I am hoping for the 'camping' style of gameplay to return. Especially after what WoW has turned into with their dungeon designs today. Timed events where the group rushes through as fast as possible. No thank you. Camping a spot and pulling mobs back to kill, that is what I am looking for in Pantheon.
I personally am hoping that there is a combination of ways to productively play. I see camp pulling to be the boring/easy mode where you carefully pull mobs to a group and kill them with little to no danger. I also hope that there are also groups of mobs that cannot be split or pulled very far away from their defensive location such that groups must come to them and a string of said groups will lead through a dungeon.
Basically the areas would be designed with paths and side chambers. The side chambers will have the pull-able mobs but the paths will have challenging defensive groups. This way you need to break through the defensive points to reach good camping locations. I would also set the respawns of the defensive positions to be much higher than the chamber mobs.
This way groups could in theory start at one end of the path and batter their way through the dungeon going from one defensive position to the next while ignoring the chambers. Camping groups would be able to pull from the chambers between to defensive locations without agroing them and there by defining the range of their camp.
I could see this general format being used for all interior zones and outdoor zones with a lot of restrictive geography. Open form outdoor zones will likely not have a good format for defensive units though there could be small camps with several defensive spawn nodes to attack in succession then hopefully withdraw to regenerate mana. The time it takes a group to kill then regenerate mana all of the groups would be roughly the respawn rate such that a single group could continuously cycle through the nodes.
Do not think you will see the pulling mechanic, to much, until they lift the NDA. As previously stated Cohh did some pulling with the Monk and I believe the devs did a bit of pulling also early in the streams (normally to Brads detriment, for some reason a horde of Orcs is in my mind when I think of the devs pulling).
Between devs looking to showcase the zones and the streamers wanting to explore and show their viewers new areas, pulling does not accomplish their goal of the play session.
With that said, I would like pulling to be in the game; however, I would also love the ability for the group to be able to move around the zone as they kill. However, that will depend on mob density, how crowded the zone is, and which is a better reward (loot/XP or both) for pulling vs not pulling.
Vertego said: ... Is this kind of pulling game play not going to be present with Pantheon?
Pulling as an aspect of game play wasn't what Verant forsaw in EQ. Brad didn't expect the FD skill to be used as such when he created EQ. In fact, Verant spent a lot of effort through the course of their management of the game to stop what we know as monk pulling today. For instance, they specifically designed Velious code to curb monk single pulling because they believed at the time such practice was counter to the games progression and health.
Over time, this practice "emerged" as a central role to the monk (the original monk if you had to place a role to it, original EQ did not, was an avoidance tank and damage dealer with utiltity) and became excepted as a component of game play. So much that the monk role of avoidance tanking was removed to force it into the role of puller/dps (the monk nerf was a huge fiasco in EQ).
Fact is, "pulling" really is just the means of evaluating the limits of mob behavior and manipulating it to separate mobs to individual fights. Monks had the unquie tool to wipe agro, which made pulling individual mobs a bit easier. Other classes through various tools and approaches could also achieve similar results.
The point is, pulling is not a "monk" ability, it is simpy the result of having certain tools to achive the result of segregating mobs. Later in EQ, other classes became superior pullers over monks (Bards became the master of pulling with the set of tools they gained around the PoP era).
This is why I dislike "roles" established officially by the game designers. It is counter to "emergent" game play to define and develop classes to a specific role and subset. If EQ was originally designed to hold to such strict adherance, emergent game play would have been a less prevelant occurence I beleive as development would have been focused specifically on forcing classes to a pre-designed form.
Tanix said:
Pulling as an aspect of game play wasn't what Verant forsaw in EQ. Brad didn't expect the FD skill to be used as such when he created EQ. In fact, Verant spent a lot of effort through the course of their management of the game to stop what we know as monk pulling today. For instance, they specifically designed Velious code to curb monk single pulling because they believed at the time such practice was counter to the games progression and health.Over time, this practice "emerged" as a central role to the monk (the original monk if you had to place a role to it, original EQ did not, was an avoidance tank and damage dealer with utiltity) and became excepted as a component of game play. So much that the monk role of avoidance taking was removed to force it into the role of puller/dps (the monk nerf was a huge fiasco in EQ).
Fact is, "pulling" really is just the means of evaluating the limits of mob behavior and manipulating it to separate mobs to individual fights. Monks had the unquie tool to wipe agro, which made pulling individual mobs a bit easier. Other classes through various tools and approaches could also achieve similar results.
The point is, pulling is not a "monk" ability, it is simpy the result of having certain tools to achive the result of segregating mobs. Later in EQ, other classes became superior pullers over monks (Bards became the master of pulling with the set of tools they gained around the PoP era).
This is why I dislike "roles" established officially by the game designers. It is counter to "emergent" game play to define and develop classes to a specific role and subset. If EQ was originally designed to hold to such strict adherance, emergent game play would have been a less prevelant occurence I beleive as development would have been focused specifically on forcing classes to a pre-designed form.
Well said. People are obssessed with placing classes into buckets.
Vertego said: So rewatching some of the content I haven’t seen a lot of pulling. Seems like the game play is going to be a group of players move through an area and kill mobs together. I was kind of hoping to see more of the grouping game play I’m familiar with EQ. That is to say a dedicated puller that brings the mobs to the group to farm xp. Is this kind of pulling game play not going to be present with Pantheon?
I think it is likely you will not be disappointed.
Vertego said: So rewatching some of the content I haven’t seen a lot of pulling. Seems like the game play is going to be a group of players move through an area and kill mobs together. I was kind of hoping to see more of the grouping game play I’m familiar with EQ. That is to say a dedicated puller that brings the mobs to the group to farm xp. Is this kind of pulling game play not going to be present with Pantheon?
It has been explicity stated that this is something they are going for and was displayed in a least one stream for clearing a room to get to the boss in the courtyard (I can't remember her name). It will definitely exist, but for a stream group that only has 1 hour (sometimes 2), usually they are plowing a dungeon or area to get to mini-bosses/bosses.
I want pulling to be as detailed an issue as it was in EQ.
Pre-Velious FD design:
Mobs would have individual memory timers, allowing a monk to split off mobs regardles if they reset to their spawn points. At any moment a mob after a FD could stop and forget it was chasing you. This was very useful in that you could easily split and stagger mobs, but it came with a MAJOR downfall. Even if a mob were to go back to its spawn point, AT ANY TIME, it could all of a sudden remember it was chasing you and then would go back to chasing you. The result was ENTIRE dungeons swarming a group because of the mob going back deep into the dungeon, remembering, and then trying to path back to your group causing assist agro on everything along the way. Your group out of the blue could up to an hour or so later have the entire dungeon piling into the room and nobody new why.
Post-Velious FD design:
During the pull, mobs would never forget while (not to any common occurence) away from their spawn point, meaning they would chase, stop when you FD, then either remember you (ie a soft fail to FD, a hard fail is when they ignored that you FD'd and keep coming after you) or would forget and walk back to their spawn point (a success). So, this made it very tricky in trying to split them. What we learned how to do was to use the environment (obstacles to catch one mob on to space them or to use various other means to create a space), or tools (if you were lucky to have the really cool weapons with snare/root procs) to get them into positions where one could go back to their spawn point at a distance that was further away than the assist agro range. There was also the fact that some mobs would have a temp wipe in this process to which you could use to your advantage to separate them.
The entire point here was that EQ pulling was not a designed skill, and so this is why there were monks with extrodinary ability and those who were horrible. They didn't simply follow a games design for them, the monk actually was akin to a "hacker", learning the systems ins and outs and then manipulating it to their advantage.
I am not sure VR will be able to achieve that throgh a controlled system design, but then I am an old skeptical guy, hard to please. /shrug
Single pulling became an art. Pallys could single pull as an art form, not only monks. Enchanters, could also single pull and were better at it. SK's as well. Bards had a way to single pull that was a bit more complex. Even rangers could single pull if threatened to do so but when a ranger pulled it was time specific, if the first mob wasn't killed fast enough the ranger would tell us that more would be coming in a moment and usually would dash off to try to root one or two en route. This left other classes as primarily non-pulling or support classes. Oh, a cleric could pull sure, if there were only undead. A druid could pull, outside only, along with a wizard maybe. but mages and shamans really could not be pullers as "pet pulling" or "eye pulling" never really worked out.
Having a"puller" changed the dynamics of the group and how you would fight. A puller made a dungeon crawl doable and almost casual as opposed to a frantic, multi-target, off-tank!,burn that one first! turn the corner, jump scare suprise. Although the frantic fights often were the coolest and made you stand your ground when things went south regardless of the threat of the corpse run because of the hope generated from surviving the last fiasco. Kinda like when your group zones in to a dungeon and you hear someone yell train and you stand your ground. Your group being a little higher level and intent on heading deeper. Like the group in the last stream looking over he ramparts in BRK at the lower level area below.
Manouk said:Single pulling became an art. Pallys could single pull as an art form, not only monks. Enchanters, could also single pull and were better at it. SK's as well. Bards had a way to single pull that was a bit more complex. Even rangers could single pull if threatened to do so but when a ranger pulled it was time specific, if the first mob wasn't killed fast enough the ranger would tell us that more would be coming in a moment and usually would dash off to try to root one or two en route. This left other classes as primarily non-pulling or support classes. Oh, a cleric could pull sure, if there were only undead. A druid could pull, outside only, along with a wizard maybe. but mages and shamans really could not be pullers as "pet pulling" or "eye pulling" never really worked out.
Having a"puller" changed the dynamics of the group and how you would fight. A puller made a dungeon crawl doable and almost casual as opposed to a frantic, multi-target, off-tank!,burn that one first! turn the corner, jump scare suprise. Although the frantic fights often were the coolest and made you stand your ground when things went south regardless of the threat of the corpse run because of the hope generated from surviving the last fiasco. Kinda like when your group zones in to a dungeon and you hear someone yell train and you stand your ground. Your group being a little higher level and intent on heading deeper. Like the group in the last stream looking over he ramparts in BRK at the lower level area below.
Pet pulling definitely had its day, but I think it was more of an exploit. Pretty funny seeing someone get Velketor or Phinegal to the zone entrance.
I too had a monk in EQ1 (amongst a lot of other classes) and pulling was a lot of fun...for the monk. For everyone else it was boring as #%&. While the monk was working to split a spawn the group just kinda sat there waiting. Where is the fun in that if you're not the monk? When I was on my Shaman I'd just tell whoever was pulling to bring the whole mess and we'll sort it out. Yes it was more frantic, but far more dangerous but also much more interesting and entertaining. We'd use other means of crowd control and spread out the kill times so the next set of respawns were someone spread out.
To each their own, though. If your group wants a puller to take the time to split? Go for it. If you're group wants to deal with it in other ways? Do that instead. Across all the classes we have a lot of tools to employ so take the time to figure out different ways of doing things.
Pulling needs to be seen as just another form of crowd control, Because that's what it is. 3 mobs singled down to 1 at a time, vs 3 mobs pulled and 2 cc'd at a time. It's the same result.
Stop viewing pulling as something needed in every group and instead view it as filling a CC role!
Porygon said:Pulling needs to be seen as just another form of crowd control, Because that's what it is. 3 mobs singled down to 1 at a time, vs 3 mobs pulled and 2 cc'd at a time. It's the same result.
Stop viewing pulling as something needed in every group and instead view it as filling a CC role!
I think everything should be viewed as such in terms of abilties, but not as a specific role. There should be no roles such as "tank", merely "defensive" abilities over varying classes to which the player decides through experimentation as to what is viable or not. Every class should be nothing more than a collection of skills and abilities with no predefined "role" cards handed out to dictate to players what they are to be. Original EQ did not force roles (the player community did that on its own), rather it gave "flavors" of abiltities and focus to which the players applied as they saw fit. This is why some "odd ball" group configurations worked so well in early EQ and why the designated "roles" proclaimed by the community was often turned on its head. Granted, this is not to say that classes in very specific detailed requirements did not define the a specific need, but original EQ was more about group play, not raiding (where min/maxing of a focus was key) and so the idea that a particular class was an absolute defined role was less important.
This not to say that people will not break from the expected norm, but it is much harder for players to step outside those boundaries when the initial design is to force them into them.
Tanix said:Porygon said:Pulling needs to be seen as just another form of crowd control, Because that's what it is. 3 mobs singled down to 1 at a time, vs 3 mobs pulled and 2 cc'd at a time. It's the same result.
Stop viewing pulling as something needed in every group and instead view it as filling a CC role!
I think everything should be viewed as such in terms of abilties, but not as a specific role. There should be no roles such as "tank", merely "defensive" abilities over varying classes to which the player decides through experimentation as to what is viable or not. Every class should be nothing more than a collection of skills and abilities with no predefined "role" cards handed out to dictate to players what they are to be. Original EQ did not force roles (the player community did that on its own), rather it gave "flavors" of abiltities and focus to which the players applied as they saw fit. This is why some "odd ball" group configurations worked so well in early EQ and why the designated "roles" proclaimed by the community was often turned on its head. Granted, this is not to say that classes in very specific detailed requirements did not define the a specific need, but original EQ was more about group play, not raiding (where min/maxing of a focus was key) and so the idea that a particular class was an absolute defined role was less important.
This not to say that people will not break from the expected norm, but it is much harder for players to step outside those boundaries when the initial design is to force them into them.
This is extremely important and something I wish more people would stop and think about. Part of the magic of EQ was being able to just get things done with whatever you had. You didn't have to replace the rogue in your party with another melee DPS, or even a "DPS" class at all. You could replace the rogue with a second healer and could adjust the playstyle of the group. It could even open up opportunities you didn't have before even though today that group might be considered sub optimal.
Keno Monster said:This is extremely important and something I wish more people would stop and think about. Part of the magic of EQ was being able to just get things done with whatever you had. You didn't have to replace the rogue in your party with another melee DPS, or even a "DPS" class at all. You could replace the rogue with a second healer and could adjust the playstyle of the group. It could even open up opportunities you didn't have before even though today that group might be considered sub optimal.
Now people (including me) want to min/max, and so the "did you just assume my role" happens! This is assuming it's a PUG and not pre-made of course.
Fragile said:Keno Monster said:This is extremely important and something I wish more people would stop and think about. Part of the magic of EQ was being able to just get things done with whatever you had. You didn't have to replace the rogue in your party with another melee DPS, or even a "DPS" class at all. You could replace the rogue with a second healer and could adjust the playstyle of the group. It could even open up opportunities you didn't have before even though today that group might be considered sub optimal.
Now people (including me) want to min/max, and so the "did you just assume my role" happens! This is assuming it's a PUG and not pre-made of course.
Nothing wrong with min/maxing and pushing the limits of play, after all it is what often leads to emergent game play, but... it can also have a downside when people sheepishly get into proclaming who can do what. I got to the point where I would drop someone from group simply because they started arguing over what class was allowed to do what as that type of narrow thinking also was accompanied by "You need this to do that, you must have this many to succeed in this, etc..." and it was one of the things I seriously disliked about some the community in EQ as they started dictating to everyone what their role was after release.
You also point out how class wars began and eventual hemogenization of the classes resulted. Everyone was so worried about what the other class was doing and how it may be infringing on their "role", that many developers just started to rubber stamp all the classes making them all the same and giving the players the ability to decide what type of "role" they would play. You couldn't allow another class to have something over another, it would upset people, so everyone got the same thing and in doing so, the games slowly turned into shallow generic activities.
Sylvanfox said: I am noticing a good amount of people essentially saying they don’t want to see roles forced on a class. Pantheon is built around forced roles. Healer, DPS, Tank, Crowd Control. Yes some classes will be a little of both but will naturally have a common role to play. You will simply not see a cleric as a viable dps class for instance. You will not see a enchanter that does not have the role of crowd control. You will not see a rogue used as a tank. That’s not to say you won’t have random group composition on random common mob camps say at a orc camp. But when it comes to main group content such as dungeons you will need to have all roles available to succeed in most cases.
Each of the early EQ class descriptions were generic, not set to a "role". Classes in role concepts as "tank", "DPS", "Crowd Control" and the like did not exist as we know them. AD&D was the same way. You didn't see a class description proclaim roles, they described abilities, general purpose and function. As I said, it didn't mean classes were not without some constraints that limited them, rather the idea that they were designed in a generic box (role) was not the point. In fact, the classes were designed more in terms of fantasy lore mixed in with RL history/physics and the like. You didn't get a fighter throwing a tantrum because the mage cast a spell that made them able to fight like a fighter, or a rogue using a wand to heal or spell scroll, or a mage using the unlock spell, invis and silence to stealth.
Now certainly I am not saying that every class should be able to do everything, rather I think roles force a design concept that limits creative class design and then conditions expectations by players and ultimately results in class wars. EQ without forcing original roles still ended up having the community doing it themselves, but at least in those cases they didn't drive the design of each class (not at the start).
You bring up crowd control as an example, this is a good one. In EQ, crowd controll was a task, not a role for only a specific class. Some classes did it better than others, but the idea that a class was pigeon holed into a specific role was not what the class was designed as. For instance, numerous classes could CC in EQ. Many classes could root, snare, stun, off tank with a pet, mez, etc... which meant you could have varying levels of group designs which could handle numerous situations. Over time and due to the nature of people, roles were established and people began to demand only the ideal consensus of a group makeup. This was unfortunate as it led to wars over class abilties, and many poor attitudes when it came to grouping, not to mention it really narrowed thinking on what was possible in play, slowly killing many emergent explorations that originally made EQ so great.
My only point is that "roles" will create community expectations which will drive certain conflicts as well as condition certain development paths of the game over time. I personally would prefer to not have roles "designated", even if a class will tend to be better suited for such, I just don't like the labeling that will spur "you can only do this, that is my role!! Nerf this class! I am supposed to be the best at this!"