Jimmayus said:One of the things that bothers me the most about raid design is precisely the paradigm you're describing; that is, that all of your impressions of difficulty are in the context of fighting a raid boss. Forgive me for saying so, but I think this is a narrow form of raiding that has been done to death over the course of a decade and a half. I would prefer that at least some of the endgame not consist entirely of going after raid bosses.
This...Nailed it!
I don’t think number of people in your group should determine the best loot reward. In fact I feel pretty much the opposite. I think that if you have raid content, there should be group content that is just as difficult and requires just as much time, that would yield loot equal to raid content rewards. Restricting the best loot to group size is just shortsighted development and game mechanics. Raiding is fun, I love it and have raided through tons of content, but I do not feel that just because I raid that means I should have access to better gear than someone who doesn’t want to raid. Group content should be available that yields comparable gear to raid content. Then raiding becomes a choice of playstyle rather than a must for gear and "end game" play.
Jimmayus said:So I think this topic got derailed pretty hard into a pissing contest about raid difficulty, but I'd like to dovetail that into what I think the prevailing sentiment is:
- People (for sure me, I assume others) want content meant for a variety of player numbers that is relevant to progression at least to some degree. Whether this means you can do the same content but progress slower (i.e. dynamis thing I championed) or you can progress as much as possible in dungeons, but for those progression points where raids are the pinnacle you could only get close to the best.
- There probably should be some sort of cap on the number of active combatants on a monster, but the cap should be at least high enough to accomodate a larger-size guild (say, for example, 30-36)
- Unlike the max number, and related to 1, there should be enough stuff at a variety of different "minimum persons levels" that is not so hard enforced. People hate the restrictiveness of the enforced minimums of modern games, and there should be room for a stronger core group to complete content without having to arbitrarily fill out a group with bodies.
As a result, it stands to reason that with a hard maximum and a soft minimum, the devs are freed from making everything hard for "precisely x number of people" all the time, and can instead create a variety of encounters more easily.
edit: OneADSeven, I'd like to know what you think of my example from FFXI. It's the last post on the previous page, I don't want to paste it here for spam concerns.
One of the things that bothers me the most about raid design is precisely the paradigm you're describing; that is, that all of your impressions of difficulty are in the context of fighting a raid boss. Forgive me for saying so, but I think this is a narrow form of raiding that has been done to death over the course of a decade and a half. I would prefer that at least some of the endgame not consist entirely of going after raid bosses. Frankly if FFXI had only had contested overworld bosses I think it would have been an absolutely terrible game, just like I think FFXIV's raiding game (only 4 bosses per tier) is atrocious. Note that what I describe in that post is technically a raid, but is designed such that the average monster is generally more difficult than trash monsters and whether you kill the boss or not is not the only reason to be there. I think such designs (when used in conjunction with, not in lieu of boss rush raids) would benefit endgame.
Jimmay, I agree with you that FFXI is a great example of how a game can implement "difficult" content beyond just raiding, and I also agree that having a variety of end-game content makes for an overall more enjoyable playing experience. I'm a hardcore raider at heart, but some of my favorite MMO memories are tied into FFXI. Leveling in general was fun in that game. Mining for ore was fun AND challenging in that game. Most of the content in that game was really fun and in my opinion, it was all tied into the challenge/difficulty of the game.
This would be a great blend of features from various games:
Open world concept similar to what you would find in EQOA/Vanguard
AA System from EQOA (There were different paths each class could go. Cannot interchange them. One druid could have the best resist buffs while the other had best HoT's)
Raid mechanics similar to what's used in EQOA/EQ2/FFXI (Encounter design from EQ2, open world raid zones like Isle of Dread from EQOA, Dynamis from FFXI, Behemoth/King Behemoth - Adamantoise/Aspidochelone Fafnir/Nidhogg from FFXI)
Contested Raid Zones like you would find in EQOA, FFXI, EQ2 (Isle of Dread, Soluseks Eye, Plane of Sky from EQOA, Sky from FFXI, Silent City or Living Tombs from EQ2 {Whichever one you needed to farm the eyes to enter Godkings Zone. It was similiar to Sky in FFXI)
Difficulty of Group/Solo Content, Traveling/Leveling Experience, Replay Value of FFXI (FFXI is light years ahead of any other game in this department.)
PVP System from WoW (Amazing PVP but that's the ONLY thing I enjoyed in WoW)
Loot System with elements of EQOA, and FFXI.
Crafting System from EQ2.
Pyratt said:I don’t think number of people in your group should determine the best loot reward. In fact I feel pretty much the opposite. I think that if you have raid content, there should be group content that is just as difficult and requires just as much time, that would yield loot equal to raid content rewards. Restricting the best loot to group size is just shortsighted development and game mechanics. Raiding is fun, I love it and have raided through tons of content, but I do not feel that just because I raid that means I should have access to better gear than someone who doesn’t want to raid. Group content should be available that yields comparable gear to raid content. Then raiding becomes a choice of playstyle rather than a must for gear and "end game" play.
This is right on the money Pyratt.
Except for the lucky few who have the time, huge raids are yesterday's news. End game group sized content with excellent rewards based on difficulty, skill, or intelligence required to obtain the reward is the way to go. My Pantheon friends and I can get the good stuff with a little work, we do not need a 36 man raid. Unless you happened to be in the top very few guilds, a large raid was a pain in the butt because so many people were not prepared very well or at all.
But to be in a top raiding guild you have to almost give your life away to it. IMO it is Stupid and out of date, terrible for your Family, Life, and Health.
Just my opinion :)
Pyratt thank you for agreeing with me. To play devil's advocate, the the problem most people will highlight is the problem with "zerging" smaller targets to trivialize their difficulty. This is a valid concern. To that end I it's important to examine the benefits of modern solutions (such as raid caps and tagging monsters to the party/raid who spawned it, etc.) to avoid repeating mistakes.
People have brought up excellent ideas in this thread about epic questlines and dungeons, etc. I know FFXI players loved that in the Chains of Promathia expansion you had something like 15 group level story mode fights to unlock a variety of content zones. People formed statics specifically for the purpose of clearing these fights, and often it took groups a month or so to finish them all. I believe this is the proper type of way to deal with story (not raids), as it forms a core non-raid part of the game.
Likewise, you can avoid scalability issues vis-a-vis no enforced minimum raid sizes by similarly making sure that the boss is not the only point of the raid. I believe this is a problem that modern mmos introduced by over-emphasizing the importance of large-scale fights.
Really, at the end of the day, I'd just prefer not to be totally screwed if somebody can't come to raid that night. Instead of the incredibly bad feeling of "we have 24 people instead of 26 people, guess raid is cancelled for tonight sorry boys", you can instead turn to your team and say "alright we got 21 tonight, let's clear out Geraldo's force pops for [~12 avg people world boss], see if [3 18~24 person min raid bosses] are up in [traditional boss rush raid zone] and then after that maybe go to [Jimmayus' SUPER GREAT DYNAMIS IDEA ZONE #3] and hit up a few farming areas. We got like 4 people who need that one Mystical Ranger's Codpiece, so let's try to hit up [3~12 man mini-events that pop mini-bosses] and otherwise just hang out in this area for a few hours till we run out of cheetos and mountain dew. Maybe once we only have a few we'll help Brunhilda and Lester get [6-person instanced story boss fight of medium difficulty that flags them for boss rush raid zone] done."
That's a super long example, but the point is that the group is no longer screwed out of doing anything by the arbitrariness of rigid enforced minimums. Add in crafting, some even smaller named spawns that drop materials for climate augments (fur lining for cold weather, etc.) and other long-form quests and suddenly "raiding" is a flexible, dynamic thing instead of all the rigidity of modern games.
edit: Thank you oneADSeven for the kind words. I like your structure and I wanted to ask you: what do you think of suggesting to the general group here the concept of BCNM/KSNM/ENMs? Personally I think they're a fantastic (especially once Faf/KB/Aspid forcepop items dropped from KSNM99s) addition, but they involve some minor battlefield instancing so I'm loathe to advocate for it.
I was going to quote Archaen's post above, but it is really long. It appears he and I are right on the same page with nearly everything in this thread.
Raid Size...
How does one decide what the best 'number' of players for a raid is? This is such an artificial and restricting mechanic. Dev's do this because they can create raids that seem difficult because they require very specific play to defeat. Not because the encouter is all that complicated, but because you are limited in the number of players you have versus the volume of DPS flying at you. I am not even going to get into the raids that require you to dance from here to there, dodge this red circle, don't jump in that goo, form a dance line, whatever.... Why on earth (Terminus?) would I ever take my 23 best friends with me to go kill the horrific dragon 'Burninator' and leave my other 9 friends home? Ridiculous.
I can see why a guild would want to take down a boss mob using less people... There is only so much loot! But for the under experienced, there is no reason they can't just bum rush the thing and then all pray to the RNG gods they actually get something. Is the goal here to make a game that severly restricts play? Are we trying to seperate players based on their knowledge of the encounter? Ok, maybe I can see that one somewhat, but why shouldn't the player that is more popular win? Or more diplomatic? If I can arrange a guild alliance with 3 other guilds and we take down 'Burninator' before your super elite guild of 24 awesome players, well, I guess you need to make more friends.
Friends. Social contacts. Trading favors, goods, services, items... Meeting new people, and maybe even visiting them in real life. Chatting away until 1AM on a Friday night. Thats what makes MMORPGs so great. Otherwise we could all go play Skyrim V.
RMT...
You will never stop RMT. Don't hamper other people in an effort to save the economy. Hypocratic oath... 'Do no harm'.
No-Trade
Bad mechanic. It makes tradeable items 20 times more expensive. It also makes items seem, well, less like an item, and more like an ability or power.
Buying items, other ways to get raid tier items...
This game needs to be more than just raiding. If it ends up being raiding only, I will finally give up on MMORPGs forever. However, if the best items can only be found by non-stop, hyper disciplined raiding, that is all this game will end up being about.
Instancing...
The reason Archaen brought this up is because he is correct in his ascertation that many of you are talking about instancing and don't even know it. 24-man raids. 6-man content. How can you enforce this without instancing? Otherwise I am going to bring my 9 other friends.
Dungeon level spread...
Yes please, I love dungeson that go from levels 20 to 40 or 25 to 50. Need more of these. Great for content purposes as well. Lets put all sorts of awesome quests in them!
Faction/Influence...
So, I have been writing this talking about why raids should not be controlled and should not be the end-all-be-all of the game. I really need to come up with atleast one suggestion for an alternative, right? My idea: Influence.
One can gain influence by completing certain quests for notable NPCs, killing certain mobs, donating cash or items to a worthy cause, crafting for said cause, ect... Influence allows you to purchase items, use services, start certain quests, and generally make small changes to your environment. Influence is a fleeting thing though. It goes away over time, meaning you can't just 'bank' it. It's really about "what have you done for me lately"? It could work hand in hand with the faction system. Influence could even make certain mobs that would otherwise be KoS to you temporarily non-KoS. But as I said, influence wears off.
There could be many avenues of influence. Like faction, there may even be several influence chains in a single city. I may not have any influence with the King/Royal Guard, but have a lot of it with the thieves guild.
And finally, it could play a big part in epic style questing.
JDNight I believe you may have misunderstood, at least on my part. When I discuss a boss designed for X number of people I am typically referring to the numbers the devs use to design the boss. This number is basically just a proxy for explaining "the typical number of people you'd bring to this boss given players of average skill".
Your post as I understand it is mainly about enforced minimum and maximum player amounts, which nobody is asking for except for perhaps an upper bound on the total number of people who can engage. As long as any such upper bound is comparatively high I don't see a problem.
I highly recommend that a lot of you rewatch our streams and read through our FAQ and Tenets, Pantheon Difference etc. as many posts here are opinion based on raiding, but whether you like raiding or not, it won't be the biggest part of our end game, we have said this over and over again, we also bring in other systems, to combat some of these problems that help take away the focus on raiding being the only thing to do at end game as it will be a small percent of our total player base.
Pantheon Difference - https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/pantheon_difference/
Game Features - https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/game_features/
Game Tenets - https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/game_tenets/
FAQ - https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/
So the relevant part of Kilsin's links comes from the Faq, specifically this question:
Will you be able to raid in Pantheon?
Yes, there will be Raid content in Pantheon. That said, the majority of content is being designed for grouping, with the remainder for soloing or raiding.
So this is the aspirational goal of their dev process. I believe in the latest stream there was a description to the effect of "60% grouping, 20% each for the others. Kilsin I suggest that the discussions and arguments presented in this thread thusfar are still useful inasmuch as they pertain to raid design. I concede absolutely that the discussion of raiding as the only endgame is irrelevant to the actual design process, but other ideas are still relevant. We'll try to stay on topic and keep that in mind.
Jimmayus said:JDNight I believe you may have misunderstood, at least on my part. When I discuss a boss designed for X number of people I am typically referring to the numbers the devs use to design the boss. This number is basically just a proxy for explaining "the typical number of people you'd bring to this boss given players of average skill".
Your post as I understand it is mainly about enforced minimum and maximum player amounts, which nobody is asking for except for perhaps an upper bound on the total number of people who can engage. As long as any such upper bound is comparatively high I don't see a problem.
Sorry, after reading my post, I guess I was a little 'distracted' by the whole raid capping discussion. I did not mean to imply anything about you or anyone else.
I still don't know how you can set an 'upper bound of people that can engage' without using instances or some strange mechanic though. Anyway, this thread is really supposed to be about coming up with alternatives to raiding.
To elabrotate a bit more on my Influence idea: There could be competitions between players inside organizations. The one with the most influence at a certain time can become the leader of said organization. Such organizations might include: the thieves guild, healers of Aetonia, warrior clan of Everfrost, ect...
If you become the leader, your own personal banner will hang in your organizations hall. Also, you can make certain decisions concerning quest lines and such that members of your organization go on. Also, you could start organization boycotts or organization wars (PvP). Writing this is making my head spin with ideas...
1 thing I do want to quickly point out since it seems to be a reoccuring thing in a lot of posts, while I have said many times I want to see a cap on the raid sizes, I never once said "you should need X number to raid". My point to having a cap was so that we could elimate the zerg tactic. If raid sizes are capped at 30 and you only have 27 you should still be able to attempt the boss and possibly even kill it but it would require better play. Let's say for sake of argument that the raid size caps at 30, who's to say they don't design the fights based on the avg number of 24? My thing was that I don't want to have fights which are designed for 30 people then get trivialized by 72.
@Kilsin - We all know that raiding won't be a primary focus of the game. Using the numbers given in the stream, 60% group, 20% raid, 20% solo type thing, that still points to the end game being semi raid heavy. Since the entire 1-50 process is a group gameplay then it would make up the bulk of the game. Raiding, while it can be done in the early levels and generally is fun when it is, is normally mostly a max level thing. So even 10% of the game being raiding is a lot for the most part. If you guys decide that you want to focus more on small group gameplay that's great too. Just make sure it's difficult and not able to be trivialized. That alone is my biggest fear.
I still don't know how you can set an 'upper bound of people that can engage' without using instances or some strange mechanic though. Anyway, this thread is really supposed to be about coming up with alternatives to raiding.
It is but it's so gone of the rails from that lol. Considering I titled it as end game discussion I fully expected it to involve anything pertaining to end game just didn't expect so much focus on raiding and loot.
@JDNight - I understand what you are saying concerning the raid sizes and wanting to bring everyone. I can even agree with it. But is it the same when an encounter is designed for a set number of people and you bring 10+ extra? Is that not taking away from the design? I don't know about you but when I played EQ as a kid, I got that envious feeling seeing people ahead of me early on. Looking at gear and making me want to get better to see that content myself and obtain that gear. It was a reason to better myself. Making that a trivial factor promotes what I call laziness. It makes it so that peope don't even have to try, just throw more bodies at it and eventually it falls. That's not the type of people I want in a group much less a raid. EQ was great because it was brutal and unforgiving, not because it was ahead of its time imo.
Also, everyone knows we can't stop RMT. It's impossible. But that doesn't mean we should give it more of a leg to stand on or promote it. Saying that just because it can't be stopped 100% we should give up is again, the lazy way out.
Enitzu said:@JDNight - I understand what you are saying concerning the raid sizes and wanting to bring everyone. I can even agree with it. But is it the same when an encounter is designed for a set number of people and you bring 10+ extra? Is that not taking away from the design? I don't know about you but when I played EQ as a kid, I got that envious feeling seeing people ahead of me early on. Looking at gear and making me want to get better to see that content myself and obtain that gear. It was a reason to better myself. Making that a trivial factor promotes what I call laziness. It makes it so that peope don't even have to try, just throw more bodies at it and eventually it falls. That's not the type of people I want in a group much less a raid. EQ was great because it was brutal and unforgiving, not because it was ahead of its time imo.
I agree 100% with your thoughts about wanting to be better to get the awesome gear you saw others running around in. But that is part of my point as well. You can use 50 people to help trivialize a 30 person raid (although in old EQ sometimes it didn't lol), but then the one good piece that drops will be split 50 ways, rather than 30. There is incentive to do raids with less people. It is my hope there are many ways to acquire gear, including many different raid areas and many, many bosses. The best way to ensure you get a drop, would be to run a raid with the fewest people. However, for those that just want to finish a raid, not neccessarily get the gear, they can use bigger numbers.
Imagine for a minute, there is a boss that drops one good item. The encounter is made for 36 people. However, someone decides to bring 85 instead. Those 85 people are still going to need a minimum of 2-3 hours to assemble, organize, fight in, spawn and kill the boss. Thats a couple hours wasted for a 1 in 85 shot at an item. And thats assuming the raid succeeds. I remember several pug raids in PoP in which we brought over 120 people and the raid failed anyway. 6 hours wasted to get 2 lower tier items. Odds of getting one: 2 in 120+.
I still think many modern mmos are easier than old school EQ. The agro mechanics in old EQ were a real bear. It really wasn't hard to lose an entire raid (even of 100) due to some players messing up agro. Not only that, but modern mmos have all sorts of special abilities players can use to re-gain agro. Please let PRotF use those old school agro mechanics, or something even deadlier. :)
moszis said:Sicario said:End-game in my opinion, in no particular order, would benefit from consisting of:
- - Group dungeons with differing tiers of difficulty
- - Tiered raids (both in difficulty and number of groups, i.e. 12 man, 18 man, and 24 man raids)
- - Long, epic adventure quests for a variety of items and gear
- - Long, epic crafting quests
- - Crafting
- - High-level events that are community/GM/dev driven that occur in both low-level and high-level zones
This sounds good to me. The only thing I would add is "Long, epic, cross discipline, multitier (many stages of different disciplines and rewards) quests". Essentially what I want are quest lines that combine all you have listed together for best rewards in the game. In my opinion people that "hate raiding", dont really hate raiding, they just hate raiding non-stop, almost every day of the week because thats the only viable end-game. If there are raids sprinkled throughout a month(s) long quest line, it would be enjoyable to all. Ability to access a raid, should feel like a reward of its own. Raids should not be a daily grind like they have become.
Having epic quests that span a variety of content is a great idea and I hope to see quite a few of these quests in the game.
There's been a lot of discussion about epic quests, and that's got me thinking about quests in general. I think quests should be a huge part of endgame overall, whether epic or not. I think many MMOs have lost sight of what a "quest" really was.. and the term has become synonymous with "tasks." I think there's a lot of room for difficult quests that take a long time (a couple weeks or a month or whatever) without really having to qualify as epic quests.
Ultimately, though, a healthy mix of variety will be what keeps Pantheon thriving in endgame.
I really like the concept of how spheres were used, or attempted to be used, in Vanguard.
But first, I believe character progression is extra important when discussing end game content because if you are no longer progressing internally then you are basically left with progressing story and/or your items. And I'd bet money on most ppl preferring to progress their items than to progress storyline. (this is where a lot of the challenge comes into play for designing end game content because once the team begins to focus heavily on loot it gets hard to create content that is fun for the players that also doesn't put them on the proverbial hamster loot wheel) So creating numerous ways to progress your character after you reached max level is paramount. This can be done with AAs, creating multiple activities for us to do such as crafting/a much more complex fishing system/a more complex cooking system/diplomacy a'la VG or some form of card game or TCG/etc.
VG used spheres and I love the concept. Say if we simply just rip the spheres from VG and created PRF with them we'd then have the 3 spheres; adventuring/crafting/diplomacy. I'd like more than 3 but for the sake of this discussion... I also liked what they attempted to do where you could level any sphere individually to max level without having to step foot in the others. You could craft to max with never adventuring 1 level, you could diplo to max without crafting or adventuring a single day, etc. BUT there wasn't necessarily a whole lot for you to do with these if you didn't level your adventuring so that sort of defeated the purpose.
What I'd like to see in PRF are these spheres and the ability to level any of them to max without ever having to level any of the others. You could craft to max level without ever fighting in a single group and still have a game to play with enough content to love. BUT the game would obviously be developed for a crafter to benefit greatly from adventuring with high level groups so leveling multiple spheres would have benefit. Now, to end game content, end game is usually considered once a player reaches max level in adventuring. You can already see how using these spheres in this manner would open up 'end game' content because it already shifts the focus away from having to level adventuring to max.
But what I'd like to see is a system that opens up NEW spheres upon maxing out the primary spheres and we can work in AAs this way too. For example, once you max out any of your individual spheres you then open up the AAs for that particular sphere. So once you max out crafting then you open up the AAs that deal with crafting. Max out adventuring and open up the adventuring AAs. Etc etc.
But you can also take it a step further with combos. Once you max out your levels in the spheres for adventuring and crafting you open up the GROUP crafting sphere. You then would have to find other players who have maxed out these same spheres before you can join a group with them and begin leveling anew in your group crafting sphere. Group crafting allows for much larger projects to be developed such as large buildings, large boats, large objects of whatever.
Max out adventure and diplo spheres and open up an advanced section for group abilities that you could start to progress forward.
Max out crafting and diplo and you open up pvp diplomacy where you can play your cards against other real players.
I'd like to see at least 4 spheres. Adventuring/crafting/TCG or some version of a cardgame/cooking. I'd really like to see cooking become more complex and not an after thought from crafting. Make a good fun complex fishing game. Make getting mats for cooking more involving like the fresher the product the better the meal, meaning you have to obtain fresh produce and also sell it rather quickly or it will spoil. Create an atmostphere where if you are getting mats for your recipes but are taking an entire group to massacre a pig then you might not get the meat you wanted. Farming and getting meats in a more secure fashion as to not destory the product. It doesn't have to be super complex or super nerdy but just make it more involving.Make different cooking games and make them in depth.
Just my $.02
When considering raids and end game loot, I'd love to see really hard single group content with decent stats when compared to raid gear. But shouldn't a deity/god/dragon/boss that requires an army to defeat possess much more powerful items than a being that only requires a single group?? The hardest single group boss should have comparable items to maybe low level raid bosses but the most difficult raid bosses should have the best gear in the game by a decent amount, I mean they require an army functioning at their highest ability to defeat them. BUT these gods should also drop a lot of materials for crafters to use to create just as powerful items that drop from that same boss in order to allow players who may not be able to raid as much, if at all, a chance to obtain some powerful items. They should drop weapons and gear for the players who are there but should also drop some source materials for crafters to create relics and items from their essence to be able to give to others.
Enitzu said:@Kilsin - We all know that raiding won't be a primary focus of the game. Using the numbers given in the stream, 60% group, 20% raid, 20% solo type thing, that still points to the end game being semi raid heavy. Since the entire 1-50 process is a group gameplay then it would make up the bulk of the game. Raiding, while it can be done in the early levels and generally is fun when it is, is normally mostly a max level thing. So even 10% of the game being raiding is a lot for the most part. If you guys decide that you want to focus more on small group gameplay that's great too. Just make sure it's difficult and not able to be trivialized. That alone is my biggest fear.
Those numbers were very rough ballpark figures given on the spot, they are not something to use as a solid point of reference man. We have an updated FAQ coming out soon that addresses many questions, including this one so stay tuned for its release.
There are many more factors which you are not considering, one of which being the Progeny system and what we have in mind for it, which will effect "end game", so this discussion can't really be fully judged until we release more information on it and other supporting systems.
We will make it fun, challenging and enjoyable my friend, there will be a few options for everyone and raiding will be something that will test the skills of everyone involved ;)
I am hyped about not needing to raid at high levels. I really don't like raiding because it's hard to feel like a hero when you are just a small cog in a big raid machinery. That being said i think the end game of pantheon *will* be raid heavy unless you take some serious measures against it. My reasoning:
* People just expect to raid at end game. So the small raid content will be exhausted pretty quickly and the player base will cry for more. At that point the devs will probably cave in.
* If you desing really really hard group content in an open world, what will you do to prevent people simply doing a mini raid on that target? Even if the formal raid mechanic wont work on those targets people can still bring multiple groups, in effect making their own raid mechanics. And people will totally do that.
So in order to have valuable single group content at end game you have to somehow forcefully limit the number of players at that target. How if not with instances? I hope you have some ideas.
Humperding said:I am hyped about not needing to raid at high levels. I really don't like raiding because it's hard to feel like a hero when you are just a small cog in a big raid machinery. That being said i think the end game of pantheon *will* be raid heavy unless you take some serious measures against it. My reasoning:
* People just expect to raid at end game. So the small raid content will be exhausted pretty quickly and the player base will cry for more. At that point the devs will probably cave in.
* If you desing really really hard group content in an open world, what will you do to prevent people simply doing a mini raid on that target? Even if the formal raid mechanic wont work on those targets people can still bring multiple groups, in effect making their own raid mechanics. And people will totally do that.
So in order to have valuable single group content at end game you have to somehow forcefully limit the number of players at that target. How if not with instances? I hope you have some ideas.
* What about the players that enjoy raiding because they get to feel like a big cog (or hero) in the raid machinery such as the raid leader, main tank, top DPS, main healer, invaluable off-tank, skilled kiter, clutch mezzer, etc?
* Better yet, why couldn't the entire raid feel like heroes? Killing a raid boss is considered an achievement and ALL players who participate in the raid get to share in the achievement. I've been a part of many raid kills and it always feels like an accomplishment for the entire raid. Sure, the top DPS or healer might get some special recognition ... so what? Everybody gets a participation trophy.
* I do expect to raid at end game, and since Pantheon is going to be the best game ever, I also expect a suite of other end-game content that delves into questing, small to medium size dungeons, crafting, a portion of the "Rites of Passage" to be tied into difficult solo mechanics, and whatever the Progeny System has in store for us.
* I'm not sure why people who want more content of any kind need to be associated with crying babies; I have literally never cried when I ran out of Christmas Ale, my favorite beer that's only brewed and sold in the winter time. I do however settle to drink other types of beer that are available year-round.
* How about locking encounters to the group that engages them? If a raid engages an encounter designed for a group, it becomes gray and voids out any chance of dropping loot or rewarding faction.
* When it comes to raiding, how about implementing variables into the aggro/debuff mechanics if there are more than X amount of players in the raid? Let's say raids are designed for 24 players. If someone tries to raid with 25, the raid mob becomes enraged, rendering it "untauntable" and an aura that grants a 50% reduction to all debuffs. To prevent raid parties from griefing each other, you can simply "lock" the encounter to a single raid.
JDNight said:Instancing...
The reason Archaen brought this up is because he is correct in his ascertation that many of you are talking about instancing and don't even know it. 24-man raids. 6-man content. How can you enforce this without instancing? Otherwise I am going to bring my 9 other friends.
I don't really feel like respond to this thread as a whole anymore, however, this is not true at all.
It is very simple to facilitate raid caps outside of instances. How? Encounter locking. EQ2 and Vanguard stand as testaments to its effectiveness and how rich open world content was in both of those games.
oneADseven said:* How about locking encounters to the group that engages them? If a raid engages an encounter designed for a group, it becomes gray and voids out any chance of dropping loot or rewarding faction.
This goes right along with instancing and it's something most have strongly fought against. Personally it would be prefered imo over instancing but it would still result in the 'whoever gets first hit' style of camping when it came to long spawn timed targets. I'd much prefer this to FFA though.
AA's
There's been a lot of talk in many threads about AA's and the possibility of them. I've been against AA's as a launch option but after thinking about it I think there's a way to do it that would actually work in providing more content and giving us a means of alternate progression.
How about instead of having AA's in the traditional EQ sense, experience earned and put towards points, we tie it into an achievement/RoP type system? Let me explain here.
Let's say throughout the entire game there are a list of achievements, you can view them at any time, and for each of these completed achievements you are given 1 particular AA point. Just some random examples -
Kill 1000 Orcs - +10 STR
Kill 1000 Goblins - +10 DEX
Kill X, Y, Z Named mobs - + Melee Dmg Reduction (Mobs being end bosses of dungeons or maybe all named in a specific dungeon)
Complete 50 Quests - +10 CHA
Collect 20 Relics - + Mana/Stamina Regen
Doesn't have to be these things per say but the general concept of it. Give people a reason to do all of the content in the game even after they out level it. Make things difficult to get the better AA's. They don't have to be small tasks. Hell the better the AA the more it should take to get it. But this way it's something we can work on from day 1 to better the character and it can always be added to. The same principles can be used for crafting/gathering/etc traits. It works like an achievement system but gives us a reason to go out of our way and ensures that all content in the game will be experienced and not just passed over.
Each could have "tiers" for the relevant ones. Once the Kill 1000 Orcs is done you move on to Kill 2500 Orcs then 5000 then 10000.
Just a different way of thinking about keeping content relevant rather than just adding an XP bar once you hit cap that translates into selecting which AA's you want to put points into. This could also be something that transfers over to the Progeny giving them a small benefit while leveling and even allowing them to continue progressing their AA at relevant levels without really giving a significant bonus to progeny characters. Maybe even add an AA that gives increased xp gains for each time you cap a progeny character (to a cap of course, maybe 7% first one, 15% second, 25% third and final).
@Enitzu
I don't really consider encounter locking to be at all comparable to instancing. The problem with instancing is that it fragments the world and ultimately removes players from the persistent world and instead creates small pockets of isolation. At least, that's the most common argument I hear. If you're in the raid that does 51% and you kill the boss, the mob is practically "locked" to your raid anyway.
Enitzu said:oneADseven said:* How about locking encounters to the group that engages them? If a raid engages an encounter designed for a group, it becomes gray and voids out any chance of dropping loot or rewarding faction.
This goes right along with instancing and it's something most have strongly fought against. Personally it would be prefered imo over instancing but it would still result in the 'whoever gets first hit' style of camping when it came to long spawn timed targets. I'd much prefer this to FFA though.
AA's
There's been a lot of talk in many threads about AA's and the possibility of them. I've been against AA's as a launch option but after thinking about it I think there's a way to do it that would actually work in providing more content and giving us a means of alternate progression.
How about instead of having AA's in the traditional EQ sense, experience earned and put towards points, we tie it into an achievement/RoP type system? Let me explain here.
Let's say throughout the entire game there are a list of achievements, you can view them at any time, and for each of these completed achievements you are given 1 particular AA point. Just some random examples -
Kill 1000 Orcs - +10 STR
Kill 1000 Goblins - +10 DEX
Kill X, Y, Z Named mobs - + Melee Dmg Reduction (Mobs being end bosses of dungeons or maybe all named in a specific dungeon)
Complete 50 Quests - +10 CHA
Collect 20 Relics - + Mana/Stamina RegenDoesn't have to be these things per say but the general concept of it. Give people a reason to do all of the content in the game even after they out level it. Make things difficult to get the better AA's. They don't have to be small tasks. Hell the better the AA the more it should take to get it. But this way it's something we can work on from day 1 to better the character and it can always be added to. The same principles can be used for crafting/gathering/etc traits. It works like an achievement system but gives us a reason to go out of our way and ensures that all content in the game will be experienced and not just passed over.
Each could have "tiers" for the relevant ones. Once the Kill 1000 Orcs is done you move on to Kill 2500 Orcs then 5000 then 10000.
Just a different way of thinking about keeping content relevant rather than just adding an XP bar once you hit cap that translates into selecting which AA's you want to put points into. This could also be something that transfers over to the Progeny giving them a small benefit while leveling and even allowing them to continue progressing their AA at relevant levels without really giving a significant bonus to progeny characters. Maybe even add an AA that gives increased xp gains for each time you cap a progeny character (to a cap of course, maybe 7% first one, 15% second, 25% third and final).
I have recommend a similar idea in the "What changes players from blasting to max level at launch" thread. The idea was to have an alternate advancement system that cannot be "grinded" out. Here is my quote from the other thread.
"I'm fairly positive that there will be people rushing to level cap on every single server. I don't see anyway round this. The thrill of competition is always going to be a factor when you get a massive amount of people playing a video game together. While some people prefer the social aspect of MMO's, many others prefer the challenge, and most people will assume that end-game content is going to be the most challenging. I think there should be a lot of emphasis on making the entire game challenging. I want there to be mini epic quests around level 35 that are a real PITA to get done. Combine things like this with tons of optional advancement opportunities that can make a character more "dynamic" and people will realize that getting to level 50 isn't quite the same accomplishment as being a well-versed dynamic level 50.
I have mentioned in various other posts that I think an AA system at launch would be a great way to keep players engaged with current tier content much much longer. You can't grind the AA's out, rather, you can only earn XP toward AA points by visiting new locations, completing level-appropriate quests, or for the first time you kill a unique named mob. This ensures the idea that players have no choice but to experience as much content as possible in order to unlock the true potential of their characters. The interesting dynamic here is that when it comes to the final leg of the AA tree (They become increasingly more difficult to obtain the further you get into the tree), players might actively seek out other classes to help THEM with THEIR unique quests. I can see it now ... a dire lord asking in community chat if there are any enchanters working on an enchanter specific timeline. The direlord is actively seeking out enchanters to help THEM on THEIR quest because they are a means to an end for him being able to kill the unique named from those quests or be able to travel to a unique location. The enchanter wins because he's getting help without having to beg, and the direlord wins because he's experiencing content that he otherwise would not have been able to. It's a double whammy and both parties win."
The theory behind all of this is to reward players for experiencing as much content as possible. The more unique names they kill, the more level appropriate quests they complete, and the more areas they travel (can even make it the bottom of dungeons) the more "dynamic" they become. This ensures that when a player get's to level 50, they have more forms of progression than just acquiring the best loot. They will actively seek out new areas to explore and be more open to helping other adventurers with their quests even if they don't have the quest themselves. Pantheon is going to be a group-centric game and I think incentives like this could help reinforce the mentality that helping others can also indirectly help yourself, even if it's on a much smaller scale. By restricting these AA XP gains to being "level appropriate" it also adds an interesting spin to the Progeny system. This idea is to prevent level 50's from going to level 20 dungeons just to clear out all the names/quests for AA XP. Rather, they load up their Progeny character and try to complete any content they missed on their first run on their now level-appropriate Progeny character.
Liav said:@Enitzu
I don't really consider encounter locking to be at all comparable to instancing. The problem with instancing is that it fragments the world and ultimately removes players from the persistent world and instead creates small pockets of isolation. At least, that's the most common argument I hear. If you're in the raid that does 51% and you kill the boss, the mob is practically "locked" to your raid anyway.
I agree with you. However, with locking, you could be in the 24 man raid attempting a boss and actually get a shot. Without locking that same 24 man raid could engage a boss and have 50+ people show up and take it. Nothing you could do about it in that situation. Which is the reason I prefer locking. Especially if there will be no cap on raid sizes or an abnormally high cap
oneADseven said:I have recommend a similar idea in the "What changes players from blasting to max level at launch" thread. The idea was to have an alternate advancement system that cannot be "grinded" out. Here is my quote from the other thread.
We agree on most points but I don't think they should provide "experience" towards the point. I think points should be locked to each achievement. If not then people will do the easiest ones and pick up just the things they want rather than putting in the extra effort for the later tiers. I also don't think things should be locked to certain level ranges. Everyone should be able to fully complete it all without having to progeny if they dont want to. But give progenies a bonus in their own right.
Enitzu said:oneADseven said:I have recommend a similar idea in the "What changes players from blasting to max level at launch" thread. The idea was to have an alternate advancement system that cannot be "grinded" out. Here is my quote from the other thread.
We agree on most points but I don't think they should provide "experience" towards the point. I think points should be locked to each achievement. If not then people will do the easiest ones and pick up just the things they want rather than putting in the extra effort for the later tiers. I also don't think things should be locked to certain level ranges. Everyone should be able to fully complete it all without having to progeny if they dont want to. But give progenies a bonus in their own right.
Wouldn't this same problem still exist using an achievement system like you recommended? If I get +10 STR for killing 1,000 orcs and +10 INT for killing 1,000 skeletons, if I'm the tank leading the group, we're going to an orc camp. I can still pick and choose which bonuses I want to achieve and it could create conflict when deciding where to go. I don't see how someone could just "pick" the easy AA points with the system I recommended because acquiring each skill point would have it's own unique sense of progression. You can't keep doing the same content over and over if you want to build your AA's. You have no choice but to diversify your adventuring pattern if you want to finish out your AA tree.
As far as the level range lock, something like this would be necessary. Otherwise everybody will just blast to level 50, skipping every quest they can, only to go back and redo those quests when they are easy and trivial. Or something I would do which is even worse ... complete every quest up until the very end where you turn them in. As soon as the AA system unlocks, run around the entire world and turn in your 100 quests. Locking them to a level range ensures that doesen't happen. Ideally, everyone would still be able to fully complete the tree even without having to use Progeny, but it will become increasingly harder because there is only so much level 50 content. At some point, it might be easier to just roll your Progeny and redo all of the lower level zones to earn the AA XP for the first kill on each unique named, and for completing any quests you may have missed on the first run. It's not "forcing" people to do anything. I just prefer a system where people complete the content while it's level appropriate in order to advance through the AA trees. Otherwise, they will just work on quests while they are max level, only to "mentor down" before turn in. That's basically exploiting the system and shouldn't be allowed.