Another concept that I've bene thinking about that I'd like to put before the experienced folks here for comment is the mechanic often used in games where monsters above your level have 'aritifical' 'enhancements' to discourage you taking them on.
Often you find that something that is only one or two levels above yours is near impossible to hit or land a spell on and/or it does enormous damage to you. You level up once or twice with no training of abilities, no change of gear, but suddenly you can land hits and spells and you aren't getting pounded into the dirt and it's not due to your extra health points, they just aren't hitting as hard.
Something very odd has happened. The monster has become less effective because *you* have changed. I've leveled up and only changed my abilities in a very gradual way, but my relative power to that monster has swung wildly.
To me this always felt very weird and artificial. I know it stops things like zerging (many low level characters ganging up on a high level monster), but it just feels wrong to me. I'm not so sure that things like zerging were so bad that it needs this horribly artificial feeling mechanic to get around it.
What do you think?
IMO a level-up should feel great and make you a lot more powerful. Imagine if leveling up was just "wow, I got 20hp more now...". Pretty disappointing if you ask me. No, leveling up should be a big thing for players and things that were impossible before should now be in your grasp. Especially in a game like Pantheon where leveling supposedly will take longer.
If the game has a /con system that suggests orange mobs as being extremely difficult, and red mobs as being nearly impossible, I have no issue with those descriptions being accurate. I don't really view that as an artificial barrier as much as I do an accurate /con system.
I think disposalist brings up an interesting point. Having hidden multipliers allows for an exponential strength curve while having the visible stats remain linear (so people don't complain about mudlfation). The alternative is that we either accept that gangs of low level characters can take on higher level content or we accept that visible stats will have to be non-linear. I personally enjoy an exponential strength curve because it shows tangible progress on an acceptable timescale. I'll take the weird feeling of trying to hit an orc 7 levels higher than me and being unable to scratch it over seeing a horde of undergeared and underleveled players taking down a dragon.
The change you propose is reasonable and perhaps even more realistic, but I don't think it would make for a better game (for me).
I'm with onead on this one. If the gameplay is prioritizing level by making it the basis for determining whether you should or should not do a fight, then I see no reason for monsters above your level to not be very difficult.
I might feel differently if power progression followed a very flat, more organic curve and challenge was defined not by an arbitrary level but by the number and type of additional factors found in a fight. However, that does not seem to be the route that Pantheon is planning to take.
While I agree with Disposalist I also feel the countervailing considerations are valid - and given the clear intent to build a game similar in feel to EQ and Vanguard giving an irrationally large effect to level may be the way to go.
As a general comment on this point and *all* of the suggestions that have been and will be made, however valid they may be in a vacuum.
Unless a design approach is *clearly* inferior *and* can be improved without excessive work - VR should keep any and all basic design decisions already made and implemented in the pre-alphas. As witness a certain level of ...impatience ..... in other threads that we all are well aware of, I suggest that getting to alpha and beta and release should have a *higher* priority than any improvement in things they have already done. Marginal changes in basic design decisions from now on please unless changes both will significantly improve the final product and can be done without excessive delay.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. I think the game's success will be a lot more likely with very good in 2020 or 2021 rather than perfect in 2022 or 2023. Especially since any good developer will always have improvements in mind therefore it is a phantasm to seek for "Perfection. The Unknown Ideal".
disposalist said:Often you find that something that is only one or two levels above yours is near impossible to hit or land a spell on and/or it does enormous damage to you. You level up once or twice with no training of abilities, no change of gear, but suddenly you can land hits and spells and you aren't getting pounded into the dirt and it's not due to your extra health points, they just aren't hitting as hard.
It is exactly because you have leveled up, which is to say your adventurer is more wise/experienced/couragous/etc. At least that is how I always viewed it, the non-stat/unspoken character stuff that increases per level.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, but the issue I'm highlighting is not how level might dictate what you can do - I'm of course fine with increases in level meaning increases in difficulty - but more the additional *artificial* multipliers that are introduced in most games so that you are forced into level appropriate encounters because only slighty higher level encounters are made much more difficult than the level difference alone can explain.
To give some very simplified numbers, imagine that each level your character becomes 10% more powerful. You would imagine that an even monster is 'challenging' and a monster of one level about is 10% more difficult.
What we usually find in MMORPGs, though, probably in an effort to stop zerging and enforce level appropriate content is used, is that monsters 1 level above you are way more than 10% more difficult - there is some additional 'artificial' multiplier being used. Monsters 2 levels above you are extremely difficult. Monsters 3 levels above are impossible.
You might find you in a group of characters level 10 to 13 and there are monsters in the zone levels 10 to 13. You get into an encounter and find that the level 10 monsters are utterly trivial to some of your group and the level 13 monsters are untouchable by some of your group due to the artificial level difference multipliers/resistences in effect.
This becomes quite obvious and immersion breaking when you level up, recieve a reasonable 10% power increase yourself, but monsters that were previously extremely difficult are suddenly an even match.
For me I would prefer a more realistic, linear, sandbox-feeling approach even if it means zerging and other tactics are possible, though perhaps other mechanics could be introduced to fix those (like, you can't physically fit more than a few characters meleeing around a monsters and after more than a few spells are hitting it they begin to block each other).
Iksar said:disposalist said:Often you find that something that is only one or two levels above yours is near impossible to hit or land a spell on and/or it does enormous damage to you. You level up once or twice with no training of abilities, no change of gear, but suddenly you can land hits and spells and you aren't getting pounded into the dirt and it's not due to your extra health points, they just aren't hitting as hard.
It is exactly because you have leveled up, which is to say your adventurer is more wise/experienced/couragous/etc. At least that is how I always viewed it, the non-stat/unspoken character stuff that increases per level.
But that stuff is, under the hood, expressed by automatic increases in attributes. I'm ok with that. Even automatic increases in things like accuracy and damage. The thing I'm talking about if when you undergo a linear power increase, your relationship to the varying level monsters around you is artificially skewed in a very false manner by hidden additional multipliers applied purely because of some level difference calculation.
@Disposalist - I'm not sure I'm following your stance anymore. You say you're ok with attributes being under the hood, but not okay if said attributes are non-linear? Is your issue the power curve or the transparency of the power curve?
I think the MMO Rift is a prime example for this discussion. In Rift there was a visible attribute (I think it was called a "Hit" value) that was an arbitrary multiplier on top of everything that overwhelmingly determined your effectiveness against enemies (at least raid-tier ones from my memory). Would you be fine with such a system? In my experience it seemed just as arbitrary, but more clearly gamified.
Since we're on the topic, I think there should be specific world bosses (dragons, giants, roamers, etc.) for which any under the hood multipliers should be removed (or even flipped to some small degree). I think zerging can be surprisingly exhilerating and just plain fun and should be encouraged in a subset of content, especially if lower level players can participate meaningfully. The rush of being part of a horde of players taking down a monstrous target is memorable, but shouldn't come at the cost of ruining balanced content where difficulty is the focus.
I think I know what Disposalist is saying.
I'll agree by saying what I don't want. I don't want to be prevented from attempting a higher level monster with a team (not a zerg) of slightly lower level characters. Rather, I would prefer mini raid or raid targets attemptable by a tight knit group of 12-15 players, similar to an experience I had in EQ during the GoD expansion. And others from what I heard, in other servers.
We were from all guilds, one person gathered us together from reputation, some from mediocre guilds, some from filthy casual guilds, some from hard core guilds, some from no guilds almost hand picked. These were normally raid targets but they said "lets try" and we did. It was thrilling, just 12-15 of us, nervous as heck- getting tells "where are you?" and "what are you doing there?" and "can I join?" and I would have to say No, trying something, experimenting, not raiding, full up. It was almost secret. But we got the drops. People wondered- how could you-? where were you? and then with only HOW MANY!? word got out...we set the standard of playerability or so we liked to think.
I dont want an artificial gate or secret multiplier put in place to higher monsters, but then again, that wont prevent zerging. Unless we just agree that "zerging happens" although it is frowned upon and its up to Devs to develope encounters that don't allow zerging or "tank n spanks" (although tank n spanks are fun for kids)
There is a real life example that exists today in EQ. From time to time in the arena thjat is located off Lake Rathe, there is a Mob that spawns with a name like "version 01" or "0001" as a name something. It is attackable. Thing is, it has a ridiculous amount of HP's it spawns rarely and when up a message goes out in general from someone trying to attempt to kill it and not being able to- then people start joining, then the messages in general get interesting, things like- this is wierd. and what IS this?
Then the top guilds come in- then the top guilds in general chat ask everyone that can come, to come, everyone. and it takes about 20 minutes to kill this thing- someone does a parse and states from when they came in how many HP's it must have had- somewhere in the billions. and theh it goes away and doesnt spawn. Someone then recalls it spawning sometime some months or years ago, but no one remembers why.
Ainadak said:@Disposalist - I'm not sure I'm following your stance anymore. You say you're ok with attributes being under the hood, but not okay if said attributes are non-linear? Is your issue the power curve or the transparency of the power curve?
I think the MMO Rift is a prime example for this discussion. In Rift there was a visible attribute (I think it was called a "Hit" value) that was an arbitrary multiplier on top of everything that overwhelmingly determined your effectiveness against enemies (at least raid-tier ones from my memory). Would you be fine with such a system? In my experience it seemed just as arbitrary, but more clearly gamified.
Since we're on the topic, I think there should be specific world bosses (dragons, giants, roamers, etc.) for which any under the hood multipliers should be removed (or even flipped to some small degree). I think zerging can be surprisingly exhilerating and just plain fun and should be encouraged in a subset of content, especially if lower level players can participate meaningfully. The rush of being part of a horde of players taking down a monstrous target is memorable, but shouldn't come at the cost of ruining balanced content where difficulty is the focus.
My primary problem is not the hidden nature of what makes a monster powerful but when the power of the monster (and/or its resistances) is artificially multiplied such that level difference has much more effect than it should.
It's the nonsensical artificial barriers and weird phenomena this creates that I dislike.
As I said above, you often found in EQ and other games appear to have followed the theory, that you could find a 'normal' fight in an even level monster, but just one level higher is extremely difficult, but a character just one level higher is not that much more powerful.
I think it is done by devs so that players are forced to use content of an 'appropriate' level, but I found it to be false and frustrating.
I'm just wondering if anyone has any insight on this that explains it in terms I can understand and accept. It was never the end of the world, but was (is) always a niggle for me.
So, there are pros and cons to any approach the game takes.
Players are always going to be smarter than the NPCs they fight in Pantheon. The NPC might have a really complex script that it uses but eventually the fight can be learned, the tactics can be predicted, the tells can be known, and so on. At that point it all boils down to simple math - can the players deal enough damage to the NPC and survive the amount of damage that it generates.
This is why the power increase per *level* of an NPC in most games is usually exponential/logarithmic instead of linear. It's why an NPC of a given level almost always has far higher numbers than a player does. The reason is simply that it's the only way the system has to compensate for the additional intelligence of the players is through brute forcing the numbers.
The upside to doing this is that things really do feel challenging as the level difference increases. That red con really is terrifying. That yellow con really is tough.
The downside though is often what you point out. Level can become a limiter rather than an enabler. So I get where you're coming from there. It's an imperfect system and you're seeing the consequences of those imperfections.
Unfortunately, like I mentioned above, Pantheon has already made the decision to go with a level ladder as the primary form of vertical character progression. The rest of the game is being built around that concept. That forces them into a situation where they're going to have to make things that are more than 1-2 levels above the player *very* challenging through inflating numbers - whether those are hit point values, resistance formulas, or whatever. Otherwise, not only does progressing in level become much less meaningful, but it becomes very difficult for the game to present any sort of challenge to a skilled group of players who work together well.
This is one of the few places where I feel like the ship really has sailed. If you want the con system to matter, if you want levels to matter, then you have to accept that you're also going to be limited by them.
That doesn't mean that the content designers at VR can't still design encounters to be challenging at-level, and to do unexpected and clever things to make it harder for players to predict what's going to happen or to reduce a fight down to numbers. I really hope they do that. If they're able to, it will go a long way towards our suspension of disbelief.
It's for gameplay/balancing more than anything, if mobs a couple levels higher only had more HP and slightly higher damage then all we would find is the goalposts moved. Players would simply settle into a different accepted normal for grouping/maximizing exp gain by hunting mobs at +5-6 level (as an example) instead of shooting for the standard even or +1-2 /con mobs.
Levels are just made up numbers that can signify different things depending on what it is attributed to. For player characters it is to help gauge ones progress and general strength/power in the world. For mobs it could honestly be whatever the devs want it to be, "level 20" for a mob could mean an even fight for a level 20 player or it could mean an even fight for a group of level 20 characters. I guess what I am getting at is that just because a mob shows as one or two "levels" higher doesn't mean it's only slightly more powerful the same way a player is.
I do agree that things have tended to be a bit heavy handed in past games though, in terms of full resists and misses vs higher level mobs. I think we could use more partial resists, reduced duration debuffs/dots, glancing blows, and similar instead of just a cliff where suddenly nothing sticks/lands/hits for players vs creatures.
It sounds like what you talking about it damage mitigation, and if your attacking a enemy only a couple levels above you and doing nothing to it, then the problem is a lack of balance and not the system itself.
To clarify, you at level 10 attacking a level 10 mob would have zero mitigation based on level difference, but you at level 10 attacking a level 11 could see some migration due to level different.
That mitigation should be very small, but grow exponentially as the difference in levels grew
***Assuming the same attack with a value of 100 damage:
For example: level 10 player attacks level 11 mob and receives 3% reduction for 97 damage hit to mob. Same mob attacks level 10 player and hits with 3% bonus to damage for 103 damage to player
Example 2: level 10 player attacks level 12 mob and receives 5% reduction for 95 damage hit to mob. Same mob attacks level 10 player and hits with 5% bonus to damage for 105 damage to player
Example 3: level 10 player attacks level 15 mob and receives 35% reduction for 65 damage hit to mob. Same mob attacks level 10 player and hits with 35% bonus to damage for 135 damage to player
And on and on
My issue with thse reductions when facing NPCs that are levels above the character is the historical imbalance between the reduction rate experienced by melee vs that experienced by casters. Casters suffer disproportionatly higher rate at which spells are resisted than melee suffer with to-hit calculations. A red con for a caster typically meant full resists nearly every spell you cast whereby you are are contributing nothing to the fight by going OOM just trying to get a spell to land.
I'm hoping, and I will insist quite emphatically, that reductions in damage be uniform. A 5% reduction by melee damage is a 5% reduction in spell damage. Not increased full resist rates, but ever increasing reductions so that you are always contributing something.
oneADseven said:If the game has a /con system that suggests orange mobs as being extremely difficult, and red mobs as being nearly impossible, I have no issue with those descriptions being accurate. I don't really view that as an artificial barrier as much as I do an accurate /con system.
Agree completely, if a mob 2 levels above you feels the same as a mob the same level as you than the /con system isn't nesscary, the way I see it even if you don't feel getting more powerful by each level than either the game is missing something or something else. But to me a mob being 2 levels higher than me makes for a tough opponent, and than when I gain those 2 levels and it feels like they aren't playing with an advantage feels like impactful leveling.
I think that this subject depends a lot on how mob balance is formulated around grouping, and what the devs are expecting players to be able to do on their own.
I will say that players who are soloing content should feel weaker when they are alone. A player going solo should have more trouble than a group of two to 3 people, and a group of 2 to 3 people should have more trouble than a full group of 6. Balance wise I think that a full group of 6 should be capable of taking out 3 mobs who are 5-6 levels higher than them as long as they are prepared before the battle and everything is managed well during that encounter.
When it comes mobs being able to resist things I'm all for it. I think that when it comes to the topic of completely being able to resist something that should depend on spell level. If you are casting a level 18 spell on a level 24 mob (7 level difference) than that mob should be able to completely resist that spell. However, I also think certain mobs should have natural resistances to specific spell/ ability type. For example, a lightning golem would have natural resistances to lightning-based spells. The spells could still hit but part of their damage (not all) would be mitigated due to the golem's innate resistances. I've noticed that most games over the years have done away with enemies having natural resistances, though. I think the last time that I encountered an enemy being able to resist something was back in Vanilla WoW, in Blackrock Depths with the fire elementals. I think it was eventually removed because resist in this circumstance meant immunity from all fire damage and it rendered fire mages useless against this mob.
disposalist said:Another concept that I've bene thinking about that I'd like to put before the experienced folks here for comment is the mechanic often used in games where monsters above your level have 'aritifical' 'enhancements' to discourage you taking them on.
Often you find that something that is only one or two levels above yours is near impossible to hit or land a spell on and/or it does enormous damage to you. You level up once or twice with no training of abilities, no change of gear, but suddenly you can land hits and spells and you aren't getting pounded into the dirt and it's not due to your extra health points, they just aren't hitting as hard.
Something very odd has happened. The monster has become less effective because *you* have changed. I've leveled up and only changed my abilities in a very gradual way, but my relative power to that monster has swung wildly.
To me this always felt very weird and artificial. I know it stops things like zerging (many low level characters ganging up on a high level monster), but it just feels wrong to me. I'm not so sure that things like zerging were so bad that it needs this horribly artificial feeling mechanic to get around it.
What do you think?
I sort of disagree with this and agree with it at the same time.
For instance, if I tried to take on Chuck Liddell (who would most definitely be a blood red con to me using game mechanics), as a non-MMA fighter, I'd get my ass stomped. So the barrier isn't so artificial for lower level characters to get their asses handed to them by higher level ones, even to the point where they might not even be able to hit them.
That said, with the current /con system, if you're close enough to not con red, then you *DO* have a chance of having an impact on MOBs, if not killing it. A blood red con is going to be at least two to three levels above you. When you level up you are more than changing yourself in gradual ways. You get more skills (or spells) available to you, your hp goes up, your damage goes up, your various skills go up as you work on them. It's a whole slew of things, not just a "Well, I'm level 40 and I can kill that guy now for no other reason" thing. There, literally, is a bunch of math behind it. It worked the same way in D&D.
That said, I think there should be some changes to the system. For the purposes of this, let's say you're level 10. If you fight a level 10 wasp, it should be fairly easy to kill. If you fight a level 10 Human, you should have a pretty even shot. If you fight a level 10 Ogre, maybe it gets dicey because they're physically stronger than you and have higher stamina. If you fight a level 10 Hill Giant, he should mop the floor with you, for obvious reasons. All of which, would /con even to you. Maybe the answer to this is to "adjust" the levels of the MOBs. For instance, maybe a wasp can only truly be level 1 - 10. Maybe a human or Ogre can be the whole gamut. Maybe a dragon STARTS at level 30 and goes to level 70 (out of a 50 level system). This is where I see the level vs conflict ability system really needs to be "overhauled".
Thoughts?
I have been following the discussion with considerable interest but no real opinion. Unusual for me.
While there may be benefits one way or the other to the approach VR takes my promary concern is that we understand it. And I don't doubt that we will.
If a +1 mob is highly dangerous and a +2 mob is truly deadly I can live with that.
If a +5 mob is a bit of a challenge and a +6 mob might actually *kill* me if I am unlucky I can live with that too.More MMOs do that than make a slight level difference critical.
As long as the system is consistent so I have some idea when to fight and when to run.
I agree entirely that the mob's chance of avoiding damage from a physical attack should be comparable to its chance of avoiding damage from a magical attack in general.
I understand the argument I just don't think it's any kind of issue in terms of immersion or balance or game mechanics. In addition to your stats, resists and skills, your level will determine your relative ability to hit and be hit by mobs. They are all determining factors, one of which is innate to the level difference between a PC and a mob. That seems reasonable.
dorotea said: ... I agree entirely that the mob's chance of avoiding damage from a physical attack should be comparable to its chance of avoiding damage from a magical attack in general.Interesting point. When I came back to EQ1 TLP for the first time, I played a caster. I was in the high 20's or early 30's, I don't remember exactly what level, and I get an invitation to Lower Guk.
vjek said:dorotea said: ... I agree entirely that the mob's chance of avoiding damage from a physical attack should be comparable to its chance of avoiding damage from a magical attack in general.Interesting point. When I came back to EQ1 TLP for the first time, I played a caster. I was in the high 20's or early 30's, I don't remember exactly what level, and I get an invitation to Lower Guk.
I'm thinking back to 1999-2000, and it didn't seem like that would be a very good idea, so I told the inviter, I'm too low level, and he says nah, we're good, come on down.
So I go there, and.. everything is yellow or red. I'm not really feeling like this is a solid plan, yet.. the mobs are all dying, and it's a bunch of people just a few levels higher than me, so I ask: "how are you able to even hit them?" and they proceed to explain that casters will get almost 100% resists on +3 or +4 reds (which is exactly what I was seeing, and it was very discouraging) but that physical damage dealers (monks, warriors, rogues, rangers, etc) could hit them no problem, so they would be doing most of the damage. They said "relax and do your best", so I did.
They had a max level druid for regen, thorns and heals, so, the more the tank was getting hit, the better. It was a bit surreal. I stayed with the group for a few hours, and leveled at least once in that time. The XP was great, but I was contributing almost nothing. I would stand, nuke until 50% mana, get resisted pretty much every time, sit down, med for 5 minutes (no Enchanter), and repeat. I did my best, but I probably did less than 1% of the damage of the physical classes, total. It was ridiculous, embarassing, absurd, and they didn't seem to care in the slightest.
It seems to me that if a caster gets close to 100% resists on a target, non-casters should probably have close to 100% misses on a target. All other things being equal. If they're going with an all-or-nothing approach to damage, that is.
This is not seeing the forest for the trees. Casters were ridiculously overpowered in other ways. Just because a melee toon could do damage to a yellow mob more efficiently than a caster could doesn't mean there needed to be balance changes. A naked caster could go solo a specter or a sand giant at level 34 while a monk or warrior or rogue or paladin or ranger was incabable of doing that until they had haste and were pushing level 50.
Dungeons in groups are where melee characters shined, when supported by healers and buffers, and were otherwise dominated by casters, and that was part of balance as a whole. Complaining about not being able to damage a red mob when you could solo and even con is absurd. A melee character couldn't solo an even con beyond single digit levels.
vjek quoted me but I was merely repeating what Vandraad had said a bit earlier.
On Keno Monster's point - of course one needs to look at balance as a whole not just one item. If casters are otherwise more powerful but they get resisted more often, reducing the resist rate would just make them even *more* overpowered. I think Vandaad, and I know I, assumed that casters and physical damage dealers were otherwise on an even playing field.