So I've been watching the Pantheon videos on youtube and it seems that the mobs the groups are fighting are significantly harder than an individual player. These are just humanoid mobs, not bosses or anything special, and they are getting torn up. The tactics are fine. They go through pulling and mezing. And then six guys piling on a single humanoid or wolf, and in most videos multiple group members get killed by a single mob and by the end of the fight most the group is dead.
Now I know that this is pre-alpha, and their is a ton of tuning to still do. But I'm wondering if the devs are making mobs of the same level as characters significantly tougher. I've always thought if a mob and a player have the same level, they are relatively equivalent in power. If thats not the case, then why give them a level? If they are fighting mobs of higher level, then everything is probably reasonable.
Anyone have any insight into this?
Thanks,
Mal
This was a common design in a game like EQ. The mobs were designed for groups to kill, not people to solo so naturally mobs would have higher damage (requring a healer to support) and higher HP (requiring more than one persons damage to be able to last out the mobs damage). This is why melee characters were horrible at soloing and "touchless" tactics of various classes were the only reasonable means to solo a given mob.
A defensive melee class while being able to last longer on the mobs hits, didn't do enough damage to kill the mob before the mob killed them. An offensive class while being able to do much more damage, didn't have the HP/defense to last long enough to kill the mob. This left some specialized casters to use "touchless" tactics (ie kiting with snare, reverse kiting with fear, root and nuke, etc..) where they could dump lots of damage, but didn't have to worry about the damage to themselves.
Even this was not sufficient in some cases if the mobs had ranged, or their HP pools were too high for the mana pools of a class (it is why some hybrids while having the same tools as some kiting clasess, still couldn't kite due to their low mana pools).
Point is, this is a group game, not a solo one. Will you be able to solo? Sure.., depending on class, level of the mob, type of mob, Location, etc... you "MAY" be able to solo, but is there "solo" content, no, this isn't that type of game.
So, a trash mob will likely be very tough, making your group move slowly through a dungeon exploring for rare mobs which will be like the trash, but often with special abilities (usually gained from the very items they drop, ie the Frenzy Ghoul having haste from the sash it drops).
This is what made progression in EQ slow, dangerous, and exciting when exploring (as most people couldn't get to some areas due to all the mobs to fight through).
Malleable said:But I'm wondering if the devs are making mobs of the same level as characters significantly tougher. I've always thought if a mob and a player have the same level, they are relatively equivalent in power. If thats not the case, then why give them a level? If they are fighting mobs of higher level, then everything is probably reasonable.
Anyone have any insight into this?
Thanks,
Mal
One reason behind this is that players are smarter than NPCs. We can think, act and react much more creatively than an NPC so to keep some sense of challenge and risk, NPCs need to be tougher than players with more hitpoint, infinite mana, faster regeneration, higher mitigation, etc. Also, this is a grouping game so content needs to be balanced from the view of 6 vs 1. If a single player and a single NPC were the same class with all the same stats such that a 1 on 1 fight could be 50/50 in outcome, 6 on 1 would be trivial.
Short answer is after around level 20 most mob in EQ were designed around being equivalent to an entire group using 25-50% of their resources. Some mobs were tuned weaker or had a weakness that could be exploited by a specific classes strength but when people soloed they would be fighting mobs rough 75% of their level. From everything produced so far it appears that Pantheon is following the model that a mob is equal to a full group of equal level players. This is highlighted by the fact that unless you are a tank then you really never want to get hit as the damage output is very high and even a tank needs constant healing support to survive.
I would personally still split mobs into solo tier, group tier, and raid tier. Either the names or hit boxes could indicate which tier the mob is in. Most content would still be group tier by design but solo tier mobs could be most of the wanderers or set dressing mobs and pockets in different dungeons and open world locations could be tuned to 12 or 24 man in addition to some full raid focused zones.
Malleable said:So I've been watching the Pantheon videos on youtube and it seems that the mobs the groups are fighting are significantly harder than an individual player. These are just humanoid mobs, not bosses or anything special, and they are getting torn up. The tactics are fine. They go through pulling and mezing. And then six guys piling on a single humanoid or wolf, and in most videos multiple group members get killed by a single mob and by the end of the fight most the group is dead.
Now I know that this is pre-alpha, and their is a ton of tuning to still do. But I'm wondering if the devs are making mobs of the same level as characters significantly tougher. I've always thought if a mob and a player have the same level, they are relatively equivalent in power. If thats not the case, then why give them a level? If they are fighting mobs of higher level, then everything is probably reasonable.
Anyone have any insight into this?
Thanks,
Mal
Mob levels generally signify the challenge level for a full group. So a level 20 mob signifies that it would be a fair fight for a group of level 20 characters, the mob would actually be higher level if converted to a "player" level (which is why a single level 20 character cannot solo a "level" 20 mob).
Vandraad said:Malleable said:But I'm wondering if the devs are making mobs of the same level as characters significantly tougher. I've always thought if a mob and a player have the same level, they are relatively equivalent in power. If thats not the case, then why give them a level? If they are fighting mobs of higher level, then everything is probably reasonable.
Anyone have any insight into this?
Thanks,
Mal
One reason behind this is that players are smarter than NPCs. We can think, act and react much more creatively than an NPC so to keep some sense of challenge and risk, NPCs need to be tougher than players with more hitpoint, infinite mana, faster regeneration, higher mitigation, etc. Also, this is a grouping game so content needs to be balanced from the view of 6 vs 1. If a single player and a single NPC were the same class with all the same stats such that a 1 on 1 fight could be 50/50 in outcome, 6 on 1 would be trivial.
You know the funny thing about NPCs being "dumbed down" is really an interesting discussion. I read several papers on this issue and the reason for AI not acting like humans is not because they can't make an AI emulate human response and reaction (not true AI mind you, but for gaming purposes) is because most players would stop playing. There have been test developments on game AI systems that try to emulate real player logic and thinking and it usually ends up with the players being dominated. AI's are dumb, because they have to allow for a certain lag factor in thinking of the average player, they have to create a pattern to which the player can evaluate and overcome or the majority of players will give up. It was the same concept of many arcade games in the 80's where the truly "random" levels were at the absoulte end where only a small percentage of players could even handle such game play.
Think about it, why does the NPC ignore the healers? Or the squishy casters? You can say "well, because of taunt", but then fine... why is it that if taunt fails the NPC always goes to some random person on a threat meter and not logically going for the weak point of the group? Do you really think it is because we can't create a logical structure to the situation for the NPC to find weak points and go to them? In fact, you could make an NPC be extremely smart and act at a level of understanding that the developers understand in terms of game mechanics and what is the best approach, but do you really think people would want that? Nope. Heck, even the most arrogant PvP players would be made to rage quit if you really applied a proper AI system.
The point is not to "always" win against a player, but to provide enough challenge to a player that they feel they made an accomplishement in the process of their play.
Developers can write AIs where the AI always win, or at least where they always win against most of the players, but then if most people lost all the time, how many would find the game enjoyable? There has to be a carrot, there has to be an obstacle, and there has to be a reasonable means for a player to apply effort to achieve victory. Finding that sweet spot is the difficulty and that is the balance of "risk vs reward".
Manouk said: *looks for the article Raidan posted a few times about exponential monster level difficulty and why it is good.*
You mean this one? The Everquest Paradox
Yeah, I started gaming with EQ. I don't remember mobs being that difficult. I could solo normal mobs with my Enchanter, and not charm soloing, but using the normal pet. Breaking camps were more of an issue. I could mez a camp, and start taking them down one at a time, but with too many resists I would die. So I agree that the game is designed for grouping, but having played Druid, Shaman, Mage, Necromancer, Enchanter and Wizard I could solo. Equal level mobs were really not an issue, but you would prefer to group so you could do dungeons or complete quests.
But having read the EQ Paradox article - It seems that HPs did grow exponentiall. I did jump over to DAOC when it come out. So I guess I was in the 50s when I left. From the article it seems that things really skyrocketed vs PC after that.
Mal
Tanix said:You know the funny thing about NPCs being "dumbed down" is really an interesting discussion. I read several papers on this issue and the reason for AI not acting like humans is not because they can't make an AI emulate human response and reaction (not true AI mind you, but for gaming purposes) is because most players would stop playing. There have been test developments on game AI systems that try to emulate real player logic and thinking and it usually ends up with the players being dominated. AI's are dumb, because they have to allow for a certain lag factor in thinking of the average player, they have to create a pattern to which the player can evaluate and overcome or the majority of players will give up. It was the same concept of many arcade games in the 80's where the truly "random" levels were at the absoulte end where only a small percentage of players could even handle such game play.
Think about it, why does the NPC ignore the healers? Or the squishy casters? You can say "well, because of taunt", but then fine... why is it that if taunt fails the NPC always goes to some random person on a threat meter and not logically going for the weak point of the group? Do you really think it is because we can't create a logical structure to the situation for the NPC to find weak points and go to them? In fact, you could make an NPC be extremely smart and act at a level of understanding that the developers understand in terms of game mechanics and what is the best approach, but do you really think people would want that? Nope. Heck, even the most arrogant PvP players would be made to rage quit if you really applied a proper AI system.
The point is not to "always" win against a player, but to provide enough challenge to a player that they feel they made an accomplishement in the process of their play.
Developers can write AIs where the AI always win, or at least where they always win against most of the players, but then if most people lost all the time, how many would find the game enjoyable? There has to be a carrot, there has to be an obstacle, and there has to be a reasonable means for a player to apply effort to achieve victory. Finding that sweet spot is the difficulty and that is the balance of "risk vs reward".
Oh, we could have such a great conversation about NPC AI. I'm a huge proponent of NPCs acting more intelligently, specifically acting like their class should act. Casters should never go into melee range, yet game after game they do exactly that. We've seen it in the Pantheon streams where casters stupidly run righ into melee range just to get beat down in mere seconds. Dumb.
Vandraad said:Tanix said:You know the funny thing about NPCs being "dumbed down" is really an interesting discussion. I read several papers on this issue and the reason for AI not acting like humans is not because they can't make an AI emulate human response and reaction (not true AI mind you, but for gaming purposes) is because most players would stop playing. There have been test developments on game AI systems that try to emulate real player logic and thinking and it usually ends up with the players being dominated. AI's are dumb, because they have to allow for a certain lag factor in thinking of the average player, they have to create a pattern to which the player can evaluate and overcome or the majority of players will give up. It was the same concept of many arcade games in the 80's where the truly "random" levels were at the absoulte end where only a small percentage of players could even handle such game play.
Think about it, why does the NPC ignore the healers? Or the squishy casters? You can say "well, because of taunt", but then fine... why is it that if taunt fails the NPC always goes to some random person on a threat meter and not logically going for the weak point of the group? Do you really think it is because we can't create a logical structure to the situation for the NPC to find weak points and go to them? In fact, you could make an NPC be extremely smart and act at a level of understanding that the developers understand in terms of game mechanics and what is the best approach, but do you really think people would want that? Nope. Heck, even the most arrogant PvP players would be made to rage quit if you really applied a proper AI system.
The point is not to "always" win against a player, but to provide enough challenge to a player that they feel they made an accomplishement in the process of their play.
Developers can write AIs where the AI always win, or at least where they always win against most of the players, but then if most people lost all the time, how many would find the game enjoyable? There has to be a carrot, there has to be an obstacle, and there has to be a reasonable means for a player to apply effort to achieve victory. Finding that sweet spot is the difficulty and that is the balance of "risk vs reward".
Oh, we could have such a great conversation about NPC AI. I'm a huge proponent of NPCs acting more intelligently, specifically acting like their class should act. Casters should never go into melee range, yet game after game they do exactly that. We've seen it in the Pantheon streams where casters stupidly run righ into melee range just to get beat down in mere seconds. Dumb.
I think part of that is to give a pattern for people to beat. In all honesty, designing an AI for a game isn't about how "smart" you make it, but how "dumb" you make it so that the players can still find a challenge and succeed. You can make an AI so smart in how it approaches a given situation that only the 1% of gamers out there would even have a chance of beating it.
I am not what you would call a 1% gamer, I enjoy difficulty, I enjoy hardship and overcoming it, but I doubt I would enjoy playing a truly competitive AI. I will take most PvP players over a truly competive AI any day as humans while not always predictable (often they really are), the skill level of an AI in execution without constraints will always be at the top 1% of play.
I prefer the game play of a bit of "dumbed" down AI with complex patterns than I do a really well built one. /shrug
Think of levels as "levels of difficulty", not "degrees of experience". If you're level 15 and encounter a level 15 wolf that's a mob you're expected to kill with a group of level 15 players. A level 5 wolf is probably about equal to you as a solo player. The point being that you don't gain experience for killing something equal to you. You gain experience by killing things that are harder to kill.
Levels are just a way to scale experience gains and indicate the group level you need to kill them.
Another thought came to mind. Why not just make player characters and mobs of the same level equivalent in power, but make the returns from killing them be worth less. If you are fighting an equal level opponent, the experience you gain from it should be relatively small. You become a better fighter by going against more difficult opponents. And rewards should be similarly lower.
Mal
Malleable said:Another thought came to mind. Why not just make player characters and mobs of the same level equivalent in power, but make the returns from killing them be worth less. If you are fighting an equal level opponent, the experience you gain from it should be relatively small. You become a better fighter by going against more difficult opponents. And rewards should be similarly lower.
Mal
Honestly that's not much different from making mobs 10 level below you give low exp with an average difficulty, while making even mobs require a group and coordination. It's just a matter of /con color or mindset, the results are the same.
Malleable said:Another thought came to mind. Why not just make player characters and mobs of the same level equivalent in power, but make the returns from killing them be worth less. If you are fighting an equal level opponent, the experience you gain from it should be relatively small. You become a better fighter by going against more difficult opponents. And rewards should be similarly lower.
Mal
Because you have to be careful of the "grind" factor of content circumvention. This is why solo "designed" content in a game like this is bad. It allows the players (as a default) to solo grind themselve up in the game, there by passing up the obstacles of game play.
I will give an example using some Japanese RPG systems as an example. These games tended to apply two paths to progression. 1) You could explore, kill things near your level, gain exp and items eqivilent to your level as you progress OR... you could grind low level mobs for low exp, low money and through shear brute force be able to purchase all the upper level gear with money and gain all the levels with the exp to handle the later content.
This was the basis for game play, but the latter was nothing more than a mundane little to no risk grind with guarantee pay off.
Most MMOs today apply some of that latter concept of play (if not outright handing you wins regardless).
This in my opinion is poor design if you want a lasting and meaningful game.
From what I am gathering in the streams, these mobs need to be toned down slightly. A group should be able to take down single mobs much quicker, or at least I am hoping so. I would rather have greater mob density with lower HPs and damage versus less density with more HPs and damage. Fighting in the streams so far seems lackluster to me and I am hoping this gets fine-tuned to where there is a little more “action”. Action = more mob control situations, more adds, quicker killing than we see.
Pyye said:From what I am gathering in the streams, these mobs need to be toned down slightly. A group should be able to take down single mobs much quicker, or at least I am hoping so. I would rather have greater mob density with lower HPs and damage versus less density with more HPs and damage. Fighting in the streams so far seems lackluster to me and I am hoping this gets fine-tuned to where there is a little more “action”. Action = more mob control situations, more adds, quicker killing than we see.
That would be the route of most modern MMOs and the death of any real tactical/meaningful combat outside of "bosses." Slow and steady combat is very important to a game like this and greatly increases the value of all actions within a fight.
Tanix said:Malleable said:Another thought came to mind. Why not just make player characters and mobs of the same level equivalent in power, but make the returns from killing them be worth less. If you are fighting an equal level opponent, the experience you gain from it should be relatively small. You become a better fighter by going against more difficult opponents. And rewards should be similarly lower.
Mal
Because you have to be careful of the "grind" factor of content circumvention. This is why solo "designed" content in a game like this is bad. It allows the players (as a default) to solo grind themselve up in the game, there by passing up the obstacles of game play.
I will give an example using some Japanese RPG systems as an example. These games tended to apply two paths to progression. 1) You could explore, kill things near your level, gain exp and items eqivilent to your level as you progress OR... you could grind low level mobs for low exp, low money and through shear brute force be able to purchase all the upper level gear with money and gain all the levels with the exp to handle the later content.
This was the basis for game play, but the latter was nothing more than a mundane little to no risk grind with guarantee pay off.
Most MMOs today apply some of that latter concept of play (if not outright handing you wins regardless).
This in my opinion is poor design if you want a lasting and meaningful game.
Well its not as much a design issue, as a scaling issue. If the risk/reward system was set up to make single player grinding of low level mobs the fastest or easiest way to level than they scaled the risk/reward incorrectly. If you make mobs of lower level than you provide no experience, than there would be no low level grinding. Mobs should be 'grey' at a much higher level. Mobs slightly less than you level should provide no experience if they are linked with other mobs - e.g. a camp of mobs 1-2 levels less than you might still provide some small amount of xp. And the reward system should be similarly scaled.
I think many people just grab good or bad experiences with a game, and see it as a blanket statement on how it would result if implemented in Pantheon. People mention how certain spells are good or bad based on their experience with EQ, when it really comes down to how they are implemented in Pantheon. A slow spell was great in EQ, but if you up the attack speed reduction by a few percent either way you get an overpowered or underpowered spell. The same with every aspect of this game. There is ALWAYS a middle ground.
Mal
Malleable said:Tanix said:Malleable said:Another thought came to mind. Why not just make player characters and mobs of the same level equivalent in power, but make the returns from killing them be worth less. If you are fighting an equal level opponent, the experience you gain from it should be relatively small. You become a better fighter by going against more difficult opponents. And rewards should be similarly lower.
Mal
Because you have to be careful of the "grind" factor of content circumvention. This is why solo "designed" content in a game like this is bad. It allows the players (as a default) to solo grind themselve up in the game, there by passing up the obstacles of game play.
I will give an example using some Japanese RPG systems as an example. These games tended to apply two paths to progression. 1) You could explore, kill things near your level, gain exp and items eqivilent to your level as you progress OR... you could grind low level mobs for low exp, low money and through shear brute force be able to purchase all the upper level gear with money and gain all the levels with the exp to handle the later content.
This was the basis for game play, but the latter was nothing more than a mundane little to no risk grind with guarantee pay off.
Most MMOs today apply some of that latter concept of play (if not outright handing you wins regardless).
This in my opinion is poor design if you want a lasting and meaningful game.
Well its not as much a design issue, as a scaling issue. If the risk/reward system was set up to make single player grinding of low level mobs the fastest or easiest way to level than they scaled the risk/reward incorrectly. If you make mobs of lower level than you provide no experience, than there would be no low level grinding. Mobs should be 'grey' at a much higher level. Mobs slightly less than you level should provide no experience if they are linked with other mobs - e.g. a camp of mobs 1-2 levels less than you might still provide some small amount of xp. And the reward system should be similarly scaled.
I think many people just grab good or bad experiences with a game, and see it as a blanket statement on how it would result if implemented in Pantheon. People mention how certain spells are good or bad based on their experience with EQ, when it really comes down to how they are implemented in Pantheon. A slow spell was great in EQ, but if you up the attack speed reduction by a few percent either way you get an overpowered or underpowered spell. The same with every aspect of this game. There is ALWAYS a middle ground.
Mal
Thing is, if exp is allowed it can be fast ground without risk.
That is, a player who is an inept idiot, lacks any common sense ability or desire to improve only needs to find content that is "Easy" and grind it for hours, days, months, to excel. So, that player, who would normally be a failure throughout normal play is able to improve in the game, not due to "playing", but "grinding".
Time is an important development factor, but time alone is not a suffcient one. A player who is unable to improve and deal with challenge should NOT be able to progress. There should be a certain level of responsibility where the player has to exit their safe zone to excel and in a game like this, it has to require working with others.
Solo content, allows players to escape the responsibility of individual development in terms of risk and allows them to circumvent group play in the process.
In EQ, some people did this by playing specfic classes and only hunting in specific zones that allowed them to succeed.
I don't have a problem with people finding out ways to solo to succeed, but I think catering to such only harms a game of this nature.
Pyye said:From what I am gathering in the streams, these mobs need to be toned down slightly. A group should be able to take down single mobs much quicker, or at least I am hoping so. I would rather have greater mob density with lower HPs and damage versus less density with more HPs and damage. Fighting in the streams so far seems lackluster to me and I am hoping this gets fine-tuned to where there is a little more “action”. Action = more mob control situations, more adds, quicker killing than we see.
That's the opposite of what pantheon is designing.
We've also only seen a few areas. There will probably be some tuning/ balance that happens once more areas are introduced and populated.
Pyye said:From what I am gathering in the streams, these mobs need to be toned down slightly. A group should be able to take down single mobs much quicker, or at least I am hoping so. I would rather have greater mob density with lower HPs and damage versus less density with more HPs and damage. Fighting in the streams so far seems lackluster to me and I am hoping this gets fine-tuned to where there is a little more “action”. Action = more mob control situations, more adds, quicker killing than we see.
Action = modern MMO twitch game play (ie the AoE WoW like tactics).
This is a different type of play where the focus on the endurance of the fight, the management of resources, and the difficulties that come from such.
Keno Monster said:Sigh.
Can we just pin this?
Agreed - my favorite article from him and that’s the one - thanks Manouk, Goofy, & Keno.