Please no. I really don't understand the desire to try to make endless progression grinding on a character a goal, especially when it comes to systems like AA or specs (illusion of choice). If you really wanted then just add levels that give players of a class increasing passive bonuses or skills that give them whatever the AAs would have been. A lot easier to just say X content is for level 55 players than to sit around discriminating between level 50 players based on their AA progress. All for what? The endorphin rush of pressing an up arrow or little "+" sign once every massive block of hours?
AA systems (in every instance I have seen them) are poor differentiators for anything other than: those with (often) absurd amounts of free time and those with fewer. They are bandaids to keep players at max level playing in a lack of content. Skill, content completion, knowledge, and attitude are all better things to focus on when one wants to stand out.
I loved working on AAs in EQ/EQ2, and so I don't want to agree with Iksar - but I do. He's right. They were supposed to be all about horizontal progression, but somehow ended up being vertical progression instead.
What I would rather see in expansions is:
- Additional vertical progression (sparingly, maybe only every couple of years) via level cap increases and new content
- Additional horizontal progression via opening up entirely new gameplay spheres and adding those to the world (diplomacy, housing and player cities, trade, farming and ranching, research and archaeology, etc).
In my opinion this makes for much better and more compelling expansions over time than simply piling on more, and more, and more AA selections to a character.
Yeah, I agree, was overly firm, but wanted to grab attention to it. Would change the Post Title if I could, but not finding how.
dorotea said:While I agree that some system that has some aspects of an AA system would be a plus, whether applicable while leveling or only at level-cap, "You Better" seems a bit ..... overly firm. Not "I think it would make the game better if you ..."?
Iksar said:Please no. I really don't understand the desire to try to make endless progression grinding on a character a goal, especially when it comes to systems like AA or specs (illusion of choice). If you really wanted then just add levels that give players of a class increasing passive bonuses or skills that give them whatever the AAs would have been. A lot easier to just say X content is for level 55 players than to sit around discriminating between level 50 players based on their AA progress. All for what? The endorphin rush of pressing an up arrow or little "+" sign once every massive block of hours?
AA systems (in every instance I have seen them) are poor differentiators for anything other than: those with (often) absurd amounts of free time and those with fewer. They are bandaids to keep players at max level playing in a lack of content. Skill, content completion, knowledge, and attitude are all better things to focus on when one wants to stand out.
I agree that they can be bandaid fixes to keep max players engaged and I did expeirence Guilds in EQ1 requireing a certain amount of AA before they would let me join them and was a little daunting, but for more casual players like myself (About 10 hours or less per week) could easily implement catchup mechanics and get that endorphin rush for whatever horizontal progression. Plus AAs or whatever horizonal progression is not going to flood the gate right at implementation.
Love your comment "If you really wanted then just add levels that give players of a class increasing passive bonuses or skills that give them whatever the AAs would have been."
I do like Nephele's view point too, but I guess I viewed horizontal progression as a player growing stronger without increasing the level. All the items you listed seem like great additions.
Unfortunately there were times during various expansions that raid content had a certain minimum requirement that was needed in resists for this or that and minimum hp/mp/sta/str...agi or any other stats so padding stats in AA to a minimum level for raid content was par for the course in any serious raid guild. You had to, to be able to actually handle some content. If you did not meed the minimum requirements for some things, you were a liability and increased the chance of failure. Of wasting an opportunity of getting 72 people to dance in unison for 3 hours and pay attention. I would argue that "hardcore raiding" started the "elitist" trend way back then. Raiding can be an extremely fun and rewarding experience, but not when its treated like a job.
AA's just fed that beast.
For once I disagree with both Iksar and Nephele. I really like the idea of two characters of the same race and class and level having the chance to be different.
1. Systems like the AA system in EQ and EQ2 do not need to provide vertical advancement. In a game like this where a designer goal is to have more horizontal advancement perhaps they will do a better job of it. A CP system (character personalization) could, for example, give a pet class a new pet that is no more powerful but works a bit differently. People love having more pets even if purely cosmetic. A CP system could give a monk a different stance that was no more poweful than the old stance but that played differently. A CP system could give a ranged combat class ...well you see the point.
A CP system doesn't need to be about combat at all. It might marginally improve crafting or harvesting skills. That will not make it harder for anyone to get into a raid.
A CP system might offer a change in appearance of the character or its mounts - if there are mounts. Or unlock additional house decorations if there are houses.
2. Experience in many games teaches that a CP system can work best if the opportunities for differentiation are not at level cap but come steadily from relatively low level until level cap. This also makes it seem less like vertical progression. And takes away Phaiden's valid point about AA being a time sink harmful to those with less time. If a CP system gave one CP point every 5 levels - voila (or is it voici) no grinding, no time spent, but characters can be personalized a bit. Which is all I want.
dorotea said:For once I disagree with both Iksar and Nephele. I really like the idea of two characters of the same race and class and level having the chance to be different.
Hang on. Marking this day in my diary. One of the few days when dorotea and I disagreed on something!! Or wait... do we really?
I absolutely agree with the intent of your statement bolded above. Diversity between characters of the same race and class is something I really want to see as well.
Where we differ though is how we want to see that implemented. Rather than any sort of point-based system (which in my experience rapidly gets turned into FotM templates by players), what I would like to see is this diversity reflected in meaningful choices throughout the game.
Do you train up your weapon skill with swords, axes, or spears? Each one takes time and effort. Each one unlocks different abilities and things you can do in combat. Each one might entail doing different things to earn advanced abilities.
Do you specialize in a school of magic, or do you keep a broader base? If you choose the former you can learn more powerful spells, but forego access to those of other schools. If you choose the latter, you don't get the higher end specialist spells, but you gain versatility - and perhaps you may learn some unique, cross-school spells as well.
Do you spend time training your cleric to move and fight in heavy plate armor, or do you instead opt for lighter chain and scale? You can't take hits as effectively of course but you might gain a boost to your ability to reposition in a fight in order to bring your divine might to bear more easily - and, you can now carry more things without being encumbered by them.
Do you focus on befriending the creatures of the land as a druid, or do you spend time attuning yourself to primal forces of earth and sky, or do you perhaps become intimately familiar with a region, gaining the ability to bend the land itself to your will?
Sure, you can do all of these kinds of things by spending points in a tree - but again, I would much rather see all of this baked into the core game itself. Skills, abilities, equipment selection, all of them should have meaningful choices, and progressing your character to earn more powerful versions of all of those should have meaningful choices as well. And maybe even some mutual exclusivity. Just in less of a pre-planned template style, and more of an organic, growing into it style of implementation.
I would love to see a really in-depth AA system. I don't buy the argument that deep progression punishes players who have less playtime. It's supposed to be about the journey rather than the destination. Having access to a deep/meaningful progression tree is something that most games lack. I loved the Class Mastery system in EQOA (very similar to AA's) -- not so much in EQ2. EQ2's AA system may as well have been an extra 10 levels worth of XP. The real issue at hand is the idea that players get frustrated when something seems out of reach and view it as an arbitrary punishment. Pantheon is supposed to be a hardcore game that emphasizes horizontal progression. It's been stated that there is a desire to allow players to feel like they can accomplish something meaningful within a 2-hour window. Having a really deep AA system would help facilitate that for many years.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the EQ1 AA system, where I felt disappointed was that certain AAs were quickly identified as critical to that class. You essentially had to get that AA skill before anything else. You ended up with a very narrow progression path going from mandatory/critical to highly desired to nice-to-haves to the I-can't-think-of-anything-else-to-spend-points-on skills.
Quite a few of the AAs also very much helped trivialize content. The resist AAs which, if memory serves, allowed you to increase all your base resists by 30 points.
I've said this time and time again that when you add some thing which improves some or multiple aspect(s) of the character like what we saw with AAs, all future content must be developed under the assumption that every player has maxed out each and every one of those skills. Otherwise, if you do not do that, the content becomes too easy.
My worry is highlighted by @Vandraad; that AA systems in EQ and otherwise tend to represent a non-linear power increase that means future content is either too easy or assumes AAs have been obtained and is not doable by those without them (and 'old' content even of the appropriate level, becomes trivial to those with them).
An AA system should should probably be a more horizontal 'flavour' development of a class, though even changing a class's 'flavour' can often lead to them being situationally over- or under-powered.
Let the generally more carefully designed, linearly scaled and balancable concept of level take care of actual power progression.
I think this is one of the main reasons that rigid class definitions are desirable. Each optional specialisation, if powerful enough to be meaningful, makes for unpredictable balancing issues. Or they are predictable, but ultimately undesirable and destructive to the game.
Gellor said: Wasn't AA only introduced in EQ as a solution to a problem. I'm sure I've seen post by Brad McQuaid regarding this. Now that the MMO genre is matured and the devs know so much more now than they did during the development of EQ, AA should not be required in the game. From everything I've read about the game and how they want horizontal as well vertical progression and have systems planned and designed for this, makes an AA system obsolete? I've never played EQ or Vangard, I was drawn to Pantheon as a game on it's own merits.
Exactly. I have high hopes there will be horizontal class progression baked in at all levels. Though, as I've said in other posts, they need to be very careful with this. Any kind of meaningful horizontal *power* progression could have horrible balance effects. Something as innocent as allowing a warrior to choose Axe or Spear, which seems like a pure 'flavour' choice, could have large ramifications if that spear could be thrown enabling ranged pulling for those warriors and not the Axe wielders. They might discover 20 levels later that without range pulling they are horribly gimped, or that with ranged pulling they make monks obselete. That sort of thing, anyway.
((Do you train up your weapon skill with swords, axes, or spears? Each one takes time and effort. Each one unlocks different abilities and things you can do in combat. Each one might entail doing different things to earn advanced abilities.
Do you specialize in a school of magic, or do you keep a broader base? If you choose the former you can learn more powerful spells, but forego access to those of other schools. If you choose the latter, you don't get the higher end specialist spells, but you gain versatility - and perhaps you may learn some unique, cross-school spells as well.
Do you spend time training your cleric to move and fight in heavy plate armor, or do you instead opt for lighter chain and scale? You can't take hits as effectively of course but you might gain a boost to your ability to reposition in a fight in order to bring your divine might to bear more easily - and, you can now carry more things without being encumbered by them.
Do you focus on befriending the creatures of the land as a druid, or do you spend time attuning yourself to primal forces of earth and sky, or do you perhaps become intimately familiar with a region, gaining the ability to bend the land itself to your will?
Sure, you can do all of these kinds of things by spending points in a tree - but again, I would much rather see all of this baked into the core game itself. Skills, abilities, equipment selection, all of them should have meaningful choices, and progressing your character to earn more powerful versions of all of those should have meaningful choices as well. And maybe even some mutual exclusivity. Just in less of a pre-planned template style, and more of an organic, growing into it style of implementation.))
It seems as if some of the things you mention if not most of them do represent choices that have consequences. Thus you say a mage learning one school of magic would forego access to other schools or to some high-end spells. Precisely as the system in LOTRO works - if a character takes one trait tree he or she can get fewer abilities in the other two trait trees and can never get the best abilities in the other two trait trees. Since I agree in all respects with what you said - this leaves me to contemplate where we do *not* agree.
Probably not terminology - we both understand that a game can call it AA or trait trees or character personalization. The name is not the thing. The result is what matters.
I think the core difference is that in the context of a thread on "AA system" I spoke in terms of an AA-type system. You prefer a system where the differentiation does not come from points granted every level or experience earned after level-cap. You prefer a system where the differentiation comes from actions taken in Terminus. Either a skill system or a system with aspects of such. Thus, combat wearing heavy armour makes you more skillful in the use of such armour but reduces your ability to become proficient in medium armour. For example you can earn 50 armour proficiency points not by gaining levels, not by gaining experience, but by actually using armour in combat over the course of many many game hours. You can gain all 50 in heavy armour, all 50 in light, all 50 in medium or any combination. Apologies if this is not what you meant.
I much prefer your proposal to mine and if Pantheon had anything like it I would see no need whatsoever for any AA system. My support for a Character Personalization system was based entirely on the assumption that Pantheon will not have any skill-based or usage-based ways to differentiate a character. Needless to say, and here we will assuredly agree, the key to a skill-based or usage-based system is choice and consequences. If I can maximize my abilities with *all* types of armour by using them we have something that is meaningless at best and an extra grindy time-sink at worst.
i'm not sure what 'aa' is
someone care to explain?
based on the context of aa given thus far:
if it's levels within levels (wow artifact power/prestige/eso veteran ranks) >_>
if it's something like warriors being 1h axe spec(bleed dot) 1h mace spec(slows enemy attack speed) shield spec(extra block) that would be interesting then pvers will whine like pvpers when it comes to balance specs.
if it's stat manipulation this could be interesting with min maxers or specific builds
keep in mind that las12 is a real thing, that we'll have abilities influenced by stats(increase damage, duration, cast time, etc) and the whole point is class interdependence with the trinity(dps, tank, healer) plus cc
would this mysterious aa even work with all this in mind?
AA stands for alternate advancement if I recall correctly. Within the industry systems like this sometimes are introduced at level-cap to give bored high levels something to gain by continuing to play. They sometimes are introduced earlier on so that characters can develop in different ways while leveling.
Details vary enormously by game. There is always a limited number of points to apply so that you can get some of the available benefits but not all of them. You need to choose what you prefer.
Rewards may be general improvement in character power (each point applied gives a 1% increase in dps or a 1% increase in healing or a 1% improvement in aggro generation or a 1% increase in hit points).
Rewards may be increased flexibility. Use 5 points and a pet class gets a different pet, a ranged combat class gets some stealth abilities, a tank class that didn't have a self-heal gets one.
Rewards may be non-combat. Increased movement speed, faster harvesting, more chance of critical success while crafting.
None of the above reflects what I want to see - I am trying to give a fair answer dealing with what AA-type systems already have in other games.
dorotea said:
Probably not terminology - we both understand that a game can call it AA or trait trees or character personalization. The name is not the thing. The result is what matters.
I think the core difference is that in the context of a thread on "AA system" I spoke in terms of an AA-type system. You prefer a system where the differentiation does not come from points granted every level or experience earned after level-cap. You prefer a system where the differentiation comes from actions taken in Terminus.
That's it, exactly. My problem with point-based systems is that players end up min/maxing around them and build templates. Take X abilities from this line and Y abilities from that line for the best effect. Avoid Z abilities because they're worthless. Then three months later someone realizes that Z abilities are actually really useful and now there's a different "best" template. It just starts to feel very artificial, and worse, it contributes to social divisions among players because people that make unique choices aren't respected.
Having the system tied to things you do in game, rather than distributing points, allows for more organic growth. Many players will simply grow into their choices based on their preferred playstyle. Sure, some people will overanalyze it and min/max it and decide that they need to level up using a two-handed sword and scale armor because that's going to get them the "best" numbers in the end, but as long as things are designed so that there are several different options in each choice and each of those is equally viable at the time, it won't be as clear-cut. The result would be a more diverse world, more uniqueness among characters, and more respect for individual choices.
Vanguard actually did this exact thing with skill caps - where you might have 5 skills that grew as you used them, but you only had so many points spread across all five, such that you couldn't master them all. You had the ability as the player to go in and say "stop learning this skill" or "start forgetting this skill" and the system would balance out the points over time based on your selections. So your character grew organically, but you still had the ability to change things up later if you wanted to go a different route instead.
I would love to see that concept used to represent many more meaningful choices for character growth within the game - weapon skills, armor skills, utility skills, spell skills, and so on. Then, give abilities skill requirements such that if you want to use that really cool axe attack or fire spell, you need a high skill level in axes or fire magic (respectively) to do it.
I believe the system they have alrady proposed is a better take on "continual progression" than a system that just makes the same level character stronger and stronger.
From the The Pantheon Difference section of the webpage
Progeny SystemPlayers will be able to 'retire' high level characters and then create their children as new characters, but these new characters, the 'progeny', will have certain abilities, stats, etc. that make them slightly yet noticeably better than a completely brand new character (but not to the point that it unbalances things).
This gives the users the choice of becoming slightly more powerful and get to run through possibly differet content they haven't explored yet. This can and will be used as a standard by some, expecting people to have done at least 5th level progeny or whatever, but given how little is known about this system to date I feel there are many ways to make this a terrific substitute to your typical "alternate advancement" systems like EQ, EQ2, WOW, etc. have.
Iksar said:Please no. I really don't understand the desire to try to make endless progression grinding on a character a goal, especially when it comes to systems like AA or specs (illusion of choice). If you really wanted then just add levels that give players of a class increasing passive bonuses or skills that give them whatever the AAs would have been. A lot easier to just say X content is for level 55 players than to sit around discriminating between level 50 players based on their AA progress. All for what? The endorphin rush of pressing an up arrow or little "+" sign once every massive block of hours?
AA systems (in every instance I have seen them) are poor differentiators for anything other than: those with (often) absurd amounts of free time and those with fewer. They are bandaids to keep players at max level playing in a lack of content. Skill, content completion, knowledge, and attitude are all better things to focus on when one wants to stand out.
Yes and no, I can understand your point on AA's being a *requirement* by groups when implemented in the wrong way. But if we are going to take a page from say EQ on AA's when Luclin dropped most people were 60 by then. So while yes they did have level 55 reqs on some it wasn't like a lot of groups were even requiring them to level, at least not in the majority of groups I was ever in. I also wouldn't exaggerate that you had to have an absurd amount of free time to grind AA's as they weren't that hard to obtain no more then leveling in a group or farming for gear was. Thats kind of like saying people with more free time got to max level faster then those with fewer, of course they were but doesn't mean they were grinding 18 hrs a day.
I also wouldn't say it was a bandaid for lack of content. EQ had plenty of content, espcially with Planes of Power. Keying and Flagging alone was crazy enough to keep anyone busy even hardcore raiding guilds. AA's later on in the expansions (I only played up to TSS) I would definitly agree became more of a filler. I'm not sure what EQ AA cap is now something ludicris like 30k or something. But then again it's changed a lot over the years to.
Knowledge, skill and attitude is always something anyone should do to stand out, but I wouldn't say its fair for the guys who are Max level depending on how Pantheon does things, have the best gear to also be punished with nothing to do. And if AA's are a way to keep a person who has more free time then a guy who only has a couple hours a night to play then so be it, just do it properly. Obviously we wouldnt want an AA that would make a guy who got it 55 be better then the level 60. But nothing wrong with adding some extra hp mana stam etc. Its a fine line of balance, enough to make it feel worth getting but not enough to make someone completely overpowered.
Otherwise you could argue that VR would need to release content at say an every 3 month time line just to keep hardcore players happy mean while casual players will always feel behind. I'm sure they have ideas on what they want to implement and as long as they do it right I'm good with having an AA system or not having it. Keep your audience engaged no matter the skill, time or money you'll have enough pie for everyone regardless.
Kargen said:I believe the system they have alrady proposed is a better take on "continual progression" than a system that just makes the same level character stronger and stronger.
From the The Pantheon Difference section of the webpage
Progeny SystemPlayers will be able to 'retire' high level characters and then create their children as new characters, but these new characters, the 'progeny', will have certain abilities, stats, etc. that make them slightly yet noticeably better than a completely brand new character (but not to the point that it unbalances things).
This gives the users the choice of becoming slightly more powerful and get to run through possibly differet content they haven't explored yet. This can and will be used as a standard by some, expecting people to have done at least 5th level progeny or whatever, but given how little is known about this system to date I feel there are many ways to make this a terrific substitute to your typical "alternate advancement" systems like EQ, EQ2, WOW, etc. have.
hardcore pve elite guilds:
must be 7th progeny with gs 9000+ minimum (is this where api comes in so we can verify?)
hardcore pvpers: well there's no pvp ranking system, you have decent gear, your progeny is eh, but your personality works well with our group and that's more important so welcome aboard :D
i'd say this aa everyone is talking about in pantheon is acclimation and progeny?
I am ok with AAs -- just please, please --- add them from the beginning ... and be honest with us -- do we get them by questing, or how ?
nothing more frustrating than being maxed out level; and THEN having it introduced at that point .. ok if you are rolling a brand new toon, awful if your main is maxed
( looking at YOU, EQ2 -- and doing it when a ton of us were already maxed at level 50 ... we hated it ... didn't even "grandfather" us in at all -- NONE -- it was awful trying to get them then )
And again -- whatever system you decide on -- please let it be there from live day 1 -- and not with a later expansion, ok ?
Einelinea said:I am ok with AAs -- just please, please --- add them from the beginning ... and be honest with us -- do we get them by questing, or how ?
nothing more frustrating than being maxed out level; and THEN having it introduced at that point .. ok if you are rolling a brand new toon, awful if your main is maxed
( looking at YOU, EQ2 -- and doing it when a ton of us were already maxed at level 50 ... we hated it ... didn't even "grandfather" us in at all -- NONE -- it was awful trying to get them then )
that's why progeny exists so i can correct any stupid decisions i've made with my father and his father's father :D
((Having the system tied to things you do in game, rather than distributing points, allows for more organic growth. Many players will simply grow into their choices based on their preferred playstyle. Sure, some people will overanalyze it and min/max it and decide that they need to level up using a two-handed sword and scale armor because that's going to get them the "best" numbers in the end, but as long as things are designed so that there are several different options in each choice and each of those is equally viable at the time, it won't be as clear-cut. The result would be a more diverse world, more uniqueness among characters, and more respect for individual choices.))
May the Gods (that means VR) grant us such a system.