What are your thoughts on the PA5 gameplay showcasing mostly presumably "general weak" tiers compared to the December stream, compared to older streams of like Amberfaet, Tower of reckless Magician?
My instict is that most of the community still wants the tenet of challenge to have major teeth. Do you agree?
When the PA5 streams came out I was a little worried for the first time about the seeming departure from most all earlier gameplay streams in regards to mob difficulty, time to kill a mob, downtime, battle meditation, etc.
It also seemed strange to me that Joppa had fairly recently spoken about difficulty and yet here I was seeing fast kills in those streams and level 5 group taking on lvl 10s or whatever it was (which I feel is ok for lower levels, just concerning overall without the full picture).
I suppose most older streams did take place in dungeon areas that would naturally fit in to higher difficulty tier of mobs and that obviously tuning was early stages and still is. We are in pre-alpha still and all of this will change and be tuned, and that it's even possible some of the low level content was accelerated for PA5.
Anyway I feel positive concerning the December stream. Hearing them speak about the mob tiers and watching the pace of combat be slower rallied my hopes. People were low on mana, mobs were not going down Super quick and it was clear that it wouldn't take too many unwanted adds to make things scary.
It still felt a little easy to me being that it was not a full group but that may have been "dungeon weak" or "dungeon mid tier" or whatever.
I think it's fine to have this range of "General weak" to "dungeon" all the way to raid difficulty mobs and have confidence that the risk vs rewards tenet will be fleshed out. It's nice to think that there will be some small group / solo attempt content imo, as long as the rewards scale properly.
In that last stream it did feel like the tank was just shrugging damage off like nothing, the mob didnt seem to have any attacks that were ever going to test the tank and in turn the healer, however the second the mob touched a non tank their health went to about 50% fast, that was good to see... Maybe the healer was working overtime to keep the tank looking so healthy, i dont know, but it seemed like the tank was almost toooo tanky.
Someone hopefully will point out where i went wrong in my evaluation!
What they were saying in the Dec stream very clearly was that it is being balanced and that there will be varying difficulty tiers so I guess I'm more looking for the feel the community has using various streams as the basis, which I realize is all early testing and circumspect but perhaps fun to talk about hehe.
vjek said: We just need to know what the TTK (Time-To-Kill) public design goal is, for a grouping-required at-level target, being consumed by a full group equipped with minimum common quality at-level gear, containing one character of each Role. Without that.. it's all just feelings and impressions. :) Could be 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 60 seconds, or something entirely different based on other variables. But, ideally, there is a design goal of some kind.
Fair enough. What would you prefer for general tiers of mob difficulty in a full group example? Say General weak (overland) 15secs, general standard 30secs, general unique 60-120+, dungeon weak 60 secs?
Hokanu said:In that last stream it did feel like the tank was just shrugging damage off like nothing, the mob didnt seem to have any attacks that were ever going to test the tank and in turn the healer, however the second the mob touched a non tank their health went to about 50% fast, that was good to see... Maybe the healer was working overtime to keep the tank looking so healthy, i dont know, but it seemed like the tank was almost toooo tanky.
Someone hopefully will point out where i went wrong in my evaluation!
Hmm good points. When Roenick was hit he went down fast, which makes me think that uncontrolled adds would be a disaster if they weren't locked down quick enough. Then again I only saw the tank have a decent hit taken 1 time when he was stunned or something landed there. I would love to see a more recent pass on Amberfaet or something where in earlier streams it was a wipe if you didn't pull correctly or a runner or player getting too far ahead. I hope those things are still on the table difficulty wise, and believe that they are.
Battle meditation seems way OP and I wonder if the only reason Joppa was OOM so much is he didn't use it like Roenick did... Again I realize this is early on that skill but feedback is important on something so powerful right? As much as Saicred was speaking to the group about waiting for mana, it didn't seem mana was really needed other than Joppa never popping his BM.
GeneralReb said: ... Fair enough. What would you prefer for general tiers of mob difficulty in a full group example? Say General weak (overland) 15secs, general standard 30secs, general unique 60-120+, dungeon weak 60 secs? ...
It's an answer that has dependencies and requires context; Desired actions per second, recovery of H/M/S as a percentage, in combat resource generation, out of combat resource generation, mez durations, root break chances/mechanics, fear mechanics, pull mechanics (anything remotely like pacify/lull, luring, distraction, or tempting), consumable consumption targets, DPS/mob-health by role, %-of-level XP granted per kill, skill-up rates, and then of course, respawn timers (dynamic or static, per zone or global). All of those and more can and should have a huge impact on TTK.
Personally? I like the target of about 45 seconds. 30 seconds typically feels too short, and anything over a minute usually feels too long. If mez/root/CC durations in general (settings aside diminishing returns for the moment) start at ~1 minute, then if you get a single add, you should be able to handle that if your rogue/enchanter/root-er is awake.
If a full group is expected to have a 10-50+% combat duty cycle in a particular zone, and somehwere between 50 and 300 grouping-required at-level mobs are expected to be consumed per level, then I think there's enough tuning surface in there to have TTK in the ~45s range. On the low/short/easy side of things, if the grouping-required mob grants 2% of a level per kill (to each full group member) then it might take them somewhere between 2250 seconds and 13500 seconds, in combat, per level.
At a 50% combat duty cycle, that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 4500s (75m) to 27000sec (450min) in-game in-group time. ~7.5 hours of in-game in-group time per level may not be enough for some, but may be too much for others.
2% of a level granted per kill could also be too high depending on other design goals, but starting there and going down allows for extraordinarily grindy combat, if desired.
For Pantheon specifically, given (the last time the web site was updated) half the classes generate combat resources in combat, and half don't, there are other considerations.
This.. disparity complicates some aspects of being in combat, and how/when/where certain classes can remove themselves (and/or others) from combat, while others can't, but must in order to regenerate combat resources. In short, some classes can and will want to be in-combat, forever and always. Other classes will forever and always want the opposite.
Could you please link the video of the streaming being discussed? I checked Pantheon´s official youtube channel but can´t guess which one is.
In the meantime, of couple of quick thoughts: 2% of a level granted per kill seems way too much experience for me, and it also reminds me of a way of an in-game thinking I wanto to flee from (exp per minute from WoW and DDO).
Regarding the TTK, I think the beauty is asymetrical as a concept. Against a full grup of players, any monster lasting between 15 and 45 seconds seems ok to me. There could be "tougher" enemies for no particular reason in a zone that take longer of hit like a truck (i.e. I think of the crazed goblins) or swarm-like monsters that are taken out with one or two hits so AE in the group is an edge. I´d like to link this also to the fact that we shouldn´t divide content between group and solo in a strict way. There should be content doable by full groups, partial groups or strong and skillful solo players, just the latter will take way longer than a full group.
- Elia
Eliadann said: ... In the meantime, of couple of quick thoughts: 2% of a level granted per kill seems way too much experience for me, and it also reminds me of a way of an in-game thinking I wanto to flee from (exp per minute from WoW and DDO).Regarding the TTK, I think the beauty is asymetrical as a concept. Against a full grup of players, any monster lasting between 15 and 45 seconds seems ok to me. There could be "tougher" enemies for no particular reason in a zone that take longer of hit like a truck (i.e. I think of the crazed goblins) or swarm-like monsters that are taken out with one or two hits so AE in the group is an edge. I´d like to link this also to the fact that we shouldn´t divide content between group and solo in a strict way. There should be content doable by full groups, partial groups or strong and skillful solo players, just the latter will take way longer than a full group.
- Elia
My OPINIONS: There's no doubt that less XP per kill may be desirable. Efficiency as a play style is inevitable, mostly because it's all math behind the scenes.
It's one of the reasons I'm in favor of very challenging content that requires multiple roles to work together to (at least) set and exploit status effects. This allows players who are awake and paying attention to be efficient, while those that don't will have a much more difficult time of it. Add in some Personal Environments, and you'd have some serious cooperation potential.
As far as group vs. solo, it's tricky. If you go with fixed mob XP values, and a class figures out how to solo group mobs, they can potentially gain 5-6 times the XP in the same amount of time compared to being in a group, if other features or mechanics line up. Things like gaining combat resources while in combat, or percentage based out-of-combat recovery of resources. If it's a design goal that a few classes can solo group content, then nothing needs to change, but.. that is designing with the intent to bypass as a competing concurrent design goal. It's actively working against yourself. It causes problems, not the least of which is class envy.
Even just having solo mobs at all levels is problematic, because typically a player alone is vastly more efficient and can focus for longer than herding cats in a group.
Even something as simple as, how is XP calculated? Do you provide a bonus when the group is full? Is it significant? Is it significant enough? Some XP sharing systems are implemented in such a way that grouping divides the XP among all players, presuming TTK is the same as solo. Well.. ok, but then.. where's the benefit? If by grouping I get the exact same XP-over-time as solo'ing, and less loot (because Pantheon is apparently going to have shared/competitive loot), then what's the attraction?
There's only a benefit if the TTK is less than solo'ing, because then efficiency rises, even though you get less loot.
So, imo, there should be a significant XP bonus for being in a full group, such that even if TTK is slower than solo'ing, there is still a net comparative gain. Otherwise, players will figure it out and emergent behavior will reflect that inefficient reality.
It's also why, given the trivial and numerous available economic solutions to the most common objections, I am a fan of personal loot, rather than shared competitive loot. It removes another barrier to grouping, made worse when a solo path is viable.
As far as I know or have seen, there's been no specific public design goals revealed regarding these topics by Visionary Realms in the past 7 years. Other games ignore it because you solo to max level as part of the normal character progression path in the adventure loop. In some past quotes, VR developers have said there will be solo content at all levels, yet, it's a design goal that players will be strongly encouraged to group. That's.. again, hard to implement in a balanced way without permitting players the ability to efficiently solo to max level faster than grouping. Ultimately, if content grants XP, and it can be consumed quickly, it will be. Grinding greens alone may objectively be better than taking on yellows/reds in a full group. It's certainly less risky. Players aren't dumb, and almost always seek the path of least resistence when time is the most valuable commodity they have to spend.
Personally, I would separate group content from non-group with something like a confidence mechanic. You can attempt to solo group mobs, but the miss/evade/resist rate from you to it will be 90%, if that mob grants XP.
For every person that is added to the group, confidence rises and that rate drops dramatically, such that once you have 3 people, it's down to <=50%, and at 6 people, no additional modifier(s). Or something else that's similar, to ensure that the players will be required to group together to consume group-required content that grants XP, in the adventure loop. My bias is clear, because I want the game to require players to group up to consume group content. Not everyone shares that perspective.
vjek said:Personally, I would separate group content from non-group with something like a confidence mechanic. You can attempt to solo group mobs, but the miss/evade/resist rate from you to it will be 90%, if that mob grants XP.
For every person that is added to the group, confidence rises and that rate drops dramatically, such that once you have 3 people, it's down to <=50%, and at 6 people, no additional modifier(s). Or something else that's similar, to ensure that the players will be required to group together to consume group-required content that grants XP, in the adventure loop. My bias is clear, because I want the game to require players to group up to consume group content. Not everyone shares that perspective.
I don´t like this. For me, flexibility is the key to everything.
Let´s say there is an area with monsters from level 7 to level 12.
There are dozens of combinations. The thing is, I don´t want players to be required to group together to consume group content. I want players to group together because it is more fun, less risky and more eficient than playing solo, by far. What you tag as "group content" depends on the level. A party of three crazed goblins of level 9 may be "group content" for a level 9 group, but would be "solo content" for a level 15 character. A level 7 starving bear could be solo content for a skillful and well geared level 5 character and "group content" for an ill geared, lazy and poorly coordinated level 5 group.
Regarding rewards, in terms of both exp and loot, I understand that since a group kills way faster than solo, having to share rewards compensates going solo. I do not see any problem however in adding up bonus group exp that is missed by a soloer.
To finish, there should two wide categories within "group content". The content that is designed to present a challenge for groups (in level with the content) and thus nearly impossible for solo (in level with the content) and the content that is simply more efficient for groups, but not necesarily impossible for solo providing greater downtime and risk.
- Elia
vjek as usual well thought out and nuanced.
I am of course just as concerned with EXP curve / time to level as I am TTK, and realize that they are interconnected. I would prefer to see TTK in the higher 45s+ range for at level dungeon non-unique mobs, while not speeding up overall leveling by rewarding too much extra exp for the TTK being higher. Yes that means the time to level is longer, which is good imo. The same group fighting an overland standard mob TTK may be 20s ala PA5 videos instead, and would provide less exp. It's also about overall difficulty though when talking about the feel of things right.
Elia here are the links to some of the streams that I felt show a difference in TTK / difficulty overall.
December stream, combat at 43m. This is where they are talking about tiers of mobs, in this format for the first time publicly I think? As far as the internal jargon of "General weak" "General standard"
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/824878644
Sept 24th stream combat starts at like 18m. This was one of the newer vids that made me concerned things will be too easy / fast TTK. It starts at lower lvl and then they jump ahead some levels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxTAqcQ2K3Y&feature=youtu.be
Video from a year ago, check out the difference at like 26m how tough the 1 mob is. At 32m see the named fight that has streamed several wipes from various streams lol. This is more where I want to see things trending, not going from this to the Sept 24th stream. But to be fair it's fine to have this be a dungeon standard tier and the others be overland standard or overland weak etc, and perhaps nothing has been lost on difficulty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIqZEMCC5nA&feature=youtu.be&t=110
Same dungeon diff group
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxwfue78XLY
Not sure going back any further will help my point other than I don't want to see it trending from older was harder (better) and newer is showing faster TTK.. As long as that is only in part of the game as they explained in the recent December stream then I'm ok with how they explained it hehe.
Hmm interesting idea about pushing group content. Isn't it more organic to simply have the difficulty of the mobs be such that no-one can solo them until they are greyed out anyway? Or I suppose the thought is eventually people will figure out some mob/class to solo no matter how hard the devs try and make it balanced for groups only, so then the only true way to ensure it is by your method.
GeneralReb said:Hmm interesting idea about pushing group content. Isn't it more organic to simply have the difficulty of the mobs be such that no-one can solo them until they are greyed out anyway? Or I suppose the thought is eventually people will figure out some mob/class to solo no matter how hard the devs try and make it balanced for groups only, so then the only true way to ensure it is by your method.
Yes, best approach is to have difficulty in a way that almost no one can solo content until it´s greyed out. Fully agree with this, but the game should NOT forbid people do anything. There will always be players that want to try to solo content, for the experience (not the experience points) of it, for the challenge, no matter how risky, long and inefficient is. As long as a majority of players gather and group together to advance beating encounters and killing monsters, all fine. You do not need to ensure that nobody is soloing out there. This has to do with what do we mean by "play the game". For me, the answer isn´t necessarily measured in exp / per minute or categorized in content I can handle vs content I can´t. It is also exploring the game, going through a forest fleeing a wolf pack, watching a a sunrise or spending 45 minutes to kill a cave bear in the most unepic and least rewarding fight ever. Again, let´s design things to prompt, to incentive players to play together with organic and simple methods, and if 90% of the community is grouping, let it be. I´ll be one them most of time.
- Elia
GeneralReb said:lt show a difference in TTK / difficulty overall.
December stream, combat at 43m. This is where they are talking about tiers of mobs, in this format for the first time publicly I think? As far as the internal jargon of "General weak" "General standard"
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/824878644
Sept 24th stream combat starts at like 18m. This was one of the newer vids that made me concerned things will be too easy / fast TTK. It starts at lower lvl and then they jump ahead some levels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxTAqcQ2K3Y&feature=youtu.be
Thanks a lot for the links GeneralReb, watched these two so far. Here my thoughts:
In the first vid they take out a magician in 18 seconds, while in the second vid they down a melee in 45 seconds. I expect a caster enemy to have way less hitpoints than a melee, so for me, both are in the limits of a perfect TTK window. Also, have we thought about the fact of how the group is handling its resources? I often play a wizard. What if I am burning too much mana in a combat to kill a moster too fast, and the for next pull I simply can´t keep up?. Groups should be able to adjust, if a monster is not hitting the tank, they can simply sit and take longer to kill it barely spending resocurces in case of adds or pulling a tougher enemy next. Or the other way around, spending a lot of resources to kill a monster with damage spikes on the tank. All of this will impact TTK so it´s hard to say out of single fights in videos out there. I supposse this is properly analised by PA teams.
- Elia
I think you should be able to survive if you are killing something and you pull an extra one. If you are a skilled player and maybe use a long cooldown ability or have a health potion maybe 3 mobs at the most if you pull some extra. Being able to kill more than that by yourself just makes it too easy and then have the dificulty scale up like that.
Hokanu said:In that last stream it did feel like the tank was just shrugging damage off like nothing, the mob didnt seem to have any attacks that were ever going to test the tank and in turn the healer, however the second the mob touched a non tank their health went to about 50% fast, that was good to see... Maybe the healer was working overtime to keep the tank looking so healthy, i dont know, but it seemed like the tank was almost toooo tanky.
Someone hopefully will point out where i went wrong in my evaluation!
Joppa had two Shaman healing him, they maintained stacked HoTs almost all the time.
Also, if you haven't seen it, be sure to watch this gameplay footage too of the Rogue from Minus.
https://youtu.be/RGtB7F3ddBM?t=629
It's been 25 years, I think we can move away from the idea that "challenge" is just a mob hitting you for half your health or more, having an inordinately high health pool, or gimping players with weak DPS.
The game should encourage people to group, and it should do so by ensuring that mobs have a toolkit at least as equal to the player's, that the proper AI routines are in for them to utilize that toolkit, and that players will need to master their class to progress into higher levels.
If someone is sufficiently skilled enough, and has mastered their class to the point that they're able to solo through certain areas, I don't see a problem with that.
It's important to keep in mind that increased TTK does not necessarily mean higher difficulty. There can be "quick" kills that still require high class mastery/group coordination. Fights can be designed to last 10-15 seconds, and still pose a significant challenge to a group.
Sicario said:It's important to keep in mind that increased TTK does not necessarily mean higher difficulty. There can be "quick" kills that still require high class mastery/group coordination. Fights can be designed to last 10-15 seconds, and still pose a significant challenge to a group.
Yes and no. The longer the fight, the more you're prone to do an error that you will pay even if it's later. Sames goes for ressource management. Longer fights are harder because time itself is a value.
MauvaisOeil said:Sicario said:It's important to keep in mind that increased TTK does not necessarily mean higher difficulty. There can be "quick" kills that still require high class mastery/group coordination. Fights can be designed to last 10-15 seconds, and still pose a significant challenge to a group.
Yes and no. The longer the fight, the more you're prone to do an error that you will pay even if it's later. Sames goes for ressource management. Longer fights are harder because time itself is a value.
As far as i see most of the danger comes from the unexpected, a longer fight with one mob hopefully means that you have a greater chance of being visited by an unwanted add... there in there lies more difficulty!
The problem i fear more than anything is tailoring the game for small and large groups.. the tailoring for small groups needs to be few and far between as far as i am concerned. Tune the game for full groups mostly, lots of roaming mobs in all areas that increase the occourance of adds to become a common theme and the game starts to return to its more brutal roots.
eunichron said:It's been 25 years, I think we can move away from the idea that "challenge" is just a mob hitting you for half your health or more, having an inordinately high health pool, or gimping players with weak DPS.
The game should encourage people to group, and it should do so by ensuring that mobs have a toolkit at least as equal to the player's, that the proper AI routines are in for them to utilize that toolkit, and that players will need to master their class to progress into higher levels.
If someone is sufficiently skilled enough, and has mastered their class to the point that they're able to solo through certain areas, I don't see a problem with that.
This is well said, and I think the disposition system, climate system and limited action slots go hand-in-hand towards making this more of a reality.
We've also seen that mobs can have the same spells as players can have, albeit in certain flavours sometimes like a frost mage or fire mage.
We've seen mobs that debuff and heal themselves which are standards (although with the same player toolkit) it would be nice to see mobs using CC as well and prioritising interrupting the healer or knocking away the tank in order to charge the healer.
Eliadann said:Let´s say there is an area with monsters from level 7 to level 12.
- I could go with a solid, full group of level 9 and camp the zone with little risk, and little downtime
- I could go with a solid, full group of level 7 and camp the zone with huge risk, and average downtime
- I could go with half a group of level 9 and camp the zone with average risk, avoiding the toughest monsters
- I could solo at level 9 and camp the zone with huge risk, avoiding all monsters but the easiest, and long downtime
- I couldn´t solo at level 7, but with some luck I could pick up a solo monster of level 7 and take it down now and then
- I could solo at level 12 and camp the zone with average risk and average downtime, avoiding adds
There are dozens of combinations. The thing is, I don´t want players to be required to group together to consume group content. I want players to group together because it is more fun, less risky and more eficient than playing solo, by far. What you tag as "group content" depends on the level. A party of three crazed goblins of level 9 may be "group content" for a level 9 group, but would be "solo content" for a level 15 character. A level 7 starving bear could be solo content for a skillful and well geared level 5 character and "group content" for an ill geared, lazy and poorly coordinated level 5 group.
Regarding rewards, in terms of both exp and loot, I understand that since a group kills way faster than solo, having to share rewards compensates going solo. I do not see any problem however in adding up bonus group exp that is missed by a soloer.
I agree with this. Mob power, in my view, should remain static within the same encounter, and the difficulty of the fight should only be influenced by factors like number of group members, gear, and level. I do respect other opinions, but for me, adding artificial bonuses or penalties to encourage grouping starts taking a game in a very on-rails, theme-parky direction. Grouping should be encouraged because joining a group is much safer and more efficient, and allows you to conquer greater challenges, but if an industrious player can find a way to pick mobs off the edge of a camp by themselves (perhaps because they are looking for a special item and don't want to share loot with a group), I don't think that should be discouraged. I think VR has said that while the game is designed to be mostly group-oriented, they aren't going to do anything to actively discourage solo play, and I think that's the right way to go.
