Is there a reason that we can't have dedicated pullers? Why does it have to take a concerted effort on every pull? Is there a reason that we can't have pulls that require different approaches? I would prefer some that require lulls(undead lull), some require or work better with monks, some you can't pull or CC at all, all with different difficulties with maintaining said control. EQ1 had this perfect in my opinion. Not to mention that it all should scale with the level of player and the level of the NPCs. Make some NPCs that can't be lulled, make some groups that can't be pulled single, some partially, some easily. NPCs can have skills and abilities too that make them immune and or highly resistant to CC or single pulls.
So for non-raid targets it depends on the level of the mobs being pulled. There are a few I think should not pull.
I personally like seeing pullers in this order Monks>Bards>Rangers>Druid>Paladin>SK>Enchanter>Necro>Rogue>Cleric>Shaman>Wizard>Mages>Warrior
I do agree that monks are too OP as pullers and should be more situational. If rangers can't harmony in dungeons and pull effectivelly, maybe FD doesnt work outside dungeons?
I don't think there should be one class that is the end-all class for pulling/splitting. Just like there is no end-all class for tanking nor healing. Pulling/splitting is obviously a thing since having the tank face pull entire groups the entire time should prove quite difficult quite often.
Certain skills lend to pulling more effectively and the classes with more of these skills tend to be the more effective pullers but that doesn't mean they should be the only classes that can pull. Traditionally, in the games that most inspire PRF, the monk and bard have been at the top of the food chain because they carry an assortment of aggro drops, lulls, roots, mezzes, charms, run speed, low aggro ranged attacks, etc.
But pulling shouldn't just be about the monk or bard especially if you have troubles finding one to group with. There should be a number of other classes who can pull well but may not be your first choice for certain situations such as chain pulling.
THEN, there should be classes who do NOT pull well but maybe have a very basic pulling/splitting skill set, or none at all, who can combine with other classes with basic to no pulling skill sets and in tandem be able to function well as a pulling unit.
Just my 2 coppers...cheers!
I have always been a fan of having a class or 2 capable of pulling, this has made things interesting since I can remember, Then again it really depends on the encounter style the devs have in mind, Do you guys want us trying to keep a maximum experience flow while grouping? Granted no matter how you build it we the players will exploit anyway we can find to do so anyways, but to what extreme? That being said, I dont think that a tank will or should ever have time to even think about making a pull, so having a puller is nice, outdoors rangers/enchanters/clerics/monks/bards could pull in eq, where in doors half of those classes could, being that ive played a few pulling capable classes, from my experience the enchanter was always busy maintaining mezz/cc, the tanks were always busy tanking, the other dps were always busy killing stuff, its just the algorythm for maximum experience, so i think all in all yeah we do need pullers, but i think the pullers should be the ones you guys deem the ones to do it.
KrasnayaSolnza said: There should be a pulling role assigned to a class. We assign tank, healer, dps (caster/melee) and cc why not puller? People are worried about a pulling class because there won’t be one available? You’re kidding right. That is like not having cc tank healer available. Dps classes are the norm. The other three are more niche because they are higher stress jobs, keeping up Aggro, being well geared, taunting, and timing gcds for tank. Healer has to watch health of tank from spike dmg, keep group free of kos poisons and diseases and aoe dmg. Ccr often slowing and mezzing. Very niche. Bard is a perfect class to make a pulling class because they can’t do anything niche and their dps doesn’t match a monk or rogue. I know the bard will be in the game. Tanks as puller. Might as well gimp the group because you’re constantly having to Rez the tank. At least when there was a bard, if the bard died the group could continue pulling because most classes had abilities that allowed them to pull. Tank pull tank die tank wipe. Good grief. I for one would love to see an MMORPG that makes a new role and establishes itself and sets itself apart from others by creating more roles. People will play classes because they want to always have a group, tank, healer, and ccer, or they will play dpser because they don’t worry about that but to worry that one class will receive preferential selection is ridiculous because it already happens lol!
This is so true, balance ruins games, roles make it flourish!
I think there wil be some classes better at splitting than others, because anyone can pull a train. However I want the fight to be so hard the puller cannot just leave the fight when the monster is at 20pct health to pull the next target, maybe at 10 or 5pct or almost dead.
On the other hand Monster placement could be such that in some situations the group will need to charge in and then get the area or room under control, especially if the monsters have nice large aggro ranges if it cannot be pulled or split.
Manouk said:I think there wil be some classes better at splitting than others, because anyone can pull a train. However I want the fight to be so hard the puller cannot just leave the fight when the monster is at 20pct health to pull the next target, maybe at 10 or 5pct or almost dead.
On the other hand Monster placement could be such that in some situations the group will need to charge in and then get the area or room under control, especially if the monsters have nice large aggro ranges if it cannot be pulled or split.
The kind of consta-pulling groups that sometimes happened in EQ were A) quite quickly exhausting and not really fun (especially for the puller) and B) not really in-keeping with the desire for social downtime that they have for Pantheon (thankfully).
I too would be quite happy if it weren't possible to constantly have 'incoming' monsters. That way leads to the game becoming a chore, but also 'the norm' because there would always be a couple of folks in the group pushing for more more more XP.
I've spoken of this before and I'm glad VR seem aware of the issue. The pressure to consta-pull, the pressure to be ultra-mana efficient, the pressure to get DPS to 0.0001% from maximum theoretical, pressure, pressure, pressure.
I know there are competitive players that will be desperate to race to end-game and compare their stats, but I sincerely hope that mechanics, like pulling, will be tailored to de-emphasise any perceived 'need' for ultra-performance.
I solo'd alot in my days of playing and no matter the class i ended up pulling, obviously, so i just got good at pulling. Sometimes i would 2box a slightly higher level char just to get level pulls and other times i would bring up a caster to Lull or snare/root/mez. And when i played monk there were times it was best for the tank to pull so he could keep aggro, or if we were dungeon crawling it was just easier for him to rush in and set up. When i played rogue i pulled all the time just because i was good at it. So when it comes down to it, let whomever "wants" to pull do the job. Unless they suck at it /shrug
Kilsin said:Community Debate - Who should pull mobs for the group if there is no dedicated pulling class - Crowd Control, DPS with aggro drop ability (Smoke bomb, FD etc.), the main tank or another option? #PRF #MMORPG #MMO #communitymatters
As the bridge between VR and the community, I expect you draw a fair (perhaps even an unfair!) amount of aggro.
So obviously, rogues. =)
Seriously though, most of these answers are based on classes from other games. I expect there will be nuanced differences based on what I have heard Thus the class that should pull or split is irrelevant if they haven't the skills. I really hope there is not a dedicated class for pulling. I really hope that several classes have skills which could be used to pull in the ways listed above. Maybe you get into a situation where because of cooldowns or other considerations, caster with cc pulls group 1, rogue with aggro dump pulls the next group, cleric with a pacify ability splits the 3rd group...
Even without cooldowns as a considerations, I like having some flexibility. Just like there are usually multiple tank and healing and dps classes, having multiple pulling classes and multiple quicker speed classes* etc. gives needed group flexibility in a takes forever to go anywhere type game.
(*Tangent: example rangers/druids give + run speed buff, sorcs have a group reduce gravity less weight = less effort buff, clerics have an endurance buff allowing for longer running times - but none stack, or stack with diminished results.) P.S. Yes, I fall into using class names after my opening sentence, but I surely have an excellent reason.
vjek said:I've said it before, and I'll say it again, FD as demonstrated so far is a toxic social tool, can be used to trivially bypass content, is superior to sneak, hide, mez, lull, invis, all of that and removes the need for CC classes entirely. Why you're continuing to push it as is, I'll never know.
I could not AGREE with this more!! It's easy for us inside the community to say it won't happen. We'll police it, but the issue is this community is small, when the game releases to 200k people and the 2000 of us here aren't going to be enough to discourage or blacklist people who aren't playing the game "the right way".
I've seen this theroy mentioned many times, but this game is going to be more than the few thousand, even the 10,000 of us who watch the streams and know what we want in the community, but it's not going to work. Systems have to be in place and introducing a system like FD is just as vjek says, it's toxic.
Again, I don't understand the point of these posts. Are we being led to believe that there will be no "pulling" class, or that it will be more spread out between classes than it was at times in EQ? What's the connection to this game?
I'll say this. If pulling isn't going to be much of a thing, and if people want FD nerfed or removed, then they may as well scrap the monk class entirely. At least call it something else so it doesn't evoke comparisons to the EQ monk.
Main tank should never pull. Puller should be going to get the next mob as the current mob is nearing death from the rest of the group. Who the puller should be should be situational. ...outdoors...ranger. in eq they had harmony which was money for splitting mobs. Indoors/tight spaces monks and feign death should pull. Mez pulling can also be done...not very Mana efficient. Can be dangerous with resist mobs.
disposalist said:The kind of consta-pulling groups that sometimes happened in EQ were A) quite quickly exhausting and not really fun (especially for the puller) and B) not really in-keeping with the desire for social downtime that they have for Pantheon (thankfully)..
I firmly disagree. It was so exciting as a puller trying to time your pulls perfectly... bringing the 2nd mob in right as the first is turning to walk away so the tank can immediately pick it up.
Some of the MOST FUN I ever had in eq was when I was 6 boxing and trying to be as efficient as possible. Pulling constant mobs trying to get that 1 extra spawn.
And eq was ridiculously slow. Even when me and a friend would 3 box each, and we would still have conversations via text.
Kilsin says: Who should pull mobs for the group if there is no dedicated pulling class - Crowd Control, DPS with aggro drop ability (Smoke bomb, FD etc.), the main tank or another option?
This is a trick question... you basically said: who should pull if there is no dedicated pulling class and then listed "DPS with aggro drop ability" which basically means they are designed to be a pulling class.
What will you ask next?
Who should tank if there is no Tank class... a player with heals or a player with a taunt ability and high health and armor?
Who should DPS if there is no DPS class... a player with high defense or a player with high damage abilities?
You can't include the exclusion in your options.
Porygon said:disposalist said:The kind of consta-pulling groups that sometimes happened in EQ were A) quite quickly exhausting and not really fun (especially for the puller) and B) not really in-keeping with the desire for social downtime that they have for Pantheon (thankfully)..
I firmly disagree. It was so exciting as a puller trying to time your pulls perfectly... bringing the 2nd mob in right as the first is turning to walk away so the tank can immediately pick it up.
Some of the MOST FUN I ever had in eq was when I was 6 boxing and trying to be as efficient as possible. Pulling constant mobs trying to get that 1 extra spawn.
And eq was ridiculously slow. Even when me and a friend would 3 box each, and we would still have conversations via text.
Cool story, but I'm pretty sure VR shouldn't pace Pantheon for people who find duo 3-boxing slow. No offense intended, but I'd rather encounters were tough and involving enough that 2-boxing is too difficult and that downtime is a necessity.