Game Maps Quote: Pantheon isn't a casual game - it's a hard-core challenging PvE (player vs. environment) game, with possible separate PvP (player vs. player) shards.
mmorpg (quoting VR): Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is an intensely social game for the determined thrill-seeker, because we believe that the greatest sense of accomplishment comes when it is shared.
Intensely ... determined thrill-seeker? Not a description of casual I would use.
pantheonriseofthefallen.fandom.com (on their wiki/FAQ/Difference page): Pantheon isn't a casual game -- it's a hard-core challenging game.
mmo games: The developers behind the upcoming fantasy MMORPG Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen have made it clear that their ambitious title is not a game for everyone. They have seen fail the MMOs which attempt to be one-size-fits-all, mass-appeal titles. Pantheon is not a casual game, it is intended to be a challenge and makes no apologies for it.
Yep. I think my definition of casual is nearer the mark, tbh. I will try to find the VR quote and post that too, when I do.
philo: VR has always said they want players to be able to have a sense of accomplishment or be able to achieve something in a 2 hr session.
Agreed.
philo: That is directed at casual players.
Incorrect.
You have to understand a game can be difficult and challenging and have certain aspects that cater to a wider, more casual, audience. The 2 hour play session are indeed designed for the "less hardcore" players...does that wording make you feel better about it lol? Because, let's be honest, no self respecting hardcore player plays for only 2 hrs a day. That is definitely casual ;)
I don't want to get into nit picking your quotes but be careful about what you are quoting. Not everything that was said previously is still accurate.
Counterfleche said: Making it so mounts can be killed, lost (if abandoned), and NOT unsummonable will go a long way to minimizing the downside. If Pantheon really takes full advantage of climbing, that means there are many places the mounts either can't go, or aren't worth taking. I would like to see them used for some general travel but not be used much when out adventuring.
I'd really love to see a rich mount system like that. No summoning of mounts (have to go to the nearest stable), mounts remain in the region they were last used so players might have a cost when it comes to choosing a teleport to another region/continent, stable fees, mount leveling/armoring and mount related skills (handling, speed, endurance, etc), mount death (maybe don't death charge through that camp of mobs).
Don't really want to see mounts that increase speed, but I do like the potential idea of pack mules (as Brad seemed to have) or mounts as cosmetic or just temporary -- temporary as in the way Joppa described an idea for them where you can find them in the wild and temporarily ride them before they are abandoned.
Perhaps you could find mounts in a dungeon where they are used in only that dungeon. This means the dungeon could be designed around that mount feature. It could be sized appropriately or include some fun obstacles/jumps you would need the mount to do, but this would require potentially a lot of programming for a relatively small amount of time mounted. One of my problems with mounts is that zones must have a certain design to work with on-foot and mounted speeds, which means some compromises are made in design to accommodate this supposedly necessary idea of having mounts (and if so, mounts must increase speed because that is the way it's been and otherwise seems out of the question). In my experience, mounts with speed increases can (or always have) lead to watered-down zone design, or it can mean the design problems are simply ignored, which shrinks the zones due to the speed increases or trivializes their combat content (trivializing that does sometimes have a benefit but I feel is outweighed overall).
Plus mounts are decidely not special, so that's out...unless they really are special. What if only one mount exists for a particular achievement and it is temporary and can go to the next person to achieve that feat? What if once a week there is a raffle for one mount and you keep it for a week, or what if there is a floating enchantment cast on a player (that can be toggled) that lasts for a week because that player downed a raid boss that transferred the enchantment? This special trophy could be a point of discussion for whoever has it that week, and there's a decent chance that you may never get it, and that is OK. Everyone else will be running the normal speed and have something to look up to like that special armor set you used to see high-level characters running around with.
I don't think I'll ever understand anti-mount hate. I can VAGUELY understand people disliking flying mounts, generally for PvP (makes it where it's harder for them to gank people) and somewhat for PvE (that flying can make some quest-heavy games with tons of annoying filler mobs easier to deal with which is........bad somehow...), but I honestly don't get the "all mounts are bad" hate.
There are a lot of ways to make mounts NOT bad, such as mounts being pack animals (increased inventory, kind of like vehicles in 7 Days to Die being useful due to their storage or a spell like "hovering disk" in old MUDs that would allow increased carrying capacity as you, in RP-terms, would carry items on the disk), or mounts that allow some traversing options (I think GW2 does this, though their mounts strike me - a person who has only played a bit of the free game, no expansions, and has none of them - as a bit over the top), and having fairly "standard" mounts that increase speed a bit but not by an insane amount (e.g. the basic horse in WoW that increaed speed by 40% or something) are all not really problematic to me and can be very rewarding milestones for players that get to them. I still remember the first time I got leveled enough and put together enough money to buy my first mount in Vanilla WoW and riding that thing all over because it was just...fun. Which is a good quality for a game to have.
The problem I have with mounts is when they either become (a) essential (e.g. they have some traveersing capability that m akes them NECESSARY rather than merely midly conveneint or beneficial), and having them tied to different things (for example, in FFXIV, you have some tied to leveling and mastering crafters, so there are other options besides just "cleared this difficult raid" to make mounts prestigious), (b) have highly useful traits that are hyper-rare (AOC has me really worried as a game because it DOES have flying mounts, but gates them where only a FEW PEOPLE can have them, thus making those people OP compared to literally everyone else in the game), and/or (c) gaudy or over the top - in WoW for example, in Burning Crusade, having a dragon mount was very rare. It meant you had gotten the max level riding for 5,000 gold (which was...not cheap) and did at least 30 and more likely 60 days of reputation grinding with the Netherdrakes. And they were pretty cool looking mounts. Two expansions later, there were like 40 different types of dragon mounts, everyone had them, and they had somehow made dragons - DRAGONS - boring. This just breaks emmersion. Even MORE if it's made into cash shop fodder, which is just beyond annoying.
My general view has become mounts should serve three general purposes - (1) Be a marker of milestone achievement. This doesn't mean some exclusive group should be the only ones with them (I oppose that, actually), but it should mmean you've adventured and leveled and all that good stuff. (2) Have a utility purpose in the world. This could include being a companion (like FFXIV's Chocobos - aside, you can only breed the racing ones, I think, something I've never bothered with, you can't breed actual mounts in that game, you can just change the Choco's feather color by diet, something you can't do with any other mounts), having some extra storage/cargo/inventory slots, etc. (3) Not be gaudy, over the top, necessary, or confer some big advantage over other players.
As long as these three things are relatively adhered to, I honestly don't mind mounts at all. I'm even pretty flexible with (1) as I don't mind people getting mounts relatively early, since I know it increases fun factor, as long as there's some upgrade (can train it later to make it a bit faster or maybe add saddlebags later for inventory, whatever the general "purpose" of them has become)
I dunno, I just don't hate mounts, and they can be a lot of fun. Riding in Zelda is a lot of fun, for example. Though I do think it's silly MMOs make you unable to even perform basic combat while mounted. That's just silly.
EDIT: Oh, but one other thing (kinda goes with the gaudy breaking immersion), I dislike the whole "whistle and your mount appears anywhere in the world" nonsense. This can make sense for SOME mounts, that is, a Summoner mount or a Warlock summoning a nightmare mount from a nether plane, or even maybe a Paladin summoning a holy mount. But for most/normal mounts, this is just like...what, you were carrying that horse in your pocket or something? Should be something you stable and unstable and it's with you the whole time. If you die, it either dies (if hostile area) or escapes to roam and graze nearby (if safe-ish areas or field/forest type areas), and if you chose to leave it stabled in a friendly town near your dungeon or whatever, it's safe there, but you don't have access to it until you go back there.
That sort of thing.