Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Live Stream 04/27 - Feedback

    • 159 posts
    April 27, 2017 4:13 PM PDT

    I watched the stream live, had been looking forward all week and was not disappointed (except maybe that it was relatively short, but we'll have another session next week). I do have some impressions that I'd like to discuss.

    1. The good

    Graphics and animations. While this may be my subjective feeling, I thought there was great improvement. The new people on the animation team made a ton of difference, but overall everything from landscapes, character models, lighting, visual effects on skills, etc. looked better to me.

    The monk. I loved watching CohhCarnage go at it with his bare hands, even if he was still training his abilities. Again, the animations looked really good, especially for the revolving kicks.

    Enemy AI. Having mobs sound the alarm and bring their mates to the fight is just so more realistic and exciting than having them engage alone every time. That said, would it be possible to prevent them from doing it, e.g. by sneaking up to them and mezzing them or doing it from range? Can you creep up to them from behind without them noticing you and sounding the alarm, i.e. is there some concept of enemy field of view or is aggro purely based on distance?

    2. The issues (actually just the one issue)

    Combat mechanics. I've already said previously that combat feels a bit static to me so far. All the videos I've watched show the same "pull a few mobs but not too many, mezz a few, tank and spank the others" tactic. I fully realise there may be things going on that I'm not getting from watching the streams, but I see little action once you engage a target. I personally would prefer having to block/dodge/move away from certain attacks such as enemy AoE. I think I saw some tail swipes from the birds early in today's stream, but I didn't notice anyone evading them or if the swipes did damage other than to the tank. Speaking of tanks, I think I only ever saw him tanking one enemy at a time. Is it feasible to tank several, or would the tank be unable to sustain hate from more than one target? Are there mobs that can't be mezzed, and if so, would groups require an off-tank?

    [EDIT] Just noticed I blundered the date, the stream was actually on 04/27/2017, not 28, but I can't edit the thread's title. Oh look, a wild moderator appears and seems to have fixed the title!


    This post was edited by daemonios at April 28, 2017 4:05 AM PDT
    • 839 posts
    April 27, 2017 4:31 PM PDT

    I havent seen the stream yet :(  "patiently" waiting for upload... 

    Re: The guy sounding the alarm... I think you have to try and work out who the mob is who would raise the alarm pre fright and take him down / lock him down asap to prevent it.  But yeah otherwise sneakily pulling around the alarm raiser and breaking the spawn up so he/she isnt alerted until there are fewer friends would be the alternative way.

    I think i remember someone mentioning these tactics in a previous stream...

     


    This post was edited by Hokanu at April 27, 2017 4:33 PM PDT
    • 483 posts
    April 27, 2017 4:37 PM PDT

    I doubt they'll change the combat mechanics, and make it more heavy on dodges,evades and rolls, that's action combat-ish similar to wow, and they're not going for that type style.

    Stream was great, wanna see the reckless magician in the next one, super excited.

    • 780 posts
    April 27, 2017 4:48 PM PDT

    daemonios said:

    I watched the stream live, had been looking forward all week and was not disappointed (except maybe that it was relatively short, but we'll have another session next week). I do have some impressions that I'd like to discuss.

    1. The good

    Graphics and animations. While this may be my subjective feeling, I thought there was great improvement. The new people on the animation team made a ton of difference, but overall everything from landscapes, character models, lighting, visual effects on skills, etc. looked better to me.

    The monk. I loved watching CohhCarnage go at it with his bare hands, even if he was still training his abilities. Again, the animations looked really good, especially for the revolving kicks.

    Enemy AI. Having mobs sound the alarm and bring their mates to the fight is just so more realistic and exciting than having them engage alone every time. That said, would it be possible to prevent them from doing it, e.g. by sneaking up to them and mezzing them or doing it from range? Can you creep up to them from behind without them noticing you and sounding the alarm, i.e. is there some concept of enemy field of view or is aggro purely based on distance?

    2. The issues (actually just the one issue)

    Combat mechanics. I've already said previously that combat feels a bit static to me so far. All the videos I've watched show the same "pull a few mobs but not too many, mezz a few, tank and spank the others" tactic. I fully realise there may be things going on that I'm not getting from watching the streams, but I see little action once you engage a target. I personally would prefer having to block/dodge/move away from certain attacks such as enemy AoE. I think I saw some tail swipes from the birds early in today's stream, but I didn't notice anyone evading them or if the swipes did damage other than to the tank. Speaking of tanks, I think I only ever saw him tanking one enemy at a time. Is it feasible to tank several, or would the tank be unable to sustain hate from more than one target? Are there mobs that can't be mezzed, and if so, would groups require an off-tank?

     

    I'm actually hoping to avoid that type of combat here, and I think they've promised we won't have action combat.  I'm also hoping not to see the pack fights to which we've become accustomed.  I want a game where you want to fight one at a time, and where an add is a scary thing.  We saw Aradune off-tank a bit here, but it was one mob, I believe, and it didn't go smoothly.  I definitely agree with your positives, though.  

    • 441 posts
    April 27, 2017 4:49 PM PDT
    • 159 posts
    April 27, 2017 4:57 PM PDT

    Shucklighter said:

    I'm actually hoping to avoid that type of combat here, and I think they've promised we won't have action combat.  I'm also hoping not to see the pack fights to which we've become accustomed.  I want a game where you want to fight one at a time, and where an add is a scary thing.  We saw Aradune off-tank a bit here, but it was one mob, I believe, and it didn't go smoothly.  I definitely agree with your positives, though.  

    OK, I get that some people might prefer a different style of combat. I can live with careful pulls and the like. The thing is that, as shown right now, combat seems as if it will get old, fast. I don't really see anything to keep you on your toes, nothing to react to. Just stand there and have at them, as long as the tank has aggro and adds are mezzed. The one redeeming quality that I've seen mentioned is that mobs will be susceptible to different weapons/spells in different ways, which will force you to change your rotation or even your gear/memorized spells as you get to know their strenghts and weaknesses. But with fights taking a relatively long time even with a 6-man group, I'm concerned about the ammount of time spent standing in one place pressing a couple of keys in sequence.

    • 780 posts
    April 27, 2017 5:29 PM PDT

    daemonios said:

    OK, I get that some people might prefer a different style of combat. I can live with careful pulls and the like. The thing is that, as shown right now, combat seems as if it will get old, fast. I don't really see anything to keep you on your toes, nothing to react to. Just stand there and have at them, as long as the tank has aggro and adds are mezzed. The one redeeming quality that I've seen mentioned is that mobs will be susceptible to different weapons/spells in different ways, which will force you to change your rotation or even your gear/memorized spells as you get to know their strenghts and weaknesses. But with fights taking a relatively long time even with a 6-man group, I'm concerned about the ammount of time spent standing in one place pressing a couple of keys in sequence.

     

    Yeah, that's the kind of stuff I'm excited for...managing the different types of mob AI, changing out spells and gear based on what you're fighting, etc.  It does look like melee will be a bit more active based on what we saw with the Monk kicks working off of each other.  Also, I think Brad said at some point that they do want to have mobs with abilities that you'll want to 'dodge', but it sounded more like 'don't stand in the fire' kind of stuff than twitchy dodging.

    • 25 posts
    April 27, 2017 5:34 PM PDT

     

    Yeah, that's the kind of stuff I'm excited for...managing the different types of mob AI, changing out spells and gear based on what you're fighting, etc.  It does look like melee will be a bit more active based on what we saw with the Monk kicks working off of each other.  Also, I think Brad said at some point that they do want to have mobs with abilities that you'll want to 'dodge', but it sounded more like 'don't stand in the fire' kind of stuff than twitchy dodging.

    If you played Everquest, you should know that fight difficulties aren't really in the visual, but you can clearly see that it's difficult as they had issue replying to questions while fighting.

    I saw the wizard pick the aggro a couple times, CCing was an issue at many moments.. healing just as a shaman was doable but it had limitation. 

    The game is really much like everquest 1 and I'm happy about it. I don't think they want players to do complicated rotation of skill where each individual are focused on themself and their abilities but more aware of their surrounding and friends actions.

    • 780 posts
    April 27, 2017 6:02 PM PDT

    Meldor said:

    If you played Everquest, you should know that fight difficulties aren't really in the visual, but you can clearly see that it's difficult as they had issue replying to questions while fighting.

    I saw the wizard pick the aggro a couple times, CCing was an issue at many moments.. healing just as a shaman was doable but it had limitation. 

    The game is really much like everquest 1 and I'm happy about it. I don't think they want players to do complicated rotation of skill where each individual are focused on themself and their abilities but more aware of their surrounding and friends actions.

     

    Yes, exactly.  Loved seeing how much of an issue wizard aggro was.  It looked like the root aggro was so strong that mobs kept facing Zynxs for a few seconds even when other players were meleeing them from behind?  Unless PRF root doesn't allow mobs/players to change their heading while rooted.

    • 542 posts
    April 27, 2017 6:08 PM PDT

    I love the combat the way it is. It demands involvement and positioning.Going over some tactics before engaging as you have a chance an alarmist will call the whole camp on you.

    Also Meldor makes an excellent point about the focus shift from individual to an awarenes of the surroundings and friends actions. So in my opinion they are on the right track when it comes to combat mechanics

    • 839 posts
    April 27, 2017 6:29 PM PDT

    Nanfoodle said:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYVDrfR6ZsM

     

    Why wait

    Thanks Nan!

    • 1714 posts
    April 27, 2017 6:36 PM PDT

    Fluffy said:

    I love the combat the way it is. It demands involvement and positioning.Going over some tactics before engaging as you have a chance an alarmist will call the whole camp on you.

    Also Meldor makes an excellent point about the focus shift from individual to an awarenes of the surroundings and friends actions. So in my opinion they are on the right track when it comes to combat mechanics

     

    It seems cookie cutter. 

    • 2138 posts
    April 27, 2017 7:08 PM PDT

    Good Camera wotk by Cohh. and I like the fact that basic fights are hard- that all have to concentrate on the one fight until it is over. I would almost tweek it up just a tad.

    I noticed a frosty frame around the UI when Cohh was running accross the bridge? I think that is a bit too "fourth wall"-ish for me. I wonder if it can be changed.

    I really like how they made the acclimation concept easy to understand.  For instance, I could intuitively see the need for heat acclimation on feet and hands and toxic on face if walking into a volcano to smith, or something, and I think the atsmosphere cues will be simple enough to understand what you need while at the same time adding the complex issue of acclimation. I could see  expansions, say, where one would need three or more acclimation - potions was it?- for each body part. This  is really cool

    Plus they mentioned that those acclimation potions would need to be quested and maybe some crafted so to my mind that means if I see that forge in amberfeat for instance, but I am not heat acclimanted, I would understand I need to go way the hekk over to some other part of the world to GET acclimated and then come BACK to amberfaet to use that forge.

    and that could take RL years- heh, ok maybe months- depending if I had a good group or many friends that were on at the same time and interested in traveling to the hot area, perhaps through or by evil dark Myr town! for which it might seem prudent to stay a while to make some merchant faction, at least. 

     

    • 780 posts
    April 27, 2017 7:22 PM PDT

    Yeah, I didn't really care for the ice on the screen, either, but it seems like a lot of people are into it.

    • 1714 posts
    April 27, 2017 7:31 PM PDT

    daemonios said:

    I watched the stream live, had been looking forward all week and was not disappointed (except maybe that it was relatively short, but we'll have another session next week). I do have some impressions that I'd like to discuss.

    1. The good

    Graphics and animations. While this may be my subjective feeling, I thought there was great improvement. The new people on the animation team made a ton of difference, but overall everything from landscapes, character models, lighting, visual effects on skills, etc. looked better to me.

    The monk. I loved watching CohhCarnage go at it with his bare hands, even if he was still training his abilities. Again, the animations looked really good, especially for the revolving kicks.

    Enemy AI. Having mobs sound the alarm and bring their mates to the fight is just so more realistic and exciting than having them engage alone every time. That said, would it be possible to prevent them from doing it, e.g. by sneaking up to them and mezzing them or doing it from range? Can you creep up to them from behind without them noticing you and sounding the alarm, i.e. is there some concept of enemy field of view or is aggro purely based on distance?

    2. The issues (actually just the one issue)

    Combat mechanics. I've already said previously that combat feels a bit static to me so far. All the videos I've watched show the same "pull a few mobs but not too many, mezz a few, tank and spank the others" tactic. I fully realise there may be things going on that I'm not getting from watching the streams, but I see little action once you engage a target. I personally would prefer having to block/dodge/move away from certain attacks such as enemy AoE. I think I saw some tail swipes from the birds early in today's stream, but I didn't notice anyone evading them or if the swipes did damage other than to the tank. Speaking of tanks, I think I only ever saw him tanking one enemy at a time. Is it feasible to tank several, or would the tank be unable to sustain hate from more than one target? Are there mobs that can't be mezzed, and if so, would groups require an off-tank?

    [EDIT] Just noticed I blundered the date, the stream was actually on 04/27/2017, not 28, but I can't edit the thread's title.

     

    They are over reaching badly already. It's a joke that they say multiple times that not everyone will use perception, yet it's a way to get quests and /con mobs? They need to consolidate or else this is going to be yet another game that is watered down by huge desires and no backbone. 

    • 1778 posts
    April 27, 2017 7:46 PM PDT

    I dont want acton combat elements added either. That being said I would like some classes to be more involved/complex..... not all. This isnt actiony that im asking for but a deeper experience with extra layers of systems you need to pay attention to.

     

    • 15 posts
    April 27, 2017 7:48 PM PDT

    VR's combat is back to where it takes time to kill something. So much time to kill something that you have to again watch your surroundings for pathing adds to avoid so that your group doesn't wipe. Fighting so long that respawns happen where you are still engaged at and your group wipes to those. Fighting, and someone leads a train of crap through your group and that one guy in your group decides to fire off that AOE right as they are running through the middle of you and it's all over. If there's nobody else around who can revive your group then you start that dungeon crawl all over again because there's no closest teleport point.

    I'll take this over any recently released mmo where every fight is just progressively more boss aoe's to avoid until you get to the end where all you do is run around the whole time.

    Now this is the whole point of the way the combat is. If your group stays together to continue after anything like, or even to pick back up again the next day then that's when it becomes more fun to log into a game to socialize and game with those friends than it is to log into a game to queue into the next dungeon where you speed run it and never say a word to anyone in group.

    • 1434 posts
    April 27, 2017 7:55 PM PDT

    I could see perceptions branching into multiple "fields of study", if you will. They mentioned active and passive I believe. Beyond perception related to your specific class, there could be behavioral perception, combat perception, physical/metaphysical perception, environmental perception, historic perception, ethnological perception, celestial perception. They could really go nuts if someone put the time into the system.

    • 1778 posts
    April 27, 2017 8:00 PM PDT

    Love that Dullahan! Good stuff brother.

     

    • 780 posts
    April 27, 2017 8:06 PM PDT

    Dullahan said:

    I could see perceptions branching into multiple "fields of study", if you will. They mentioned active and passive I believe. Beyond perception related to your specific class, there could be behavioral perception, combat perception, physical/metaphysical perception, environmental perception, historic perception, ethnological perception, celestial perception. They could really go nuts if someone put the time into the system.

     

    That's an interesting idea for perception.  I'd like to see it be something as big as that, but after seeing how simple Acclimation is, I'm dubious.

    • 15 posts
    April 27, 2017 8:17 PM PDT

    I hope for more work on combat animations than on dance moves. That was nice fluid character movement during the dance that happend at the end of the stream while the combat moves have to come a long way to compare to it.

     

    • 6 posts
    April 27, 2017 8:39 PM PDT

    I’m definitely fascinated about multiple acclimations (“ACC”) in one zone and the possibility of 2 or 3 ACC debuffs sharing the same slot. The gameplay becomes more dynamic if I’m forced to choose what I think is the least negative outcome for the given situation, particularly when PvP confrontation arises.

    Therefore, I’m concerned about if the ACC tab will have a lock option to reconfigure the layout after X amount of time. Otherwise, players can leave the tab open and trigger effects off/on mid encounter. I understand gear swap from a bag, but toggling the ACC to be more efficient seems like playing the UI.

    The ice on the screen reminds me of being drunk in EQ1. You couldn’t remove the blurry screen unless you died or sobered up. I look forward to gradual vision impairing effects that cannot be countered by the gfx settings; unless they are annoying like gravity flux with blind attached in EQ1 Vex’thal.

    • 249 posts
    April 27, 2017 9:08 PM PDT

    I didn't mind the ice. Thought it was kind of cool. As far as combat goes, it seems simple. And it is. But that doesn't mean it's easy or not dangerous. All it takes is one add or one mob with unanticipated ai. If you noticed, the wizzy/rogue could only take a few hits before they were dead. The rogues cc wasn't a 100% chance mez and it took 3/4 of his Mana to use it so he only had one shot. It failed twice that I saw. If the wizzy root failed they would've been in trouble. And they did get into trouble a few times. So you may not be dodging dipping ducking diving and dodging...but it's still exciting! 

    • 279 posts
    April 27, 2017 9:28 PM PDT

    Excellent stream with great progress showing.

    Didn't like that like most of the questions were the same questions he asked in the last stream. Maybe a few too many questions interrupting the flow of the presentation as well.

    Looking forward to watching it a few more times.

    • 220 posts
    April 27, 2017 9:43 PM PDT

    Hey if someone can pass this question along to the next stream [VIP or other =)] hopefully Justin will be there next week...

    How many ruined pillars are in South Saol Peninsula? I'm looking for an actual count! lol =) actual question: "What's with all the pillars?"