Liav said:@Crazzie
I get where you're going, but I think you're incorrect.
1. Loaded terminology like the word "rush" undermines this entire discussion.
2. No idea what you mean by this, but it has nothing to do with this thread.
3. Yeah, I do. EQ had respawn timers, spell recast timers, etc. Drawing the line at this particular "timer" is arbitrary.
Early EQ had groups aimed at high efficiency gameplay and frowned upon frequent AFKs. If I form a group with the intent to farm XP efficiently, and one member is constantly taking AFKs, they're getting kicked regardless of if the proposed system is implemented.
Neither World of Warcraft nor RIFT had the mechanic talked about in the OP, so I have no idea why you're even mentioning those games.
There is a sense of being rushed when there's a tangible benefit to doing so beyond just XP. The mention of WoW is actually something that I've also associated with the thread's topic, although you're right that it did not have the XP chain mechanic. It did however have completion bonuses for dungeon runs, and the result was that people got pissed if a group didn't plow thru dungeons (under 20 minutes) in order to accrue as many of the bonuses as possible in a given play window.
Yes, there were groups that would get really frustrated with too many AFKs. This is a social construct, not a game-induced metric.
Yes, there are respawn timers that a group does need to be mindful of in order to not get caught unprepared. However, a group is entirely able to choose how many spawns it's going to try to manage while maintaining both viable xp rates and acceptable danger/safety ratio. They can skip a spawn of trash mobs on a round or several rounds, simply to take the heat off the group for a while and have no feeling that they are missing the chance at a bonus. That feeling inevitably makes some people feel like the group is a bunch of newbs who can't handle playing well, and increases the possibility of group friction.
I like group friction. I like metrics that allow me to hold myself accountable. Like the healer that wants to purge an impairment sooner than later, I like to lead groups that focus on above average XP accumulation. If I had to choose between making grouping with friends more relevant or making PUGS more user-friendly, I'll choose the former every day of the week. As I mentioned previously, the chain feature also made multi-boxing less than ideal. That has been communicated as a goal for Pantheon and I know for a fact that a chaining mechanic would help realize that goal. Effective chaining required all players to be on their toes. It required split second decision making, high attention to detail, and situational awareness. All of those things are difficult to do with multi-boxing and I haven't heard a response yet regarding this very important realization.
I enjoy windows of opportunity that allow players to leverage their skill and experience to achieve small but consistent victories. When I played FFXI, players helping players was contagious. It wasn't a toxic pit of complaining or booting people for underperforming. Players had a vested interest in helping their group mates improve their play as it had a direct impact on what they could accomplish. In games like WoW, it was easy to replace someone. You boot them and the next person in the que appears instantly. In FFXI, it could take an hour just to get to a camp so once you had a group going, you were committed to seeing it through. It always made more sense to try and work with what you had because it just wasn't possible to replace someone on a whim or moment's notice.
I enjoyed that having a high standard was the rule rather than the exception. I have warmed up to the idea of chains being used for more than just XP. Perhaps the reward for a chain could be random, ranging anywhere from a temporary buff, increased gold drop, increased XP, bump to the RNG for rare loot, or a crafting component or consumable dropping. I enjoy features that allow players to influence an outcome, especially when they reward skill, coordination, accuracy, teamwork, etc. I understand that some folks prefer to play at their leisure ... but I like to push the pace and appreciate incentives for doing so. I'm not talking about visual ques that remind of you what is already seemingly obvious, but tangible chunks of progress that recognize that you are going above and beyond, and rewarding you accordingly.
I'm glad this thread has had the opportunity to run it's course, organically, and without intervention. I have conceded my position of trying to sway individual players to buying in. If someone wants to play in a more laid back setting, more power to them. But creating an optional incentive that rewards good behavior doesen't force people into participating. If raiding yields the best gear in the game, players shouldn't feel forced to participate ... unless, of course, they want the best gear in the game. I like to reflect on what defines a hardcore MMO. FFXI stood as such, for me, because the penalty for death was real. Playing at a high level was expected. Risk vs Reward was balanced in such a way that players could truly control their own destiny ... if they wanted to kick back and smell the roses, they were there. If they wanted to push the pace and were able to demonstrate exceptional skill, it was recognized ... consistently, and rewarded accordingly.
Any feature or system (or lack thereof) that tries to make pick up groups more accessible feels like an imposed handicap to me. I don't like the idea of looking at a feature at face value and then evaluating it's effectiveness based on whether or not it will discourage someone to play with a random person. Chaining rewarded people for exceptional teamwork. Can we expect a group full of randoms to display exceptional teamwork? Probably not, but does it hurt in giving them something to strive for? I just look at PUG's as a last resort ... an option available if I can't play with someone I already know and trust. I don't mind bringing in a random and giving them the opportunity to impress. If they fall on their face, not a big deal ... we'll make the most out of the session and hopefully they will learn something. If not, no big deal ... maybe we'll run into each other again, maybe not. If they played exceptionally well then the odds of that happening goes up as I would probably put them on my friend list. But accountability is important. I appreciate information because knowledge is power ... the more accessible the information is, the more capable I am of making an educated decision on how I choose to spend my time, and who I spend it with.
oneADseven said:I like group friction. I like metrics that allow me to hold myself accountable. Like the healer that wants to purge an impairment sooner than later, I like to lead groups that focus on above average XP accumulation. If I had to choose between making grouping with friends more relevant or making PUGS more user-friendly, I'll choose the former every day of the week.
I enjoy windows of opportunity that allow players to leverage their skill and experience to achieve small but consistent victories. When I played FFXI, players helping players was contagious. It wasn't a toxic pit of complaining or booting people for underperforming. Players had a vested interest in helping their group mates improve their play as it had a direct impact on what they could accomplish. In games like WoW, it was easy to replace someone. You boot them and the next person in the que appears instantly. In FFXI, it could take an hour just to get to a camp so once you had a group going, you were committed to seeing it through. It always made more sense to try and work with what you had because it just wasn't possible to replace someone on a whim or moment's notice.
I enjoyed that having a high standard was the rule rather than the exception. I have warmed up to the idea of chains being used for more than just XP. Perhaps the reward for a chain could be random, ranging anywhere from a temporary buff, increased gold drop, increased XP, bump to the RNG for rare loot, or a crafting component or consumable dropping. I enjoy features that allow players to influence an outcome, especially when they reward skill, coordination, accuracy, teamwork, etc. I understand that some folks prefer to play at their leisure ... but I like to push the pace and appreciate incentives for doing so. I'm not talking about visual ques that remind of you what is already seemingly obvious, but tangible chunks of progress that recognize that you are going above and beyond, and rewarding you accordingly.
I'm glad this thread has had the opportunity to run it's course, organically, and without intervention. I have conceded my position of trying to sway individual players to buying in. If someone wants to play in a more laid back setting, more power to them. But creating an optional incentive that rewards good behavior doesen't force people into participating. If raiding yields the best gear in the game, players shouldn't feel forced to participate ... unless, of course, they want the best gear in the game. I like to reflect on what defines a hardcore MMO. FFXI stood as such, for me, because the penalty for death was real. Playing at a high level was expected. Risk vs Reward was balanced in such a way that players could truly control their own destiny ... if they wanted to kick back and smell the roses, they were there. If they wanted to push the pace and were able to demonstrate exceptional skill, it was recognized ... consistently, and rewarded accordingly.
Any feature or system (or lack thereof) that tries to make pick up groups more accessible feels like an imposed handicap to me. I don't like the idea of looking at a feature at face value and then evaluating it's effectiveness based on whether or not it will discourage someone to play with a random person. Chaining rewarded people for exceptional teamwork. Can we expect a group full of randoms to display exceptional teamwork? Probably not, but does it hurt in giving them something to strive for? I just look at PUG's as a last resort ... an option available if I can't play with someone I already know and trust. I don't mind bringing in a random and giving them the opportunity to impress. If they fall on their face, not a big deal ... we'll make the most out of the session and hopefully they will learn something. If not, no big deal ... maybe we'll run into each other again, maybe not. If they played exceptionally well then the odds of that happening goes up as I would probably put them on my friend list. But accountability is important. I appreciate information because knowledge is power ... the more accessible the information is, the more capable I am of making an educated decision on how I choose to spend my time.
That's a huge response to things I didnt say.
I like groups that have a healer that's proactive. I like pullers that keep em coming as fast as he can until someone calls for a rest. I like groups to be as productive as they can be in terms of XP. I like keeping busy, and I like being a group that's interested in making the most out of the time being spent.
To a point.
I don't like groups where no one ever talks at all because as soon as you enter the group because everyone has already started plowing ahead. I don't like it when there's no discussion about tactics, no chatting about game history, no joking around about silly crap, and no getting to know the people around you beyond whether or not they serve their purpose to you.
I never suggested design that by its nature is intended to make things more friendly. I instead suggested that I often don't like designs that by their nature mean to influence the social dynamic of the game. Any system that dangles a carrot before you that requires to you rush or perform a marathon to achieve it alters social dynamics. Negatively IMO.
oneADseven said:Don't worry about it Noobie. I learned an important lesson in this thread; there was a mechanic in FFXI that was well received by it's players. I attempted to share it here but as you mentioned, many folks opposed the idea and they have every right to do that. The reasoning behind the opposition varied ... some folks felt that it wouldn't make a difference ... some felt it would discourage pugs ... some felt it would break immersion ... some felt it was an advantage that mostly benefited skilled players (true) ... some felt it was artificial, arbitrary, or just flat out unneccessary. To that end, I can only say that guilds discourage pugs too. The amount of XP required to "Ding" feels arbitrary and artificial to me. In my 15 years of MMO gaming, neither of those thoughts have ever occured to me until just now.
You can put a negative spin on just about anything. Some people are more sensitive to certain issues than I am, and that's okay. If I had to choose between making grouping with friends more relevant or encouraging PUGS, I would choose the former every day of the week. When it comes to immersion or artificial systems, I always thought that they were just a part of gaming. I never once thought that I wanted to be totally immersed into the game, hoping it would be as realistic as possible. I personally don't mind if there are features that remind me that I'm playing a video game. I do enjoy playing video games after all. Rather than looking at it as a metric than can be used to kick bad players, I used it as a metric to help distinguish good ones and gauge the overall effectiveness of my group. Some folks don't like that because it can lead to setting a standard. I always appreciated high standards, especially when my group could achieve them! It felt quite gratifying.
We all have our own preferences. When it comes to this particular topic, I place a lot of emphasis on a feature that rewards skill and cooperative play. Not everybody is going to agree with that, especially if it comes at the expense of their immersion or potential pick-up groups. It's been a learning experience for sure. I appreciate all of the feedback and comments. I still think it's one hell of a system that compliments the majority of tenets established for this game, and that alone should be significant enough for it to be considered. It was a super engaging combat mechanic that rendered multi-boxing very inefficient for leveling purposes. It added depth ... it added challenge ... it added fun ... it offered a strategic layer to the risk vs reward balance ... it did a lot of things. It may sound like a lame, artificial system in theory ... but in action, it was quite spectacular.
I had a hard time trying to relate to the various issues/concerns that have been presented on this thread because they all felt way off-base relative to how the system actually worked in game. I'm chalking it up as something that might not necessarily sound as good on paper as it feels in real experience. That kind of experience can't possibly be demonstrated (at least by me, I tried) through text communication and it is what it is. Thank you again to everybody that weighed in with their opinion. I particularly enjoyed reminiscing with some of my fellow FFXI veterans.
Out of curiosity, was this mechanic carried over into FF14 or was that game too different in how experience was gained?
I was thinking this in terms of if it had been in EQ then would it have been carried over to EQ2 and I would seriously doubt it. Although mob grinding was definitely the way to gain experience in EQ, it was for the most part worthless to try to experience that way in EQ2. (I say "mostly" because it still had some benefit if you were using a high level character mentored down to power level a low one, pulling full dungeon rooms with a berserker and that sort of thing). But in EQ2 as designed, nearly all your experience came from doing quests, so a mechanic like this would've done very little for most people in that game.
And that makes me think about how much different EQ2 really was from EQ. That's a whole other topic, but really if you just changed the names of the zones and certain NPCs then you'd never guess the two games were related.
Feyshtey said:oneADseven said:SNIP
That's a huge response to things I didnt say.
I like groups that have a healer that's proactive. I like pullers that keep em coming as fast as he can until someone calls for a rest. I like groups to be as productive as they can be in terms of XP. I like keeping busy, and I like being a group that's interested in making the most out of the time being spent.
To a point.
I don't like groups where no one ever talks at all because as soon as you enter the group because everyone has already started plowing ahead. I don't like it when there's no discussion about tactics, no chatting about game history, no joking around about silly crap, and no getting to know the people around you beyond whether or not they serve their purpose to you.
I never suggested design that by its nature is intended to make things more friendly. I instead suggested that I often don't like designs that by their nature mean to influence the social dynamic of the game. Any system that dangles a carrot before you that requires to you rush or perform a marathon to achieve it alters social dynamics. Negatively IMO.
I didn't quote you so I'm not sure why you felt that I was responding to you directly. I even said how I have conceded my position of trying to sway the opinion of any individual. I was simply continuing the dialogue and clarifying my position. You aren't the only person that has shown resilience toward group friction. Several people have made similar comments and I respect that stance. Moving forward, I will make an effort to avoid quoting other players and responding to the issues or problems that they express as I don't want my posts to be misconstrued as an attempt to "win" an argument. You have your opinion and I have mine. There are bound to be disagreements and that's okay. I embrace the fact that no idea will be universally accepted so again, rather than trying to sway you in any way shape or form, I will present my stance and shed light on how I came to whatever conclusion I'm referencing. I do not wish to engage in a debate with you. Feel free to exercise your right to post on here. As you said, silence is consent, and if I see people suggesting that friction is a bad thing I will voice my opposition. But I wasn't opposing you in specific, but rather the idea in general. Sorry if it was interpeted any other way.
@Searril No, the mechanic did not carry over to FFXIV. I believe that FFXIV tried to get away from the hard core MMO type of game to be more like WoW. You could level up efficiently as solo. Dungeon finder and fast travel existed. Progression was dumbed down. The penalty for death was gimped. FFXIV was not like FFXI at all. They took challenge and hardcoreness and turned into easy and casual. Removing XP chains was just one casualty of many in how they did it.
oneADseven said:@Searril No, the mechanic did not carry over to FFXIV. I believe that FFXIV tried to get away from the hard core MMO type of game to be more like WoW. You could level up efficiently as solo. Dungeon finder and fast travel existed. Progression was dumbed down. The penalty for death was gimped. FFXIV was not like FFXI at all. They took challenge and hardcoreness and turned into easy and casual. Removing XP chains was just one casualty of many in how they did it.
Well mostly, but to be fair there were parts of the story chain that required grouping and there was some cool stuff to be had by doing the dungeons. And the dungeons and elementals were definitely harder and more fun than wow. I actually really enjoyed it overall but I was a little disappointed that they didn't carry through skillchains or killchains. They probably didn't have time or budget I guess.
But i'm totally with you on the skillchains. FFXI was a very well thought through game, repleat with danger and difficulty and rewards for risk and teamwork. Number of times we came close to wiping pushing everything to the edge trying to make a skillchain 5. Made killing the million mobs for a level so much more fun.
Searril said:Dullahan said:{snip}
This is also why I don't think we should even see the exact amount of experience we gain each kill to begin with.
You gained party experience. (all we need)
Did EQ give exp numbers? It's been so long I honestly don't even remember.
Not in the early years.
oneADseven said:Tenets this feature compliments:
A commitment to a style of play that focuses on immersive combat, and engaging group mechanics.
An understanding that a truly challenging game is truly rewarding.
An expectation that with greater risk will come greater reward.
An understanding that player involvement is required for progression. All actions (or lack thereof) should have consequences. Positive actions should be rewarded. Apathy or lack of action should not be rewarded with bonuses.
A sincere commitment to creating a world where a focus on cooperative play will attract those seeking a challenge.
A belief that the greatest sense of accomplishment comes when it is shared - and earned.
An assertion that player vs. environment should involve more than NPCs -- Engage the World!
The tenets
As I stated before, chaining can damage content by making you focus on the chain rather than...everything else. This can include gathering materials, adhering to social positives like respecting other's "camps", taking time to plan out individual fights, and making use of the perception system.
I have mentioned briefly that balancing for chaining may be difficult, because different identities can mean being good at different things. If chaining becomes an important part of the game, groups start seeking classes/builds which are naturally better at working with chains. Regeneration and long lasting/easy to use abilities will take the forefront (as opposed to things like burst).
No player should be able to do everything on their own with or without chains.
I feel that safety and getting past the current fight should be the first and foremost focus in a challenging/immersive game. If this is not the case, the challenge and immersiveness comes strictly from the gimmick/chain (whether you get bonuses from it or not), and the strict focus on efficiency, rather than the game itself.
When I say "game" I mean the core features of Pantheon, like individual fights with mobs and the ways you interact with the world. Chaining, to me, can only be described as a very loose interaction with the world, where a number on your screen goes up as you interact with the "efficiently killing mobs" part and literally nothing else. Kudos if all you enjoy is efficiently killing lots of mobs. But for the rest of us, the game should be more than that!
I feel introducing a chaining system promotes the mindset that Pantheon fights will be both easy and repetative(another form of easy since you don't need to react or figure things out) enough that you need a chain to feel the most excitement, even if you want to get excitement from other parts of battle than how many you can kill how fast.
This is important, because from descriptions of ff11 chaining, chaining seems to become such a huge part/goal of general grouping, whether or not you do it well or even want to do it, that you wouldn't even be able to focus on anything else very well at all.
The gimmick was necessary with the old style fighting in ff11. I have my fingers crossed that it isn't in Pantheon
As a side note, I do not consider hard hits and big health bars to be an important or fulfilling part of challenge.
Risk/reward can happen without chaining. I would prefer them to happen because of the core game itself, rather than from weighing the risk/reward between losing your chain/dying because of your chain/maintaining the gains from your chain.
Notice how all of these things focus on the word "chain".
A lot of my argument is whether chaining is really a positive action, as it risks the validity of some tenets, and draws attention away from the game itself.
You are rewarded for doing something difficult with chaining, but I would prefer the difficult thing to be getting past fights in general rather than just how many you can kill how fast.
If you kill a boss you have gear and a dead boss to show for it. If you chain really big you have..leveling faster. Thus, chaining does let you show off a little and possibly makes the game more meaningfull, if meaningfulness to you is killing lots of things really fast and leveling fast. I do not think chaining helps prestige/power because leveling faster can happen whether or not the game has a chain system.
I believe this means having the time to chat with your group/raid/guild/general chat/friends in REGULAR fashion. Conversations work best and feel far more natural when they are regular. Chaining means that if you are playing well you can only talk during that long period of time between chains of really difficult enemies; IF your chat partners are also not focusing on something else during your window of conversation. The conversation becomes far more staggered than it needs to be. You find yourself "catching up" with your friend's statements as you would with posts on a forum you haven't checked in a while.
The value of instant messengers is that they are instant. You will never have instant in the fighting part of a game, but fighting one mob, resting, and fighting another is far closer than fighting 18 mobs, and then resting, finally being allowed to talk beyond giving commands and asking questions related to the current fight. We should not penalize players socially for playing well. We should not make the bad/non chaining players wait until you are done with your huge chain before you can answer a question or toss a buff.
This ties back to my argument that if the inhabitants are intelligent enough, chaining in any reliable manner without luck will be impossible.
If you are chaining you are probably not worrying about faction and alignment, with both players and npcs. Instead you are focusing on keeping that chain going.
Challenge can and should happen without trying to kill as many things as you can as fast as you can (without tactical rests). I believe that taking a tactical rest (be it for meta, conversation, or rl needs) should not be less efficient than choosing to continue fighting, so long as during that short rest you are regenerating something.
Accomplishment/sharing/earning can and should happen with or without trying to kill as many things as you can as fast as you can.
To put it another way, you can feel accomplishment from killing a bunch of things in a row whether or not you got a percentage based xp bonus, if the game is designed well. If there is no bonus, than players who don't feel accomplishment from that don't need worry about falling behind, as many people in this thread seem to.
If that really big chain (number on your screen) is a particularly significant marker of levels, well, we may as well all go start an ff11 nostalgia server.
Chaining is "more than NPC's", but I have already argued that it actually detracts from your ability to engage the World beyond killing mobs fast.
___________________
Chaining can help with several of the tenets, but I feel it is a cheap method to accomplish these things nonetheless.
You also risk some tenets with a chaining system. I believe we should shoot for things that work with ALL of the tenets. Making the fights so difficult and complicated that you can't think about chaining will support all tenets and still provide all of the bonuses of chaining.
If there is a chaining system thrown into the game, fine. But I want it to be THROWN IN; so rare, and so unimportant, that unlike in ff11, it is a pleasant surprise, rather than something you can shoot for (and if something gives a clear meta advantage you will HAVE to shoot for it to be with most other players), and potentially ruin other tenets/parts of the game.
P.S. It may sound as though I have switched over to feeling that experience DOES matter. However, what I meant before is that it doesn't matter if people can pull ahead due to chaining, because the game will be balanced in such away that they can't pull ahead just because of chaining. Experience, or any meta advantage, DOES matter though, because it forces people to consider it. As has been stated, in ff11 every group at least tried to chain, because the experience bonus was enough to be worth their while, and a way they can compete with other players.
BeaverBiscuit said:oneADseven said:Tenets this feature compliments:
A commitment to a style of play that focuses on immersive combat, and engaging group mechanics.
An understanding that a truly challenging game is truly rewarding.
An expectation that with greater risk will come greater reward.
An understanding that player involvement is required for progression. All actions (or lack thereof) should have consequences. Positive actions should be rewarded. Apathy or lack of action should not be rewarded with bonuses.
A sincere commitment to creating a world where a focus on cooperative play will attract those seeking a challenge.
A belief that the greatest sense of accomplishment comes when it is shared - and earned.
An assertion that player vs. environment should involve more than NPCs -- Engage the World!The tenets
- An awareness that content is king.
As I stated before, chaining can damage content by making you focus on the chain rather than...everything else. This can include gathering materials, adhering to social positives like respecting other's "camps", taking time to plan out individual fights, and making use of the perception system.
- A requirement that classes have identities. No single player should be able to do everything on their own.
I have mentioned briefly that balancing for chaining may be difficult, because different identities can mean being good at different things. If chaining becomes an important part of the game, groups start seeking classes/builds which are naturally better at working with chains. Regeneration and long lasting/easy to use abilities will take the forefront (as opposed to things like burst).
No player should be able to do everything on their own with or without chains.
- A commitment to a style of play that focuses on immersive combat, and engaging group mechanics.
I feel that safety and getting past the current fight should be the first and foremost focus in a challenging/immersive game. If this is not the case, the challenge and immersiveness comes strictly from the gimmick/chain (whether you get bonuses from it or not), and the strict focus on efficiency, rather than the game itself.
When I say "game" I mean the core features of Pantheon, like individual fights with mobs and the ways you interact with the world. Chaining, to me, can only be described as a very loose interaction with the world, where a number on your screen goes up as you interact with the efficiently killing mobs part and literally nothing else. Kudos if all you enjoy is efficiently killing lots of mobs. But for the rest of us, the game should be more than that!
- An understanding that a truly challenging game is truly rewarding.
I feel introducing a chaining system promotes the mindset that Pantheon fights will be both easy and repetative(another form of easy since you don't need to react or figure things out) enough that you need a chain to feel the most excitement, even if you want to get excitement from other parts of battle than how many you can kill how fast.
This is important, because from descriptions of ff11 chaining, chaining seems to become such a huge part/goal of general grouping, whether or not you do it well or even want to do it, that you wouldn't even be able to focus on anything else very well at all.
The gimmick was necessary with the old style fighting in ff11. I have my fingers crossed that it isn't in Pantheon
As a side note, I do not consider hard hits and big health bars to be an important or fulfilling part of challenge.
- An expectation that with greater risk will come greater reward.
Risk/reward can happen without chaining. I would prefer them to happen because of the core game itself, rather than from weighing the risk/reward between losing your chain/dying because of your chain/maintaining the gains from your chain.
Notice how all of these things focus on the word "chain".
- An understanding that player involvement is required for progression. All actions (or lack thereof) should have consequences. Positive actions should be rewarded. Apathy or lack of action should not be rewarded with bonuses.
A lot of my argument is whether chaining is really a positive action, as it risks the validity of some tenets, and draws attention away from the game itself.
You are rewarded for doing something difficult with chaining, but I would prefer the difficult thing to be getting past fights in general rather than just how many you can kill how fast.
- A belief that meaningful character progression will always involve a player increasing in both power and prestige.
If you kill a boss you have gear and a dead boss to show for it. If you chain really big you have..leveling faster. Thus, chaining does let you show off a little and possibly makes the game more meaningfull, if meaningfulness to you is killing lots of things really fast and leveling fast. I do not think chaining helps prestige/power because leveling faster can happen whether or not the game has a chain system.
- A mindset that some degree of downtime should be part of a game, ensuring players have time to form important social bonds.
I believe this means having the time to chat with your group/raid/guild/general chat/friends in REGULAR fashion. Conversations work best and feel far more natural when they are regular. Chaining means that if you are playing well you can only talk during that long period of time between chains of really difficult enemies; IF your chat partners are also not focusing on something else during your window of conversation. The conversation becomes far more staggered than it needs to be. You find yourself "catching up" with your friend's statements as you would with posts on a forum you haven't checked in a while.
The value of instant messengers is that they are instant. You will never have instant in the fighting part of a game, but fighting one mob, resting, and fighting another is far closer than fighting 18 mobs, and then resting, finally being allowed to talk beyond giving commands and asking questions related to the current fight. We should not penalize players socially for playing well. We should not make the bad/non chaining players wait until you are done with your huge chain before you can answer a question or toss a buff.
- A belief that an immersive world requires intelligent inhabitants.
This ties back to my argument that if the inhabitants are intelligent enough, chaining in any reliable manner without luck will be impossible.
- An understanding that faction and alignment should be an integral part of interacting with the world and its citizens.
If you are chaining you are probably not worrying about faction and alignment, with both players and npcs. Instead you are focusing on keeping that chain going.
- A sincere commitment to creating a world where a focus on cooperative play will attract those seeking a challenge.
Challenge can and should happen without trying to kill as many things as you can as fast as you can (without tactical rests). I believe that taking a tactical rest (be it for meta, conversation, or rl needs) should not be less efficient than choosing to continue fighting, so long as during that short rest you are regenerating something.
- A belief that the greatest sense of accomplishment comes when it is shared - and earned.
Accomplishment/sharing/earning can and should happen with or without trying to kill as many things as you can as fast as you can.
To put it another way, you can feel accomplishment from killing a bunch of things in a row whether or not you got a percentage based xp bonus, if the game is designed well. If there is no bonus, than players who don't feel accomplishment from that don't need worry about falling behind, as many people in this thread seem to.
- An agreement that player levels should be both meaningful and memorable.
If that really big chain (number on your screen) is a particularly significant marker of levels, well, we may as well all go start an ff11 nostalgia server.
- An assertion that player vs. environment should involve more than NPCs -- Engage the World!
Chaining is "more than NPC's", but I have already argued that it actually detracts from your ability to engage the World beyond killing mobs fast.
___________________
Chaining can help with several of the tenets, but I feel it is a cheap method to accomplish these things nonetheless.
You also risk some tenets with a chaining system. I believe we should shoot for things that work with ALL of the tenets. Making the fights so difficult and complicated that you can't think about chaining will support all tenets and still provide all of the bonuses of chaining.
If there is a chaining system thrown into the game, fine. But I want it to be THROWN IN; so rare, and so unimportant, that unlike in ff11, it is a pleasant surprise, rather than something you can shoot for (and if something gives a clear meta advantage you will HAVE to shoot for it to be with most other players), and potentially ruin other tenets/parts of the game.
P.S. Due to recent posts stating how in ff11 EVERYONE chained, my previous assesment that experience from chaining doesn't matter is false. Clearly it does matter, because it forced every group to at least try to chain, whether or not they were good at it, or wanted to do it.
I am dying here. Chaining disrupts faction and alignment? This is a case of grasping for straws if I have ever seen one. Thanks for taking the time to demonstrate how chaining would go against every tenet in the game. It was a good laugh. Laughing is healthy. Thank you for that. I wonder what list of tenets FFXI operated from ... it must have been really small if they managed to utilize chaining to great effect without breaking the rest of the game.
oneADseven said:I am dying here. Chaining disrupts faction and alignment? This is a case of grasping for straws if I have ever seen one. Thanks for taking the time to demonstrate how chaining would go against every tenet in the game. It was a good laugh. Laughing is healthy. Thank you for that. I wonder what tenets FFXI operated from ... it must have been really small if they managed to utilize chaining to great effect without breaking the rest of the game.
You stated that chaining benefits several tenets (almost all), I say chaining doesnt benefit several tenets, and doesnt benefit the others in any way that couldn't be accomplished by other means (other means which I prefer to chaining because I feel they improve the game itself without using what I consider a gimmick).
As for chaining disrupting faction and alignment, if you are chaining you may want to kill everything in a room. You may steal from other players (player to player faction), and you may just kill the things that otherwise would have positive faction with you for the sake of the chain (npc allignment). It's not that this alone proves that chaining is bad, or that chaining flat out breaks this tenet. It's that it is part of a much bigger picture. One straw can't hold your weight, several can.
The same sort of bigger picture you painted when you said chaining helps all of those tenets. Alone they aren't worth much, together all of those tenet interactions are.
Again, take a step back and breath. Realize that when people argue against you they are doing so in the same way you are arguing against them.
Thank you for taking the time to demonstrate how chaining benefits almost every tenet in the game.
BeaverBiscuit said:oneADseven said:I am dying here. Chaining disrupts faction and alignment? This is a case of grasping for straws if I have ever seen one. Thanks for taking the time to demonstrate how chaining would go against every tenet in the game. It was a good laugh. Laughing is healthy. Thank you for that. I wonder what tenets FFXI operated from ... it must have been really small if they managed to utilize chaining to great effect without breaking the rest of the game.
You literally stated that chaining benefits several tenets (almost all), I say chaining doesnt benefit several tenets, and doesnt benefit the others in any way that couldn't be accomplished by other means. Is that bad?
As for chaining disrupting faction and alignment, if you are chaining you may want to kill everything in a room. You may steal from other players (player to player faction), and you may just kill the things that otherwise would have positive faction with you for the sake of the chain (npc allignment). It's not that this alone proves that chaining is bad. It's that it is part of a much bigger picture.
The same sort of bigger picture you painted when you said chaining helps all of those tenets. Alone they aren't worth much, together all of those tenet interactions are.
Again, take a step back and breath. Realize that when people argue against you they are doing so in the same way you are arguing against them.
I am not the one getting worked up. You went out of your way to try and come up with every reason imaginable on how chaining wouldn't coincide with various tenets. Some of these examples are absolutely farfetched. I considered working on a list of how they would actually compliment various tenets but I simply don't care at this point. As I mentioned prior, you can put a negative spin on anything if you really try. You demonstrated that perfectly. I'm surprised you left out the economy tenet. Here, let me help with that one ... "Chaining causes players to XP at a more rapid rate than they would have otherwise. Due to this, more items enter the game as NPC's are killed and looted, thus devaluing items across the board. As another negative side effect, instead of players taking the time to socialize with others and work out a deal for their goods, they become completely oblivious to the world, consumed by the idea that they need to execute another XP chain."
oneADseven said:I am not the one getting worked up. You went out of your way to try and come up with every reason imaginable on how chaining wouldn't coincide with various tenets. Some of these examples are absolutely farfetched. I considered working on a list of how they would actually compliment various tenets but I simply don't care at this point. As I mentioned prior, you can put a negative spin on anything if you really try. You demonstrated that perfectly. I'm surprised you left out the economy tenet. Here, let me help with that one ... "Chaining causes players to XP at a more rapid rate than they would have otherwise. Due to this, more items enter the game as NPC's are killed and looted, thus devaluing items across the board. As another negative side effect, instead of players taking the time to socialize with others and work out a deal for their goods, they become completely oblivious to the world, consumed by the idea that they need to execute another XP chain."
Again you stated that chaining benefits all of those different tenets in your post. How is that different than me mentioning their interactions with those tenets as well as a few of my own which I feel are benefited negatively? Should I not have countered your statement before going off on my own tangent? You have stated clearly before that you want people to actually adress the things you say before they go off on their own. Well, I did, I had a lot to address, and ended up with a very long novel, but I did.
Also, you already made a list of how chaining complements each of the tenets. You worded it differently by putting the tenets at the end instead of with the sentence it applies to. If it makes it easier for you I could change my post to look like yours. It would still be the same words though.
Finally, chaining does not promote more killing than a non chaining system. Also, when you are fighting somewhere, unless there is an easy method to trade items over long distances, you wont be able to make trades happen anyways unless your group is ok with you galivanting off to the nearby city. Thus, chaining does not effect economy in any noticable manner, IMO of course.
I have to wonder why it is so important to oneADseven that the game tells him that he is doing a good job. The loot, the rate of killing, and your peers can let you know how great you are when you have down time to chat about it. As for the point about chaining reducing two-boxing, that will certainly not reduce two-boxing unless the chaining bonus is considerable like it was in FFXI (up to 50%).
I could see chainning as a cool achievement side game for those who want to be able to brag about something or link what they have done. Just leave the XP bonus out.
Prindan said:I have to wonder why it is so important to oneADseven that the game tells him that he is doing a good job. The loot, the rate of killing, and your peers can let you know how great you are when you have down time to chat about it. As for the point about chaining reducing two-boxing, that will certainly not reduce two-boxing unless the chaining bonus is considerable like it was in FFXI (up to 50%).
I could see chainning as a cool achievement side game for those who want to be able to brag about something or link what they have done. Just leave the XP bonus out.
Cool side games are nice, but when people accomplish something they naturally want fair payment/reward. I don't consider that to be negative.
As the joker said, "when you are good at something, never do it for free".
oneADseven said:Beaver, I agree with you that chaining would be bad. After reviewing your list, it becomes obvious to me that they would be bad for Pantheon. Thank you for your feedback.
Nice! Glad I could help=)
Prindan said:I have to wonder why it is so important to oneADseven that the game tells him that he is doing a good job. The loot, the rate of killing, and your peers can let you know how great you are when you have down time to chat about it. As for the point about chaining reducing two-boxing, that will certainly not reduce two-boxing unless the chaining bonus is considerable like it was in FFXI (up to 50%).
I could see chainning as a cool achievement side game for those who want to be able to brag about something or link what they have done. Just leave the XP bonus out.
It wasn't so much the game telling me I was doing a good job. It was taking advantage of windows of opportunity that I enjoyed. It was the added layer of strategy and challenge that was constantly accessible to those who wanted to pursue it, and for those who did successfully, they were properly rewarded. As far as the multi-box comment, I was assuming that if the chain feature existed, it would be similar to how it was in FFXI. It scaled from a 10-50% bonus depending on how many mobs you chained. That's a pretty significant bump that would be very challenging to achieve for any group that had multi-boxers.
That said, I no longer think the system would be good for Pantheon. It was a bad idea. I didn't realize how many negative side effects that it would cause to the grand scheme of things. It worked great for FFXI but that was a completely different game with it's own set of tenets, systems and features that it complimented. I am no longer going to try and champion this cause. In fact, I'm ashamed that I was associated with it to begin with and hope to use this as a valuable lesson to reflect on in the future. I really do appreciate all of the feedback and responses that helped guide me to this conclusion. Thank you.
oneADseven said:Prindan said:I have to wonder why it is so important to oneADseven that the game tells him that he is doing a good job. The loot, the rate of killing, and your peers can let you know how great you are when you have down time to chat about it. As for the point about chaining reducing two-boxing, that will certainly not reduce two-boxing unless the chaining bonus is considerable like it was in FFXI (up to 50%).
I could see chainning as a cool achievement side game for those who want to be able to brag about something or link what they have done. Just leave the XP bonus out.
It wasn't so much the game telling me I was doing a good job. It was taking advantage of windows of opportunity that I enjoyed. It was the added layer of strategy and challenge that was constantly accessible to those who wanted to pursue it, and for those who did successfully, they were properly rewarded. As far as the multi-box comment, I was assuming that if the chain feature existed, it would be similar to how it was in FFXI. It scaled from a 10-50% bonus depending on how many mobs you chained. That's a pretty significant bump that would be very challenging to achieve for any group that had multi-boxers.
That said, I no longer think the system would be good for Pantheon. It was a bad idea. I didn't realize how many negative side effects that it would cause to the grand scheme of things. It worked great for FFXI but that was a completely different game with it's own set of tenets, systems and features that it complimented. I am no longer going to try and champion this cause. In fact, I'm ashamed that I was associated with it to begin with and hope to use this as a valuable lesson to reflect on in the future. I really do appreciate all of the feedback and responses that helped guide me to this conclusion. Thank you.
no need for shame we all want to champion our old game=)
I can't even count how many everquest features I want to see in Pantheon
Biggest issue I see throughout this is entire thread has been citation of tenets on both sides. Read the tenets and perform mental gymnastics to find a way that they agree with your already formed opinions about how things should be, giving the illusion that the tenets actually aligned completely with you in the first place.
There are other systems in reality that operate based on tenets and they seem to have this same phenomenon. Weird. Not the place for that discussion, though.
I'm not ashamed to say I was a fan of the idea. Tenet waving is not arguing a system based on its merits, it's just muddying the waters. Pretty much all of these discussions are pointless and can be summed up by "I hope the devs agree with my specific mental model of what the tenets represent".
I don't have the patience for that.
After reading through the last 7 pages I'll chime in. I did play FFXI in 2003 during its glory days and I for one did enjoy the EXP chaining system. I've played many MMO games since 2003 and this system was IMO the funnest camping/killing mobs I've ever played. It simply added another component to the exp grind. I would like to a system like it in Pantheon.
OMG please no... This would detract highly from the entire social aspect of the game that Brad is working towards. He wants you to stop on occasion and chat with your group, talk about upcoming mobs, about lore, about anything but grinding speed..
This game is meant to be an exploritory adventure game, not a korean grindfest.. Take your time, look around, jump off the side of a castle.. just because you can **cough kilsin cough**.
If I am judged on my qualiifications in a group entirely by the hardcore nature and playstyle of my class, then the creativity and immersiveness is ruined for me. I want to play a palidan that heals instead of tanks, a druid that nukes instead of heals, a shaman that is allergic to dogs, a wizard with better 2hb skills than evocation, a rogue with high pick pocket. I want to try it all! not just what is best for an ideal group.