This issue has been mentionned in various ways in threads discussing instanced vs non instanced raid content .
Yesterday a friend I have been playing with on the EQ TLP server Lockjaw (we both already left) made me aware of something worrying .
There is a Guild recruiting for Pantheon and I did meet this Guild on Lockjaw - Faceless Insanity . I would add that the name is fitting, they were indeed both faceless and insane in a way . They simply strangled and destroyed the server (today Lockjaw is on the way to become a ghost town) by KSing, monopolizing content and preventing other Guilds to access raid targets . What they did and want to do on Pantheon too, is to create so called static groups . A static group is a premade group which starts playing on Day 1 about 16-20 hours a day (!) with the goal to get to the max level in a few days and then to start monopolizing loot and raid content .
An example of their recruitement board for Pantheon :)
Candidate : What is your estimated play time during the weeks immediately following Pantheon launch?
I plan to play 40-50 hours per week for the first two weeks.Guild : Denied . Your playtime at launch is a bit low for us.
Now I have always been convinced that in non instanced environnement ALWAYS appears a very small minority of players who have the potential and the will to destroy the game enjoyment for everybody else . This Guild is just an example proving the point but under the radar there are probably a few others with similar targets . This kind of players doesn't care at all about lore, immersion, exploration or social interaction. They just care about power and competition .
I believe that practically nobody here, me included, cares about the way how other players play to enjoy the game. If somebody wants to play 20h a day to rush to max level and BiS equipment in a minimum of time, if he accepts to be woken up by batphones at insane hours of the night then it is his choice and his health. The problems however start when these players begin to interact destructively with the rest of the community by training, KSing, monopolizing camps, destroying immersion and disrupting raids.
So I hope that if the majority of the content is non instanced, the Pantheon team will give a thought to how to handle this kind of harmful minorities because it is now sure that they will exist already on Day 1 .
I've read that Pantheon will dynamically create new shards if overpopulation reaches a certain limit on one. so this might mitigate the issue of players "camping" content. However, I don't know if players will be able to actively switch between shards to avoid campers. Also, actively switching shards would allow such campers to spread between them as they are created, which would defeat the purpose. When I played Runes of Magic, the game had up to 4 channels per zone that you could switch between at will. This sometimes helped you avoid crowded areas or find certain bosses on timed spawns, but on the other hand it promoted individual players or groups cycling through all the channels to grab said spawns the minute they came up.
In the end I think this will have to be addressed as a potential harassment/grief play issue. Pantheon should have a clear policy regarding these, similarly to what I think should happen on the subject of exploits. Players engaging in this behaviour should be liable to sanctions. Other than this, potential solutions might include making especially sought-after content instanced, or scaling it to the number of players involved and splitting possible rewards equally among all players taking part in the action.
Longshanks thinks why cant there just be some kind of timmer on the players ... like lockjaw spawns said group kills loots raid done high fives every one... fist pump o yah....
then lackjaws back up 16 hours later but this time the players timmer hasent expired and its greyed out to show they cant engage the fight till the timmer has ran down !!!! easy as pie ...
or some sort of thing like it seems to me that would slow a campers roll a bit .... im sure they dont want to gimp a player but if said player is purma camping raids chasing other players away then some sort of abuse timmer should be put there ...
Longshanks King of England!!!
It's pretty sad that people can be hell-bent on being so selfish, but there's nothing to say that they'll actually be successful at monopolizing content in Pantheon. EQTLP or P99 are absolutely terrible examples of what Pantheon will be like. Trust me, VR is already incredibly aware of the issue. There will be no instanced content at launch, but they are already working to mitigate the effects of content monopoly. Daemonios pointed out maintaining appropriate server populations, but that is just one of many possible solutions. I'm not going to worry until we actually see that there is a real problem. Currently, there is not - there is only fearmongering. This topic has been beaten to death many times. Maybe even more than any other topic. So it's crazy to think that VR hasn't considered it:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1348/instanced-versus-non-instanced-areas
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2943/my-only-raid-concern
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4343/ideas-for-raid-accessibility-mechanics
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5349/raiding-open-world-instances-amp-zerging
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3785/open-world-raiding-grouping-contested
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2905/non-linear-raiding-is-crucial
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5116/raid-boss-loot-as-it-pertains-to-non-instancing
Bazgrim said:It's pretty sad that people can be hell-bent on being so selfish, but there's nothing to say that they'll actually be successful at monopolizing content in Pantheon. EQTLP or P99 are absolutely terrible examples of what Pantheon will be like. Trust me, VR is already incredibly aware of the issue. There will be no instanced content at launch, but they are already working to mitigate the effects of content monopoly. Daemonios pointed out maintaining appropriate server populations, but that is just one of many possible solutions. I'm not going to worry until we actually see that there is a real problem. Currently, there is not - there is only fearmongering. This topic has been beaten to death many times. Maybe even more than any other topic. So it's crazy to think that VR hasn't considered it:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1348/instanced-versus-non-instanced-areas
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2943/my-only-raid-concern
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4343/ideas-for-raid-accessibility-mechanics
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5349/raiding-open-world-instances-amp-zerging
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3785/open-world-raiding-grouping-contested
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2905/non-linear-raiding-is-crucial
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5116/raid-boss-loot-as-it-pertains-to-non-instancing
To be fair, I think the OP was calling attention specifically to the fact that actual people seem to be organizing in order to actually push this sort of behaviour, so the point isn't simply - or even at all - about instanced vs. non-instanced content. I didn't intend with my reply to pick up that other discussion, I was simply saying that there are ways to fight "campers" without switching from one model to the other.
As Bazgrim said, we just dont know enough about the mechanics at this point to know if these tactics would even be viable. We don't know what systems VR is considering that might make that kind of activity impossible, or at least mitigate it.
It's also very important to point at that Daybreak and Sony before them have pretty much abandoned the notion of managing the community. They simply dont care to spend the resources to do so anymore, and they are just enjoying the relatively low-maintenance trickle of funds that come in. VR is not Daybreak. They love the world they are building and have a very very strong opinion about policing it so that it's an enjoyable experience for all. I would be schocked if VR failed to take action, and seriously hope that if there is a conglomerate that is deliberately denying gameplay options to people just to be asshats that VR will come in and stomp some ****s.
[Edit]
And on that note, game mechanics dont have to be the only means to control this kind of behavior. Proper configuration of analytics should be able to quickly identify people guilty of abuse, particualrly of large-scale abuse. Trending and data analysis should be able to provide the administrators plenty of evidence to observe the guild's actions, and put an end to destructive behavior with relatively low investment of man-hours.
daemonios said:Bazgrim said:It's pretty sad that people can be hell-bent on being so selfish, but there's nothing to say that they'll actually be successful at monopolizing content in Pantheon. EQTLP or P99 are absolutely terrible examples of what Pantheon will be like. Trust me, VR is already incredibly aware of the issue. There will be no instanced content at launch, but they are already working to mitigate the effects of content monopoly. Daemonios pointed out maintaining appropriate server populations, but that is just one of many possible solutions. I'm not going to worry until we actually see that there is a real problem. Currently, there is not - there is only fearmongering. This topic has been beaten to death many times. Maybe even more than any other topic. So it's crazy to think that VR hasn't considered it:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1348/instanced-versus-non-instanced-areas
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2943/my-only-raid-concern
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4343/ideas-for-raid-accessibility-mechanics
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5349/raiding-open-world-instances-amp-zerging
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3785/open-world-raiding-grouping-contested
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2905/non-linear-raiding-is-crucial
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5116/raid-boss-loot-as-it-pertains-to-non-instancing
To be fair, I think the OP was calling attention specifically to the fact that actual people seem to be organizing in order to actually push this sort of behaviour, so the point isn't simply - or even at all - about instanced vs. non-instanced content. I didn't intend with my reply to pick up that other discussion, I was simply saying that there are ways to fight "campers" without switching from one model to the other.
I agree. And that is sad, but not the least bit surprising. I just don't think it's worth worrying about if we already know that VR is actively planning to make it so that they aren't successful at monopolizing content. I could care less if the elitists try as long as long as they're not successful. The OP was just saying that he hopes VR is already thinking about what they can do to combat those that intend to approach Pantheon with this playstyle. I'm simply pointing out the fact that VR is beyond aware of it and is actively taking steps to do what they can do minimize this type of behavior. Brad directly gave some ideas in this video starting at the 37:45 mark.
At this point, I think that's all we can ask for. So I'm not gonna worry about it until we are actually in-game and can see which side is more prepared and successful.
Shards != instances, in order to go from one shard to another you must leave the zone, go to the shard entrance (VG it was the APW doors) and click on what shard you want to go into. There is no moving deep in shard 1 because it is populated then /pick over to a less populated one to get to camp easier.
Also, guilds like Faceless Order's main goal is to be number 1. their for they will want 18-20 hours a day for first week to do that. But that doesn't mean they are a bad guild, will ruin the game etc. If you dont want to go at that pace you dont have to. Find a guild that fits your playstyle and you will be happy.
Retsof said:I understand people who have concern. Instead of having a negative thread though, could you first try messaging guild leader? If not maybe use an interim like Kilsin? Negative posts are contagious and spread quickly is my concern.
Agreed. Not that the OP is intentionally trying to be an alarmist, but being that sort of thing often gets people worked up over nothing. Worrying about something that is out of our control does no one any good. We know VR is aware of it. So all we can do is wait now. It's totally understandable to be sensitive to potential threats of something that you value and are passionate about. But worrying does more harm than good imo.
To be honest I'm not too worried about stuff like this. The devs making Pantheon have been making and playing games for a good long time now. VR has been around the block a few times. Some of them are almost as old as I am.... hehe. They are making the game they want to play. They are not about to let anyone mess it up.
I experience a similar issue in Final Fantasy XI, where players where using specialized software which reactively claimed and efficently killed large scale bosses. They were basicly like a mafia, requesting claim money in order for anyone else to claim any of the really good world content. But if the AI of bosses are variable, then this shouldnt be a problem. Since quality AI will make botting far more difficult.
I've heard a few people ask the devs about this during live streams and they are completely aware of the possibility of this happening. They're going into it with a hopeful attitude and are going to be vigilant and drop the hammer if needed. The fact that people are like this sucks, but that's the risk you take with completely open worlds. We have to have faith in the devs to take care of the situation and the rest is unfortunately out of our control.