Iksar said:Bazgrim said:I know that's not really the intention, but that's just one way I look at it. To be more clear, I'm mainly supportive of mobs having more realistic reactions to FD rather than just immediately turning around and walking away. But that's already been discussed at length in other threads, so no need to rehash it here.
I like it as long as it's consistent. In other words, if the Scavenger can actually take items from an NPC corpse and carry them, they should be able to do the same for player corpses. (Though I imagine most people would be strongly opposed to this.) So it's really all up to having reasonable bonuses that the NPC acquires per corpse that it visits. Not to twist the theme too much, but I think it could even be some sort of Reaper disposition or behavior of magical/spiritual mobs that goes around and collects the souls of the fallen. And gains power as it does so, and/or interferes with your ability to resurrect. It would certainly motivate you to avoid dying. And when people do start dropping, it would make things even more interesting. Just throwing out ideas. But the overall concept is cool.
I'd love to see some mobs (very rare ones) have a "Reaper" trait to them, in which you cannot ressurect for exp gain but instead can regain the lost exp only if you slay the mob.
Yes I agree that any behavior that affects death should be pretty uncommon. But that would make that much more significant when you do come across one. I'm just really liking the mental image of some sort of spectre gliding over the battlefield, sucking the souls from corpses. It's really just a darker take on the Scavenger haha. Although "Scavenger" may be a more flexible term - that could be a bandit, but it could also include animals like rats and such. I'm just trying to think of justification for them getting buffs from dead bodies. Maybe it's more like a "Cannibal" behavior - where they gain HP, STR, STA, etc. from gnawing on dead things? There's a bunch of possibilities.
Vulturess, Ravens/Crows, Hyenas, Zombies, Spectres, Wolves, crocodiles/aligators, wolverines and such all could fall under the scavenger category.
There's afew recounts of wolves and ravens flocking to battlefields in the Norse sagas that are exceptionally bone chilling if memory serves.
You'd also have a hard time convincing a wolf you are dead by playing dead, chances are they would start tearing into you thinking you were a fresh kill.
Bazgrim said:
I know that's not really the intention, but that's just one way I look at it. To be more clear, I'm mainly supportive of mobs having more realistic reactions to FD rather than just immediately turning around and walking away. But that's already been discussed at length in other threads, so no need to rehash it here.
If you want to be clear, you should describe the actual behavior of the mechanic. You see to have an axe to grind.
oneADseven said:Nephretiti said:Niloiv said:I like 187’s use of the Disposition System and with careful thought could get behind what 187 proposed, but I wonder if this reaction is not warranted?
I play a bard in EQ, and see pulling as pre-CC instead of post-CC (I know another topic), but that being said, I dont think that FD is soo powerful it breaks the game. I am generally under the assumption that the simplest fix to a problem is often the best. Instead of making a new system to counteract a maybe-problem (cant tell until we test it out), tweak the existing mechanics: perhaps undead creatures have a heighten sense of smell and can easily sense a feigned death compared to a real death, or serpent-creatures can sense the heat off the body, etc. I would rather like to see resistance added to make the monk perfect his FD skill, than a random: “welp, we did everything right for 45m but a scavenger got a lucky roll – we wiped to RNG and not actually player failure.”
Dynamic pulling environment will push PRF beyond and above the other MMO rift-raft, who thinks pulling is run in and mash buttons. So, far from what we have seen, I am excited and thrilled with the direction VR is going.
Once again 187, thanks for a great topic and idea. It’s so refreshing to see how you try to troubleshoot issues and attack problems from all angles.
I agree with your views on oneADseven. I am hoping he is one of the guys that volunteers for the Test Guild Leader position : )
I appreciate the kind words Nephretiti. Believe it or not, I more or less volunteered myself for this position back in February. I started TDC with the hopes of creating a premier testing guild but with the added goal of eventually transitioning to post-launch together. We have nearly 100 players with an alpha pledge or better so we will definitely be heavily involved through all phases of testing. We'll have focus sessions built around testing specific features/mechanics but there will also be plenty of opportunities for our members to branch off and mess around as they please.
Our guild will operate in two phases. Testing phase and post-launch. The testing phase will essentially be an opportunity for us to double dip; our primary focus will be finding and reporting bugs, providing feedback, etc. Beyond that, we'll also be working on building relationships and member rapport. Our guild has both a raid team and non-raid team so we are interested in testing anything and everything. The majority of our members have a strong raiding background so raid-testing is something we would definitely be interested in participating in.
We are still recruiting if you are interested in joining. Unfortunately though, our guild will not be exclusive to testing and it's possible that we will eventually close off recruiting. I'm not sure when we will get to that point but we dont have a specific max-roster size that we are considering at this time. I know of a few other guilds that will also be focused on testing together so I really think it just comes down to a matter of preference. We'll all be working together to make the testing phase as fruitful as possible. As our visionary leader would say ... "Onward and upward!"
Nice! Sign me up! I'll see what I can do about shutting down the other thread.
oneADseven said:This idea came to me randomly yesterday while I was reading one of the Feign Death threads. It's the iconic ability for monks but there is an expectation that certain other classes will get it, albeit with an extended cooldown or some other variation. Here is what I imagine for the scavenger disposition: When an NPC or PC dies, the scavenger instantly rushes to their corpse, looking for anything valuable. This disposition would essentially be an answer to feign death. As soon as FD is triggered, you gain the attention of the scavenger who proceeds to check you out and see what they can loot ... their poking and prodding could/should generate a reaction that breaks the FD. They could do the same thing for NPC's ... but I'm not sure if they should actually be able to loot anything. I thought it would be pretty cool but I see some potential issues with them being able to do it. (Loots corpse, equips shiny sword you thought you were going to get, then disappears or gets killed by another group.)
Maybe it would make more sense if they just get a small boost to their HP/MP or some other resource. Anyway, just a random idea I had that could spice things up a little bit. Ideally there would be some sort of way to differentiate scavengers from the pack so that players would know ahead of time whether or not their FD is going to get them into trouble with a scavenger. The main reason I wanted to see something like this as a disposition is because it's my understanding that NPC's can spawn with random dispositions. I feel like this would be a fun one to have to deal with. I always enjoyed running into random mobs that could see invis that stopped you in your tracks and forced you to fight under less than ideal circumstances. I've always felt that FD was a bit too powerful in some situations, particularly with allowing players to navigate through difficult group content while solo. This would just be a monkey wrench in their program. Some mobs could always spawn as a scavenger while others get the disposition randomly. It would just be another layer of challenge for us to deal with.
I like it, and I agree that scavengers taking things from players is a bit much in anything not run by a DM=)
It would be cool if they took things from dead npcs though. It would make sure you don't leave your corpses unattended unless you dont want them, and make the unwanted corpses disappear a little bit faster sometimes. It'd be kind of funny if a scavenger left alone for a really long time would just drop all sorts of trash items so you'd know even without perception what he was.
I'd add that when the group is obviously right there the scavengers probably arent going to sit there checking a corpse instead of either running away or attacking. Maybe some sort of secondary disposition traits could decide which they do in the situation of a monk FDing right next to a party, or you could keep it simple and have them just switch aggro to the next closest target like any non-runner disposition would do.
oneADseven said:I'm not sure what you mean Vand, could you elaborate? Are you talking about a form of emergent gameplay, or how scavengers could prevent people from navigating to certains areas while being dragged as a corpse?
I think he means using feign death next to a scavenger, and then that scavenger drags your corpse around.
This has it's obvious implications that a monk could get pretty screwed over by fding next to the wrong guy (which could be very "fun" in and of itself).
But Van is saying the scavenger could occasionally take you to a beneficial location too. So he could drag your corpse next to say an important key or gate switch so that you can let your group in to an area. It's similar to previous discussions on say a smaller character getting into a crawl space and lifting the bar on an otherwise un openable door.
Personally I like this idea, It would just add one of those fun elements to gameplay that make a game feel complete. Obviously if it was overdone it would get boring and everyone would have to have a monk. But in small doses it could get your group into a new area, possibly with original progression through the dungeon, or an extra treasure chest.
Sent you a PM Nephrititi.
Back to the discussion at hand ... I want it to be clear that I didn't intend for this post to come off as a complaint that FD needs to be nerfed. I've seen it used to great effect in plenty of games and I genuinely hope that monks carve out a major role overall when it comes to pulling mechanics. I'm not sure how many dispositions we'll eventually see in Pantheon, but I am really fascinated by the idea of a dynamic gaming landscape where my experience in a zone can change every time I go there. The more NPC dispositions there are, the more knowledge and experience can pay off. As another example, I think it would be cool if there were spectral mobs that could bypass the cleric iconic ability. I like the idea of curveballs, fastballs, sliders, change-ups, and even spitballs being tossed my way while I adventure. As another poster commented, if a monk runs into a scavenger, they would be able to utilize other parts of their kit (off-tanking) on that specific fight, adding flavor to their utility that allows them to have some fun while mixing things up a bit.
I like Van's idea of it being unique to one specific scavenger for a quest line/perception line.
But for taking things from the body, even a PC, I like the idea of a scavenger looting like some copper from a PC corpse if they wore a bandana, or would loot 1 random gem if they held a small pick. It would help increase the revenge factor which would not be emergent game play per se but would be influenced.
Of course the player has the option of wether or not to be upset by the goblin looting a copper or a gem from their "corpse"
Krixus said:Monks were only the best pullers in some scenarios. Having lull/harmony trivialized pulling way more than FD. SKs and Necros could snare a mob in a group, run away, and when they all walked back someone else could pick it off. Monk FD as it was used for pulling has always been blown out of proportion. And I know this game isn't EQ, but it was routine for the puller, whichever class that was, to die 3x as much as anyone else in the group.
Sorry, done derailing the thread. I think dispositions are a cool idea and this is a cool idea.
And bards (later) and enchanters were the fastest due to how social aggro worked in re: mez and charm, when combined with the rest of their toolkit (lull, highsun, etc)
Monks were a bit "safer", but a skilled enchanter could minimize the risk of their pulling quite substantially.
Though any class that can pull, mobs need a counter/anathema to one style or tool in the toolkit, whether that's lull, mez, root, or fd immunity. Just to shake things up.
Sunmistress said:Krixus said:Monks were only the best pullers in some scenarios. Having lull/harmony trivialized pulling way more than FD. SKs and Necros could snare a mob in a group, run away, and when they all walked back someone else could pick it off. Monk FD as it was used for pulling has always been blown out of proportion. And I know this game isn't EQ, but it was routine for the puller, whichever class that was, to die 3x as much as anyone else in the group.
Sorry, done derailing the thread. I think dispositions are a cool idea and this is a cool idea.
And bards (later) and enchanters were the fastest due to how social aggro worked in re: mez and charm, when combined with the rest of their toolkit (lull, highsun, etc)
Monks were a bit "safer", but a skilled enchanter could minimize the risk of their pulling quite substantially.
Though any class that can pull, mobs need a counter/anathema to one style or tool in the toolkit, whether that's lull, mez, root, or fd immunity. Just to shake things up.
Again, probably focusing on EQ too much as Pantheon is its own thing, but weakening the effectiveness of pulling for a bard or enchanter or ranger is not nearly as "bad" as weakening it for a monk. What else do monks do? They DPS and pull.
Krixus said:Sunmistress said:Krixus said:Monks were only the best pullers in some scenarios. Having lull/harmony trivialized pulling way more than FD. SKs and Necros could snare a mob in a group, run away, and when they all walked back someone else could pick it off. Monk FD as it was used for pulling has always been blown out of proportion. And I know this game isn't EQ, but it was routine for the puller, whichever class that was, to die 3x as much as anyone else in the group.
Sorry, done derailing the thread. I think dispositions are a cool idea and this is a cool idea.
And bards (later) and enchanters were the fastest due to how social aggro worked in re: mez and charm, when combined with the rest of their toolkit (lull, highsun, etc)
Monks were a bit "safer", but a skilled enchanter could minimize the risk of their pulling quite substantially.
Though any class that can pull, mobs need a counter/anathema to one style or tool in the toolkit, whether that's lull, mez, root, or fd immunity. Just to shake things up.
Again, probably focusing on EQ too much as Pantheon is its own thing, but weakening the effectiveness of pulling for a bard or enchanter or ranger is not nearly as "bad" as weakening it for a monk. What else do monks do? They DPS and pull.
To be fair, part of their description reads as:
"The Monk is envisioned not as just a fantastic pulling class, but also as capable melee DPS, short term crowd control and as a suitable offtank."
They also have self heals and are described as a "highly utilitarian class." They sound pretty well-rounded to me.
oneADseven said:Krixus said:Sunmistress said:Krixus said:Monks were only the best pullers in some scenarios. Having lull/harmony trivialized pulling way more than FD. SKs and Necros could snare a mob in a group, run away, and when they all walked back someone else could pick it off. Monk FD as it was used for pulling has always been blown out of proportion. And I know this game isn't EQ, but it was routine for the puller, whichever class that was, to die 3x as much as anyone else in the group.
Sorry, done derailing the thread. I think dispositions are a cool idea and this is a cool idea.
And bards (later) and enchanters were the fastest due to how social aggro worked in re: mez and charm, when combined with the rest of their toolkit (lull, highsun, etc)
Monks were a bit "safer", but a skilled enchanter could minimize the risk of their pulling quite substantially.
Though any class that can pull, mobs need a counter/anathema to one style or tool in the toolkit, whether that's lull, mez, root, or fd immunity. Just to shake things up.
Again, probably focusing on EQ too much as Pantheon is its own thing, but weakening the effectiveness of pulling for a bard or enchanter or ranger is not nearly as "bad" as weakening it for a monk. What else do monks do? They DPS and pull.
To be fair, part of their description reads as:
"The Monk is envisioned not as just a fantastic pulling class, but also as capable melee DPS, short term crowd control and as a suitable offtank."
They also have self heals and are described as a "highly utilitarian class." They sound pretty well-rounded to me.
Sure, so you've added one thing from EQ in "short term crowd control". Pulling is the class defining ability of the monk, not crowd control.
And suitable offtank? Anyway, sorry, don't want to derail the thread and make this about monks. It's possible other classes will have FD as well, and the Scavenger Disposition as a whole would be something that responds to death, not just FD.
oneADseven said:And suitable offtank? Anyway, sorry, don't want to derail the thread and make this about monks. It's possible other classes will have FD as well, and the Scavenger Disposition as a whole would be something that responds to death, not just FD.
Suitable offtank is not new, depending on the era of EQ, if we're comparing to EQ. Are we going to have dispositions that free mezzed or charmed mobs? That aren't tauntable or ignore pets? etc, etc? I like the idea of dispositions. I don't like the idea of targeting a class defining ability with them. Also, as I said before, I'm being selfish. /shrug I also understand that you weren't targeting FD and that this has snowballed. Some people do seem to think that it would be a good idea to specifically curtail the effectiveness of the ability, which rustles my jimmies.
BeaverBiscuit said:This has it's obvious implications that a monk could get pretty screwed over by fding next to the wrong guy (which could be very "fun" in and of itself).
Personally I like this idea, It would just add one of those fun elements to gameplay that make a game feel complete. Obviously if it was overdone it would get boring and everyone would have to have a monk. But in small doses it could get your group into a new area, possibly with original progression through the dungeon, or an extra treasure chest.
scavengers that cut out your heart and eat it if you try to fool them <3
Love the idea
Krixus said:oneADseven said:And suitable offtank? Anyway, sorry, don't want to derail the thread and make this about monks. It's possible other classes will have FD as well, and the Scavenger Disposition as a whole would be something that responds to death, not just FD.
Suitable offtank is not new, depending on the era of EQ, if we're comparing to EQ. Are we going to have dispositions that free mezzed or charmed mobs? That aren't tauntable or ignore pets? etc, etc? I like the idea of dispositions. I don't like the idea of targeting a class defining ability with them. Also, as I said before, I'm being selfish. /shrug I also understand that you weren't targeting FD and that this has snowballed. Some people do seem to think that it would be a good idea to specifically curtail the effectiveness of the ability, which rustles my jimmies.
I absolutely hope we have mobs that try to break their comrades mez/root/charm.
We are fighting intelligent beings after all.
Our opponents in game should have access to many ways to defeat us, mobs that can't be tanked traditionally, mobs that aggro lock onto healers or casters, mobs with variable status immunity. Mobs that buff themselves, and employ strategy or come in unsplittable packs on occasion.
The world should be absolutely dangerous and demand strategy planning and care.
Imo.
I apologize I think I wasn't giving a full picture of what I meant.
Sunmistress said:Krixus said:oneADseven said:And suitable offtank? Anyway, sorry, don't want to derail the thread and make this about monks. It's possible other classes will have FD as well, and the Scavenger Disposition as a whole would be something that responds to death, not just FD.
Suitable offtank is not new, depending on the era of EQ, if we're comparing to EQ. Are we going to have dispositions that free mezzed or charmed mobs? That aren't tauntable or ignore pets? etc, etc? I like the idea of dispositions. I don't like the idea of targeting a class defining ability with them. Also, as I said before, I'm being selfish. /shrug I also understand that you weren't targeting FD and that this has snowballed. Some people do seem to think that it would be a good idea to specifically curtail the effectiveness of the ability, which rustles my jimmies.
I absolutely hope we have mobs that try to break their comrades mez/root/charm.
We are fighting intelligent beings after all.
Our opponents in game should have access to many ways to defeat us, mobs that can't be tanked traditionally, mobs that aggro lock onto healers or casters, mobs with variable status immunity. Mobs that buff themselves, and employ strategy or come in unsplittable packs on occasion.
The world should be absolutely dangerous and demand strategy planning and care.
Imo.
I apologize I think I wasn't giving a full picture of what I meant.
Yes, all of that please. And more.