Venjenz said:After listening a couple times, I'd be willing to bet dimes to donuts it is some version of triggered quest/boss content reminiscent of the 10th Ring War in Velious, alien invasions and pocket bosses in AO, epic boss mob spawning via turn-in like a few EQ epics, etc. All sorts of ways to make meaningful, gated gear/mobs/content triggerable without it being instanced.
Games have already done it.
I've been thinking it might be more a varant on Vanguard's Advanced Encounter System, which was a decent enough concept that never quite came to fruition. So it's possible they revisited that idea. Guess we'll have to wait and see what they have cooking behind the veil.
EppE said:It should also limit it so people "flagged" can't be cast on from anoyone outside their group. This would prevent bringing extra healers to sit outside the group and heal.
Sorry but I hate this. If I'm playing a healer and I'm running by and see a group of people getting their assed whooped I should be able to drop a few buffs and heals. What's the point of not having instances if you can't interact with eachother?
Tylee said:EppE said:It should also limit it so people "flagged" can't be cast on from anoyone outside their group. This would prevent bringing extra healers to sit outside the group and heal.
Sorry but I hate this. If I'm playing a healer and I'm running by and see a group of people getting their assed whooped I should be able to drop a few buffs and heals. What's the point of not having instances if you can't interact with eachother?
I'm specifically saying this for "boss" or "raid" style content. I have no problem with normal group content being healed from outside. If a room locks people in it, only the people who flag the mob can assist in the fight.
Join PVP server.
Fact is, either join the guild monopolizing or create a guild that can challenge them.
However lets be honest, the poopsockers will control what they want, with batphoning guildies and no life other than Pantheon it will take some ingenious mechanics and/or random spawns to keep their advantage low.
Such is how its always been. Casuals shouldnt care, and tryhard gamers will either join the zerg or form a contesting guild.
Or PVP and have some fun. PVP should have guild # limits tho, as zergs of no skill mouthbreathers who want loot will always join together to beat the PVPers who out skilled or out played them.
Greenkrak2 said:Join PVP server.
Fact is, either join the guild monopolizing or create a guild that can challenge them.
However lets be honest, the poopsockers will control what they want, with batphoning guildies and no life other than Pantheon it will take some ingenious mechanics and/or random spawns to keep their advantage low.
Such is how its always been. Casuals shouldnt care, and tryhard gamers will either join the zerg or form a contesting guild.
Or PVP and have some fun. PVP should have guild # limits tho, as zergs of no skill mouthbreathers who want loot will always join together to beat the PVPers who out skilled or out played them.
Basically summarized my 3 paragraph post in 4 lines. Well saiid. I played exclusively on pvp servers in EQ and EQ2 but I can say that I will not be doing that in PRotF.
kreed99 said: I just want a game that has so much content available that it would be nearly impossible for a guild to lock down all content. But let them try. As long as they play nice i really dont care. I will be searching for a server that plays well with each other.
Yep, however, it is nice that certain players are self-identifying -- getting a general idea whom to avoid.
This topic has popped up several times and I don't think they've forgotten because you won't let them. But it has always been a major concern of theirs, as well. The only way they can properly identify ways to counter this problem is brainstorm some ideas, implement them into the game, and have pre-alpha and alpha testers test it. If they told you every single idea they had, people would just have more reason to complain and poke holes into their solutions; because their solution will never be good enough for everyone.
There are probably a couple ways to counter it without causing more issues. For instance, don't only have 1 best in slot piece of gear for a class dropped by only 1 boss that's being farmed by only 1 guild.
The best thing they can do is make sure there are multiple ways to gear up an end game guild. So there won't ever be just 1 guild hogging all the content. And it also allows other players to catch up and eventualy contest. If anything, someone might have to pay their way into a raid group for a specific piece, assuming its cosmetic only. Which sucks, but thats just the way the cookie crumbles... It doesn't get split directly down the middle the way you want it to.
I believe they also mentioned rotating timers for openworld raid bosses. So you'll never know if it will spawn in the next 24 hours or 3 hours. And as long as there isn't a limited amount of content for end game players and those that are working their way there, then there honestly shouldn't be that much of a problem.
This is still Pre-Alpha people. Take a chill pill, relax, wait until there's actually a reason to complain. You haven't stepped foot in game yet, and there's still so much time for them to make changes or adjustments that you may never even see. Once you're in game, and you've experienced how awful OR great their solution might be, then you can say your peace. Until then, you're just throwing stones at air.
zewtastic said:On the contrary, it is the #1 issue.
Maybe you need to take a break from the forums.
It's not even in my top 10 concerns, and despite your depiction there are many on these forums that are serious proponents of trully contested content across the scope of all Pantheon. And no, they are not people that universally want to dominate the landscape.
That's the key imo. I was fine with EQ leveling with the camps and getting a piece of gear here and there. But when you got to the end game it was a nightmare. I would rather be blocked by a raid mob than a bat phone poopsocking guild. So I would rather like to have the Vanguard style of raid mobs with encounter locking. That's all I care about in terms of encounter locking. Everything else in the leveling process shouldn't be since they aren't raid targets and you don't need to schedule times and get a bunch of people together for it.
For reference, this is pretty much what was said: -
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Ben:
Over the years there has been a community debate around farming, competition and the player behaviour that results.
While many of us want an open world experience we are also weary of re-introducing some of the social problems that can occur when everything is a free-for-all.
What are some of the mechanics or mechanisms that Pantheon will use to try and hit the middle ground between having things be heavily contested or completely isolated.
Things like triggers, dynamic spawns. Stuff like that.
Joppa:
It is a great question and it pains me deeply to not be able to answer it directly.
I don't exaggerate by saying that this question, and if I'm understanding the question correctly: I think what I’m hearing is, you know, you guys tout often that Pantheon is an open-world, non-instanced game and you lead with that sometimes as a role differentiator, because it is. It's not the common way any more and that's great but what it does is it introduces a real question and concern which is: How do you plan on handling the fact that, in an open world, targets are contested and what do you do to keep individual players much less full guilds from kind of blocking or owning, essentially, content where that might keep players from being able to access it as freely as if it was an instanced environment and we have things like the closing door of Gnashura that we saw yesterday, that Ben spoke to a little bit, and people see that and yeah it's one piece, one thing that we want to try and see, kind of, what that ends up doing but we also are very aware that that alone, of course, is not a solution, by any means.
So to get back to like the creative brainstorming [the previous question]: It is probably the in the top three if not the number one most important question in my mind to answer, because if we can't solve that then we've based our entire project around an aspect that will, you know, could potentially be our undoing.
If we don't have a way to actually solve for that; I think we have a way to solve for it and it's... I’m using an incredible amount of constraint right now not to say anything about it because, it's really exciting.
You talk about like the creative kind of chopping block slash, like, storm center of, you know, having an idea and something like this, I mean if there is ever an idea that needs an unbelievable amount of vetting and turning it over in your mind and looking at every single possible facet you can think of - what are all of the edge cases? - this, this idea has gone through it and is continuing to go through it. This, er, this... yeah I’ll just call it an “idea” for now... it does have a name, it has a shape, it has a design doc around it. I've been able to socialize it with a few key people on the team, with Brad as well, and just kind of let it fall out there and start being like chewed on and so far, you know, I think the vetting has worked and there's not really a whole lot of edge cases that we are needing to solve for, so I really think we are very close now to being able to say we actually do have a plan to address this and it's not piecemeal, it's not gimmicky it's actually a very significant part of the game and I can't wait till we can say more.
Ben:
Absolutely, man. I think this question flows nicely into that, which was: It was great to see yesterday from the stream that the boss, Gnashura, has some pseudo instance lockout as in the rock door, the boulder that comes down whenever the boss is aggroed. They loved this approach and can we expect to see more of this pseudo instancing for other dungeons slash instances?
Joppa:
That is a good question and again like I said the whole idea with the door mechanic it’s not a catch all. It's not anything that you know - a group could just as easily go in before the door closes or you can have multiple groups run in at the same time. It's not really a solution as much as it's really meant to be just as much a part of just the mechanic where if you enter that room, if you engage him you're there: There is no getting out. If you don't survive, you don't survive. You can’t run to zone line with this on. But it also serves as kind of a way to at least keep a group or the encounter for being interrupted by someone coming in after.
So, yeah, there shouldn't be so much emphasis put on that as if it's meant to be how we’re solving for that as much as it's just one piece one way that as it is actually related to the encounter itself it also you know can help aleviate some of that contested, contesting that can happen if people are able just to freely access it all throughout the fight.
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For me, I'm just glad they are clearly and rightly taking the issue as fundamental, very serious and as something than needs a solution.
Personally, I hope they don't just have one solution. I think some ways will work better for some situations than others. There are potentially different contention issues with PUGs, raids, quests, gathering, etc, etc. and if they find one mechanic that fixes it all I'll bet it doesn't work well for most situations and has negative effects on other aspects of the game.
Not only do I think they should have different solutions for different situations, I don't see why they shouldn't *vary* those approaches sometimes too. As an example to illustrate my point (NOT as my perfect suggested solution!) The Great Fire Dragon could be fully contested one week and instanced the next and have ghost/shadow versions the next and work on lockouts the next and those different ways of triggering or encountering the Great Fire Dragon could even result in different loot tables depending on the situation, much like PvP loot is often different to PvE loot, maybe fully-contested loot could be different to instanced loot (notice I didn't say "better" hehe).
If that's too freaky, maybe there could be different ruleset servers to cover the different ways of handling contention so those that wish for fully contested open world content all the time could enjoy that (again, not my ideal suggested solution, just an example of the varied ways this could be addressed).
Thank you for including the quote. As at least two others have noted in this thread, we're just running circles around the fact that they are still working on a solution.
"...so I really think we are very close now to being able to say we actually do have a plan to address this..."
To address whether or not they "just have one solution," I'll ref. another line, below, and point out that it does seem like a singular solution. That said, some solutions address different situations. A thermostat is one solution that addresses both heating and cooling. Perhaps they've invented a 'thermostat'.
"...this idea has gone through it and is continuing to go through it. This, er, this... yeah I’ll just call it an “idea” for now... it does have a name, it has a shape, it has a design doc around it."
Flapp said:you can't sell it for 24-72 hours. Would be no point in trying to lock down camp for days at a time. And it doesn't mean you couldn't stay and help OTHERS get the loot. You just can't get a 2nd one for a while.
During that 24 to 72 hours, you would need to take it to a shaman or whatever other player or NPC and get the "no trade" (bond) removed.
What kind of artificial restriction is that? Lore items are on thing but that seems like it is over the line poor implementation. What game has that? That's just bad design that has gone to far lol
((Casuals shouldnt care))
I think those that take this approach and assume that the issue of content blocking and monopolization are an "endgame" raid boss issue are not giving enough weight to how different Pantheon is intended to be.
Yes in most MMOs this is the point of the game where guilds monopolize - the "power players" get to the endgame in days or weeks and concentrate on it. Pantheon's goal - which it may or may not achieve successfully - is to break this paradigm and return the heart and soul of a MMO to the "middle game" - the levels of exploration and skill acquisition not the level of endlessly (and boringly) focusing on a handful or raids and bosses.
If Pantheon succeeds, the content that we need to worry about won't be endgame - not for quite a while if ever. It will be a level 20 dungeon that gives gear that is a big upgrade at that level. Or a level 35 boss that we need to kill to get a key.
dorotea said:((Casuals shouldnt care))
I think those that take this approach and assume that the issue of content blocking and monopolization are an "endgame" raid boss issue are not giving enough weight to how different Pantheon is intended to be.
Yes in most MMOs this is the point of the game where guilds monopolize - the "power players" get to the endgame in days or weeks and concentrate on it. Pantheon's goal - which it may or may not achieve successfully - is to break this paradigm and return the heart and soul of a MMO to the "middle game" - the levels of exploration and skill acquisition not the level of endlessly (and boringly) focusing on a handful or raids and bosses.
If Pantheon succeeds, the content that we need to worry about won't be endgame - not for quite a while if ever. It will be a level 20 dungeon that gives gear that is a big upgrade at that level. Or a level 35 boss that we need to kill to get a key.
Well said, Dorotea. You summed it up quite nicely. I hope VR is able to somehow erase the "End Game" mentality, and return the focus to the journey.
I'm happy to focus on the journey, if I have my entire role specific toolkit for more than 75% of the journey. As long as I can perform my entire role, I will be content at whatever level, for however long.
If my entire role specific toolkit is only provided at level x, then I will endeavor to reach level x as quickly as possible.
For a simple comparison, from the start, in DnD, Pathfinder, Basic Fantasy and similar frameworks, roles are unique, defined, and fulfilled at level 1.
It's true that specialization occurs as you level up, but your role is clear from the start and you can perform it well, which is why you can have fun and challenge from the start.
If I don't get my first Prime Scrolls or Transcendent abilities until max level? Then I will want to be max level as quickly as possible.
If I can get Prime Scrolls or Transcendent abilities starting at level 10? Then I will want to be level 10 as quickly as possible.
I agree that a class should be able to do its role well at any level. Better than any classes that have different roles.
I do not at all agree if you are saying a class should have every ability that it can use for that role at lower level. To the contrary I think some abilities should come with higher level and perhaps some should need to be found in the world. If I had every class ability at level 10 I would be very tempted to abandon the character as a waste of time since the next 40 levels wouldn't develop her much.
Contested content, when done poorly, is really nothing more than a watered down version of griefing and effectively creates player gatekeepers. Which, let’s face it, if gatekeeping is done it should not be left to players who can have motives contrary to what the devs intended.
Done properly, it can provide a very satisfying experience for all. I am hoping that Pantheon and their unannounced solutions will create enjoyment. So far, they seem determined to capture old school mechanics without the old school problems.
This topic has already been covered in the News and Announcements section, posted by myself and broken down by Kratuk, please use the appropriate thread to continue the discussion instead of creating a new one.
This thread will now be locked.
Here is the breakdown link: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/10565/april-dev-roundtable-recording-creative-amp-design/view/post_id/203492
Thanks again Kratuk for doing it :)
P.S. I don't cry in video games, instead, I have fun with my friends and guildies, so those weren't my tears you were tasting! ;)