Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Open world concerns??

    • 409 posts
    November 21, 2017 8:25 AM PST

    EQ had a tendency to bury very specific powerful items in very specific areas with no options whatsoever. Examples would be FBSS, GEBs, etc. Iconic EQ items that were one of a kind in classic, and have such a high demand in modern EQ (TLPs, P99) that finding these camps permafarmed is not uncommon.

    Yep, those spawns were perma camped. And you know why? They dropped tradeable items. Easiest way to end that madness is make any sort of GEB, FBSS, Fungi Tunic type loot be NO DROP. If you do that, you simply replace where the pain point for that item comes from - camping the spawn or camping the gold to go trade for it in the EC tunnel. Either way, if you want it, you gotta grind it.

    Everything in PRotF will be a grind (hopefully). That was what made old school MMOs old school - teh grindz. What made those grinds meaningful was the random chance to even see the named spawn an then the random chance that named spawn would drop the item you wanted. So you did a ton of meaningless grinding, sometimes for days, and still be foiled on an uber drop. Why would very specifically powerful items like an FBSS/Fungi/GEB/etc be any different? Somewhere, somehow, if you want that kind of twinkability, you're gonna need to grind. "Balance" such as it is, again, means balancing how much each different type of grindy pain point is employed.

    • 753 posts
    November 21, 2017 8:54 AM PST

    Liav said:

    @Venjenz

    I don't buy the entirety of your post.

    No one in this thread is looking at Pantheon through the lens of a WoW clone. I'm well aware of what Pantheon is, in that regard.

    I simply reject the idea that designing a new game with EQ mechanics is going to be a utopia of happy casuals policing a handful of bad elements. I see viewing Pantheon through a 1999 EQ lens to be as naive and misled as viewing it through the lens of a WoW clone.

     

    With the caveat that this too is something I'm guilty of from time to time...

    It's easy to get mired in the specific details of a mechanic from EQ when what is really desired is the outcome of that mechanic... and you've seen nothing else to date in games that brings a return to that outcome. I imagine "How could we design this to make it feel the same/similar to the experience being asked for" would be much more productive in these conversations than "We have to have mechanic X!" Which turns into a debate on mechanic X, and not a debate on that really important thing... the way it made you feel when it happened, and the things it caused to happen in game.

     

    • 409 posts
    November 21, 2017 9:33 AM PST

    Liav said:

    @Venjenz

    I don't buy the entirety of your post.

    No one in this thread is looking at Pantheon through the lens of a WoW clone. I'm well aware of what Pantheon is, in that regard.

    I simply reject the idea that designing a new game with EQ mechanics is going to be a utopia of happy casuals policing a handful of bad elements. I see viewing Pantheon through a 1999 EQ lens to be as naive and misled as viewing it through the lens of a WoW clone.

    But I played vanilla 1999 EQ1, and these fears of an open world are wildly overblown given that experience. I played at the height of EQ1's playerbase with the highest number of players relative to amount of content (late Kunark, early Velious) and these fears of an open world are wildly overblown given that experience. 

    People are in fear that they will be 1% away from last hit on raid boss and griefers will ruin their day. It simply isn't like that in open world raiding, and when there was guild v guild raid blocking, it was isolated to two guilds per server, rarely three or more.

    So it seems to me people are taking their experiences in the recent MMOs that cater to instant gratification and extending them to what they think will happen in a game designed around open world content. In other words, viewing an EQ1 game through a WoW lens.

    I never said it would be utopian. I said it wouldn't be the grief circus that everyone seems to fear in a world where content isn't delivered via instance. I got griefed in EQ1 plenty of times but over a 4 year, 20-40 hous per week gaming history, it was obviously bound to happen. But it wasn't the constant, omg this game sucks, MOAR INSTANCEZ NAO!!! nonsense that makes up these overblown fears. Sometimes I get a griefer twice in one week, and then I'd go months before I saw another instance. Plus, as I have mentioned already, counter-griefing was first line player policing policy. Nobody ever griefed me for free, especially once I had a max level necromancer as a payback tool. The community of a proper, old school, group-centric MMO can police their population just fine with minimal GM help. I have not nor will I claim that it will be perfect, but it can and will work a lot better than anyone is giving it credit.


    This post was edited by Venjenz at November 21, 2017 9:41 AM PST
    • 769 posts
    November 21, 2017 9:47 AM PST

    My biggest worry is that everyone is putting A LOT of faith in the concept of players "blacklisting" other trouble players, and the effectiveness of this. While I do recall reading on Forums in ~1999 every once in a while about a particular player or group of players that constantly harrassed or trained indiscriminately, I can't honestly say I recall it happening often or effectively. 

    Hell, remember Fansy? There were stories, fun stories that people liked, that were written ABOUT the exact people we're talking about blacklisting here. 

    Not saying I don't want open world - I desperately do - but I worry that those of us here are maybe misremembering the effectiveness of self-policing in EQ servers. As if the jeers and shunning of a bunch of us nerds in an MMO was enough to shame and scare off any bad seeds. I just don't think that was the case. 


    This post was edited by Tralyan at November 21, 2017 9:48 AM PST
    • 207 posts
    November 21, 2017 9:53 AM PST
    I understand the fears proposed where major guilds control certain aspects of content. I saw it in one of the mmos I played, where high end bosses on multi day spawns were heavily contested by a few guilds on the server. Most of these guilds used illegal 3rd party tools to claim said bosses...I refused to be a part of that.

    There were other forms of progression in endgame though, there were forced popped bosses that you had to aquire an item or fulfill some condition in order to make the boss appear that aggroed directly to the one who met the condition. There were also zones with time limits on them that guilds actually coordinated with one another in order to not step on one anothers toes.

    I feel it's important to have multiple forms of progression with unique gear avialable to them. If side grades and situational gear are important in pantheon and remove the BiS mentality, combined with multiple ways to engage in content, I don't think we'll have to worry too much about the downsides of open world.
    • 1860 posts
    November 21, 2017 10:06 AM PST

    One solution is definitely to have NO cap on the ignore list...and to have plenty of extra room to add notes next to players names about why they are on ignore. 


    This post was edited by philo at November 21, 2017 10:07 AM PST
    • 409 posts
    November 21, 2017 10:13 AM PST

    Tralyan said:

    Hell, remember Fansy? There were stories, fun stories that people liked, that were written ABOUT the exact people we're talking about blacklisting here. 

    Fansy exploited a rule in the Sullon Zek ruleset, else he wouldn't have been nearly as successful at his griefing. And in his chat dialogues, he kept explaining that he wasn't breaking any rules and was simply taking advatange of a crack in the SZ system. His entire "career" of griefing on SZ lasted less than a week. They patched that hole in their "no rules" server ruleset literally one week after Fansy's first train of sand giants. I was on SZ for like a month, had an ogre shaman. By the time I even made it to NRo, Fansy's career was already over.

    Boys and girls, this is what alpha and beta testing are for. Fnd the holes that the Fansy's of the world will use for griefing, and plug them. Can't remember the name of the monk on my server (Vazaelle at the time) that used to train the Karnor's entrance constantly, but he got foiled after like a week because myself and a bunch of other enchanters/bards used his foolishness to practice mezz/charm/CC stuff in safety, and instead of being a griefer, he became our puller. Once he figured out he was more employee than cool guy griefer, he quit. Took like two days. 

    For as much press as these people got, their actual grief and disruption of the game was really shortlived, but wildly overhyped.

    • 413 posts
    November 21, 2017 10:15 AM PST

    Open world is must. Kindness would be a good way to midigate grievers.  It would be cool to be able to "commend" another player.  Once a day a player can commend another player.  These community appointed commendations points could be reconized by NPCs for rewards of somekind.  Reward good behavior.  

    Make up some rules so it not abused like;

    You can only commend once a day.

    You can not commend the same person again for a month.

    Once a month you can make a large commendation.

    Create algorythms to prevent abuse.

    Create a rating system for grouping.  No negitive ratings.  Either "no rating" or "team player".

    Change the focus from punishing negitive actions, to rewarding positve actions.

     

     


    This post was edited by Zevlin at November 21, 2017 10:15 AM PST
    • 2752 posts
    November 21, 2017 10:16 AM PST

    Liav said:

    We have talked about it extensively. There's no consensus.

    I'm of the opinion that I don't want to play a PvE game where I have to view other players as enemies. If I wanted to do that I'd just play PvP. I'm also of the opinion that community enforcement is a joke and will not be enough to deter the worst types of players from trampling the entire server to get their way if they are capable of doing so.

     

    This is how I feel about it too. In a game that VR constantly stresses is based around a social community built on cooperation, having everything be contested at all times seems very counter to that. If groups can't hold camps and have to compete with other groups/players coming in to try to steal named mobs it is going to be a **** show and incentivize those bad behaviors everyone is afraid of (kill stealing, training, and other forms of screwing others). Unnecessary stress for everyone when you have to worry about going to the bathroom or getting some water for fear the mob might spawn and get stolen away. Tagging mobs to lock them to a group is an even worse solution to things as it favors the fastest connection & trigger finger as well as classes with ranged instant casts, it also allows pullers from other groups to roam into other camps and potentially poach mobs with impunity. 

     

    I'd hope that groups/players trying to overtake/push out a group that was established at a camp counts as kill stealing by extention and could be policed as such. It seems like it should fit well enough with what they said in the FAQ, as it's pretty much just a vicious form of PvP in a PvE environment:

    "First, if you go around kill stealing and bothering other players your reputation is likely to suffer and you could even be blacklisted such that people refuse to group with you. In terms of the actual mechanic, the player or group that does the most damage will receive the experience and loot (note: this is not yet set in stone and will be evaluated during alpha and beta testing).

     

    Repeated griefing and harassment will become a Customer Service issue. If a player consistently ruins the fun and entertainment of other players he or she will no longer be welcome to play Pantheon."

    • 1921 posts
    November 21, 2017 10:29 AM PST

    Iksar said: ... This is how I feel about it too.  ...

    Well yeah, because you've (and others here, like Liav) likely played EQ1, and saw the toxic social consequences first hand.  The mechanics permit it.  The interpretation of that, in 2018+, is going to be:  The way the game can be played is the way the game is MEANT to be played.  If the game permits training & camp stealing, then... people will train and camp steal. :P

    Or put another way: If it can be done, it will be done until removed from the game.  Exploit early, exploit often.  And there are never enough CSR's/GM's, in or out of game. Ever.  <- feel free to quote me.

    • 2752 posts
    November 21, 2017 10:42 AM PST

    vjek said:

    Well yeah, because you've (and others here, like Liav) likely played EQ1, and saw the toxic social consequences first hand.  The mechanics permit it.  The interpretation of that, in 2018+, is going to be:  The way the game can be played is the way the game is MEANT to be played.  If the game permits training & camp stealing, then... people will train and camp steal. :P

    Or put another way: If it can be done, it will be done until removed from the game.  Exploit early, exploit often.  And there are never enough CSR's/GM's, in or out of game. Ever.  <- feel free to quote me.



    Of course it will happen, but I don't believe it will be the norm by any stretch. Just because the mechanics permit something as a possible side effect doesn't mean it will be tolerated by VR when abused, as they mention in the kill stealing part of the FAQ. It's entirely possible they will have rules in place for PvE servers condemning that behavior so players know ahead of time that it's a bad idea. Depending on how fleshed out the guide program ends up and what tools they are given, there may yet be enough CSR/GM's to handle such issues. The more people are made example of, the less abuse will happen. 

    By creating plenty of content, a large world, not allowing shards to become overpopulated (for example, by quickly launching new shards), possible systems and rules within specific shards, and if things get out of hand to involve Customer Service (GMs). Above all, we want to use positive reinforcement by making sure that there is enough content and an epic enough world to minimize these issues.

     

    We also want to make sure there will be plenty of great items and choices for adventuring all over the world – for example, we want to avoid there being just a single sought-after item for a specific class at a specific level. Similarly powerful and valued items will be available elsewhere in the world.

    • 3237 posts
    November 21, 2017 11:16 AM PST

    There will absolutely be competition for resources.  That's just how an open-world MMO works.  Thankfully VR is being proactive and looking at ways to mitigate there being "too much competition" for resources.  Just because you compete with another player doesen't make them an enemy.  It's called sportsmanship.  Yes, there are heated rivalries in sports and those are built up over time and they tend to get more "heated" when players do something shady.  If someone beats you fair and square, take it like a champ and come back harder next time.  In most competitive gaming, you shake the hand of your competitor regardless of whether you win or lose ... it's called having class.

    Competing for resources isn't your standard type of competition, though.  It's more like a free for all world where people can band together if they so choose.  The world has a finite supply of resources and it behooves every player to try and maximize their intake of said resources.  Like I said ... I look at it like prospecting.  Everybody has their own set of tools to use to go out and find their share of gold.  Sometimes you hit big, sometimes you don't.  Sometimes the guy next to you will find a diamond and you'll be wishing it was you ... and that's how things should be!  It doesen't make them your enemy ... it just makes them lucky.  Now if you find a diamond and someone runs you over and bashes you on your head and proceeds to steal it, now you have griefing.

    By managing server populations and creating diverse loot tables, players should be incentivized to act in a way that will yield the highest output relative to their time commitment.  Having 12 people camp a single name might not make as much sense as moving to another camp that isn't occupied.  But maybe sometimes it will ... it all depends on how bad someone (or groups of people) want something.  If you want an individual item more than anything else, and you'd rather take your chances of competing with others to get it than moving on elsewhere where competition doesen't exist, that's your choice.  I think a lot of people just had bad experiences in prior games and are worrying about problems that don't even exist yet.

    Competition isn't a bad thing.  Participation trophies and instancing are bad things.  I would much rather see a named spawn once every 4 hours that has a high chance of dropping something good than see that same name spawn every 20 minutes and have a very low chance of dropping the same item.  This is where world knowledge and awareness comes into play ... grinding the same camp/mob for hours/days/weeks on end to get that one drop everybody is after is super boring/monotonous.  Bring on the rare mobs/events and reward the players who happen to be in the right place at the right time.  If multiple groups are there to compete ... let it happen.  Don't view the other guy as an enemy ... view them as a fellow player, someone looking to accomplish the same thing as you.

    I understand the idea that this can be spun around and turned into "if people can train or KS or grief, they will in fact do it."  So what.  Let them.  Reputation is supposed to matter in this game ... are we supposed to go with the assumption that everybody will have a good reputation?  Of course not.  There will be good guys and there will be bad guys ... and you need both for any interesting storyline.  I remember some of the guys who trained me back in the day and I can personally reflect back on those times and have a laugh about it.  They were mad.  They couldn't do things the legitimate way so they resolved to shady tactics and made a fool of themselves.  We need to have a world where player choice is meaningful ... and the choices shouldn't always be positive vs positive.

    Let people hang themselves out to dry if that's what they want to do.  Blacklist people, report them, do what you gotta do.  If someone gets punished after a successful /report, let the /reporting player know that someone they recently reported was investigated and punished.  It's very gratifying to get that message.  I like to think back on my time of playing League of Legends.  Players can grief their team by intentionally feeding ... and when you have those games, yeah, they suck.  But they are the exception, not the rule ... and the game just wouldn't be the same if it was designed with a baby safing mentality that could completely prevent it.  It's up to the community to be more good than bad ... if that doesen't happen, it's a problem with the community, not the game.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at November 21, 2017 11:19 AM PST
    • 106 posts
    November 21, 2017 12:12 PM PST

    Let's not forget that this subscription based group focused game will by it's nature weed out many of the bad seeds prevalent in today's MMO.  The nature of the leveling process taking so long is what helps deter folks from stupid behavior without the quick ability to reroll to max level.  Open World will be fine.

    • 1315 posts
    November 21, 2017 12:18 PM PST

    Open world is going to be rough to get used to again as I'm experiencing on P99.  There are a few things that I could see helping this.  The first being enough horizontal content relative to the target active server population.  If there are three different group/raid progressions trees at launch and short ish respawns and or farmed material consuming spawn triggers then many guilds could run the content in the same week. Only a few guilds will have the fortitude to run the same content over and over, day in and day out, and we would just as much prefer they got everything they wanted quickly and got out of the rest of our way. 

    The second is the partial instance concept.  If X number of thousands of players are logged in then there are concurrent duplicate versions of the same zone in existence at the same time. This gets a little awkward when you have 5-13 day respawn timer super raid bosses that drop BiS items.

    The third concept is a guild/alliance focused rating system.  You can give a player a positive or negative review but it only shows up on your guild reputation page.  Guild officers have the option to share those reviews and merge them with other guilds.  The officers would have the ability to edit the reviews page and trigger certain effects based on them.  It could be something along the line that when a player sees another player LFG that player can click on the 2nd players name and it will look them up on the guild ratings.  Additionally if guild vendors are the best way to exchange good items then a player with a bad enough rating could be barred from using the vendor.  Nothing would be hardcoded into the game and officers could monitor for bullying.


    This post was edited by Trasak at November 21, 2017 12:18 PM PST
    • 2130 posts
    November 21, 2017 12:19 PM PST

    FierinaFuryfist said:

    Let's not forget that this subscription based group focused game will by it's nature weed out many of the bad seeds prevalent in today's MMO.  The nature of the leveling process taking so long is what helps deter folks from stupid behavior without the quick ability to reroll to max level.  Open World will be fine.

    You're right, nothing to worry about. That sure worked in EQ, hahaha, am I right guys?

     

     

     

     

    Guys?

    • 106 posts
    November 21, 2017 12:44 PM PST

    Liav said:

    FierinaFuryfist said:

    Let's not forget that this subscription based group focused game will by it's nature weed out many of the bad seeds prevalent in today's MMO.  The nature of the leveling process taking so long is what helps deter folks from stupid behavior without the quick ability to reroll to max level.  Open World will be fine.

    You're right, nothing to worry about. That sure worked in EQ, hahaha, am I right guys?

     

     

     

    Guys?

    If you are basing anything on P99 or TLP, remember those players have 10+ years experience playing the game. The leveling curve deterrent won't make much difference to them.  Back in the day, while the guild competitions were real, the individual douchebaggery that most seem to be worried about was not much of an issue.  I remember the server forums and how you could go to your server to check blacklists and what not.  That's for people who weren't already known in game as bad seeds you wanted nothing to do with.  I remember being in an XP group in Kael while a semi-public raid was trying to do AoW.  They had some ringers to help make sure the mob went down but when it did, some idiot came up and ninja-looted the Blade of Carnage.  Yeah he was never heard from again.

     

    Not to mention, Brad was there for the first go round in EQ and saw what happened regarding the guild competitions.  I'm fairly certain he will be taking that into account with the launch of this game.

    • 39 posts
    November 21, 2017 12:45 PM PST

    There is nothing like the feeling of possibly being kill stolen after working hard to get to a camp. It makes you play better. Pay more attention. Help eachother overcome that fear. Ya its not fun but its reality. This is some of the things these MMO's lack these days. Risk vs. Reward. Its gonna happen to all in some shape or form. Inevitable. And i have done it so myself...


    This post was edited by Roenyn at November 21, 2017 12:46 PM PST
    • 643 posts
    November 21, 2017 12:50 PM PST

    The worst experience of my EQ life was camping a rare quest drop in PoHateB for (literally) a month.  The named mob spawned and a group miraculously zoned in, ran over and killed mob.

    I will take that experience every time over a dumbed-down, safe game with instanced zones.

    If the game separates us into isolated guild halls, private housing, instances and locked-down mobs, then I am just playing a single-player shooter game simultaneously with other single players.

    I will walk away from my multiple donations and years of anxiously waiting for this game before playing in a ruined MMORPG world like that again.

    I might as well play a solo game of minecraft on my phone.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    • 3237 posts
    November 21, 2017 12:50 PM PST

    It's even worse when you have mobs spawning every 20 minutes that have an extremely rare drop.  You kill it 24x in a row ... never get the drop.  Some guy comes in and claims kill #25 and voila, he has it!  A lower frequency of "rare mobs" is much better than seeing a high frequency of names with "rare loot" in my opinion ... and the example I provided here is just one reason of many.

    • 1860 posts
    November 21, 2017 12:52 PM PST

    Liav said:

    FierinaFuryfist said:

    Let's not forget that this subscription based group focused game will by it's nature weed out many of the bad seeds prevalent in today's MMO.  The nature of the leveling process taking so long is what helps deter folks from stupid behavior without the quick ability to reroll to max level.  Open World will be fine.

    You're right, nothing to worry about. That sure worked in EQ, hahaha, am I right guys?

     

    Actually it did.  I know you wouldn't know because you aren't old enough to have played EQ heavily during its prime...and things are very different on P99, but IF the amount of griefing is similar to what it was in EQ we have nothing to worry about.  I am skeptical though because well... game communities are different now.

    • 3237 posts
    November 21, 2017 12:55 PM PST

    fazool said:

    The worst experience of my EQ life was camping a rare quest drop in PoHateB for (literally) a month.  The named mob spawned and a group miraculously zoned in, ran over and killed mob.

    I will take that experience every time over a dumbed-down, safe game with instanced zones.

    If the game separates us into isolated guild halls, private housing, instances and locked-down mobs, then I am just playing a single-player shooter game simultaneously with other single players.

    I will walk away from my multiple donations and years of anxiously waiting for this game before playing in a ruined MMORPG world like that again.

    I might as well play a solo game of minecraft on my phone.

    This guy gets it!  Say no to baby safing!  Say no to rails!  Say no to participation trophies!  Say no to player isolation!  #MakeMMOsGreatAgain

    • 2130 posts
    November 21, 2017 2:04 PM PST

    I guess buzzwords and Trump memes count as discussion now.

    Let's hope VR makes the correct decision, whatever it may be, and that it doesn't have utterly atrocious consequences. And with that, I think I'll just cease using these forums until PA before I actually have a stroke. I'm way too casual for this ****.


    This post was edited by Liav at November 21, 2017 2:05 PM PST
    • 1785 posts
    November 21, 2017 2:21 PM PST

    Yeah that was just a little over the top there 1ad7...someone needs to cut off your coffee supply, I think.

    There is an old axiom in computer security (part of what neph deals with irl) that says that you can never make something bad impossible. You can only make it as difficult as good people are willing to tolerate. I think that applies to griefing as well.

    We players will need to decide during testing if the game does enough, or not enough, or too much.


    This post was edited by Nephele at November 21, 2017 4:31 PM PST
    • 3016 posts
    November 21, 2017 2:30 PM PST

    SoWplz said:

    I am sure this topic has been brought up about 100 times.

    But I was watching the twitch video and Brad mentioned once again the game will not have instance zones and will be completely open. The host started to get into other groups coming in and KSing boss mobs, and it seemed to just get kind of blown over. I know every person on this forum has had this done to them, or did to someone else.  In EQ1 back in the day they had online support, or as we call them GMs that would deal with this a little, and as time went on they kinda of ignored it. To me any time you put too much of the game in players hands, a group of players will ruin it for the others. Has anything been said to this age old issue, or is it left up to the players as mentioned in the video?

     

    BUT he DID mention possible locked areas around boss mobs..I know the chat was scrolling pretty fast at times,  but I did at least catch that one. :)  And there are numerous threads about "uber" guilds that used to hog content and sit on it..in the old days in EQ.    VR is aware of this issue.

     

    Cana

    • 3016 posts
    November 21, 2017 2:32 PM PST

    philo said:

    One solution is definitely to have NO cap on the ignore list...and to have plenty of extra room to add notes next to players names about why they are on ignore. 

     

    I agree with this.  :) I will say again..if someone is THAT disagreeable, trollish..obnoxious,   welcome to my ignore, and when I say that,  it like being tossed into outer space to forever orbit around the moon.  Unless of course an apology is forthcoming.  Otherwise poof..nonentity. :)

     

    Cana


    This post was edited by CanadinaXegony at November 21, 2017 2:37 PM PST