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November Producer's Letter is here

    • VR Staff
    • 167 posts
    November 19, 2020 6:53 AM PST

    In this month's newsletter, Project Producer Ben Dean announces a new team member, upcoming development streams, the state of the game, and the next Pre-Alpha session dates. Read on for all the details. https://www.pantheonmmo.com/news/producers-letter-november-2020/


    This post was edited by Roenick at November 19, 2020 6:53 AM PST
    • 3852 posts
    November 19, 2020 7:11 AM PST

    Thank you. I appreciate the increased transparency on how development is going. 

    The addition of a crafting expert to the team is a huge plus too. Not just because crafting is important to me, though it is. Not just because he is a wonderful choice, though he is. Because it shows things are moving along and the team is optimistic - as you say you are but actions speak louder than words. 

    • 96 posts
    November 19, 2020 7:20 AM PST

    I enjoyed reading this newsletter (as I do all the newsletters), but as Dorotea put it, "it shows things are moving along and the team is optimistic." I appreciate this outlook and look forward to the progression as Pantheon continues to be developed. Thanks VR! Onward and upward!


    This post was edited by Neyos at November 19, 2020 10:44 AM PST
    • 24 posts
    November 19, 2020 8:39 AM PST

    I was starting to worry about the game but the past month or two it seems you guys have made huge strides! It's getting my hyped on the game again :D

    • 441 posts
    November 19, 2020 7:16 PM PST
    I wonder the depth crafting will have. SWG and ESO have been my favorite crafting experience in MMOs but vastly different. I just love in both systems all crafting types were highly useful. I hope Pantheon finds a way to do the same.
    • 3852 posts
    November 20, 2020 6:40 AM PST

    We have, of course, many things to look at in terms of crafting and harvesting. One is the depth of *use* crafting will have. Will crafted items be useful for low level characters? With a high level of probability, yes. Will they be useful at level-cap? That depends on many things, not least what gear is available through dungeons and raids. A much debated question in MMOs is where crafted gear should fit in - with a common answer being that they are not as good as raid gear but are at least as good as gear gotten by quests. This is not necessarily the right answer. Finally what about while leveling. Do we have crafted gear that is reasonably useful, which may be a disincentive to doing dungeons, or do we have almost useless gear, which is a disincentive to crafting? Or is there a sweet spot? I mention issues with no attempt to suggest what the right answers are.

    Apart from usefulness of crafting is whether it is *fun* to do. Many of us like relatively complex systems as in Vanguard and original EQ2 where you cannot simply go afk to craft as in LOTRO. Each item required multiple processes and each process required real time (but not so fast as to require teen-age reflexes) actions. As in "your stew is burning you have 5 seconds to click to turn the heat down. Obviously this is not as fast and easy as a LOTRO type system and makes raising crafting skills/levels/tiers longer and harder. Which, of course, is analagous to the game's philosophy for leveling as an adventurer. I make no pretense at neutrality in my wording. But there are those that prefer quick, simple and easy.

    • 441 posts
    November 20, 2020 9:29 AM PST

    Watched an interview with the new crafting dev. He has some cool ideas but any casual crafter will not have much of a shot with his ideas. I like some of his ideas but if all were implemented, it would leave crafting in the hands of the few that have lots of time to play and the right guilds backing them. Smaller guilds would suffer as well. If you want to see his ideas, watch the video below but start 15 min in.

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy7TwGi-FNY&feature=emb_title

    • 1281 posts
    November 20, 2020 10:41 AM PST

    I like how he wants the resources to be placed in the world where you would expect to find them.

    I've always felt the best game worlds are not ones built for gameplay, but game worlds built by the inhabitants (and organically crafted) and the players are invited to come in.

    Nanfoodle said:

    Watched an interview with the new crafting dev. He has some cool ideas but any casual crafter will not have much of a shot with his ideas. I like some of his ideas but if all were implemented, it would leave crafting in the hands of the few that have lots of time to play and the right guilds backing them. Smaller guilds would suffer as well. If you want to see his ideas, watch the video below but start 15 min in.

    Sounds like he may make high end crafting crafting like raiding. Something that's for top tier players and not casuals. I didn't hear anything that says casual gamers won't be able to craft. He says right at the beginning there's nothing wrong with making some material easy to find to get you started.


    This post was edited by bigdogchris at November 20, 2020 10:43 AM PST
    • 1785 posts
    November 20, 2020 10:51 AM PST

    Nanfoodle said:

    Watched an interview with the new crafting dev. He has some cool ideas but any casual crafter will not have much of a shot with his ideas. I like some of his ideas but if all were implemented, it would leave crafting in the hands of the few that have lots of time to play and the right guilds backing them. Smaller guilds would suffer as well. If you want to see his ideas, watch the video below but start 15 min in.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy7TwGi-FNY&feature=emb_title

    I will really be interested to hear your feedback (and everyone else's) when we get into Alpha.  We don't really want crafting to be seen as a "hardcore" pursuit, but we also want it to feel meaningful and have some depth to it.  Our goal is that crafting should be appealing to a large percentage of the player base, and that people should be able to pursue it as much or as little as they want, and still have a fulfilling experience.    Obviously, that's a balancing act, and so tester feedback is going to be super important to finding that balance :)

    • 523 posts
    November 20, 2020 11:29 AM PST

    Hardcore crafter here.  Listened to most of that link Nanfoodle listed, and I feel real GOOD about this Nephele guy.  I hope VR lets this guy run with some of his ideas, they all sound good to me so far.  The one thing that I would caution though is that in a group-centric MMO, people have bad days and get tired of grouping, they want to log in to their game and have some solo time.  If you can't really solo in the adventuring realm that efficiently, the outlet is often harvesting and crafting.  If you make harvesting group centric, MOST people do not like that.  I did that in Vanguard and I'm doing it in Crowfall now, it's frustrating to be blocked from that content.  This game needs solo activities within its group-centric world.  I think Vanguard's crafting mini-game was the best ever, I loved it.  I think EQ2 had some of the best harvesting ever, in large part due to trying to track down rare harvests in nodes and mostly being able to do that for hours on end as a solo activity, which then led to crafting with all the resources and that being another solo activity that lasted further hours on end.  And I'm not even going to get started on EQ2's player housing, which was the best ever, especially if you were a carpenter.  I did not play EVE or SWG though.

    Also, Nephele, not sure if this falls in your purview, but bang the table for collections (shinies) similar to EQ2, but much more akin to how Rift did them, which was flawless.  Lots of ways to tie that into crafting, but it's another solo activity hunting for those when people need down time, and in a game with unlimited climbing, the sky is the limit on where you hide things.

    • 441 posts
    November 20, 2020 11:48 AM PST

    Mathir said:

    Hardcore crafter here.  Listened to most of that link Nanfoodle listed, and I feel real GOOD about this Nephele guy.  I hope VR lets this guy run with some of his ideas, they all sound good to me so far.  The one thing that I would caution though is that in a group-centric MMO, people have bad days and get tired of grouping, they want to log in to their game and have some solo time.  If you can't really solo in the adventuring realm that efficiently, the outlet is often harvesting and crafting.  If you make harvesting group centric, MOST people do not like that.  I did that in Vanguard and I'm doing it in Crowfall now, it's frustrating to be blocked from that content.  This game needs solo activities within its group-centric world.  I think Vanguard's crafting mini-game was the best ever, I loved it.  I think EQ2 had some of the best harvesting ever, in large part due to trying to track down rare harvests in nodes and mostly being able to do that for hours on end as a solo activity, which then led to crafting with all the resources and that being another solo activity that lasted further hours on end.  And I'm not even going to get started on EQ2's player housing, which was the best ever, especially if you were a carpenter.  I did not play EVE or SWG though.

    Also, Nephele, not sure if this falls in your purview, but bang the table for collections (shinies) similar to EQ2, but much more akin to how Rift did them, which was flawless.  Lots of ways to tie that into crafting, but it's another solo activity hunting for those when people need down time, and in a game with unlimited climbing, the sky is the limit on where you hide things.

    I love Pantheon for being a team based game but I agree with you. There needs to be solo content. So being able to go out and get matts solo was always a big thing for me. Killing time when I cant find a team or its not peek hours so no one to team with. Often I cant sleep at night, so I would advance my crafting at 3-6am. Also, having nodes in raids or in a camp that needs a team to take. Now you have 5-6 people in a team wanting that node or a raid of 25 peope. I really hope nodes like this will benifit everyone who helped kill the mobs to get to the nodes. There should be enough to share. Also in the bandet camp situatiuon, what stops someone from taking the nodes while a team is clearing the camp? 

     

    • 42 posts
    November 20, 2020 1:18 PM PST

    Nanfoodle said:

     

    I love Pantheon for being a team based game but I agree with you. There needs to be solo content. So being able to go out and get matts solo was always a big thing for me. Killing time when I cant find a team or its not peek hours so no one to team with. Often I cant sleep at night, so I would advance my crafting at 3-6am. Also, having nodes in raids or in a camp that needs a team to take. Now you have 5-6 people in a team wanting that node or a raid of 25 peope. I really hope nodes like this will benifit everyone who helped kill the mobs to get to the nodes. There should be enough to share. Also in the bandet camp situatiuon, what stops someone from taking the nodes while a team is clearing the camp? 

     

    I think I agree that solo content needs to be available and crafting/harvesting is a good source of that, but I do like the idea that 10-15% of it for the high end gear requires some for of grouping or flavor to make it group centric or even require iteractions of other players.  I think a good example of how I could see this playing out is as you do your dungeon crawl or camp, you could stumble across nodes that would allow you to harvest for a later use.  I also think that if there's a group holding down a camp and that camp grants access to a specific forge that allows for a new line of recipes to be open, the social dynamic of them holding it down (as they probably dont need it at the time if they are xping) while you go forge there is not a bad idea.  I think just having people out and about, even if they are doing something social, gives that feeling of the world is being lived in that I enjoy.

    Given that Pantheon does not have characters that only do crafting compared some of the other games, I'm on board with crafting not being geared towards the casual person as they're are going to have to make some sacrifices if time is an issue and I want crafting to be an endeavor that requires time and effort.   Now that being said, if you are spending 3am-6am a few days a week, I dont think I would classify that as casual crafting.

    • 441 posts
    November 20, 2020 1:22 PM PST

    Something I have always wanted to see in am MMO with crafting, is a slot on char equipment for each crafting type that was best is slot only by that type of crafter. With that, have 2nd best in slot be drop from mobs. So for instance, Rings be best in slot from drop but for jewel crafting best in slot for necklace be from Jewel Crafters. For tailers, leather workers and blacksmiths best in slot could be bracers. Alchemy could have a trinket slots. Fletchers could be ammo pouch.  

    • 201 posts
    November 23, 2020 1:33 PM PST

    VG crafting is what I want.  I WANT a system where serious crafting is only for the most dedicated people at the top levels.  I want full sets of crafting gear with stats, skills, faction, rare recipes, and an economy that is built with tons of constantly useful crafted items like VG.  Early EQ2, VG and SWG are the models for ideal crafting.

    This is supposedly planned to be a hardcore throwback to EQ style days of MMOs, so it is quite ok for it to have hardcore crafting as well.  Enough placating everyone who wants everything easy.  I don't play for 10 hours a day and thus, really don't raid...and you know what?  That is ok.  I don't mind, I don't pout, I don't shake my baby rattle at those who do. I just enjoy my game the way I want.  Don't emulate trash crafting systems, like WoW and..well, and pretty much every mmo ever except those listed.


    This post was edited by antonius at November 25, 2020 9:14 AM PST