I took some time today to read over the FAQ that was posted a few months back now. I wanted to first ask some additional questions that came to mind when reading over it, also to point out a few of the sections I thought were particularly interesting in their approach, and design detail.
> Section 14.3
1. At some point will we get a bestiary, a sneak peak of sorts at some of the more unique mobs that the team wants to show off?
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> Section 13.4
2. Is it possible we see uncommon weapons such as Whips, Boomerangs, Chakrams, Scythes, etc.? Even just as one off rare items?
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> Section 5.3/13.6/14.0/20.4
3. In 5.3 it talks about a Druid being able to alter the surrounding environment with a Scorching Climate to nullify the bosses Frost Shield. In 13.6 it talks about AoE spells existing that could affect others in your group although this being an exception not a rule. Finally in 20.4 it talks about dynamic weather being planned.
Obviously a lot of thought has gone into how to make the environment challenging and engaging and I'm curious to how far this system goes or is planned to go. Is it possible for an Oil Slick to be or be placed on the ground, and by having a Fire Arrow or Fire Ball come into contact with it, the area that is covered with the Oil Slick is now on fire and dealing damage to anyone standing in it? Making it so you now have something that you can work to your advantage, and even being able to reactively counter if perhaps you didn't want it, by then casting a rain spell or even the enemy(14.0) with the right ability could counter it with a water spell/ability of it's own.
Following up on this a little more on the dynamic weather being planned it sounds like in the druids case he was able to weaken the effects of another element with his environment spell. If it's raining is it planned to have fire spells be dampened in this and even have electric be enhanced and obviously more elemental interactions?
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> Section 20.0
4. Talks about being a zone based game but not frequently running into zone borders. Could I imagine this to mean you wouldn't have to zone between West, North, East, and South Karana but zone lines would still exist to Lake Rathetear, High Hold, Qeynos Hills, Beholders Maze?
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> Section 19.1/20.6
5. It reads like there will be some item or variation of Climbing Claws and/or Shoe Spikes that together could make climbing gear? Those items would be available to everyone but in additional to carrying those a class like a Rogue could additionally carry rope to toss down and enable others to climb up that don't have climbing gear. Similarly to how a Rogue would be useful to accessing areas in a Dungeon with lock-picking. Enabling further group movement/exploration. Or am I getting carried away the interaction of what these talk about?
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Here are the sections I wanted to make mention of. I've bolded the take away sections that really exact me in their game design choices.
|Abilities and Spells|
2.1.1 What are "Prime Scroll" Abilities?
In Pantheon many of the most powerful and exotic abilities can only be found out in the wilds of Terminus from heavily guarded treasure vaults, the depths of dungeons, and from unimaginable locations. These most powerful abilities are written on legendary parchments known as Prime Scrolls.
Spells and abilities that are learned from Prime Scrolls and stored in The Living Codex as “Transcendent” abilities.
The Prime Scroll will only fill the top portion of each page; underneath, there will be three empty sections that the player can mark with special items which will further enhance the primary ability. These three sections are detailed below:
• Seal of Amplification
o Amplifies the bonus modifiers from Mana Climates that affect the Primary Scroll’s mana color. More powerful seals will increase the bonuses.• Brand of Resilience
o Lessens the negative modifiers from Mana Climates that affect the Primary Scroll’s mana color. More powerful brands will decrease the penalties.• Signet of Synergy
o Applying a Signet of Synergy to an ability will unlock different class-specific synergy effects that can be used in combination with synergy effects from other classes, sometimes to awesome effect. However, the Primary Scroll ability must be capable of synergy effects and not all are.
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2.2 Will there be a limitation to the number of abilities we can use at a given time?
You may be limited to a subset of your abilities for the next encounter, causing you to have to intelligently plan ahead and memorize the spells most effective against the upcoming enemy. Likewise, you'll want to memorize spells that counter the upcoming mob’s abilities. Lastly, you may have some abilities that work synergistically with others in your group. But the key point here is that these tactical decisions can be made right before the actual encounter. Then, say you move on deeper into the dungeon and are about to confront a different boss with different abilities and a different disposition, it may make tactical sense to prep different abilities. So yes, you are limited to that extent (you cannot simply use any of your 80+ abilities whenever you wish) because planning for the battle ahead and doing so effectively is key to Pantheon. The exact number of spells, abilities, feats and actions one can prep is TBD and won’t likely be finalized until Beta. What’s depicted in screenshots showing the UI is not final.
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2.5 Tell me more about spells. Can you move while casting a spell?
Most spells can be cast when you are moving, however they will more often than not slow down your movement speed. Some spells will require you to stand and not move; likewise, some spells may not slow your movement speed. Additionally, while most spells are spoken, some are gestured, the latter being very handy when an area is silenced by a player or NPC.
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|Player Characters|
4.2 Will language and faction be important in Pantheon and will a player be able to betray their home faction?
We like all of that in general -- the question comes up though: to what degree should these factions matter and does this sort of thing slip into PvP territory? If it does, you'd only see it in PvP servers. But changing your factions so NPCs will react differently to you -- this is all key to the game -- our faction system will be quite robust. Yes, you could betray your home or default factions.
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|Classes|
5.3 What is Crowd Control in Pantheon?
When mobs flee and run into another pack of mobs, a simple root is sometimes enough to keep things under control. During a more challenging battle controlling the mobs through mesmerize, root, or stuns so they are rendered inactive will be key to surviving the encounter.Encounter Control is something that will also be a part of Pantheon. When you encounter atmospheres and climates, for example, certain classes like the Druid may be able to alter the surrounding environment. Indeed, changing the climate could have adverse effects on a boss encounter. As an example, a frost shield used by a boss mob could be made much less effective or even completely useless by a Druid changing the atmosphere to a scorching climate.
Controlling mobs and rendering them inactive to keep control of the numbers of hostile NPCs in a fight or preventing additional mobs from joining the fight will be a critical component of Pantheon’s combat mechanics.
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|Crafting|
6.0 What are the plans for crafting in Pantheon?
Crafting is an important part of Pantheon. A big emphasis is going to be on cooperation between adventurers and crafters. There exists a symbiotic relationship, not competition -- both adventurers and crafters will need each other. With as many horizontal content paths as we’re going to have, you’re going to want to seek crafters for those very specific situations. Instead of having to farm a specific piece of gear, it might be more beneficial to find a crafter with that recipe.Some items drop when you kill a mob while others are harvestable and others are crafted. Other than a few class-specific rewards, such as epic quest items, many items will be craftable. Crafting also goes hand-in-hand with dropped items by allowing players to customize their gear. Players can often bring items to a crafter to customize and tailor them to their specific needs. Since a customized item is meant specifically for your character the item will likely be bound (un-tradable) but this allows the crafter to squeeze out some additional power from a dropped item. That said, it is possible (TBD) you could later break down the item into components allowing another crafter to use those materials to augment something for you in the future.
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6.2 What type of special crafting areas are there?
Some items in Pantheon require certain climates to create. For example, located in Amberfaet is The Anvil, a naturally occurring region in the zone and a scorching environment inside a frigid environment. Crafters will be required to acclimate to the scorching environment to eventually use The Anvil for crafting.
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|Game Mechanics|
13.4 Will there be weapon resists and armor/skin types that affect physical combat?
Yes, what sort of material your weapon is made of and the body type of your target will matter. For example, scale, bone, and slime body types mitigate slashing damage, while crystalline body types take extra damage from piercing attacks.
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|Non-Player Characters (NPCS/MOBS)|
14.0 What type of AI will mobs have?
Mobs have a variety of AI dispositions. For example, some mobs stand their ground while others flee. Some may go after certain classes or races. The tactics used against mobs, especially boss encounters, needs to involve a great deal of variation and avoid simplistic 'tank and spank' behavior where possible.
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|Travel|
19.1 Will there be mounts and other ways to increase a player's travel speed?
Yes, there will be a variety of mounts, as well as spells and abilities that can be obtained which increase travel speed. Players will also be able to acquire items for their characters that allow them to climb vertical surfaces.
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|World|
20.4 Does Pantheon have a day/night cycle?
Yes. Additionally, dynamic weather is planned.
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20.6 Will there be any special skills for exploring or navigating dungeons?
Yes. One example is the climbing skill which will be an important part of every player’s arsenal. Improving that skill will determine what type of faces you can grab onto and climb. One of the keys to vertical ascent and progression within dungeons, say Amberfaet, is the ability to climb. Climbing won’t be limited to only climbing faces. Certain classes, like Rogues, will have ropes that you will need in certain environments where there are no surfaces to climb. There will be several different climbing surfaces.
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Thanks for reading! Hopefully I found something you also found interesting.
Hopefully I can shed some light on a few things...
1. Unknown at this point. I'm sure more mobs will be revealed in one way or another, but I wouldn't expect it to be very comprehensive. They want to leave most things to be discovered naturally.
2. I don't know specifics, but I do know that they want to have a very wide variety of weapon types, and are still open to suggestions for the more exotic weapon types.
3. I think you've got the right idea, but it's still too early to really know that level of detail. I'm sure that will become more clear when they reveal more about the combat system.
4. I'd say that's fairly accurate. Suffice to say, the zones are huge.
5. I don't think that's getting carried away at all. I think that's very much the goal.
Zuljan said:Haha I think Kilsin got his full day of work out of this post : )
Some great points though! A lot of us are curious about the same details. It's been very quiet the past few months, so hopefully a lot of news comes in shortly : )
Hahaha, not even close my friend! :P
I’ll add a little here. :)
> Section 14.3
1. At some point will we get a bestiary, a sneak peak of sorts at some of the more unique mobs that the team wants to show off?
Hopefully. With Vanguard they did a sort of gradual rollout sometimes highlighting creatures. A lot of that was done through coordination with fan and gaming news sites at the time such as Ten Ton Hammer, Silky Venom, Druids Grove, and a few others.
> Section 13.4
2. Is it possible we see uncommon weapons such as Whips, Boomerangs, Chakrams, Scythes, etc.? Even just as one off rare items?
This is a good idea and one that both EQ and Vanguard did to some degree. Unique and rare weapons and items that were actually rare and required some work to get kept people looking a bit differently as not everyone had all the best at all the times. There is something to be said for that rarity of items that has been lost in the more modern MMORPGs.
> Section 5.3/13.6/14.0/20.4
3. In 5.3 it talks about a Druid being able to alter the surrounding environment with a Scorching Climate to nullify the bosses Frost Shield. In 13.6 it talks about AoE spells existing that could affect others in your group although this being an exception not a rule. Finally in 20.4 it talks about dynamic weather being planned.
Obviously a lot of thought has gone into how to make the environment challenging and engaging and I'm curious to how far this system goes or is planned to go. Is it possible for an Oil Slick to be or be placed on the ground, and by having a Fire Arrow or Fire Ball come into contact with it, the area that is covered with the Oil Slick is now on fire and dealing damage to anyone standing in it? Making it so you now have something that you can work to your advantage, and even being able to reactively counter if perhaps you didn't want it, by then casting a rain spell or even the enemy(14.0) with the right ability could counter it with a water spell/ability of it's own.
Following up on this a little more on the dynamic weather being planned it sounds like in the druids case he was able to weaken the effects of another element with his environment spell. If it's raining is it planned to have fire spells be dampened in this and even have electric be enhanced and obviously more elemental interactions?
Here’s where I advise cautious optimism. Those druid powers sound awesome. However, druids were originally intended to do the same in Vanguard but that power never came to fruition unless it was added much later when I had stopped playing (and given that SOE was on the job at the time, I highly doubt it was).
We’ve seen in some of the livestreams some of the weathered environments and how attunement affects players. I’m hopeful we’ll see that dynamic weather system. But in past MMORPGs that sort of system tying into gameplay has always been a bit tricky. And this too, was a planned Vanguard feature that never came to fruition (weather influencing combat that is).
Now should they hammer that out, I could see a potential feature where maybe there are oil canisters that can be broken or maybe even oil flasks that players can dump out or throw and then ignite with a fire spell, flame arrow, or torch as part of a combat tactic or combo attack.
Adding to your comment about the enemy countering the oil and fire attack combination with water, the player could then retaliate with lightning, making for an interesting back and forth possibility in some situations.
> Section 20.0
4. Talks about being a zone based game but not frequently running into zone borders. Could I imagine this to mean you wouldn't have to zone between West, North, East, and South Karana but zone lines would still exist to Lake Rathetear, High Hold, Qeynos Hills, Beholders Maze?
I would take that to mean they’re probably like EQ zones but made for the modern era. By that I mean rather than running along a wall until you find the zoneline somewhere down the road, the zone is probably built more in such a way that it resembles an area with a pass or road that leads to the next zone or zones. The difference being an area designed in such a way that it feels less artificial when you hit what is supposed to be the wall. So the zonelines and entrances will probably still be there but feel more organic in their placement and appearance.
Touching on some of the other stuff; one of the big draws for me here is the focus on class distinction. Class identity has felt very generic in the modern era of MMORPGs. So to see some classes like the Enchanter return as well as other classes getting some love and having pretty clear roles rather than all of them feeling like a melee caster with ranged attack healer tanks, it’s a welcome return.
On the topic of crafting, I love a detailed system, so I am hoping Pantheon’s will be at least as detailed as or better than Vanguard’s system. It took a lot of work to skill up crafting there so not everyone had a max level crafter and those trades were interdependent. It was, for me at least, one of the more endearing features of Vanguard.
I'm certainly ready to get in there and beat on a few of the systems. Maybe testing will be up and running before too long and we'll all be chewing on some beta before too late next year.