Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Open world concerns??

    • 1281 posts
    November 23, 2017 10:31 AM PST

    DragonFist said:

    Wandidar said:

    Addressing the turn in the conversation:

    1) Top end guilds compete with top end guilds for content... this is a small segment of the population 10-15% I think is a fair estimate.

    2) Second tier guilds are impacted by the top guilds becuase top guilds are monopolizing content that those second tier guilds are good enough to try and perhaps succeed.  That's maybe another 10 - 15% of the population.

    3)  The rest of the server likely isn't ready to do the content being competed over... and the content they are capable of doing likely isn't being locked out.

     

    The problem really comes in if the game grows in a mostly vertical manner when new content comes out.  If it does that, then content that people wanted to do but couldn't do becomes obsolete and - while it SHOULD still be content they would do, sadly, guilds will pass it by and never do it because there is new bright, shiny stuff for them to do.

    If the game grows more horizontally - providing new top end content along with content that eases the path into what was the old top end content... then those second tier guilds will work their way through it while competing for the scraps left behind by the top tier guilds - while everyone else with an interest in content (third tier and beyond) will work into that old content only blocked by the occurence of another guild being there - but with other unblocked stuff to go do when that happens.  

     

     



    This is rather close to my own experience regarding this.  Sure, there are sometimes bad occurrences in those top tiers.  But even there the experience was mostly good.

    The balanncing of the content that is available and useful after expansions is an important balancing act to keep content relevant.

    I agree with this completely.  This balancing act isn't something specific to an open world. Instancing is just a "cheat" that comes about as a result of laziness to artifically inflate "world content" and make it asppear to have more content than the instanced world actually has.

    Instancing is nothing more than turning an MMO into a group-based FPS game.  Especially when you have games like WoW, where you don't have to actually search out groups; the game does that for you.

    • 801 posts
    November 23, 2017 10:33 AM PST

    Hokanu said:

    Crazzie said:

    Vandraad said:

    OneForAll said: People in this thread are exagerating the extent of camp stealing and griefing that goes on. It's as if a few people here had some really bad experiences on recent TLPs and want to give off the impression that it is rampant and you can expect everytime you log on to be a constant battle against griefers to get something done. That's just not how it is. And please stop using Phinny or Agnarr as examples. That EQ has Kronos and new expansions every few months which completely warps the games dynamics and encourages blitzkrieg item farming for RMT while items remain relevant. This creates an extremely negative and competitive environment and those servers should not be used as examples of EQ .

    No kidding!

    I think back through my years in EQ1 and can count on 1 hand the number of times I directly experienced a kill steal, a camp steal or a raid steal.  It truly just did not happen that often.  No, I wasn't on the bleeding edge of content, but where I and my guild were on content we had plenty of competition.  Lanys didn't run a calendar system, and public shaming wasn't really done either.  If you wanted something, you made sure you were there first.  Plain and simple.

    Cooperation for quest items, specifically epics, but for many other quest items as well, was very commonplace. 

    And as time progressed and more and more content was created, direct competition lessened as the population spread out.  My guild raided 5 days a week and we never lacked for content.  Something was always up somewhere for us to enjoy.

    1998- until the next expansion and then onwards until the very end of POP.

    We had so many servers doing the exact same things to each other. It was a race to the top, and the C blocking was "Coined" the lagging of zones, and the constant camping of various key parts. We also had issues of farming boss mobs on a cycle.

    Where where you guys in EQ1?? normal servers had this issue. It isnt over "exagerating the extent of camp stealing and griefing that goes on" it was a fact back then on first releases.

     

    Either neither of you guys where in a top end raiding guild, or you both came to EQ very late. I played from 98 onwards up until now. Off and on for a couple of times, but i played the majority of the games life cycle. The only thing that really changed was the reduction of players.

     

    But this is a different game, and i expect many things will be totally different then that old EQ game we once loved.

    But obviously it wasnt game breaking stuff, just some top end hardcore competition right? I mean by your own reference it is a game you loved and continued playing.

    Never experienced it in any other way than Vand, One, Zork and others have described (positivly) but by my own admission i am not hardcore.

    If the core of this problem is an issue for hardocre players only/mostly, well preferably they dont change the game to suit a hardcore crowd only. 

     

    For some it was game breaking, they got tired out of the pop and left the game. Worn out mostly. Not everyone liked the KSing, or bottlenecking competition.

    It was on the edge of server tops. it usually consisted of 1 guild blocking others, or 2 guilds just to slow down to keep the progression to themselves.

     

    Usually forced us to go into a server roation finally, and we had to sit doing half ass raids if we where locked out. Otherwise free exp nights.

    Not lower end guilds or semi raiding guilds because while we where finishing the top end raids many where just starting doing the raids in pop.

    It was 1999, i know it was after christmas in 98 so march i guess is right but whatever a few months off no biggie.. Thats not when we first discovered the issues, mainly in Velious, Kunark and Pop.

     

    • 801 posts
    November 23, 2017 10:38 AM PST

    Kalok said:

    Crazzie said:

    Vandraad said:

    OneForAll said: People in this thread are exagerating the extent of camp stealing and griefing that goes on. It's as if a few people here had some really bad experiences on recent TLPs and want to give off the impression that it is rampant and you can expect everytime you log on to be a constant battle against griefers to get something done. That's just not how it is. And please stop using Phinny or Agnarr as examples. That EQ has Kronos and new expansions every few months which completely warps the games dynamics and encourages blitzkrieg item farming for RMT while items remain relevant. This creates an extremely negative and competitive environment and those servers should not be used as examples of EQ .

    No kidding!

    I think back through my years in EQ1 and can count on 1 hand the number of times I directly experienced a kill steal, a camp steal or a raid steal.  It truly just did not happen that often.  No, I wasn't on the bleeding edge of content, but where I and my guild were on content we had plenty of competition.  Lanys didn't run a calendar system, and public shaming wasn't really done either.  If you wanted something, you made sure you were there first.  Plain and simple.

    Cooperation for quest items, specifically epics, but for many other quest items as well, was very commonplace. 

    And as time progressed and more and more content was created, direct competition lessened as the population spread out.  My guild raided 5 days a week and we never lacked for content.  Something was always up somewhere for us to enjoy.

    1998- until the next expansion and then onwards until the very end of POP.

    We had so many servers doing the exact same things to each other. It was a race to the top, and the C blocking was "Coined" the lagging of zones, and the constant camping of various key parts. We also had issues of farming boss mobs on a cycle.

    Where where you guys in EQ1?? normal servers had this issue. It isnt over "exagerating the extent of camp stealing and griefing that goes on" it was a fact back then on first releases.

     

    Either neither of you guys where in a top end raiding guild, or you both came to EQ very late. I played from 98 onwards up until now. Off and on for a couple of times, but i played the majority of the games life cycle. The only thing that really changed was the reduction of players.

     

    But this is a different game, and i expect many things will be totally different then that old EQ game we once loved.

    You're full of baloney.  I played EQ1 from 1999 until after PoP caame out.  I also played EQ2 and Vanguard.

    You are WAY overexaggerating what happened.

    Thats ok think what you want, or is this a simple troll method to not tell the truth?

    Still trying to figure out what you played in EQ, maybe a grouping person only? dont think you raided high end guild stuff.

    And if you dont really remember the raids where a 2nd guild would lag the zone out or crash it then you really where not on top of EQ, as much as you say.

    • 1303 posts
    November 23, 2017 10:40 AM PST

    I think Kalok's point is that, by the definition you just set, there were a fraction of players almost exclusively at the top end that were heavily impacted. That's partly because of a focus on end-game as the only part of the game that matters, partly on a lack of subtantive content to occupy all those people, partly on bottlenecking of content thru raid gates, partly on full 100% contested content, and a number of other factors. There have been dozens of solutions provided in this thread alone that don't involve instancing. 

    But the real salient point Kalok is making is that just because a fraction of the population of the game had recurring issues, the fundimental game design shouldnt necessarily change to accomodate that group alone when there were much higher percentages for whom the issues meant to be solved were never (or rarely) a negative factor. If a person werent a part of the few guilds competing for the current end-game content, you really didn't experience any of the blocking you're talking about, and only occasionally experienced a random KS'r. So, for the bulk of the game's players what you're describing was almost entirely a non-factor, and heavily outweighed by experiences they loved and long for. 


    This post was edited by Feyshtey at November 23, 2017 10:42 AM PST
    • 1399 posts
    November 23, 2017 10:51 AM PST

    Feyshtey said:

    I think Kalok's point is that, by the definition you just set, there were a fraction of players almost exclusively at the top end that were heavily impacted. That's partly because of a focus on end-game as the only part of the game that matters, partly on a lack of subtantive content to occupy all those people, partly on bottlenecking of content thru raid gates, partly on full 100% contested content, and a number of other factors. There have been dozens of solutions provided in this thread alone that don't involve instancing. 

    But the real salient point Kalok is making is that just because a fraction of the population of the game had recurring issues, the fundimental game design shouldnt necessarily change to accomodate that group alone when there were much higher percentages for whom the issues meant to be solved were never (or rarely) a negative factor. If a person werent a part of the few guilds competing for the current end-game content, you really didn't experience any of the blocking you're talking about, and only occasionally experienced a random KS'r. So, for the bulk of the game's players what you're describing was almost entirely a non-factor, and heavily outweighed by experiences they loved and long for. 

    Well said!

    • 1281 posts
    November 23, 2017 10:51 AM PST

    Feyshtey said:

    I think Kalok's point is that, by the definition you just set, there were a fraction of players almost exclusively at the top end that were heavily impacted. That's partly because of a focus on end-game as the only part of the game that matters, partly on a lack of subtantive content to occupy all those people, partly on bottlenecking of content thru raid gates, partly on full 100% contested content, and a number of other factors. There have been dozens of solutions provided in this thread alone that don't involve instancing. 

    But the real salient point Kalok is making is that just because a fraction of the population of the game had recurring issues, the fundimental game design shouldnt necessarily change to accomodate that group alone when there were much higher percentages for whom the issues meant to be solved were never (or rarely) a negative factor. If a person werent a part of the few guilds competing for the current end-game content, you really didn't experience any of the blocking you're talking about, and only occasionally experienced a random KS'r. So, for the bulk of the game's players what you're describing was almost entirely a non-factor, and heavily outweighed by experiences they loved and long for. 

    Exactly this.  The game shouldn't be "nerfed" because of the 2% of people that are jackasses and out to ruin it for everyone else.

    • 1303 posts
    November 23, 2017 10:56 AM PST

    Kalok said:

    Exactly this.  The game shouldn't be "nerfed" because of the 2% of people that are jackasses and out to ruin it for everyone else.

    Or even the 10% that were the common victims of those jackasses, with the other 80% of the population remaining blissfully ignorant of the whole soap opera at end-game. 

    • 281 posts
    November 23, 2017 12:04 PM PST

    Feyshtey said:

    Kalok said:

    Exactly this.  The game shouldn't be "nerfed" because of the 2% of people that are jackasses and out to ruin it for everyone else.

    Or even the 10% that were the common victims of those jackasses, with the other 80% of the population remaining blissfully ignorant of the whole soap opera at end-game. 

    I played casually, with groups, soloed a lot and then did a lot of raiding, eventually being involved in server firsts, etc.  I used to be annoyed at some mechanics, like KSing and training, etc.  I can't say that I wouldn't get upset about it in a new game.  But I've played so many games since that couldn't hold my attention for more than the ride to "end game" only to be bored repeating the same instances over and over.  These issues were relatively minor in 90% (my estimate based on my experience, not a polled number) of the game.  And while frustrating when they occurred, I'll take that frustration over a game that I have no investment in and no real goals after making max level.  I also remember the pride taken in out-DPSing a KSer or KSing raid force or surviving an a training attempt and managing to not wipe.

    So, I agree that much is being made of a relatively small potential bit of the game.

    That said, I know that there will be some mechanics to minimize these issues.  One such example was given by Brad about one boss, once engaged, will have the doors to the room close and they won't re-open until the event resets.  I'm sure there'll be other efforts to lessen the impact of the relatively few players that try to "play" that way.


    This post was edited by DragonFist at November 23, 2017 12:07 PM PST
    • 753 posts
    November 23, 2017 7:40 PM PST

    One thing on blocked content... if you are absolutely dedicatated to beating the block, it CAN be done.  I was one of the first second tier guild players on my server to get Plane of Time keyed - when I got the very last mob I needed for it somewhere between 5:00 and 5:30AM.  

    It happened when a bunch of second tier folks just happened to be in the right place at the right time and got the mob before those attempting to keep it perma-dead could mobilize.  I can only assume that the time of day had something to do with it... but still.

    • 3237 posts
    November 23, 2017 9:55 PM PST

    I don't think we'll have any issues with players being able to deny important quest content from others.  For example ... if there is a boss mob required for an epic quest update, it's probably going to have a ghost spawn available.  I'm not sure how often VR plans on using ghosts but when it comes to important quest NPC's I think it will probably be pretty standard.  I think the same logic would be applied to access mobs ... for example, if you have to kill 4 dragons in order to enter the dragon temple ... those 4 dragons, specifically, should be accessible.  Once you make your way into the temple then maybe the NPC's inside are contested but I think it would be good for the overall health of the game if guilds aren't incentivized to perma-camp quest/access mobs in order to prevent others from having an opportunity to progress.  Death Toll access from EQ2 comes to mind.  Gorenaire/Talenor were contested near the beginning of the expansion, but eventually they were both put into instances.  


    This post was edited by oneADseven at November 23, 2017 9:58 PM PST
    • 1399 posts
    November 24, 2017 5:26 AM PST

    What's this "ghost spawn" you're talking about oneADseven?

    • 1281 posts
    November 24, 2017 7:12 AM PST

    Zorkon said:

    What's this "ghost spawn" you're talking about oneADseven?

    In old EQ a  "ghost spawn" was a mob that you killed that spawned the mob you really wanted to get for the quest.

    • 3852 posts
    November 24, 2017 7:17 AM PST

    Another common term for those mobs was placeholder, for obvious reasons.

    • 1303 posts
    November 24, 2017 7:41 AM PST

    Or, after you kill the mob it remains a ghost for you and unattackable for a period of time but is a standard attackable mob for anyone else. This allows you to compete for your first chance at it, but gives everyone else a turn without your interference for the ghost period.

    Can work either way. And I don't object to it so long as its used appropriately and not just the default method of named spawn mechanics. 

     

    • 1281 posts
    November 24, 2017 7:54 AM PST

    Feyshtey said:

    Or, after you kill the mob it remains a ghost for you and unattackable for a period of time but is a standard attackable mob for anyone else. This allows you to compete for your first chance at it, but gives everyone else a turn without your interference for the ghost period.

    Can work either way. And I don't object to it so long as its used appropriately and not just the default method of named spawn mechanics. 

     

    This makes more sense than how we used it back in the day....hehehehe

    • 1019 posts
    November 24, 2017 12:24 PM PST

    I think one of the issues here is small worlds.  Online worlds are small, regardless of they "big" they are, they are still small.  You want to ease the KS'ing the overpopulation of a certain camp?  Make 6 others camps spots that do the exact same thing, but to do that, you'd need a huge world so you can spread all those extra camp spots out.

    Think of camp spots or zones with quest requirements like grocery stores.  If there's only one grocery store in downtown NY, you're going to have issues.  Everyone wants to go there and do their thing, but it's not big enough for the size market around it.  

    • 1281 posts
    November 24, 2017 12:38 PM PST

    Another thing that was fairly common in the "open world" of EQ, at least on the server I played on, was the NBG rules.  For those that don't know what that is, it's "Need Before Greed".  Which means that if one mobs dropped a good item that was an upgrade for someone in the group, they would get it.  Not evrey group, especially pickup ones, wanted to play by NBG rules, which was fine and then everyone would roll on everything, but the collaboration of the NBG groups was nice.  These NBG rules were also nice when they were in-play for quest items too, which weren't technically upgrades for existing equipment.

    It's things like this that made what few jackasses there were in the game alot less game impacting for people playing.

    • 2419 posts
    November 24, 2017 1:03 PM PST

    The mechanics that determine when a boss mob spawns was also a huge contributor in guilds trying to KS each other.  Remember in early EQ1 when the servers would come back online from downtime every boss mob would be up.  Even PoFear/Hate/Sky would be reset.  The rush, then was to get in game and get to whatever boss/zone you needed.  On Lanys, there was a Japanese guild called Tri Airs who were lucky in that server maintenance took place during early PST because the servers were in San Diego, California so when the servers came up they were in their primetime hours.  By the time most US players logged in, everything was dead.

    Sony eventually changed that so that boss timers kept running through downtime, but that resulted in guilds manipulating spawn timers to benefit their specific prime time hours.  I remember well my own guild purposefully 'holding' a boss by one means or another so that when it died, it would respawn to our benefit.  Guilds would send rogues out to follow other guilds to track the time of death of various bosses in hopes of beating them to the target next time.

    Sony changed mechanics again, this time putting in a random +/- at the end of the spawn timer so that you couldn't predict exactly when that boss would respawn.  I think it was +/- up to 12 hours.

    I am a proponent for spawn timers for everything to have a +/- component to it making the world that much less predictable and when things are less predictable it lessens one groups ability to monopolize content.

    • 1860 posts
    November 24, 2017 1:09 PM PST

    The question is not about the amount of griefing that happened in EQ but the amount that will happen in Pantheon...communities have changed a lot.  I feel that the trend has been that players are less courteous to each other these days.  The concern is that Brad and the team aren't taking into account how bad it will be because they are expecting the amount of griefing to be similar to what it was in the past.  It could be substantially more frequent.

    • 1281 posts
    November 24, 2017 1:13 PM PST

    philo said:

    The question is not about the amount of griefing that happened in EQ but the amount that will happen in Pantheon...communities have changed a lot.  I feel that the trend has been that players are less courteous to each other these days.  The concern is that Brad and the team aren't taking into account how bad it will be because they are expecting the amount of griefing to be similar to what it was in the past.  It could be substantially more frequent.

    It is my belief that griefers will be handled by the community just as they were "in the old days", with the rare few that will be reported, also like "in the old days".  I don't know about the rest of the group, but Brad is a very experienced, you could even say expert, MMO developer.  I would be very surprised if he hasn't though of this.

    • 3016 posts
    November 24, 2017 1:23 PM PST

    Kalok said:

    Zorkon said:

    What's this "ghost spawn" you're talking about oneADseven?

    In old EQ a  "ghost spawn" was a mob that you killed that spawned the mob you really wanted to get for the quest.

     

    Or placeholder..as we used to refer to it.   Kill the placeholders to get the mob you really want,  to spawn.   Or yard trash. :)

     

    Cana

    • 3016 posts
    November 24, 2017 1:26 PM PST

    Kalok said:

    philo said:

    The question is not about the amount of griefing that happened in EQ but the amount that will happen in Pantheon...communities have changed a lot.  I feel that the trend has been that players are less courteous to each other these days.  The concern is that Brad and the team aren't taking into account how bad it will be because they are expecting the amount of griefing to be similar to what it was in the past.  It could be substantially more frequent.

    It is my belief that griefers will be handled by the community just as they were "in the old days", with the rare few that will be reported, also like "in the old days".  I don't know about the rest of the group, but Brad is a very experienced, you could even say expert, MMO developer.  I would be very surprised if he hasn't though of this.

     

    There are probably several threads that refer to content blocking by high end guilds..and yes it does happen,  happened on Xegony for a full year,  couldn't get the epic mob in Karnors (Venril Sathir) ..couldn't get near it..same for Phinigel Atropos.   In the end I decided to stop banging my head on the brick wall..and left the game.   And yes the Devs including Brad are aware of this issue.  :)


    This post was edited by CanadinaXegony at November 24, 2017 1:30 PM PST
    • 3237 posts
    November 24, 2017 1:26 PM PST

    I honestly don't think griefing will be as bad in Pantheon as it has been in the past.  Maybe it's true that players are more of a douchebag today than they were back in the day ... but it's so much easier to record gameplay nowadays ... almost anybody can do it.  If someone does something shady, someone can literally post a video of it ... undeniable proof to the world of what they did.  It will be so much easier to blacklist people now than it ever was in the past.  Griefing is the least of my concerns and honestly people just need to band together and be strong.  Seeing so much worry or concern about it just fuels that type of behavior.  Stand your ground and make it clear that shady people will be held accountable.  I will have a thread on fantheonmmo.com that will teach players how to install/utilize recording software, and also have a section on the site dedicated to exposing rotten players.

     


    This post was edited by oneADseven at November 24, 2017 1:46 PM PST
    • 281 posts
    November 24, 2017 1:31 PM PST

    Vandraad said:

    The mechanics that determine when a boss mob spawns was also a huge contributor in guilds trying to KS each other.  Remember in early EQ1 when the servers would come back online from downtime every boss mob would be up.  Even PoFear/Hate/Sky would be reset.  The rush, then was to get in game and get to whatever boss/zone you needed.  On Lanys, there was a Japanese guild called Tri Airs who were lucky in that server maintenance took place during early PST because the servers were in San Diego, California so when the servers came up they were in their primetime hours.  By the time most US players logged in, everything was dead.

    Sony eventually changed that so that boss timers kept running through downtime, but that resulted in guilds manipulating spawn timers to benefit their specific prime time hours.  I remember well my own guild purposefully 'holding' a boss by one means or another so that when it died, it would respawn to our benefit.  Guilds would send rogues out to follow other guilds to track the time of death of various bosses in hopes of beating them to the target next time.

    Sony changed mechanics again, this time putting in a random +/- at the end of the spawn timer so that you couldn't predict exactly when that boss would respawn.  I think it was +/- up to 12 hours.

    I am a proponent for spawn timers for everything to have a +/- component to it making the world that much less predictable and when things are less predictable it lessens one groups ability to monopolize content.

     

    I've given thought to this approach too.  This was much more workable.  I'd like to see it taken a step or two further.  First, I'd like to see "randomity" of spawns be based on more than just RNG.  A lot of what seems random in the physical world is simply a complication of factors.  A simplified version for sake of example, The Sun follows its own course through the galaxy (which follows its own course) and is orbited by the Earth at its rate and further rotates at an other rate.  Therefore, any specific position on its surface has a continuously and seemingly random different position at any given moment, but it all has a pattern.  Add in the orbit and rotation of the Moon and its gravitational effects on the surface and there is further "randomity" but yet patterns.  If spawns were based on an algorithm that took multiple factors (Time of Day, which God is primarily in control of said area, Zone population [both NPC and PC], Developer desired ranges, Terminus Atrological Positions, etc. and some sort of RNG factor as well), one might be able to create something that is much less predictable (especially if players have no access to the actual inputs or algorithm) but still has patterns and won't have overly long or overly short spawn times.  Also, don't have specific spawn points, but volume boxes within which said spawns can occur and a similar algorithm to determine position of spawn.

    • 1303 posts
    November 24, 2017 1:33 PM PST

    I tend to agree with 187. For one thing, the self-righteous little twerps arent likely to enjoy playing a game that makes them actually earn things, rather than the phat lewtz vending machines most of the MMOs are now. I'm betting many of the problem children will leave when the learn as much. 

    And as long as VR is willing to be somewhat uncompromising and bring the hammer down hard on trully abusive players, the message will get out fairly quickly and people will learn from the mistakes of others. 

    I'm putting a lot of faith in the policing of the gameworld by VR. I don't think I'm putting too much in, but I really hope I'm not proven wrong. Active GM's are going to be key to the game's success.