids could enter planes at will. It's similar but not completely the same thing. Wizards could cast Gate to open portals to other dimensions to bring forth beast.
I am not OK with melee characters receiving gate type spells.
Real imaginative, I know.
Druids could teleport in D&D in addition to Plane Shift with Transport via Plants.
"You can enter any normal plant (Medium or larger) and pass any distance to a plant of the same kind in a single round, regardless of the distance separating the two. The entry plant must be alive. The destination plant need not be familiar to you, but it also must be alive. If you are uncertain of the location of a particular kind of destination plant, you need merely designate direction and distance and the transport via plants spell moves you as close as possible to the desired location. If a particular destination plant is desired but the plant is not living, the spell fails and you are ejected from the entry plant.
You can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn’t exceed your maximum load. You may also bring one additional willing Medium or smaller creature (carrying gear or objects up to its maximum load) or its equivalent per three caster levels. Use the following equivalents to determine the maximum number of larger creatures you can bring along: A Large creature counts as two Medium creatures, a Huge creature counts as two Large creatures, and so forth. All creatures to be transported must be in contact with one another, and at least one of those creatures must be in contact with you."
Corpsemagi said:I think it a good that they had it in EQ, now Pantheon they could change it up. Some classes having the ability are nice to be able to get around when a guild needs to get somewhere fast. Hopefully for your non-instanced problem they bring back the old EQ standard of no KSing or come up with a very pain punishment for guilds or players that do. I like to travel and see the world, but there are times if I know I won't play for hours and hours, that I don't want to waste traveling the whole world. It is better to get my port, and then get killing solo or find that group so I can get going on EXP.
Khendall said:I'm absolutely against wiz, druids or any class getting group teleport, or even translocate type spells, I think it's too much overpowered, especially in the hands of hegemonic guilds in a non-instanced game. My opinion is that when you lead a guild and make the choice to go hunt in a specific zone, you have to assume the fact not being able to kill a boss that is one the other side of the world.
I also hope that there will be mechanics to stop the exploitation of corpses used as fast teleport.
Eh, a good compromise would just be to make the spells more punishing on mana, or make the downtime super high. I don't know. The ability to port players around did cause a lot of player-to-player interaction, and I don't want to sacrifice that just to keep certain guilds from locking down areas (unless i'm missing your point here?). That's the trade-off.
Worlds are getting bigger and bigger. Expecting every player to walk/run all over with no options to teleport is, I think, a little obtuse.
I'd actually say keep summoners to summoning things to them. Let them summon someone to them but not make portals. This way they can still make some money. Teleporting..idk...doesnt seem like it's strictly summoning to me.
Wizards on the other hand shouldn't make portals either. Being masters of magic we can come up with some money making tradeskill for them that doesnt rub so much against their damage dealing nature.
Let druids and shamans make all of our portals!
_________
To make things even more interesting you could make each portal class do it in a different way.
For example; Shamans could send you to a spirit plane where you run a short distance to find your destination, and then exit the spirit plane to reach your destination. Using this method shamans could teleport you from anywhere to specific outdoor places in each zone.
Druids could instantly teleport you, but only from, and to, naturey locations with like stonehenges or whatever, meaning that their teleportation is far more limited but also more convenient.
______________
I'd be down for the suggestions made here for needing to attune to a place before being able to get to it by portal, so that players have to explore the world at least once.
_____
I'm not very convinced by the need for expensive regents; sure it would be a money sink early on. But if later game expansions give more money, as they seem to do, this system will only serve to punish new players who don't have rich mains/friends. The main portion of the price should be set by the portal classes themselves.
I'd be willing to compromise on expensive regents if they were made by the exclusive tradeskills of non-portal classes (like, say, wizards?), and/or somehow factored in player level for price (growing more expensive based on the power of the person being teleported).
Tralyan said:Eh, a good compromise would just be to make the spells more punishing on mana, or make the downtime super high. I don't know. The ability to port players around did cause a lot of player-to-player interaction, and I don't want to sacrifice that just to keep certain guilds from locking down areas (unless i'm missing your point here?). That's the trade-off.
Worlds are getting bigger and bigger. Expecting every player to walk/run all over with no options to teleport is, I think, a little obtuse.
More details about my point in my answer to Corpsemagi.
Guild locking down areas is one point among others, lesser one even if exasperating. Among the main ones is social groups / guilds choices getting more sense, making strategic choices getting more sense and not being a jump-to-lightspeed management for farming purpose. One of Pantheon's mantras is players vs environment, group TP spells are big environment killers, making the world smaller, making the boats nearly useless, making whole zones empty of HL players, a quick look back in old EQ days gives us of clues that all these points are very true.
Khendall said:Tralyan said:Eh, a good compromise would just be to make the spells more punishing on mana, or make the downtime super high. I don't know. The ability to port players around did cause a lot of player-to-player interaction, and I don't want to sacrifice that just to keep certain guilds from locking down areas (unless i'm missing your point here?). That's the trade-off.
Worlds are getting bigger and bigger. Expecting every player to walk/run all over with no options to teleport is, I think, a little obtuse.
More details about my point in my answer to Corpsemagi.
Guild locking down areas is one point among others, lesser one even if exasperating. Among the main ones is social groups / guilds choices getting more sense, making strategic choices getting more sense and not being a jump-to-lightspeed management for farming purpose. One of Pantheon's mantras is players vs environment, group TP spells are big environment killers, making the world smaller, making the boats nearly useless, making whole zones empty of HL players, a quick look back in old EQ days gives us of clues that all these points are very true.
In my opinion, POK broke EQ because it made travel meaningless. Anyone could go anywhere fast and POK served as a hub where any and all tradeskills could be done. Nearly all items could also be bought there but if it couldn't, one could just teleport to the zone and get it.
THIS eliminated high characters going into towns to buy stuff and TS, not group teleports. Just like localized buying and selling hubs eliminated trades in east commons tunnel and stopped HL characters going to buy and sell stuff in real time mode as opposed to AFK mode.
But, I do think travel by wizards and druids has and should have a place and like how EQ used to have it in the beginning was perfect, one or two on each continent. Again, IMO it wasn't group port that broke it, it was the abundance of it and the fact you could teleport to each city. Keep it to one per continent if that and all will be great! :)
Wizards and Druids probably will be the porting classes in Pantheon. I would be suprised if they were not. It should really be a Wizard only thing because of the power that should be required. If you want lunch on another contenent you will need a Wizard and a Summoner, one for the port and one for the meal.
I do like the Idea that the Wizard and the person being ported will have to visit the portal location before it will work for them.
Skycaster said:Wizards and Druids probably will be the porting classes in Pantheon. I would be suprised if they were not. It should really be a Wizard only thing because of the power that should be required. If you want lunch on another contenent you will need a Wizard and a Summoner, one for the port and one for the meal.
I do like the Idea that the Wizard and the person being ported will have to visit the portal location before it will work for them.
Why so ? Energy is on factor when you need to brute-force a result by bypassing the common rules of a world.
Attunement with the so said world, would be one other factor allowing safe and quick travel, instead or creating rifts or scavenging tremendous arcanas, you just follow hinted paths, telluric lines or mystical passages.
Ence, the druid !
MauvaisOeil said:Skycaster said:Wizards and Druids probably will be the porting classes in Pantheon. I would be suprised if they were not. It should really be a Wizard only thing because of the power that should be required. If you want lunch on another contenent you will need a Wizard and a Summoner, one for the port and one for the meal.
I do like the Idea that the Wizard and the person being ported will have to visit the portal location before it will work for them.
Why so ? Energy is on factor when you need to brute-force a result by bypassing the common rules of a world.
Attunement with the so said world, would be one other factor allowing safe and quick travel, instead or creating rifts or scavenging tremendous arcanas, you just follow hinted paths, telluric lines or mystical passages.
So THAT is how those Druids managed portals. I always wondered what their secret was. As a Wizard I nearly had to set my fingers on fire to create a portal.
I like your explanation; it hints at mysterious forces, and uncovers some of the subtle sensitivities of the Druid to natures solutions. Bravo !
absent other fast travel, porting is an extremely powerful ability, perhaps the most powerful, and should be treated as such in overall class balancing. from what i understand, MUCH money was made from porting people in EQ. not to mention, if it is the only way to get groups together in less than an hour, a porting class will be all but a requirement for any group content.
the entirety of a tanks healing abilities means there will almost always be a tank in group content. the entirety of healing abilities means there will almost always be a healer. this one ability makes a porting class as needed, plus gives income on the side.
alephen said:absent other fast travel, porting is an extremely powerful ability, perhaps the most powerful, and should be treated as such in overall class balancing. from what i understand, MUCH money was made from porting people in EQ. not to mention, if it is the only way to get groups together in less than an hour, a porting class will be all but a requirement for any group content.
the entirety of a tanks healing abilities means there will almost always be a tank in group content. the entirety of healing abilities means there will almost always be a healer. this one ability makes a porting class as needed, plus gives income on the side.
I think it's probably much easier to outsource porting than healing or tanking though. So if you just bought ports for your party then there wouldn't be a need to actually group a port class.
Also, If you want to make money you can find ways that are as efficient as porting (my preference is for buying things and then selling them for more), especially if pantheon balances it's tradeskills.
Toredorm said:Ok, So we know that fast travel should not be a thing in this game (no bell clicks or fast travel by clicking this post). We want people to run the world.Ooo actually I want to run the world *the first time* I go somewhere, but I'd dearly like to not have to hang around, spam chat and pay cash for someone else to press a button every single subsequent time I wanted to do that journey again without looking at the same trees and grass and road again and again and again.
Travel hubs for pre-discovered areas, please.
Toredorm said:I ask that in this game, instead of wizards having the ability to cast portals, give that to the summoners. Why? A couple different reasons. 1. Wizards are damage. Period. They are supposed to be "glass cannons" that wreck the opposition. So what purpose is a summoner? Our 2. Utility. I feel if summoners were the ones who got this ability, it would better level the playing field. You could even make this logical conclusion lore wise. Summoners "open portals" to another dimension to summon creatures. How could they not open a portal to step through?Hmm, I'm pretty much hoping that, though Pantheon is a hardcore successor to EQ, it doesn't simply follow the exact same class descriptions.
Sure, make abilities true to lore and, yeah, maybe some magic use makes more sense for 'portal opening', but there are different ways to achieve the same thing. Wizards control the elements, maybe pulling power from the elemental planes. Having access to the plane of earth could allow for fast travel along a mountain range of continual stone, or the plane of water could allow travel from shore to opposite shore.
Druids could allow travel where there is uninterrupted forest or grassland?
Clerics could ask their gods to send angels to carry them between shrines?
Shamans could walk the spirit world along ley lines?
Let's not be too heavily restricted by the details of previous games?