Should feign death be based on mob intelligence? Example splitting non sentient mobs often successful -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCW9CrqpD48
Sentient mobs I would think would expect to see a deadly amount of damage before seeing you flop over, and giving up the chase. Extremely intelligent mobs might stick a spear in you to see if you react or simply "double tap" to ensure you're dead. I never really played a FD puller so maybe these things are already considered and I just need to be educated.
Ashvaild said: Fd is essential to the monk class. What fun would they be without the pulling aspect? Theyd just punch and kick ad nauseam
Not sure why you think Monks in Pantheon would just be copy & pasted EQ Monks without FD. Monks in Vanguard were plenty fun to play without dumb FD pulling.
Arguments like this really give me a headache.
My argument against FD pulling is that it's so unintuitive that it makes EQ look like a bad product. Something becoming widely adopted because of how advantageous it is does not necessarily speak to its validity as a mechanic. FD pulling is not required in Pantheon, or even EQ for that matter. Monks had FD in Vanguard, but it's specifially the FD splitting that I am objecting to.
An appeal to tradition is not a valid reason to include it.
Sometimes when I read Liav's posts, I'm just sitting here....
I related this in some ways to my experience as a Druid in EQ. Emergent behavior led to quad kiting, which was incredibly fun and powerful and led to an extremely quick leveling curve for Druids. In all likelihood, I'll be playing a Druid in Pantheon release, but I'm very hopeful a mechanic like quad kiting won't be around. Why? It fit in the old game, but clearly circumvented in some ways the way the content was designed and really separated the class from the rest of the community. Take away those skills, and there were a lot of substandard qualities to Druid life, especially in a group setting. My hope is that the developers take the spirit of the Druid class and infuse it with more modern mechanics and design that make it fit into the stated set of goals that Pantheon presents.
FD pulling was definitely fun, and like Druids and their quad kiting, you probably won't find many Monks who didn't enjoy it in EQ. But it feels like there would be a better way to go about it now and retain the spirit of what the Monk class was.
Hannar said:Sometimes when I read Liav's posts, I'm just sitting here....
Aw, shucks!
Hannar said:I related this in some ways to my experience as a Druid in EQ. Emergent behavior led to quad kiting, which was incredibly fun and powerful and led to an extremely quick leveling curve for Druids. In all likelihood, I'll be playing a Druid in Pantheon release, but I'm very hopeful a mechanic like quad kiting won't be around. Why? It fit in the old game, but clearly circumvented in some ways the way the content was designed and really separated the class from the rest of the community. Take away those skills, and there were a lot of substandard qualities to Druid life, especially in a group setting. My hope is that the developers take the spirit of the Druid class and infuse it with more modern mechanics and design that make it fit into the stated set of goals that Pantheon presents.
FD pulling was definitely fun, and like Druids and their quad kiting, you probably won't find many Monks who didn't enjoy it in EQ. But it feels like there would be a better way to go about it now and retain the spirit of what the Monk class was.
Yeah, we're on the same page. I've been a Monk for my entire EQ career, but the best groups I've ever been in have been on my Rogue with a solid Enchanter where I was just chain pulling 3-4 mobs constantly and he would just instantly lock them down and we'd shred them one by one. Similarly, dungeon crawls in Vanguard where we would just meat grinder all of the mobs down with a competent group, even with packs of them.
To me, those groups felt like they had the highest level of interdepency, and they were more efficient anyway. Single splitting mobs in the most unintuitive way possible so you can tickle them down one at a time and getting bad experience at the same time just wasn't my idea of a good time.
Raids are a different story naturally, since most raid splits aren't mezzable to begin with unless it's a trash heavy zone. Even then, I think that's a great argument to make CC stronger and give it to more classes so DPS roles have more versatility than just showing up to backstab things.
I never understood the obsession with a dedicated "pulling" role. Granted, I never really played original EQ all that much, so for me it has always been the tank's job to pull. Or occasionally my job to mez or stun an add or two while the tank snaps aggro.
But if it is to be separate, to me, pulling is part of controlling an encounter; a crowd of mobs if you will. If only there was a term for that role...
itvar said:I never understood the obsession with a dedicated "pulling" role. Granted, I never really played original EQ all that much, so for me it has always been the tank's job to pull. Or occasionally my job to mez or stun an add or two while the tank snaps aggro.
But if it is to be separate, to me, pulling is part of controlling an encounter; a crowd of mobs if you will. If only there was a term for that role...
The obsession comes from, as Hannar stated, emergent gameplay. "It was in EQ therefor it should be in Pantheon."
It was an unintended side effect of a variety of different mechanics in EQ that culminated in the ability to trivialize encounters by separating them from surrounding enemies that they get social aggro with. Establishing camps was another side effect of this and it wasn't intended, either. The original intention for EQ was supposed to be dungeon crawl style gameplay, not sitting in a static location for hours and mindlessly single pulling mobs to it.
I agree that pulling is just another form of crowd control. My biggest complaint though is that it really does trivialize the game if your puller is good enough. Otherwise, you have to make the mobs so difficult individually that they become a death sentence if you get multiples.
This is as opposed to just utilizing the plethora of CC options already available in EQ and elsewhere. Root, Mez, Stun, Snare, etc.
My understanding of the Quaternity is that there will be 4 major archetypes: Tank, Healer, DPS, Control
The only class that clearly fits in the Control archetype right now is Enchanter. In saying such, I imagine that enchanters will be one of the most sought after classes in the game. If every "ideal" group has at least one character for each of the major archetypes, that places a much higher demand on enchanters than any other class. If I had to guess, I would say that bard would also fall into the Control archetype, and that would help alleviate some of the burden placed on the enchanter community. Either way, in saying such, I imagine that having the bard class added to the game prior to launch is of paramount importance. Even then, the ratio would still be 3/3/5/2. For all the bard mains out there ... this is good news!
While I see several classes having some form of CC, none of them will be able to use it as consistently or dependably as enchanters. I would like to see more information on what exactly the quaternity is, and how it affects the classes/roles. Will each class be more or less confined to fulfill only one of the 4 major quaternity roles? How will other roles fit into that concept such as buffing and debuffing? I would imagine these would be more accurately described as a minor role since buffs and debuffs will likely be spread out across most classes. When I think of enchanter and bard though ... I don't just think of control. I view them as more of an "Enhancer" ... I have seen the term Quaternity used several times and I am just wondering if it has an official designation or purpose in the game, or if it's more of an unofficial way to describe the 4 major roles. And with all of that being said ... what about the Enhancer role? Is that not going to be a major role in the game? Or would bards just kind of get tossed into the Control role like enchanter? Can characters fill multiple roles from the quaternity? Since we already know that many other classes will have a form of CC, where exactly do they fall in the quaternity system? Druid for example ... are they 80% healer 20% control? Enchanters 70% control 30% DPS? Just really curious how exactly I should be looking at the quaternity system and would like to understand how it relates to the classes / roles.
Oh ... and this:
Cleric: Healer / Support
Shaman: Healer / Support
Rogue: Melee DPS / Support
Who can guess what these 3 classes have in common that qualify each of them as a Support?
And since Support isn't a role in the quaternity, I am assuming that perhaps there is also a secondary role system? Maybe this is where enhancement would go? Or would classes like bard/enchanter also be labeled as support? Support would seem like a very broad role description if it's shared by healers, bards/chanters, and (at the very least for DPS classes) rogues.
Mod Edit: Consolidated double post.
It's all well and good if classes that are fairly one dimensional end up being the best group, but for me that is never enough reason to play one. To each their own. I love to have utility like movement increase/decrease, water breathing, lull, levitate, teleports, buffs, tracking, illusion, and it's nice to have some heals. I don't really care if the class is the best at any specific thing. For me personally I don't consider being limited to doing one or two things that much fun over the course of many hours of play. I'd like to have the diversity to switch it up. I don't find that diversity in today's games very often. A lot of EQs classes had a large diversity of abilities/skills/spells despite the fact there were no specialization originally. It many cases the diversity was quite large like the Necromancer, Shaman, Druid, and Bard.
I feel the Necromancer could be a CC class or an evil healing class.
When I think of Necromancer I think of darks powers that manipulate and control. The pet or pets could be a form of CC. I could envisage a Necromancer summoning a large quantity of weak undead and possible one strong one. I could see them controlling and manipulating mobs and NPCs with their foul sorceries similar to Enchanters, but in a different way. I like Necromancers as a self healing class, but I don't think it makes sense for them to be group healers. They are an evil and selfish characters. I'd rather seem them as some type of controller and manipulator.
I would love to see the Rogue be more like a thief (more about stealing, disarming traps, openning locks, tracking human targets, finding treasure, scaling walls, pick pockets, etc.)
oneADseven said:My understanding of the Quaternity is that there will be 4 major archetypes: Tank, Healer, DPS, Control
The only class that clearly fits in the Control archetype right now is Enchanter. In saying such, I imagine that enchanters will be one of the most sought after classes in the game. If every "ideal" group has at least one character for each of the major archetypes, that places a much higher demand on enchanters than any other class. If I had to guess, I would say that bard would also fall into the Control archetype, and that would help alleviate some of the burden placed on the enchanter community. Either way, in saying such, I imagine that having the bard class added to the game prior to launch is of paramount importance. Even then, the ratio would still be 3/3/5/2. For all the bard mains out there ... this is good news!Discuss.
I dont see bards being in at launch. Bard songs tend to boost power of all group members, and can make difficult content easy. I would think they would want to see how well groups do in the actual game once its launched before adding this class. They may have it ready to go, but will need to fine toon their song numbers and output based on how we do.
Monks were certainly the gods of pulling in EQ with their ability to FD split pull. However I never felt like I needed one specific class for pulling purposes, every class had some method to pull whether the game builders intended them to or not. I don't think the monk should have to take a backseat as a damage dealer or tank (however VR views them) to all other tanks and DPS simply because he can pull better. I also don't think it would be fair that we force certain classes to pull when maybe he wants to take a breather and not pull for 8 hours straight while everyone else sips their mountain dew. I think every ability should be weighted and certainly FD if implemented in Pantheon should be weighed against other class abilities when developing these classes, but I think everyone should be able to develop some method of pulling.
Interesting discussion ... I always considered pulling to be a part of crowd control. There were plenty of times playing EQ where you couldn't find a mesmer for your group, so you would have to rely on how to smartly approach mobs or pulling mobs to your group. It's just pre-fight crowd control instead of mid-fight crowd control.
A great explanation was discussed in the movie Sergeant York about the World War I army hero. In the movie, the Appalachian-born York was explaining the best way to hunt a line of ducks to a guy from the Bronx who had never been in the countryside in his life. York said that you aim for the back one, because the rest of the line won't notice he's gone and won't cause a panic. Then you can still continue down the line if you choose. I think that's pretty similar to an FD puller. Their job is to fool the others into thinking there's no problem and hopefully most will lose interest, but the one that's the closest will obviously know what's going on and stick with it a bit longer. Therefore, you're "controling" the croud by an act instead of by a spell.
Does that make sense?
To the OP (and has been mentioned), pulling definitely falls under the CC/Support role of the quaternity.
As to other discussions about "emergent" gameplay... my philosophy for devs is create the world, populate it with content and let the players figure out how to deal with it. Maybe you have to deal with some exploits/unintended consequences, but the fewer restricitions on gameplay the better. The dev hand-holding/linear gameplay design from EQ-POP into everything that followed is exactly what attracts most of us to Pantheon.
I think it's safe to say that none of the "emergent" gameplay from EQ was gamebreaking. Why spend time on narrowing gameplay for things that don't need the restriction in the first place? It's not like we were kicking Enchanters out of the group because Monk FD pulling was so much better. A lot of emergent gameplay came out of missing that "defined" role and trying different things to see how you could make up for its lack in the group. That it was unintuitive was never an issue and shouldn't be a consideration for restriction.