I just watched Bazgrim's stream about the PA5 Shakeout, and it reminded me of something I saw in the Shakeout Stream: NPCs having a small number in their nameplates which seems to indicate their level. When I saw that, I was surprised, but forgot about it again and only remembered it now. Interestingly, I didn't see any mention of it here on the forum yet (if there has been, anyone redirect me to the thread please ;)
Personally I agree that it takes away a bit of mystery of not knowing exactly how strong an NPC is. Without those numbers you can still guess the enemies strength by using /con, and if you want to take on a red con (without knowing its level), that is your own risk.
What do you think of the level numbers?
starblight said:I agree the number should not be there but as I have said in another post the UI can be used to show the con no reason to actually hit a con key. I would rather keep my keys for more important actions like abilities.
Agreed. The /con macro (or whatever) is only ever an annoyance when you forget or a trivial extra keypress when you remember.
I don't want the level, but I would like to see an indicator less obvious/detailed/un-immersive.
I would prefer to not have the number. That's what /con is for. Con gives you an estimate, not a specific "hey you can kill this" which is very hand holdy, which pantheon says they are against.
However, as others have said I do think having the con color in the offensive color box would be cool as well.
I dont care too much about seeing the numbers. I liked how it was done in Vanguard. I think, you could see the level and also some dots, that indicate the difficulty of the mob, meaning that two dots are for soloing, three for grouping, and 4 or 5 are for raids. Dont pin me on the exact numbers.
However, while exploring, i liked to see the level of a mob just to get back when i had the appropriate level. Con will just tell me to come back in a few levels and check again.
Anyway, showing or hiding the numbers is not such a big deal for me.
Thinking about this, the crux of the matter surely is where do we want assessment/calculation to occur and how accurate do we want it to be?
Do we want the game to give actual 'game' numbers away, like the monster level and maybe the faction 'number' in some precise way and leave the 'can my party handle this' assessment/calculation to the players, or do we want to hide the actual numbers and have the game provide an assessment of how tough and how aggressive the monster is?
To have the numbers given seems 'wrong' in that it is showing you under-the-hood 'game' info, not some immersive, role-playing-suitable analogue.
To have the game do the assessment for you, though, also seems 'wrong' when we want players to be making the risk decisions and, really, should characters just 'know' what will be tough/aggressive by looking?
The old /con system was, in essence, doing both, but was it doing it well?: It provided a text message and colour which represented a level difference and the relative faction 'band' you fell into. I always felt, though, that it was crude and not very satisfying, since the colour/text was a very simple algorithm easily reverse engineered into a level difference and the faction reaction was effectively telling you exactly what your rating was with that monsters faction.
Was it a good compromise, though, between handing over all the secret 'numbers' and letting the group work out the impact? Or keeping those a secret but having to have the computer do your thinking for you?
Maybe /con-ing should be something much less precise? A indication based on the numbers, but with a 'dice roll' applied, just like any other aspect of an RPG? Maybe it should be related to perception? Maybe there should be a 'bestiary' skill that improves as you learn more of monsters/enemies?
I would prefer something more innovative in this area, but to repeat myself and respond to the OP I think the choice we have if there is to be no innovation is: Do we want a number and work out for ourselves what that means? Or do we want a 'colour' that has an algorithm 'hiding' the number, but effectively having the game do our risk assessment for us?
I agree with disposalist. From a realism point of view there should be no indication of how difficult an enemy is (other than whatever hints its visible gear may give) but from a gameplay point of view I wouldn't enjoy having no idea whether an enemy is level 1 and thus useless to fight (assuming I am mid-level) or level 100 and instant death.
To expand on the level idea.
In an older game that is not Pantheon, a group could tackle and potentially win against a "red" conned mob. However- and I remember reading a blurb about this- as sophisticated gamers started playing and watching and parsing and taking notes etc they discovered in an analytical sandboxxy way that the most efficient means to getting exp was to tackle "dark blue" conned mobs.
That is: you would get alot of exp from taking down a red mob, but the amount of exp relative to the time and resources spent was far less than taking down a dark blue mob, and dark blue mobs were far higher in exp vs time and resources than any other conned mobs. IMO I always felt the sense of achievement, walking away and living! and the hard won loot overcame all that- lol- even if you couldn't use the loot, just being able to see what was there and cheering who got it was cool. (only to be ganked by an angry green mob with an abnormally high aggro range and crazy AC, came running across half the zone! swamp rat, really!? must be a gm in disguise secretly jealous of our accomplishment *scoff*...)
I hope Pantheon has the same kind of unintentional, accidentally discoverable nuance for the hard-cores so they can keep it secret and maybe leak it out to us filthy casuals maybe 2 years later or if we join a hard-core guild.
I agree with level information, I think it should not be there. Personally I think the level indicators were there for the devs themselves.
Having to do a game-play demonstration and not wanting to be caught playing poorly lest the fanbase jump down their throats, I could see Ben Dean asking a dev to "throw some level indicators on the mobs before we go live in 2 hours so we dont look like idiots, would ya?" and the dev getting a bit stressed due to the time constraint and asking "for you, Chris and Roenik, right?" and Ben peaking back in and replying "right, for me and Chris....but not for Roenik and don't tell him I said that, ok? thank you *click*"
Another aspect to consider (pun intended): How can /con realistically give you an idea of the mob's standing towards you? The /con system in EQ was kind of backwards: "A mob scowls at you, ready to attack", or "A mob glares at you", or "A mob regards you indifferently". Like the mob was considering you, and not vice-versa. Shouldn't a mob only show its standing towards you once it actually notices you? That means, once you get in aggro range..
Of course, that would make some interesting first encounters ;) (I think after a first encounter, you "know" about those mobs and the game will tell you from then on when you consider them, taking faction changes into account).
I don't see the issue with having a number representing a level. In other games I've played the difficulty of mobs even the same level could be very different. I don't want to have to type /con or use a macro every time I want to consider challenging a mob. Having a colour is fine with me too but I don't really see much difference between that and being given a level.
Just my two cents
@disposalist I really like the idea of bestiary system in general. I know it is not directly related to the OP so I will leave it there. Someone should make a post so we can talk about bestiary system
I like the (@disposalist) bestiary idea very much, it could be very innovative too. Very vague at first; "An orc regards you threateningly". After a few interactions you could get "An orc warrior regards you threateningly". A few more interactions and you start getting vague details; "This orc warrior looks threatening and seems more assured than the common soldier". This could then tie into the race's lore and your peception of that lore too, so the more you gleen and read and realise, the more you would start to notice the different types of warrior, notice the clans details and what the insignia referred to, etc. So eventually you would get something akin to "This orc seems to be of average rank, probably an archer of the Boom-boom clan." or "This orc seems to be an accomplished mid-ranking Elementalist officer and his ensignia suggests he is a member of the Chop-chop squad."
I would be all in favour of a system where your character "learns" to judge their targets abilities and strengths.
To answer the thread though less specifics the better, so no numbers please.
((I don't want to have to type /con or use a macro every time I want to consider challenging a mob. Having a colour is fine with me too but I don't really see much difference between that and being given a level.))
I don't want to type /con either - mousing over the mob should give the information. Or, at the very least, clicking on it.
I much prever colour to a number. Less immersion breaking and better to get a rough idea than exact details.
dorotea said:I don't want to type /con either - mousing over the mob should give the information. Or, at the very least, clicking on it.
Who in their right mind would, by this day and age, actually type out /con on every mob they see? Are you really suggesting that you do that? I highly doubt it. You, and everyone else, maps it to a single key.
Now is a single key press too much work/effort/tedium compared to a mouse-over? That is the real question.
At this point, we might as well just have the exact level number showing up. By the name we can infer exactly what class we're facing thus the range of abilities it would possess (given we've been told NPCs will have the same abilities available to them that players have), we know our faction standing even if we've never encounter that race of NPCs before, we know quite nearly its exact level given the color. Lets throw in the NPC's religion, social media page, bio, family history, aspirations and even phobias.
Numbers? LOL
What's next numbers floating above their heads? Can I get bright, yellow explanation points above heads too plz
vandraad - Wow, I didn't realize that. Sad. I haven't been following much anymore though.