Hey, game looks fun!
I know this is based off of EQ's style, and the combat very much looks that way. But one thing that's always struck me is how long it takes to defeat even otherwise basic units - foot soldiers, bugs. It's group gameplay, and I respect that and really enjoyed it in EQ. But what if we could have the same gameplay against enemies that made a little more sense to always fight as a team against? What if our team battles were primarily against deadlier, more serious enemies, and they could have a guard or three that a single player could more easily, and perhaps more realistically, dispatch on their own as a part of the greater fight?
I'm really just sharing these thoughts for discussion's sake, as I know Pantheon cannot be designed in this way at this point. I'm just imagining the same gameplay, except the graphic for the enemies we fight represents something more serious. Like what if we were in a world full of incredibly dangerous monsters, demons, whatever, and we just had to fight as a team to have any hope of taking them down? And those powerful enemies roaming the world had less powerful foot soldier types as guards or servants who we could actually slay more easily individually? Same gameplay, just fights that actually made a little more sense. Just food for thought.
Alexander said:I'm really just sharing these thoughts for discussion's sake, as I know Pantheon cannot be designed in this way at this point.
Who is to say these are basic foot soldiers or rather that the player(s) are extremely strong/skilled relative to them? I thought the entire premise of levels was character growth or in the case of NPCs their relative strength compared to one's own (or one's group)?
If my group is level 10 and we encounter a level 12 orc scout - that isn't just a foot soldier to our party, it is a serious threat.
I think what you originally may be concerned about is being formulated.
The encounters and mobs will be varied and creative.
There will be different challenges based on multiple factors.
Infact they stated that even returning to a known location will have changed from previous visits. The change may not be dramatic but they are aware of variation and dynamic encounters being something to keep people from becoming bored or the challenges becoming stale.
I can imagine lower level mobs on the outskirts of more dangerous encounters or even a triggering event that releases a number of low level mobs to cause confusion, but ultimately can be managed by even the most flighty of Bards or dimwit Dire Lords
Somewhat related, one thing that I didn't like about EQ Velious compared to Kunark was the HP sponge mobs and how much more damage they did. It felt like an artificial difficulty as it became less about skill.
I hope Pantheon stays away from that route (which appears to be the case with the disposition system).
I tend to feel the same about mob difficulty in mmos. While I would expect to have to group up to take down a dragon or giant, I think I should reasonably be able to kill a forest bat of my level on my own. I never played EQ, so can't really use that for a reference, but I did really like how EQOA handled it. In that game, most classes could generally solo a single mob of their level if the mood took them, but it took a significant amount of time, health and mana, so grouping was necessary to make any real progress in the game in terms of leveling or moving through dangerous areas. And it was quite easy in those dangerous areas for even a full group to bite off more than they could chew with multiple mobs always ready to join the fray.
As for Pantheon, that may not be what they're going for, or even really possible for the type of game it is, so time will tell exactly how mob strength is handled relative to level. But yeah, in general I would like to see "ordinary" mobs not be too powered up.
I trust that they know what to do as far as difficulty goes. We're still a ways from balancing though I feel. I'm sure there'll be times when we can solo single wandering mobs in open area zones, but for camps in open areas or dungeons that'll probably require a group. It very well might be that a boss will be able to summon help by using mobs that are several levels lower than players in the group, but then things would depend on ones level. I think the challenge with lower level enemies having different dispositions and traits will be good though. I'm all for a challenge more than killing an enemy easier.
Raidil said: For me from what I have seen on streams is to easy I feel it needs to be harder and I hope as you level the experience gained slows well the speed u can level slows . Not most of what we have seen been around 15-18 so it might be a lot different at 20-25 or 30-40. So at least what iv seen I feelmis not bad
Most of the streams have had pocket healers or even godmode showing various aspects off. The difficulty will be ironed out after all the ability sets are in and a ton of player feed back as time goes on. It is mostly just the theory of difficulty at this point as changing a few numbers is the difference between cake walk and terror.
My fingers are crossed that the baseline difficulty of soloing is one mob at a time. (mobs can have pets)
In DND critters give xp. If it were a true MMO you could level to max killing squirrels. That never made sense to me. Similarly in MMOs one shotting peons can give XP as long as the one shot targets are the appropriate level. It still doesn't make sense.
ALovingRobot has a recent stream where balancing is discussed, if anyone is interested in what they did during EQ dev. Effectively, devs gave it a whirl then it was ironed out balanced during beta. So yeah, don't expect any Pantheon gameplay we see now to be a close reflection of what the end product balance.
Iksar said:Who is to say these are basic foot soldiers or rather that the player(s) are extremely strong/skilled relative to them? I thought the entire premise of levels was character growth or in the case of NPCs their relative strength compared to one's own (or one's group)?
If my group is level 10 and we encounter a level 12 orc scout - that isn't just a foot soldier to our party, it is a serious threat.
This was my first thought as well in response to OP.
Say in the Lord of the Rings films where the heroes are special and able to take on a ton of Orcs at once, but in battles with nameless soldiers they die plenty. Perhaps we are not Aragorn but instead "Extra #29".
In regards to HP and time to kill.. We've seen overland mobs that are much weaker than the dungeon mobs. In a stream in December 2020 I believe, they spoke about mob tiers of difficulty like Overland / General weak, dungeon Weak, etc. In the Monk reveal stream recently the mobs were clearly easier than Halnir's I would say. In the PA5 streams from last year the newbie level mobs were much faster TTK. I wouldn't assume that everything is going to look like Tower of the reckless magician, halnir's cave, amberfaet etc. In fact my concern is in the other direction. I found Halnir's Cohh stream to be a bit too fast TTK considering them saying they had junk gear to start.
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One of the cool things about an open world MMO is you can ether advance faster than your levels to harder area or stay behind depending on what challenge you are looking for. For this discussion though I will look at mobs that are equal in level.
My first MMO was EQ and in EQ mobs for the most part were equal to a player’s strength. This meant even one add could mean the death of a group if not delt with quickly. It made pulling an important job and in some areas crowd control extremely handy to have. To be honest back than I had no idea how much I like this method.
It was not until later with games like City of Heroes where I saw a different method used that I really understood how much I liked EQs method. In City of Heroes you could wipe the floor with most enemies if it was a one on one fight. The challenge came from huge group of enemies.
I think it is important to note both methods work it is just a matter of taste on what you like better. It might be how you like to play or how you like to view your character. Speaking for myself and I hope the devs agree I really missed the EQ style of each mob being a serious threat.
Some games have also made the mobs equal to a player but everyone health is supper low meaning the fights are much quicker. GW2 comes to mind on a game that is more this way than EQ was for example. This is a perfectly workable method on how to design the game. After playing many games using both design methods I still like EQ style the most.
In summary I like the slower pace of combat were even one enemy if not respected can not only kill you but your whole group. Adds should be a huge concern and real crowd control should be a thing. None of this 3 second interrupts like newer games but the real stuff from EQ with potential for permeant CC if done right. If you can kill a monster in seconds than why have CC at all?
I enjoy it greatly!
I solo played with monk and it took all my testing time justto level to 7
Slow pace, every level i got was an accomplisment just because i had to rest, pick my fight carefully, run around looking for apple to heal, selling trash item to get better gear for faster kills toward leveling and questing!
I also party'd with a magic user he nuke and i pull mob, it made exping more efficient.
Mob difficuty it just right
AbsoluteTerror said:I enjoy it greatly!
I solo played with monk and it took all my testing time justto level to 7
Slow pace, every level i got was an accomplisment just because i had to rest, pick my fight carefully, run around looking for apple to heal, selling trash item to get better gear for faster kills toward leveling and questing!
I also party'd with a magic user he nuke and i pull mob, it made exping more efficient.
Mob difficuty it just right
If you are talking about Pantheon then I think you might want to be mindful of the NDA.
I'd rather have fewer enemies with more HP than more enemies with fewer HP. If I wanted to mow down hordes of mobs, I would play a different game.
Lafael said:ALovingRobot has a recent stream where balancing is discussed, if anyone is interested in what they did during EQ dev. Effectively, devs gave it a whirl then it was ironed out balanced during beta. So yeah, don't expect any Pantheon gameplay we see now to be a close reflection of what the end product balance.
Not to get too sidetracked, but he's also building his own classic MMO that is VERY EQ like - check out Monsters and Memories.
Tenquille said: I’m hoping for tough mobs, getting a pather add that wasn’t planned needs to truly change the fight dynamic where a skilled group will be able to recover but if someone isn’t paying attention it can result in a wipe. I loved in EQ the long grindy fights to move into a specific camp and you’d always have in the back of your mind to keep an eye on repops because of how deadly they could be. It made for slow pace combat not feel slow at all. Also Hi everyone, just joined the community after lurking around for a few years.
Hiya Tenquille, welcome to the forums. I agee with you. Long fights, where even one unexpected wanderer can change everything.
As bigdogchris said, fewer enemies with more HP rather than more enemies with fewer HP.
For every NPC class type- in addition to however many layers of disposition and AI- I would like to see 3 variations. For instance, 1. Spider normal: hard to hit (agi) stinger/pincer damage(piercing). 2. Spider Bonus: easier to kill(slower?), stinger/pincer damage + poison damage. Poison can be inflicted or getting spider guts on you. 3. Spider Bonus Bonus: normal movement, fast flurry of stinger/pincer damage, snare/root.(webbing)
Or wolf, normal, rabid, mange.
So not only hit points and AC can eb dialed up or down but also that balanced against how easy to kill and how they can affect you, like the poison spider may be reall easy to kill but at the cost/risk of being poisoned and you wont know until you are killing it.
Manouk said: So not only hit points and AC can eb dialed up or down but also that balanced against how easy to kill and how they can affect you,
Your description reminded me of something a Dev said in a stream long ago, maybe the first Amberfaet stream. He told us of a mob design that they intended to have, of small groups of mobs that are low level and low HP, thus easy to kill. But they would attack in groups, and have unexpectedly high damage. So when they came along, particularly as adds, you had to stop immediately from whoever you were fighting and deal with them, or you would quickly find everyone's health dropping precipitously.
Good Times Ahead!
starblight said:
One of the cool things about an open world MMO is you can ether advance faster than your levels to harder area or stay behind depending on what challenge you are looking for.
*Snip*
In summary I like the slower pace of combat were even one enemy if not respected can not only kill you but your whole group. Adds should be a huge concern and real crowd control should be a thing. None of this 3 second interrupts like newer games but the real stuff from EQ with potential for permeant CC if done right. If you can kill a monster in seconds than why have CC at all?
Can't agree more. I think these conversations go certain ways on the forum and to me TTK is all about the FEEL of it, whereas the discussion is about perceived difficulty.. I want to go hyperbolic and say "I do not want speed run dungeons" but that misses the mark in the other direction since Pantheon is (hopefully) nowhere near that. However, I do have concerns that it is being tuned towards the easier side of the coin TTK wise. Higher TTK == more mana spent, more downtime, more tactics during a fight, more overall strategy for the area. I'm worried about the lack of downtime shown in any recent streams or calls of OOM!
Edit: There are several reasons to want it slow. The downtime is important socially, tactically in an individual fight, which then makes you think about the next pull/repop strategically. Running out of mana is important because it adds tension, strategy, engagement, cooperation, communication. Scrap battle meditation and give us sit down med ala EQ during combat. Tune things up a couple notches everywhere from what we've seen in streams over the last year. The early streams pre-refactor were better as far as I'm concerned. This does not take into account the NPC awareness now so maybe we will be there. Do not listen to the speed run modern MMO voices.