someone know if it will have Leveling road in pantheon?
Example: you follow a road and there are rats lvl 1-2,then wolfs lvl 3-4,then spiders lvl 5-6,then bears lvl 7-9......and more
alot of mmorpg have those and i simply think its bad design
I found this in the FAQ
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20.3 What is being done to make the world feel alive?
We love the idea of bringing back a wide level range of content in the same zone. While some areas in a zone may be for low levels, other areas may contain higher level content. We want high and low-level players to occupy the same spaces, encounter each other in their travels, and inspire players to reach higher levels.
--
I agree it's not good to have everything laid out in front of you on a road. Though I hope we see it in places. IMO EQ and Vanguard weren't good with mob placement in open zones. Especially in Vanguard, they made the mistake of building the world then populating it. Lots of places in EQ felt very sparse for mobs, which lead to camping single spots for hours.
I think the problem of leveling roads in most games is their linear nature as they lead to one place. I personally want traveling to have a purpose without it just being a grind to get between camps and dungeons.
As far as adventuring, I am a fan of graduated quests where the item gets better as you complete certain portions. But that Item is not complete untill you reach the final event/item and in order to get the final item you need to be a certain level just to face the beasty or event. So I like the idea of a quest sort of directing you where you need to go while at the same time offering limitations where you ralize you can't go there yet, but some day. It gives hope.
Funny you mention road as I would also like the option to pursue leveling at another area before I get too old, like making the journey to another race/newbie city to see some new things because I am bored of getting stomped by the spiders in amberfaet. So I would liek to go to other areas and still have them be relavent
Along these lines, I would like to see some indication of where you are and where you could be with regards to Tradeskills. I think it would add to the meta-gamer mentality in realizing that they can get up to 50smithing by level 5, but cannot go beyong 50 smithing untill they level up 1,2, or 5 levels to get to 75 smithing instread of getting to max level and then smithing for days to level up smitrhing.
Doford said:I found this in the FAQ
--
20.3 What is being done to make the world feel alive?
We love the idea of bringing back a wide level range of content in the same zone. While some areas in a zone may be for low levels, other areas may contain higher level content. We want high and low-level players to occupy the same spaces, encounter each other in their travels, and inspire players to reach higher levels.
--
I agree it's not good to have everything laid out in front of you on a road. Though I hope we see it in places. IMO EQ and Vanguard weren't good with mob placement in open zones. Especially in Vanguard, they made the mistake of building the world then populating it. Lots of places in EQ felt very sparse for mobs, which lead to camping single spots for hours.
I think the problem of leveling roads in most games is their linear nature as they lead to one place. I personally want traveling to have a purpose without it just being a grind to get between camps and dungeons.
They have to be careful about over populating areas as it can conflict with the design of combat. If you make combat long (ie killing a mob takes time for a group and even more for lesser numbers), then you can't over populate the world or you end up with too many adds constantly. Even while hunting in the plains of EQ, you still had many issues with a random pather becoming a problem. When you add in roaming mobs of varied levels, this gets very dangerous, even for the careful grouper in a sparse zone.
So, lets say you put tons of mobs all over the place and some players come through via travel or just to explore. They fight one mob (or more), but another pather hits them, then... a spawn, another pather, and by the time they get those down, more spawn. Someone gets too close to another group, and now you are fighting those. Basically, you turn an open world into a dungeon crawl, which may be exciting for a while, but very quickly the zone would turn into one massive grind just to move around. This type of play is better suited for dungeons, not the open world as the open world should be dangerous, but... it should be a danger not of knowing that you WILL have to fight a ton of mobs to get anywhere, but rather it should lull you into a false sense of secuirty where you get an add when you least expected (having a lion, a griffin in the plains path by, or a giant, madman, etc..).
While some areas of EQ were a bit too sparse, I don't think all of it was. There has to be balance it has cascading effects on play in a game like this.
Manouk said:As far as adventuring, I am a fan of graduated quests where the item gets better as you complete certain portions. But that Item is not complete untill you reach the final event/item and in order to get the final item you need to be a certain level just to face the beasty or event. So I like the idea of a quest sort of directing you where you need to go while at the same time offering limitations where you ralize you can't go there yet, but some day. It gives hope.
Funny you mention road as I would also like the option to pursue leveling at another area before I get too old, like making the journey to another race/newbie city to see some new things because I am bored of getting stomped by the spiders in amberfaet. So I would liek to go to other areas and still have them be relavent
Along these lines, I would like to see some indication of where you are and where you could be with regards to Tradeskills. I think it would add to the meta-gamer mentality in realizing that they can get up to 50smithing by level 5, but cannot go beyong 50 smithing untill they level up 1,2, or 5 levels to get to 75 smithing instread of getting to max level and then smithing for days to level up smitrhing.
I hope they don't use linear progression models for items like that. Quests should be limited, rather players should seek their items mostly in the world through drops. I really didn't like the packaged force fed progression of games like WoW and on, they seemed more like you were walking down a buffet line.
((you follow a road and there are rats lvl 1-2,then wolfs lvl 3-4,then spiders lvl 5-6,then bears lvl 7-9......and more))
This isn't exactly the worst design in the world.
Leave the area where your character starts out and hit bears level 7-9 before you hit the rats level 1-2 that your character can use to gain experience and the game is quite Hobbsian. Nasty, brutish and short. *Very* short.
I hope that they design the zones in clusters such that the low level content does not need to be passed through by the high level characters and such that the clusters are spaced so that low level characters are not constantly being chased or instagibbed by high level monsters of an adjacent cluster. WoW was pretty good at this. I also hope there is a clear delineation between group content and solo content areas.
Personally I am hoping for a crafting system that is completely detached from the adventuring system. A level 1 adventurer should be able to become a maximum skill crafter given enough time. That is not saying there will not be specific crafting stations out in the world that are not practical for a level 1 adventuring character to get to. This is tied to a hope that the crafting system is Mr. Potato head style item customization and not named item single option recipe style and that leveling crafting is time limited and not material limited.
Tanix said:They have to be careful about over populating areas as it can conflict with the design of combat. If you make combat long (ie killing a mob takes time for a group and even more for lesser numbers), then you can't over populate the world or you end up with too many adds constantly. Even while hunting in the plains of EQ, you still had many issues with a random pather becoming a problem. When you add in roaming mobs of varied levels, this gets very dangerous, even for the careful grouper in a sparse zone.
So, lets say you put tons of mobs all over the place and some players come through via travel or just to explore. They fight one mob (or more), but another pather hits them, then... a spawn, another pather, and by the time they get those down, more spawn. Someone gets too close to another group, and now you are fighting those. Basically, you turn an open world into a dungeon crawl, which may be exciting for a while, but very quickly the zone would turn into one massive grind just to move around. This type of play is better suited for dungeons, not the open world as the open world should be dangerous, but... it should be a danger not of knowing that you WILL have to fight a ton of mobs to get anywhere, but rather it should lull you into a false sense of secuirty where you get an add when you least expected (having a lion, a griffin in the plains path by, or a giant, madman, etc..).
While some areas of EQ were a bit too sparse, I don't think all of it was. There has to be balance it has cascading effects on play in a game like this.
I'm sure it technically possible to control for adds. Don't spawn them or path-find them somewhere else.
Variety of design is key. I would like to be able from time to time is to travel through a highly populated zone with a group for a quick route or take a safer zone that takes a lot longer. I think that's a plus of having zones instead of seamless terrain. The actual world space doesn't have to make perfect sense in its dimensions.
A huge turn off for lots of players is leaving a newbie area and not knowing where the content is. Players have to be welcomed into the grind which I think games like this need to address. Maybe it is addressed, idk.
I personally hope VR does not do any type of "road" and follows EQ's model instead (like the FAQ seems to allude to)
Starting zones (right outside the city's gates/base of the trees for wood elves) are roaming mobs in the 1-5 level range. In some instances a higher level gnoll might rush the city gates killing unsupecting newbies before being slaughterd by the gaurds
By and large these zones did not have KOS (kill on sight) mobs, so fighting only started when the player intitiated it.
Leave the starting zone and all the guard rails are off. Wander too far off and what was a grouping of level 3-5 mobs will turn into level 10-15 KOS mobs. You might wander into a bandit camp in a revene (ie you couldnt see it until it was too late). There might be skeletons inside what looks to be an empty tower who are 20-25 (ie instant death for level 10 characters).
When it comes to questing, good luck finding a 'trail of quests' like so many terrible mmo's today. Need armor? Start killing bandits for some leather/banded armor. Need a weapon? Start hunting some roaming skeletons and hope one has a rusty short sword (and you'll know the skeleton has a weapon because it's actually holding one as opposed to just fighting with its fists)
Doford said:Tanix said:They have to be careful about over populating areas as it can conflict with the design of combat. If you make combat long (ie killing a mob takes time for a group and even more for lesser numbers), then you can't over populate the world or you end up with too many adds constantly. Even while hunting in the plains of EQ, you still had many issues with a random pather becoming a problem. When you add in roaming mobs of varied levels, this gets very dangerous, even for the careful grouper in a sparse zone.
So, lets say you put tons of mobs all over the place and some players come through via travel or just to explore. They fight one mob (or more), but another pather hits them, then... a spawn, another pather, and by the time they get those down, more spawn. Someone gets too close to another group, and now you are fighting those. Basically, you turn an open world into a dungeon crawl, which may be exciting for a while, but very quickly the zone would turn into one massive grind just to move around. This type of play is better suited for dungeons, not the open world as the open world should be dangerous, but... it should be a danger not of knowing that you WILL have to fight a ton of mobs to get anywhere, but rather it should lull you into a false sense of secuirty where you get an add when you least expected (having a lion, a griffin in the plains path by, or a giant, madman, etc..).
While some areas of EQ were a bit too sparse, I don't think all of it was. There has to be balance it has cascading effects on play in a game like this.
I'm sure it technically possible to control for adds. Don't spawn them or path-find them somewhere else.
Variety of design is key. I would like to be able from time to time is to travel through a highly populated zone with a group for a quick route or take a safer zone that takes a lot longer. I think that's a plus of having zones instead of seamless terrain. The actual world space doesn't have to make perfect sense in its dimensions.
A huge turn off for lots of players is leaving a newbie area and not knowing where the content is. Players have to be welcomed into the grind which I think games like this need to address. Maybe it is addressed, idk.
Thing is, you want pathers to path into a group to suprise them, this is actually good for play. That is part of the danger in the play. I really think this is a difference in modern game design and that of games like EQ. Modern games allow for the players to kill masses of mobs at a time. So, getting 3-5 mobs on you is just a basic course of play, you throw out a bunch of AoE's and mobs are dead. In those games, mobs can be thick throughout the world due to that fact.
When you make mobs hard to kill in terms of the time and endurance of the fight, having tons of mobs grouped all over the place becomes a problem. Also, travel should be dangerous, not impossible. If the zones are littered with mobs everywhere, then it is extremely unlikely for a low level player to attempt a dangerous run to another area, or even a solo player traveling without a group. The idea is not to force people to a certain play, but to make it dangerous, but... possible with risk. Keep in mind as well that zones will not be segregated by a specific limited level range. There will be mobs of a large range throughout the zone, which if they are saturated all through the zone, it makes it even more of an issue.
As for people leaving an area and not know where the content is, well that is part of the game. You have to explore, search out the best places to exp, get drops, etc.. Content should not be designed to discourage exploration and if you build content where there is a clear linear path to progression, the player doens't have to think or explore, they just follow the bouncing ball, which is exactly why modern games are so bland as well as why so many people like me do not play them.
tolliner said:
When it comes to questing, good luck finding a 'trail of quests' like so many terrible mmo's today. Need armor? Start killing bandits for some leather/banded armor. Need a weapon? Start hunting some roaming skeletons and hope one has a rusty short sword (and you'll know the skeleton has a weapon because it's actually holding one as opposed to just fighting with its fists)
This is an excellent point and I hope VR expands on it past even that which EQ did. The drops should reflect that which they come from. What a mob has on it, should be intuitive, make sense, not be some random pointless shiny reward. Also, as you said, quests should be limited, for very specific things, not a bouncing ball of progression indicators or gear shopping lists. Players should have to seek their rewards by actually exploring the world and finding out what drops and where.
Now some will say "Yeah, but people will just look up things online" and I can only respond that I don't care, I won't be doing that and if someone is stupid enough to ruin the game for themselves by looking up all the drops and where they are at, fine, but we shouldn't have the game dumbed down just because some people are lazy cheats.
Trasak said:I hope that they design the zones in clusters such that the low level content does not need to be passed through by the high level characters and such that the clusters are spaced so that low level characters are not constantly being chased or instagibbed by high level monsters of an adjacent cluster. WoW was pretty good at this. I also hope there is a clear delineation between group content and solo content areas.
WoW was dumbed down more so than EQ, it made everything an easy pass through to get to other areas. There was little risk, all you did was follow the bouncing ball roads to your next quest hub with a even progression of content designed for those following that bouncing ball. There was little danger in going to a new area, you had no requirement of searching for your content (ie finding what to kill, where things were, etc...) as the quests all properly directed you to the locations you should be going in order to stay on course.
This is absolutely what is wrong with modern gaming and is at complete odds with EQ and even Vanguard early design.
A low level character should be aware of the dangers around them. The idea of putting high level content in low level zones is not to simply create cubicles so high levels and low levels can safely do thier own thing without running into the other.
In many EQ zones, you had high and low level mobs in various locations. Some were moving, some were static. It was not uncommon to be hunting an area where there were level 10 mobs and a level 30 mob paths by throughout the zone. You could have one static camp of very high levels not far from a low level group of static mobs. In other zones, it was not uncommon to have numerous pathing mobs ranging from level 10-25 in an area, constantly passing each other with numerous changes to their pathing.
In all this, a player of low level could still travel from one side of the game to the other in a very long and dangerous journey. They had to be careful though, pay attention to the threats along the way to steer clear of them, or to use various spells to hide, or seek shelter.
That is the point of dangerous and exciting exploration. If the goal is simply to put up check points where people grind ina specified order, well... that is the design of most modern MMOs and lots of different genres to choose from.
On the other side, just because someone is high level doesn't mean they get to all of a sudden ignore everything not at their level in the world. While at some point, massively low level mobs will have their agro range reduced to near nothing, all will still agro if you sit or med near them. A high level player should still have to deal with other mobs attacking or assisting (maybe a level 20 walks by and heals a level 45 mob you are trying to kil, maybe even assists and attacks you). IF you go into a dugeon, it should come with consequences if you attempt to mass pull a bunch of lower mobs. That is, you should still have serious issues if you get a bunch on tou, even though they may be 15-20 levels below you.
Without these features the game becomes... just another modern MMO.
Tanix said:As for people leaving an area and not know where the content is, well that is part of the game. You have to explore, search out the best places to exp, get drops, etc.. Content should not be designed to discourage exploration and if you build content where there is a clear linear path to progression, the player doens't have to think or explore, they just follow the bouncing ball, which is exactly why modern games are so bland as well as why so many people like me do not play them.
It's not as simple to just think and explore. Lots of games hide their group content behind an innocuous door or a hole the ground with a few mobs visible. I'm left wondering if it's a group dungeon, is it worth putting a group together for. or wait 30min to see if others come along. You have to rely on other players who have explored in groups, who welcome players and know what places are. When games start out that's pretty rare to meet knowledgable players. Most of them are 10-20 levels ahead blasting through content they've played before. Sometimes you just end up in a pug camping one boring spot or exploring nowhere wondering where the real journey is.
dorotea said:((you follow a road and there are rats lvl 1-2,then wolfs lvl 3-4,then spiders lvl 5-6,then bears lvl 7-9......and more))
This isn't exactly the worst design in the world.
Leave the area where your character starts out and hit bears level 7-9 before you hit the rats level 1-2 that your character can use to gain experience and the game is quite Hobbsian. Nasty, brutish and short. *Very* short.
well i don't think you will be able to go kill monsters with higher lvl that easily. alot of the time you will find monsters with the same lvl challenging.you will need a group
Doford said:Tanix said:As for people leaving an area and not know where the content is, well that is part of the game. You have to explore, search out the best places to exp, get drops, etc.. Content should not be designed to discourage exploration and if you build content where there is a clear linear path to progression, the player doens't have to think or explore, they just follow the bouncing ball, which is exactly why modern games are so bland as well as why so many people like me do not play them.
It's not as simple to just think and explore. Lots of games hide their group content behind an innocuous door or a hole the ground with a few mobs visible. I'm left wondering if it's a group dungeon, is it worth putting a group together for. or wait 30min to see if others come along. You have to rely on other players who have explored in groups, who welcome players and know what places are. When games start out that's pretty rare to meet knowledgable players. Most of them are 10-20 levels ahead blasting through content they've played before. Sometimes you just end up in a pug camping one boring spot or exploring nowhere wondering where the real journey is.
Explore and find out? Seriously, you are asking for hints, for information on exploration to be provided to you so you can make the safest decision? That expectation defies the very concept of what exploration gaming is.
If you are too afraid to explore, then you will suffer the consequences. I will however take risks, and maybe those risks will pay off, maybe they will come with hardship, but that is the concept of a risk vs reward game, it is the entire point of gaming in general.
Let me put it this way... I knew people who acted like you descibe, they would sit on the side lines, asking for the perfect group, only willing to venture into areas they knew would provide them the success or value they expected. I will be blunt, they were kicked many a times from my groups because they were troublesome.
So, if you want to play it safe, do so... but don't expect the game to make it safe for you. That is what modern games do and I hope to heck that ideal has nothing to do with this game, because I wont even bother if it does.
Believe it or not there actually are people who want all level types to just be spread all throughout the world. "There shouldn't be a low level zone" they will tell you.
I also think that earning XP shoud be a little bit more meaningful than just smashing through monsters that increase in level as you go along. In order to do that they need to give us multiple ways to gain experience. Things like exploring, and crafting should be ways to get experience. I don't mean just running around the zone uncovering all the areas, but actually getting bonus xp for going through all the rooms in a hideout. You could find a treasure chest or something that signifies you did more than just run up to a preset marker, or have to find specific pieces of lore. As well with crafting, if you are taking the time to get the materials and craft the items you should be rewarde for that as well. When it comes down to it all these games are about is trading time for XP to get stronger so if I spend my time killing something, or exploring a cave, or crafting a new weapon, I should get experience equavilent to the time I put in.
Doford said:Tanix said:As for people leaving an area and not know where the content is, well that is part of the game. You have to explore, search out the best places to exp, get drops, etc.. Content should not be designed to discourage exploration and if you build content where there is a clear linear path to progression, the player doens't have to think or explore, they just follow the bouncing ball, which is exactly why modern games are so bland as well as why so many people like me do not play them.
It's not as simple to just think and explore. Lots of games hide their group content behind an innocuous door or a hole the ground with a few mobs visible. I'm left wondering if it's a group dungeon, is it worth putting a group together for. or wait 30min to see if others come along. You have to rely on other players who have explored in groups, who welcome players and know what places are. When games start out that's pretty rare to meet knowledgable players. Most of them are 10-20 levels ahead blasting through content they've played before. Sometimes you just end up in a pug camping one boring spot or exploring nowhere wondering where the real journey is.
And how do you think those players became knowledgable?
CoffeeManiac said:someone know if it will have Leveling road in pantheon?
Example: you follow a road and there are rats lvl 1-2,then wolfs lvl 3-4,then spiders lvl 5-6,then bears lvl 7-9......and more
alot of mmorpg have those and i simply think its bad design
Well the starter zones obviously need to be around 1-3. In EQ in general they mixed in higher levels with lower levels. For instance, in Qeynos hills, the second zone from the starter zone, you could kill certain things like wolves. However, bears were higher level than wolves and were pretty spread out. There was also a rabid Grizzly bear that was pretty nasty to kill and gave you rabbies. People usually ran away when they accidently stumbled upon it. They usually had an odd way of going about their zones in EQ, but the formula was usually higher level mobs, that could be found in camps in the zone, that would patrol a pretty far distance into other areas where lower lvl mobs were at and would basically kill anyone who tried to fight it that were leveling in the lower end areas.
The adventure from Qeynos to Freeport had lvl 40ish griffons along the way and would kill any sad adventurer that stumbled across one in the lower end zones.
In Oasis they had those roaming sand giants where the crocodile camp on the beach where at.
Thos are just some examples. Reminds me of scary games where if you get caught then you will die usually. In EQ, no matter where you went, they usually had a few mobs/ patrols, in every dungeon/area that will kill you if you aren't careful.
Re: Mob allocation, What's the thoughts about making travel on zone walls safe? it feels a bit off and artificial, I'd like to see more of a frogger way of crossing zones safely ;) (without invis)