Hello everyone. I recently came across Pantheon while looking through some old vids on youtube about EQ and was so happy when I finally found out that Pantheon was under development. Originally from the Zeb server, which was merged with Xegony which was merged with lordknowswhat now in the orignal EQ. Seeing Pantheon brought back memories of Norrath which in turn prompted me to reinstall and revisit the old EQ. Much has changed since 1999 but after a couple weeks there, I hope that VR can look into some of the issues (?) that may have an impact on general gameplay in Pantheon.
1. Leveling - My memories are dim now since I started in EQ way back then but I do remember that levelling was incredibly slow back in 1999/2000. I seem to recall that it was only in later years that it became easier. I'm not suggesting that Pantheon makes it so easy that players hit max cap in a weekend but maybe just not make it so difficult as it used to be. I have no issues with the grind but too much and it may start to have a negative impact. On the other hand, I've played recent MMOs where I literally max level every class and race within a month without even really trying and this just makes it all pointless since I would finish it in a month and then go, "Hmmm ok well, now what ?"
2. Loot - Perhaps one of the only reason(s) people play games is to chase after that elusive sword or armor that makes them look cool or just has incredible stats. After my revisit to EQ, I can see a long term issue with this since the old world drops (which originally took a raid force to secure) are now premanently camped by solo players who have far outleveled the content. This essentially meant that new players are now unable to get their hands on these drops for either twinking purposes or even to train new guildies on how to raid with easy content. Kill stealing has become the norm due to the perma-camps. Perhaps some way can be devised to at least slow down if not restrict this.
- I recall LOTRO had a system whereby as long as someone does a certain percentage of damage to the mob, they would receive the drops that are relevant to their class. E.g. if I was a Ranger, I would only receive the ranger drops from the mobs whereas the wizard standing next to me would only receive the wizard drops. And even though the Wiz may have tried to ks me, as long as I did that percentage of damage, I would still get the drops.
3. No Trade/Drop - I saw a few posts on this matter and to be honest I would suggest to make all the drops No Trade, with the exception of tradeskill items. This should eliminate, or at least reduce the issue of heavily contesting over an item between those who actually need the item and those who are merely farming it for re-sale value. Yes, I do realise that the economy in any game has always been one of the reasons why people play but the economy should not become an obstacle to actual enjoyment of the game itself for some.
4. PvP - I must admit I had a good laugh when I saw a post somewhere in the forums here about the 'need' for PvP to somehow be placed in a better position than all others. The current plans by VR are sufficient. There's supposed to be a PvP server. If you want to PvP, go there. And the old EQ method seemed to work fine too, i.e. if you want to PvP on a PVE server you can flag yourself as such. Just because you PvP it doesn't somehow make you better at the game than everyone else. You can be a member of the PvP Master Race...on the PvP server.
5. Skill Rotation - Please don't make it like all the countless MMOs out there these days where after you hit a certain level you can literally just map all the skills to your numpad and go "1,2,3,4,5,6" rinse and repeat. The fun in EQ was always that even though you may have pre-loaded your spells, if something goes wrong, if a pull goes wrong or a CC fails, then by god you're going to be running around trying to gain some distance to swap out spells to fix things.
I guess that's all my 2cp worth for now. Apologies if I have somehow antagonised some with this post but since 1999, I have learned that you can never even come close to pleasing 1% of the people online by anything you write no matter how innocent the post may be. Hope to see you all in-game when it launches. Look for the naked ranger with the rusty short sword running around trying to figure out which button does what XD
Welcome to Pantheon. On your points, by number.
1. VR is committed to very slow leveling and almost all of us agree. We disagree on many things but very few disagree on that point. Of course you are correct that there is such a thing as *too* slow and *too* grindy. Some may say 6 months or a year or two years to maximum level - less for a "no lifer" playing 10 hours a day every day - but far slower than even getting one character to maximum level in a month.
2. I think most of us and VR as well do not like the idea of shared mobs - makes it too easy to get things and takes away the fun of competition. I am in a fairly small minority that dislikes competition for spawn and bosses and feels competition should be against the mobs not other players. So I agree with you but I do not see it happening. There is a lively debate whether to have some form of encounter locking so that you cannot keep killing the same boss and prevent others from getting it. There have been lively debates over whether credit for a boss should go to whoever pulled it first (first-to-engage) or whoever did the most damage (MDD). If VR has decided they haven't said on the forums and I won't try to give an opinion here - I have in the threads devoted to those topics.
3. Recently discussed and it is clear that VR disagrees - probably so do most of us. I do not. Maybe we can get a no-trade server.
4. I definitely agree - other than about flagging for pvp on a pve server. I don't think that should even be possible though I wouldn't mind some pvp zones where anything goes.
5. I am not sure that it is "fun" to have 5 of 50 skills on a quickbar and to run screaming if they are the *wrong* 5 skills for the next enemy you meet but you are far from alone in that opinion.
Oh hey a Zeb player. I was on Zeb also for a good while then went to Bertoxxulous.
1. There will be slow leveling, but they will make each level impactful and fun. So enjoy the journey.
2. Loot will be meaningful, and their will probably be perma camps sadly. However, most perma camps are from people running bot scripts and scripts for 6 boxing, so they will be banned if that happens. They are also making it a point to have many good gear pieces throughout the game and not something like a GEBS or FBSS spawn where they are must have items for the majority of classes. If they are smart with the loot then it will be hard for people to permacamp all the good looting spots.
3. VR will make most things tradeable, from their last statement. They may change there mind, but I am fine with most things being tradeable and some things being no drop.
4. There is enough players who want PvP, but they have said they will make a seperate server for that with alternative rules to it.
5. They have stated they are steering clear of skill rotations and will more or less be strategic. I think we get 8-12 gem slots for spells we can have up at a time, not including clickies, and will have to think of what we want up with certain fights.
Hey guys/gals,
Thanks for the warm welcome. Feels good to be back among die-hard Norrathians hahaha. First Valorous1 - damn but those names sound familiar. But it's been so long I can barely remember my last EQ guild leader's name (It was Seneca which was funny because I saw a npc with that name in GW2 a couple years ago).
It's great to hear about the direction things are going for Pantheon. My only issue with the levelling was I remember with nightmarish clarity how long it took to go from 1 - 10 solo with nothing but that darn rusty sword hahaha. And I remember clearly how happy I was when I would get a couple ticks post 60 on a db kill (with a certain percentage going to aa though). As I said, I really didn't mind the grind but you're right there's an issue when it just becomes mind-numbingly boring.
I really do hope the issue of perma-camps is sorted out though. As a example, in EQ right now I've given up on doing anything except levelling but I made the mistake of trying for the SEoC for my lowbie RNG epic. It's been 3 days now and I absolutely have no chance in PoH since level 110's will just walking in and literally clear everything including the ph's that I was trying to camp for. Most don't even bother to reply to my tells and 1 was sarcastic enough to tell me she had been camping the mob for years so the zone is hers.
To a certain extent I do agree about the way shared rewards kinda make the game 'tame' but then I saw mainly the upside of it in that it really did help to eliminate the more nasty side of competitiveness. If any other alternative is found, I'm all for it. Just hate it KS'ing is one of the nasty side of competitiveness.
As for the skill bar thing, it was just from my memory of that one time in Riftseekers when a pull went bad and the chanter's cc was resisted. I, the RNG, ended up having to cc the mobs and to do that I had to run far enough away to swap out my spells. In my head I was going "Awww crap, cmoncmoncmon, swap already !" as 3 mobs came charging towards me. It was a little fun but don't really want to do that too often. It was perhaps one of the reason why I've always found EQ to be so different from all the other MMO's since then. Basically, you needed to know your class well and your spells/skills well because all the situations are fluid and can require you to adapt quickly. It simply wasn't a, press this button for that, press that button for this, type of game.
Anyway, I hope I get to meet you guys in-game when it comes out. For the time being, RL duties call. Take care and have a great weekend.
A simple fix for high level players camping drops is to no longer have the mob drop anything once you out level the content.
Once something cons gray, you no longer get drops. It encourages 'mentoring' if high level players want a chance at content, and it keeps it relevant. It would encourage at-level players to progress through that content, prevent the flood of items into the economy, and encourage high level players to continue to group.
Hello. I am from Xegony, 1999-2004ish :) welcome.
I liked the pace of the original. remember "hell" levels? I loved them. Level loss, Yes please!
The loot part: my 2 cents; I like the way it was in EQ and the 'camps' to get those items. I also fear lev 50 guys Perma-camping lev 30 items.
I hope they find a way to make that not happen. I seem to remember something that was called: 'trivial loot system" (i think) and basically, if you were X levels over the item "level" ( not wow gear score ) it simply wouldn't drop anything at all for you. Basically, if a lev 50 were in Unrest camping the ghost for DWB's, the ghost wouldn't drop any loot at all for a lev 50.
Azareal said:2. Loot - Perhaps one of the only reason(s) people play games is to chase after that elusive sword or armor that makes them look cool or just has incredible stats. After my revisit to EQ, I can see a long term issue with this since the old world drops (which originally took a raid force to secure) are now premanently camped by solo players who have far outleveled the content. This essentially meant that new players are now unable to get their hands on these drops for either twinking purposes or even to train new guildies on how to raid with easy content. Kill stealing has become the norm due to the perma-camps. Perhaps some way can be devised to at least slow down if not restrict this.
- I recall LOTRO had a system whereby as long as someone does a certain percentage of damage to the mob, they would receive the drops that are relevant to their class. E.g. if I was a Ranger, I would only receive the ranger drops from the mobs whereas the wizard standing next to me would only receive the wizard drops. And even though the Wiz may have tried to ks me, as long as I did that percentage of damage, I would still get the drops.
Please no systems where the game decides what is best for you based on class. That isn't gaming, that is a conveince hand out. Mob A should drop X, Y, Z and it should be hand picked and designed, static placed loot. It should not be random generated, take into consideration the player at all. If anything, it should be practical and relevant to the mob it comes from. All these little features are just gimmicks trying to force behavior and they always end up being more of a problem due to their "one size fits all" solution.
If anything that we should follow, it is LoTRO's early design system on content and how level didn't always result in an easy "I win" on content. Before Moria released (and I think a bit after as well), a high level player couldn't just easily walk into the content and solo steam roll it. While in some cases, they could more easily defeat some mobs (solo some of the dungeons trash), a lot of the bosses were still very difficult. I can't remember the exact reason or mechanic, but mobs could still do roughly the same amount of damage for that level as they did before. A players health rose as the leveled and their gear provided more armor value and the like, but the increases were small, subtle and not overpowering. This meant the whole solo bosses, dungeons and the like was very difficult (was it possible, yes..., but not to the level of where EQ became).
I think if you want to reduce the solo fest camping, put in similar means of design that still make the content very challenging for even a high level player due to the fact that their gear doesn't just automatically dismiss a lower level mob. Do that, and I think it will go a long way to reducing the suiccess in such endevours.
Anyway, the whole system you explain above is a much later system design and it really is something turning the game into an entertainment vending machine, not an actual game. Fact is, people shouldn't get special treatment for items. It should be the same at level 1 as it is at 50.
As I said, RL life stops me from visiting this forum often. Great ideas here to stop the perma camps. The outlevelling/mentoring (trivial loot) system sounds really good. Would certainly create an atmosphere of higher levels helping out the newer players.
As for the player/class specific drops from LOTRO, all I recalled was that each named had a certain set of drops for each class and only that class would receive those drops. I find it hard to understand why this wouldn't be acceptable since it effectively stopped people farming for drops to sell when they couldn't use those drops. Yes it may be forcing people to play nice but if the alternative is to be constantly ks'ed on a mob that I had been camping for hours, if not days, then I'm all for being forced to play nice. Still the trivial loot system would be a good thing to see as an alternative.
@Flapp - Oh god, thanks for reminding me of level loss. Those were especially painful at the higher levels when you knew exactly what 1 tick meant for xp hahahaha. I remember running around practically begging to pay anything just to get a max level rez lol.
Like most of your points, but just letting you know no believe the devs have said once in combat you can't switch around spells anymore theu have to be preloaded, that way if you have the wrong skills out than you didn't plan ahead well enough, or simply tried something and didn't work and have to make it better next time.
Also when it comes to loot, I believe for as long as the higher teir parts of dungeons drop better loot in general, like max teir dungeon trash mobs has a chance to drop close to evualant gear of a lvl 30 name mob pair of boots, that way the lvl 50 doesn't need to go back he can keep looking forward and progression both through his exp, and new content.
Ghool said:A simple fix for high level players camping drops is to no longer have the mob drop anything once you out level the content.
Once something cons gray, you no longer get drops. It encourages 'mentoring' if high level players want a chance at content, and it keeps it relevant. It would encourage at-level players to progress through that content, prevent the flood of items into the economy, and encourage high level players to continue to group.
If there is trash loot in the game then even gray mobs should still drop that. I'm not fully on board with dropping no non-trash loot though I can see that it may help.
The real fix is to add equivalent drops to multiple mobs. Better drops for higher level mobs. Give the higher levels a reason to go elsewhere for their loot.
We will still end up with people permacamping mobs that drop what they want but with the wealth spread around a bit it shouldn't be a problem until at or near max level. Those players will still camp the next lower version of the item to gear up to get the better one. It's a little silly that a lvl 40 mob will no longer drop his +5 Ring of Shining for the level 50 player who never managed to get it at a level-appropriate time and now has to go without and be undergeared for killing the lvl 50 mob that drops the +6 Ring of Shining.
Graying out shouldn't force you to shelve a character due to lack of decent gear.
Akilae said:Ghool said:A simple fix for high level players camping drops is to no longer have the mob drop anything once you out level the content.
Once something cons gray, you no longer get drops. It encourages 'mentoring' if high level players want a chance at content, and it keeps it relevant. It would encourage at-level players to progress through that content, prevent the flood of items into the economy, and encourage high level players to continue to group.
If there is trash loot in the game then even gray mobs should still drop that. I'm not fully on board with dropping no non-trash loot though I can see that it may help.
The real fix is to add equivalent drops to multiple mobs. Better drops for higher level mobs. Give the higher levels a reason to go elsewhere for their loot.
We will still end up with people permacamping mobs that drop what they want but with the wealth spread around a bit it shouldn't be a problem until at or near max level. Those players will still camp the next lower version of the item to gear up to get the better one. It's a little silly that a lvl 40 mob will no longer drop his +5 Ring of Shining for the level 50 player who never managed to get it at a level-appropriate time and now has to go without and be undergeared for killing the lvl 50 mob that drops the +6 Ring of Shining.
Graying out shouldn't force you to shelve a character due to lack of decent gear.
That's why you'd join an at-level group, and 'mentor' or de-level to get more chances at said Ring of Shining.
The point of greyed out mobs is to encourage the max level characters to group with lower levels to get said drops. This stifles the high levels camping all the good spawns later in the game's life.
If Pantheon is going to have fully tradeable loot that lasts for a long time, then this can be an issue later on. Personally, I'd rather de-level and keep the content relevant than have all the levl 50's soloing the good camps for gold or twink drops.
Ghool said:That's why you'd join an at-level group, and 'mentor' or de-level to get more chances at said Ring of Shining.
In doing so you're still dominating the camp for that item. In other games with mentoring the mentor sets a rule at the start of the hunt that if the ring drops it is theirs. They're the group leader, set themselves as loot master and when the ring drops now you have 5 others (depending on group size) who have to repeat the process to get their ring. It doesn't really solve the problem.
Adding equivalent items to the loot tables of other mobs might help depending on the ratio of drop locations to players needing the item. Care must be taken not to turn the game into a loot pinata (too many desirable items in too great a quantity due to being available from too many mobs). It's all a balance.
Ghool said: ^ How is a high level starting a group to get a certain drop and mentoring down any different than an at level doing the same sans-mentoring? I don't understand the point you're trying to make.
The real problem is supply vs. demand. If there is an item that everybody (or a large percentage) wants/needs that drops rarely from a single mob in the game there will be permacamps and waiting lists. Making the item gray out only forces the player who failed to acquire it while at an appropriate level to deleve or mentor until they get the item. It has no effect on the number of players who are after that item and doesn't change the availability of the item. It only makes the problem more frustrating by forcing the player to delevel/mentor to keep trying for the drop.
To resolve a supply and demand problem you increase the supply, reduce the demand or some combination of the two. The former is easy to solve as you can add that drop to more mobs' loot tables or add an equivalent crafted item to the game. To solve the latter you can make the drop less awesome, e.g. lower stats, mana regen instead of haste, etc. But there's no need to mess with non-immersive mechanics such as mentoring and killing drop rates for grays.
4. PvP - I must admit I had a good laugh when I saw a post somewhere in the forums here about the 'need' for PvP to somehow be placed in a better position than all others. The current plans by VR are sufficient. There's supposed to be a PvP server. If you want to PvP, go there. And the old EQ method seemed to work fine too, i.e. if you want to PvP on a PVE server you can flag yourself as such. Just because you PvP it doesn't somehow make you better at the game than everyone else. You can be a member of the PvP Master Race...on the PvP server.
yes pvp master race on pvp server. at least i have some options when someone trains, mob ks or disrupts my rotation.
Watemper said:Oh hey a Zeb player. I was on Zeb also for a good while then went to Bertoxxulous.
1. There will be slow leveling, but they will make each level impactful and fun. So enjoy the journey.
Also Hello fellow Bertox player. I too was on Bertox.
Azareal said:Hey guys/gals,
Thanks for the warm welcome. Feels good to be back among die-hard Norrathians hahaha. First Valorous1 - damn but those names sound familiar. But it's been so long I can barely remember my last EQ guild leader's name (It was Seneca which was funny because I saw a npc with that name in GW2 a couple years ago).
It's great to hear about the direction things are going for Pantheon. My only issue with the levelling was I remember with nightmarish clarity how long it took to go from 1 - 10 solo with nothing but that darn rusty sword hahaha. And I remember clearly how happy I was when I would get a couple ticks post 60 on a db kill (with a certain percentage going to aa though). As I said, I really didn't mind the grind but you're right there's an issue when it just becomes mind-numbingly boring.
I really do hope the issue of perma-camps is sorted out though. As a example, in EQ right now I've given up on doing anything except levelling but I made the mistake of trying for the SEoC for my lowbie RNG epic. It's been 3 days now and I absolutely have no chance in PoH since level 110's will just walking in and literally clear everything including the ph's that I was trying to camp for. Most don't even bother to reply to my tells and 1 was sarcastic enough to tell me she had been camping the mob for years so the zone is hers.
To a certain extent I do agree about the way shared rewards kinda make the game 'tame' but then I saw mainly the upside of it in that it really did help to eliminate the more nasty side of competitiveness. If any other alternative is found, I'm all for it. Just hate it KS'ing is one of the nasty side of competitiveness.
As for the skill bar thing, it was just from my memory of that one time in Riftseekers when a pull went bad and the chanter's cc was resisted. I, the RNG, ended up having to cc the mobs and to do that I had to run far enough away to swap out my spells. In my head I was going "Awww crap, cmoncmoncmon, swap already !" as 3 mobs came charging towards me. It was a little fun but don't really want to do that too often. It was perhaps one of the reason why I've always found EQ to be so different from all the other MMO's since then. Basically, you needed to know your class well and your spells/skills well because all the situations are fluid and can require you to adapt quickly. It simply wasn't a, press this button for that, press that button for this, type of game.
Anyway, I hope I get to meet you guys in-game when it comes out. For the time being, RL duties call. Take care and have a great weekend.