stellarmind said: Exactly. This model allows for less dungeons, less static loot, less boss design, less armor weapon designs and less mechanics. This saves activision lots of money while increasing profits and stretching subscriptions. One thing I won’t knock on them for is raids and raid bosses. It’s top tier design. I’m just really cynical about wow now that I’m not looking at them with eyes of a gamer.
Yes you are right they could of made all of that happen but as you mentioned that would of cost a TON of money to achieve such a thing, plus the thing about the mythic system is that it truly testes your limit, if you and your friends can only do lets say mythic 16 confortably than you know you are a good player but not the best, but you can still do said content up to mythic 16, but in a open world game you can have said content in certain places be somewhat equalient to mythic 20 in your own way but it only affect a small part of the world, and certain other places feel like 10-17, that way almost everyone can do a lot of content but only the best actually achieve in camping the really hard stuff, it basically gets made that way anyway, it just the way I'm saying it might be confusing, but it wasn't meant to be.
The mian thing I was saying is that WoW doesn't have a Plataeu on difficult its an ever climbing mountain and once you beat it in its amount of time you get a better key with added difficulty, and you keep going til youv'e reach your plateau but not the game's, and that the true difference.
Me personal i don't really like running the same dungeon as you've said over and over again, but I'm not going to stand here and say that WoW's difficulty isn't there, it's just at the very end of the game once you've already leveled your character and at least gotten 440+ gear score and actually doing the content that is meant to be challenging.
I think there's a difference is wanting to have a game be challenging within a reasonable extent, but if your going to have all content be so challenging to where i can't even talk to my fellow team mates and have a couple of laughs along the way and i have to micromanage my movements and do prefect rotations, and not talk to my party and feel like a complete bot, i can just stick to WoW i do that there alrdy.
Riahuf22 said:Yes you are right they could of made all of that happen but as you mentioned that would of cost a TON of money to achieve such a thing, plus the thing about the mythic system is that it truly testes your limit, if you and your friends can only do lets say mythic 16 confortably than you know you are a good player but not the best, but you can still do said content up to mythic 16, but in a open world game you can have said content in certain places be somewhat equalient to mythic 20 in your own way but it only affect a small part of the world, and certain other places feel like 10-17, that way almost everyone can do a lot of content but only the best actually achieve in camping the really hard stuff, it basically gets made that way anyway, it just the way I'm saying it might be confusing, but it wasn't meant to be.
The mian thing I was saying is that WoW doesn't have a Plataeu on difficult its an ever climbing mountain and once you beat it in its amount of time you get a better key with added difficulty, and you keep going til youv'e reach your plateau but not the game's, and that the true difference.
Me personal i don't really like running the same dungeon as you've said over and over again, but I'm not going to stand here and say that WoW's difficulty isn't there, it's just at the very end of the game once you've already leveled your character and at least gotten 440+ gear score and actually doing the content that is meant to be challenging.
I think there's a difference is wanting to have a game be challenging within a reasonable extent, but if your going to have all content be so challenging to where i can't even talk to my fellow team mates and have a couple of laughs along the way and i have to micromanage my movements and do prefect rotations, and not talk to my party and feel like a complete bot, i can just stick to WoW i do that there alrdy.
with wow mythic dungeon the sky is limited by gearscore. it comes to a point where numerically it's gated by gear of the healer, tank or dps. while optimal routes and spell rotations are achieved, it doesn't test the versatility of the players. it teaches repetition. while this isn't such a bad thing, it can get boring knowing the chance to numerically improving is so low via rng loot, that one starts to question it's worth.
some players probably would enjoy it, but doing this over and over starts to feel like a job to me. it's like janitor work and that really isn't engaging for me. i basically turn into a npc.
what i see for the direction of difficulty in pantheon just doesn't come from not talking(to focus) or micromanaging movements or perfect rotation. because 'states' forces me to actually talk, coordinate and be situationally aware.
wow combat is either(assuming everyone is a machine)
sustaining, meaning the tank can hold aggro and the healer can heal with positive mana regen and the time it takes to clear is gated by dps gearscore
negative tank issue, dps is gated by aggro
negative healer issue, healer is negative mana regen
negative dps isn't quick enough to compensate for tank or healer issue.
i might be missing some stuff. basically this is the extent of class interdependency.
i think societial things regarding classes and forming groups will crop up(this is foresight thinking)
certain tanks are going to want certain healers.
certain healers are going to want certain dps.
meaning a dire lord tank wants a shaman healer with a wizard. if they can have good communication and coordination, they take advantage of each other's class styles and 'states' they they might offer.
it's funny because this creates certain 'discriminations' per say, but each class becomes unique and desired by certain party setups.
i really don't like in wow how every tank is just as good, every dps is just as good and every healer is complete trash.
i agree with what you are saying. as a janitor, it's very boring cleaning the same condo complex and trying to clean it as well, but in a shorter time frame. it's not like i can get a better vac(gearscore). there's only so much i can do to increase my efficiency(perfect skill rotations and movement). this is how i feel about mythic dungeons.
i don't want insanely difficult to clean where i'm there forever with the same cleaning pattern(a restaurant kitchen >___________>)
but adaptability is pretty cool(like cleaning the mens restroom) usually it's pretty okay to clean, but sometimes weird stuff like beer bottles surrounding the pisser like a shrine or the another day where there isn't a pisser anymore because someone stole it XD(hey i get paid extra to install a new pisser i'm cool)
stellarmind said:Riahuf22 said:Yes you are right they could of made all of that happen but as you mentioned that would of cost a TON of money to achieve such a thing, plus the thing about the mythic system is that it truly testes your limit, if you and your friends can only do lets say mythic 16 confortably than you know you are a good player but not the best, but you can still do said content up to mythic 16, but in a open world game you can have said content in certain places be somewhat equalient to mythic 20 in your own way but it only affect a small part of the world, and certain other places feel like 10-17, that way almost everyone can do a lot of content but only the best actually achieve in camping the really hard stuff, it basically gets made that way anyway, it just the way I'm saying it might be confusing, but it wasn't meant to be.
The mian thing I was saying is that WoW doesn't have a Plataeu on difficult its an ever climbing mountain and once you beat it in its amount of time you get a better key with added difficulty, and you keep going til youv'e reach your plateau but not the game's, and that the true difference.
Me personal i don't really like running the same dungeon as you've said over and over again, but I'm not going to stand here and say that WoW's difficulty isn't there, it's just at the very end of the game once you've already leveled your character and at least gotten 440+ gear score and actually doing the content that is meant to be challenging.
I think there's a difference is wanting to have a game be challenging within a reasonable extent, but if your going to have all content be so challenging to where i can't even talk to my fellow team mates and have a couple of laughs along the way and i have to micromanage my movements and do prefect rotations, and not talk to my party and feel like a complete bot, i can just stick to WoW i do that there alrdy.
with wow mythic dungeon the sky is limited by gearscore. it comes to a point where numerically it's gated by gear of the healer, tank or dps. while optimal routes and spell rotations are achieved, it doesn't test the versatility of the players. it teaches repetition. while this isn't such a bad thing, it can get boring knowing the chance to numerically improving is so low via rng loot, that one starts to question it's worth.
some players probably would enjoy it, but doing this over and over starts to feel like a job to me. it's like janitor work and that really isn't engaging for me. i basically turn into a npc.
what i see for the direction of difficulty in pantheon just doesn't come from not talking(to focus) or micromanaging movements or perfect rotation. because 'states' forces me to actually talk, coordinate and be situationally aware.
wow combat is either(assuming everyone is a machine)
sustaining, meaning the tank can hold aggro and the healer can heal with positive mana regen and the time it takes to clear is gated by dps gearscore
negative tank issue, dps is gated by aggro
negative healer issue, healer is negative mana regen
negative dps isn't quick enough to compensate for tank or healer issue.
i might be missing some stuff. basically this is the extent of class interdependency.
i think societial things regarding classes and forming groups will crop up(this is foresight thinking)
certain tanks are going to want certain healers.
certain healers are going to want certain dps.
meaning a dire lord tank wants a shaman healer with a wizard. if they can have good communication and coordination, they take advantage of each other's class styles and 'states' they they might offer.
it's funny because this creates certain 'discriminations' per say, but each class becomes unique and desired by certain party setups.
i really don't like in wow how every tank is just as good, every dps is just as good and every healer is complete trash.
i agree with what you are saying. as a janitor, it's very boring cleaning the same condo complex and trying to clean it as well, but in a shorter time frame. it's not like i can get a better vac(gearscore). there's only so much i can do to increase my efficiency(perfect skill rotations and movement). this is how i feel about mythic dungeons.
i don't want insanely difficult to clean where i'm there forever with the same cleaning pattern(a restaurant kitchen >___________>)
but adaptability is pretty cool(like cleaning the mens restroom) usually it's pretty okay to clean, but sometimes weird stuff like beer bottles surrounding the pisser like a shrine or the another day where there isn't a pisser anymore because someone stole it XD(hey i get paid extra to install a new pisser i'm cool)
Every mechanic is defeated through repetition, so honestly to say its set by gearscore and all of that doesn't really mean anything as though Pantheon wont have gearscore it will be limitied by what you are wearing nonetheless, so again wow difficulty is an ever climbing mountain, it can always become harder and harder up until your "gearscore" simply can't perform what you are trying to achieve, and again Pantheon can make certain content equalivent to this mentality but it should be in specifci spots in the dungeon and not the entirety of the game, which is basically all I've been saying, and you saying "Everything should be as difficult as Mythic Dungeons" which is honeslty unreasonable.
Riahuf22 said:Every mechanic is defeated through repetition, so honestly to say its set by gearscore and all of that doesn't really mean anything as though Pantheon wont have gearscore it will be limitied by what you are wearing nonetheless, so again wow difficulty is an ever climbing mountain, it can always become harder and harder up until your "gearscore" simply can't perform what you are trying to achieve, and again Pantheon can make certain content equalivent to this mentality but it should be in specifci spots in the dungeon and not the entirety of the game, which is basically all I've been saying, and you saying "Everything should be as difficult as Mythic Dungeons" which is honeslty unreasonable.
nope never said everything should be mythic dungeon 20+ off the bat
from a player point of view, i'm saying that they should have a dungeon like mythic 20 off the bat, BUT have 20 different dungeons that are easier to gear up to that point.
from a dev point of view, it costs more time and money because the devs are making 20 more unique dungeons with varying degrees of difficulty.
from a investor point of view, it's cheaper to have 1 dungeon and ramp the difficulty numerically. basically instead of hiring 5 guys to do 20 dungeons, i can hire 1 to create a dungeon and call it a day.
but other than that i agree with what you are saying. man you're really not use to people agreeing with you huh?
i'll add that wow only has 1 path to climb the mountain of gearscore. i'm a bit of a betting man and willing to say that pantheon is going to have different gearscore mountains(the acclimation system) with different paths(modifiers from stats of equipment to ability conversion)
basically what i'm saying is, wow is like nascar and pantheon is like street racing :o
stellarmind said:Riahuf22 said:Every mechanic is defeated through repetition, so honestly to say its set by gearscore and all of that doesn't really mean anything as though Pantheon wont have gearscore it will be limitied by what you are wearing nonetheless, so again wow difficulty is an ever climbing mountain, it can always become harder and harder up until your "gearscore" simply can't perform what you are trying to achieve, and again Pantheon can make certain content equalivent to this mentality but it should be in specifci spots in the dungeon and not the entirety of the game, which is basically all I've been saying, and you saying "Everything should be as difficult as Mythic Dungeons" which is honeslty unreasonable.
nope never said everything should be mythic dungeon 20+ off the bat
from a player point of view, i'm saying that they should have a dungeon like mythic 20 off the bat, BUT have 20 different dungeons that are easier to gear up to that point.
from a dev point of view, it costs more time and money because the devs are making 20 more unique dungeons with varying degrees of difficulty.
from a investor point of view, it's cheaper to have 1 dungeon and ramp the difficulty numerically. basically instead of hiring 5 guys to do 20 dungeons, i can hire 1 to create a dungeon and call it a day.
but other than that i agree with what you are saying. man you're really not use to people agreeing with you huh?
To a particular point they will be, while leveling from 1-50, instead of it all being at end game. and also remember they said that all or at least most dungeons will have different teirs in them, so where the beginning part of the dungeon could be level 10 but the middle could be 25 and the end could be 40, or another dungeonn be 20 and the end is 50, so to a point they are in thier own way.
Honestly anymore i feel like when people agree with me they simply don't say anything due to not admitting they agree with me, but I'm fine with that lol
Riahuf22 said:To a particular point they will be, while leveling from 1-50, instead of it all being at end game. and also remember they said that all or at least most dungeons will have different teirs in them, so where the beginning part of the dungeon could be level 10 but the middle could be 25 and the end could be 40, or another dungeonn be 20 and the end is 50, so to a point they are in thier own way.
Honestly anymore i feel like when people agree with me they simply don't say anything due to not admitting they agree with me, but I'm fine with that lol
i'll pitch this idea again, but i would like to see some type of quest that essentially debuffs the party so it acts like a hardcore mythic 20+ dungeon without altering layouts, encounters(which i think change because of dispositions), etc.
the more severe the debuff, the greater the reward at the end. this functions the exact opposite of how wow ramps difficulty in mythic dungeons.
so taking that same level 10 early dungeon, level 25 mid and end 40... with 'pantheon debuff'
it would FEEL like level 40 early, level 50 mid level 60 end.
if my group is feeling extra spicy: pantheon+2 debuff
FEELS like 50 early 60 mid and 70 end
Counterfleche said: @stellarmind-- I like that idea. Lore-wise, there could be some reclusive, hardcore cult that will give out membership / ranks to groups that can complete challenges. In game mechanics, this group would issue challenges. It could be their own missions or existing content, but there are many levels of difficulty. This is the type of game mechanic which keeps things interesting for maxed-out characters who've gone through all the content many times already.
Yeah I could imagine a group visiting The Cult of Pain and having a Pain debuff applied (which essentially down-scales a certain percentage using the same mechanics as mentoring, etc) and a quest given, which, as you say, could be new things or existing raids/bosses/dungeons. Until you fulfill the quest, the Pain remains. There would be varying degrees of Pain that could be applied.
As for the reward for that additional risk?: Hmm. Maybe higher drop percentages during the quest? Not sure about different loot tables... Maybe a reward from the CoPs themselves? It's just the challenge these uber players are after, though, right? And that (plus bragging rights) is reward in itself ;^)
It's surely a better solution than adding more and more and better and better uber-gear and new content that is way beyond most players so hardly anyone sees. Instead, content is added for everyone and the uber-skilled-and-geared players can gimp themselves to do it if they like a challenge.
Ultimately it is going to come down to a sustainable subscriber base. They will need to ensure that there are enough new subscribers to offset those that are leaving. In terms of subscriber base - it is probably safe to assume that VR wants people to stick around for a long while. I know it's what I want to do. So, from that standpoint, losing long-term subscribers means losjng those at higher levels and new subscribers means having people come in at lower levels.
Content needs to remain relevant. A social tenet requires a strong social aspect - and not simply just a bunch of guilds talking to only those within the guils and adventuring only with those within the guild. That's just another closed system. While I understand that will probably be the way a bunch of people will play, I believe having an atmosphere that was like EQ where that didn't exist would go a long ways to inviting people to play the game and stick around longer. Not be driven to be in a guild in which to devote their subscription dollars and their personal playing time.
Combat will be essential to the game and should be designed against the niche market that we have come to embrace as why the tenets were written. That means with limitations. But it also means that emergent gameplay will happen - as it should. Content and combat will need to be appealing to all classes - uniquely so - not just the exact same. And dependency should not mean that if someone does an "oops" then it is "too bad" for everyone in the group. It should mean if someone does an "oops" then the rest buckle down and work together so it doesn't end up as "too bad." And if it looks like it is going to be a wreck then, "yes!" having a shout out "Train to Zone" I actually wouldn't mind experiencing again.
Combat to keep newer subscribers engaged to become long time subscribers. Combat to keep long time subscribers into even longer time sunscribers. Combat to keep the world together, cohesive, and inviting.
Instancing and phasing suck because they're exclusionary. Grouping with someone and walking into the same area together only not be able to see or interact with that person any longer is on the Top 10 list of things MMOs have done wrong. Instancing is similar in that it creates a menu system where you can pick whatever content you feel like (re-)running and be guaranteed that some other group hasn't already killed Boss Mob #3772. No planning, no challenge, no interest.
If there is no raiding in Pantheon the game will be filled with casual players who play only for the "community" and chat in global channels. The crafters and RPers will likely stick around for a while but the rest will be transient players, only playing for a few months until they get bored. With a lack of something to aspire to there is no reason to play an RPG. And yes, even the elitist jerk (see what I did there?) guilds give back to the community by showing what is possible, giving everyone else potential goals. With goals, people stick around longer, even goals that are damn near unattainable.
Combat need not be complex or even WoW-like to "feel good" and be responsive. A number of Asian MMOs have the same systems you find in WoW, EQ and others but they *feel* so much better. It comes down to fluid animations and sound effects. Black Desert is a great example. I don't think I've played any game that had combat as satisfying as it is in that game and it has nothing to do with how powerful you are, everything to do with how powerful you feel (even when you get your ass handed to you). I'd probably still be playing BD today if not for the Pay2Win shop.
Another combat note: Inter-class skill synergy has been done a number of times and every time it has sucked. It ends up being useless code that players ignore. There are occasional "holy crap" moments as skills semi-randomly sync up for extra damage but none of it is planned. Even on voice chat, that kind of coordination invariably costs more than it returns as you delay actions to try and sync with other players and often fail to sync anyway. This is a waste of effort for VR to pursue.
The thing we all have to remember, VR especially, is that we here on the forums are the die-hard fans, the evangelists (plus a number of trolls and ne'er-do-wells). Not one of us knows what is best for everything in the game. If VR caters to exactly what we seem to want on average, Pantheon will fail for lack of a sufficient subscriber base. Sure, there are a number of others like us out there who simply haven't taken the pledge plunge, but not nearly enough to float this game for any length of time. VR has to consider their wider target audience and what will draw them in and keep them interested. There are countless MMORPGs to use for inspiration and warning. I only hope they take advantage of that.
I’m going to reach back to 1986 here...way back when NES released Zelda for an idea on combat....that game had some real hurdles in terms of combat...some hurdles that you just could not progress past at all until you beat them. Many hurdles, however, were exploration based and had nothing to do with combat as a driver. Combat in that case became part of the environment.
34 years later the game has kept its core tenet..exploration...sure they added climbing systems and climate systems to Zelda. They made it 3D...but the discovery sound is largely the same.
Pantheon’s market differentiator appears to encourage difficulty and as a result (some) inequity. But also, the game’s (EQ) exploration had a unique feel. If we didn’t like playing something different and more immersive, we would still all be looking at platformer game releases. But "different" seems to be a matter of time. We complain about pay2win, but it was once also a new marketing differentiator....admittedly that didn’t take long to get old, but it has been operating and copied for a while now. There were other differentiators...WoW had scale and over time has leveraged their success to try to pull in other markets. All this time EQ has been running...
To put it another way....McDonald’s didn’t stop selling hot coffee when somebody won a landmark court case for millions when they spilled their coffee. Why? Was it because coffee was traditionally hot or maybe because everyone else was doing it? I think not necessarily. To some degree it was because their target market is willing to assume the risk of getting burned.
Fast forward out of the 90s and everyone is selling 9 thousand kinds of coffee. Starbucks intentionally burns their drip coffee to make it consistent and they're selling a regular cup of over-roasted coffee for 10 times what it costs to make at home. But they do it really well!
So why would a game designed to target the EQ market venture to change the fundamentals of the game. I'm hoping that VR keeps having fun and creating something that’s true to the core tenets of EQ. Fads and trends come and go and then come back again, and to me, it seems like it’s time to shake up the market again with something that doesn’t just follow the market trend because of profit models. Row with the current and you might just end up on the same rocks as everyone else. I for one am ready for something more original even if it’s a throwback. Improvements could be made perhaps, but don't change the basics that give the same feel to combat. Why wouldn’t this game's combat stick to the EQ style at it's heart? Things like disposition and acclimation I would think are tricky and time-consuming enough to integrate without disrupting the same feel of combat. Just like Zelda has vastly more items that must be applied at the right time and location in newer versions, but somehow they've managed to keep the feel of combat and the overall adventure quite similar to earlier games. I would characterize it as building on the basics and not changing them fundamentally.
Akilae said:Instancing and phasing suck because they're exclusionary. Grouping with someone and walking into the same area together only not be able to see or interact with that person any longer is on the Top 10 list of things MMOs have done wrong. Instancing is similar in that it creates a menu system where you can pick whatever content you feel like (re-)running and be guaranteed that some other group hasn't already killed Boss Mob #3772. No planning, no challenge, no interest.
Well, I'm pretty sure that they won't have instancing, but I don't necessarily agree that they are exclusionary. They may be when you are in there with that group, but the lack of them also locks out a lot of people from content. I remember sitting for 8 hours in EQ for a spawn I wanted, to end up ever getting in a group for it that day... it was frustrating to say the least. Raids will be gobbled up by the top guilds and the tier guilds right below them won't get a shot at those bosses until the top guilds are done with them. So it will be a slow stepping stone without instancing, and a lot of frustration. In this case, instancing will open up a lot of content to a lot of people. It will allow lower tier guilds to devour content at their rate. I understand and signed up for it.. but not necessarily happy with it... especially for end game raiding. I'm not happy with coin weight either, but again I'll just have to live with some stuff, and I will be able to if the rest of the game is exceptional. We will see.
EDIT: I wish you could delete a post, I accidentally quoted myself and it made a worthless response... this board really needs some upgrades.
Brooks said:Akilae said:Instancing and phasing suck because they're exclusionary. Grouping with someone and walking into the same area together only not be able to see or interact with that person any longer is on the Top 10 list of things MMOs have done wrong. Instancing is similar in that it creates a menu system where you can pick whatever content you feel like (re-)running and be guaranteed that some other group hasn't already killed Boss Mob #3772. No planning, no challenge, no interest.
Well, I'm pretty sure that they won't have instancing, but I don't necessarily agree that they are exclusionary. They may be when you are in there with that group, but the lack of them also locks out a lot of people from content. I remember sitting for 8 hours in EQ for a spawn I wanted, to end up ever getting in a group for it that day... it was frustrating to say the least. Raids will be gobbled up by the top guilds and the tier guilds right below them won't get a shot at those bosses until the top guilds are done with them. So it will be a slow stepping stone without instancing, and a lot of frustration. In this case, instancing will open up a lot of content to a lot of people. It will allow lower tier guilds to devour content at their rate. I understand and signed up for it.. but not necessarily happy with it... especially for end game raiding. I'm not happy with coin weight either, but again I'll just have to live with some stuff, and I will be able to if the rest of the game is exceptional. We will see.
Instancing doesn't work without lockouts. If you want instancing to avoid a handful of guilds dominating all the content then you also have to have lockouts to avoid those same guilds from farming that content and flooding the market with loot they no longer need or gaining too much of an advantage.
Lockouts are a double-edged sword. You want them long enough that a guild can't overfarm an instance but short enough that they don't punish less skilled/geared/experienced players. Imagine your guild is somewhere in the middle of the pack. You have 10 of the 12 players you need to raid the Dungeon of Lootz so you pick up a couple server friends (or randos) and enter the dungeon. When your raid fails to clear the dungeon the pick-ups in your raid are locked to that instance like the other 10 people and none of you are able to start over for as long as the lockout lasts. Those who joined your raid are basically screwed unless they can pull together 10 more players and take over your guild's instance (have seen this happen). Generally, people outside the guild aren't willing to take that chance so your guild never enters the dungeon at all.
Is it better to not be able to complete anything for the sake of preventing stronger guilds from doing it too much? Isn't that largely the same outcome as having no instancing at all?
Personally, I loved the drama and stress of gathering your raid as quickly as possible to engage a boss before another guild did. It was even more memorable when two separate raids were fighting the boss at the same time, not knowing which one would get the loot. One of the most memorable was one where the raid I was in got nothing when the boss died (we did less overall damage than the other raid). It was a lot of fun. Much of this is mitigated by putting bosses on semi-random spawn timers instead of being completely predictable -- something like 5-10 days after it was last killed instead of every 7 days like clockwork.
Of course I also thoroughly enjoyed being the only rogue, setting targets for the raid with macros and careful tabbing (VT anyone?), corpse-dragging 39 other people after a wipe. It's the difficulty and frustration that makes moments memorable. Not the WoW-like paint-by-numbers approach that gave everyone everything.