I watched the Round Table discussion regarding the "achievement" or Rites of Passage systems. A post on MMORPG brought up an important point which I thought should be discussed here.
As your player populations grow top heavy and people progress towards the level cap, things can empty out in lower level areas. Finding a group at level 5 may be trivial at launch but a year down the road maybe not so trivial. What options are there to make sure that these passage systems won't become very difficult bottlenecks that prevent progression? Or, on the other hand, depending on how these are designed, what would prevent a level 50 from teaming up with that level 5 and trivializing these tasks of progression?
Till more information is put out on this system the possible “what if…” list is just too huge. I thought about making a list of all the questions I had about this system but it was just too long.
I feel what the public is currently imagining and what the devs are imagining are fairly different at the moment.
Samatman,
Like Xonth said - I have a lot of questions/concerns about the system as well and have mentioned them in a few other threads, but until more details are hashed out, I'm going to be in wait and see mode. Definitely skeptical myself at the moment, but as always, I am happy to be proven wrong.
Samatman said:
I watched the Round Table discussion regarding the "achievement" or Rites of Passage systems. A post on MMORPG brought up an important point which I thought should be discussed here.
As your player populations grow top heavy and people progress towards the level cap, things can empty out in lower level areas. Finding a group at level 5 may be trivial at launch but a year down the road maybe not so trivial. What options are there to make sure that these passage systems won't become very difficult bottlenecks that prevent progression? Or, on the other hand, depending on how these are designed, what would prevent a level 50 from teaming up with that level 5 and trivializing these tasks of progression?
This was actually the reason I quit VG. I played from launch but within a couple months got left behind. I didn't play enough to keep up and as a result had a terrible time finding a group if I only had an hour or two to play. For a while I could entertain myself with the other realms of the game but I really wanted to group and level and that just wasn't there. I think a big part is future growth though and we have no idea how that will happen.
I would imagine, just by the nature of the progression being more difficult, it will make that bottlenecking less common. I remember back in the early days of EQ, it took over a year before people starting maxing out. There were certainly a few that achieved it earlier, but it was so challenging and took such teamwork, you almost had to wait for the more recreational gamers to catch up before you could move on. Because it was so difficult to progress, you also had more players going back and making ults because it was much easier to get a fresh slice of the game by going back to the beginning than slogging on. While I think some refinement to this system might be had, we probably don't have to change things all that much to get a more reasonable dispersion of players. I feel like many of the modern MMO have everyone at max level seemingly on the first day because A. it takes very little skill or dedication to get up there, and it is entirely possible on your own. I think the problem will be two or three years after launch how do you provide a rewarding experience for new players, but still maintain the integrity of the levels and the prestige of being high level. I really hate how some games allow you to jump right up to near max level. I much prefer a mentoring system, such as in EQ2, where you could go back and fight as a lower level while still receiving some experience. I also think making the impact of levels less significant both for killing power and for experience gain would do a lot to balance things out. (or having less levels, as has been preposed.) If you could kill a significantly higher level opponent, but get less bonus experience for that effort, but still make it hard to achieve that high level, you would allow higher level players to naturally play with lower levels. In EQ, as you level up, the range that conned blue would increase. Something like that could be expanded upon. I think of League of Legends where summoner levels provide a sense of progression, but are not all that significant.
there are a lot of questions and concerns I have about the Rites of passage and Pantheon in general but after being told so often on the forums, in chats, in messages "we are working on that but it is much farther down the road and we will revisit this topic then so just put all concerns, questions, comments, etc on hold till we get to that point in development." I have adopted more of "a wait and comment then approach." I like the idea of the Rites of Passage system but there is a LOT to work out on it. From the way more things have been mentioned about being included in the game recently there maybe be a lot more things that get pushed back from release and are put in during patches or even expansions. I know that is the nature of development and MMORPG games which I am fine with as long as things are done as close to accurate as possible.
Haven't heard much on this topic in awhile. (Over 2 years since the last post.) I can't remember the exact plan for RoP, but would like to know if it might be used as a class specific timeline of sorts? Here are a couple examples:
Bard Rites of Passage: Bard songs can be altered over time by seeking out various gypsy lyricists and renowned musicians spread across the world of Terminus. Advanced bards can blend a broader range of songs together, accentuating synergy potential in their groups.
Cleric Rites of Passage: Clerics can learn to modify their spells by acquiring various celestial tomes that are spread around the world of Terminus. Their spells can be adjusted in ways such as removing portions of the arcane/divine/poison/disease aspect of their spells and focusing them into a single resist. IE, buff that provides 50 cure potency vs poison/disease debuffs instead changes to 100 poison or 100 disease, and can continue to modify the numbers back and forth as needed.
That is actually an unfortunate decision in my opinion. Rites of Passage as a tool to create checks against racing to maximum level as well as giving a content focus at multiple points through the level ranges struck me as a really good idea. Creating mini epic quests every 10 levels that needed to be completed before one could advance further has the ability to make the journey mean more than just how many boars have I killed since I created my character.
I personally favor a logarithmic power growth such that 90% of the game content is non-trivial at max level but if we can’t have that then having content focused at level 10, 20, 30, 40 and then endgame struck me as a really good design compromise. Character class abilities could be focused and brought on line with regards to the needs of the content at those specific level ranges.
Giving up on Rites of Passage being advancement bottlenecks seems like the soft choice that caters to the racer mentality rather than the entirely leveling process being the focus. Discerning what is “un fun” and what is a worthwhile challenge that gives meaning to the process is a key challenge to developing an impactful game system. It is still pre-alpha and I am not privy to the actual current state of the game but I have been seeing more and more soft choices and protected outdated sacred cow ideas that have decreased my enthusiasm. To see one of the mold breaking ideas get axed is disappointing.
This is a problem that it inscribed in the genes of every MMORPG based on levels . The average level of the players on any given server (including active alts) increases with time there is no way around it . It can only be slowed down a little but it never stops so that after a certain time , 80 % or more of all PC (including active alts) is at max level . So the problem you describe will happen in Pantheon like it happened in every single level based MMORPG .
If I take EQ TLP servers as an example , the popular newbie zones (Faydark , Commons , South Ro) become ghost towns after approximately 6 months - 9 months . It actually depends on the curve of new players . 20 years ago there were not many MMORPGs and the population was growing for quite a long time (1+ year) what means that there was a steady flux of newbies for 1 + years . In modern MMORPGs due to the fast comunication the growth is explosive and concentrated on a few days after release immediately followed by a more or less strong decrease after a few weeks . For instance SWTOR went to 1 M players in 1 week with all servers having log in queues but they started to close and merge servers already 1 month after release .
Based on that , I would guess that if you join Pantheon 1 year down the road , the probability is great that almost all players you'll meet will be far above your level so that , indeed , grouping will be difficult .
Deadshade - while I cannot disagree with anything you say I will respond with a greatly overused theme.
Pantheon is intended to be different from almost any significant MMO of the last generation. Leveling will be very slow, making it harder to get to maximum level. Some people will do it, of course, but a lower percentage. There will be different starting areas - encouraging multiple characters - thus slowing the leveling process. Some have no interest in alts but many *will* have them. With one character strictly limited in the roles it can play - and the crafts it can master - again, those that aren't self-limited to one "main" will be incented quite strongly to have multiple characters.
Pantheon is intended to have a mentoring system that will encourage higher levels to help and group with newer characters. If done poorly this can wreck the game by allowing hyper speed-leveling of the EQ2 and Rift type but there is always the hope that VR will get it right. Sorry VR for the scepticism but I have seen this fail so *many* times.
Your argument assumes a stable situation. But the longer the time it takes most people to get to maximum level the more the chance that Panteon will have added new content whether an expansion or just new zones. This won't do brand new players any good - it will discourage high levels from going back to the original areas. So it makes your argument stronger (I am not posting to disagree with you I am posting to try and think through how this may work).
Server mergers are quite likely if not absolutely inevitable. VR knows this and is designing systems and game mechanics that will make this easier and less painful. Thus the possibility, perhaps probablility, of two names per character. The *reason* for this may not be to prepare for mergers but I would venture to guess that VR sees a major benefit to that system the reduction in exact duplication and thus a limitation in the number of people losing their names after a merger. Certainly no one will need to lose a first name. These mergers will increase population back up thus giving more of us to group in the lower levels using new characters or the mentoring system.
dorotea said:Your argument assumes a stable situation. But the longer the time it takes most people to get to maximum level the more the chance that Panteon will have added new content whether an expansion or just new zones. This won't do brand new players any good - it will discourage high levels from going back to the original areas. So it makes your argument stronger (I am not posting to disagree with you I am posting to try and think through how this may work).
I would like to comment on this one area.
The devs have stated, multiple times, that they understand the issues with high level players going back to starting areas and will be combating that as much as possible. For instance, "starting areas" will have mixed-level content, not just low-level content. They want the "lowbies" to be able to see what things can happen onceyou level up, and want to make the higher level players intermingle with the lower level ones where it makes sense.
While I think it may still have its "downsides", they ARE aware of the issue and are going to try to mitigate it as much as possible, which is a good thing.
Agree this is not a good solution. It would be really unfortunate to be punished by something I may accidentally miss.
Has there been any more discussion around player scaling? What if players scaled down to the level of the area they are in, but only if grouped with another player of that actual level range? This ties into the mentorship idea. This, coupled with additional reasons to go to these areas might help with this? Maybe mobs in these lower areas drop critical things, like reagents needed to do various things, like Port or resurrect, crafting, etc? In addition to that, if a player chooses to do this, they would also get the xp they would normally get for their actual level. This way, there is an incentive to return and group with all manner of different levels? The basic gist is, find ways to reward players for doing this.
Is this a terrible idea? What are the pitfalls I'm not thinking of? Exploits? I know speed leveling has been mentioned, but how? What does that mean? For my own edification mainly.
As far as how this relates to limiters placed on leveling, I just think no matter what you do, people will race toward 50. Yes, you could slow things down overall, but it's not going to stop a subset of people from blowing past the herd and reaching 50 first.
That would be me that said that.... And I still stand by that statement. That statement was also based on things that Brad and Chris (Joppa) said in various streams. Statements that included the following:
"Adventuring will matter. If you make a mad rush to the top you will miss things."
"If you rush to the top and miss things you will not have skills that someone else may have because they took their time and explored."
"We are going to reward the players that explore instead of saying in one area to max level of that area, then move to another area to grind to max there."
"We want your adventuring decisions to matter and to affect your game play."
So, yeah, if they make it so that you can just go back and do it any old time, none of the above statements really mean a thing and they might as well just give you all of your skills at level up.
Edited to Add: Making them miss out on skills doesn't necessarily limit their ability to advance. ESPECIALLY considering more advanced versions of most skills will be found later on in the game. All it does is "limit your effectiveness/efficiency" for a short amount of time.
Kalok said:Edited to Add: Making them miss out on skills doesn't necessarily limit their ability to advance. ESPECIALLY considering more advanced versions of most skills will be found later on in the game. All it does is "limit your effectiveness/efficiency" for a short amount of time.
Right. You could maybe PL to 50, but there are no shortcuts in terms of how you max out your characters progression through acquisition of gear, skills, perception, faction etc. You have to complete the content no matter what.
You could argue it might be a little faster if you do those things at 50, as opposed to the level it was designed for, but there may be ways of tuning that a bit to limit it? As long as it's as efficient, if not a little less than just doing it while adventuring and leveling up.
Parascol said:Right. You could maybe PL to 50, but there are no shortcuts in terms of how you max out your characters progression through acquisition of gear, skills, perception, faction etc. You have to complete the content no matter what.You could argue it might be a little faster if you do those things at 50, as opposed to the level it was designed for, but there may be ways of tuning that a bit to limit it? As long as it's as efficient, if not a little less than just doing it while adventuring and leveling up.
If there's a level scaling system in place, the quests for specific abilities could require that you be a certain level. This would force you to mentor down to the appropriate level in order to complete the quests you may have skipped.
Naunet said:Parascol said:Right. You could maybe PL to 50, but there are no shortcuts in terms of how you max out your characters progression through acquisition of gear, skills, perception, faction etc. You have to complete the content no matter what.You could argue it might be a little faster if you do those things at 50, as opposed to the level it was designed for, but there may be ways of tuning that a bit to limit it? As long as it's as efficient, if not a little less than just doing it while adventuring and leveling up.
If there's a level scaling system in place, the quests for specific abilities could require that you be a certain level. This would force you to mentor down to the appropriate level in order to complete the quests you may have skipped.
Yes, if they implement a mentor system this would be a good tie in.
Like clever easter eggs? A music box that plays a certain log in theme in midi. Or a small fish you can catch in a jar that looks alot like Phinegel. A facsimile of a deck of vanguard diplomacy cards. alot of that stuff mught be copyrighted as someone mentioned, or legal property. Or maybe pantheon can do a "cover" of sorts.
Parascol said:Naunet said:Parascol said:Right. You could maybe PL to 50, but there are no shortcuts in terms of how you max out your characters progression through acquisition of gear, skills, perception, faction etc. You have to complete the content no matter what.You could argue it might be a little faster if you do those things at 50, as opposed to the level it was designed for, but there may be ways of tuning that a bit to limit it? As long as it's as efficient, if not a little less than just doing it while adventuring and leveling up.
If there's a level scaling system in place, the quests for specific abilities could require that you be a certain level. This would force you to mentor down to the appropriate level in order to complete the quests you may have skipped.
Yes, if they implement a mentor system this would be a good tie in.
This. Ive preached about this before. It forces certain content to be attempted at the level it was designed for.
Hey folks,
Maybe I'm missing the point, but why not tie in something like the Progeny system to run a lower level toon with better stats? This will incentivise the higer level characters to run through the lower level stuff again, though perhaps this time with different content? Or use FFXI job system where you can start delevel to specialise/gain more abilities?
Thread cleaned up, unconfirmed dev information removed, please be careful where you hear the information as some dev talk is a little more relaxed in some of our testing and VIP areas and not to be taken as "set in stone".
Any information gathered from VIP or Testing groups and posted on the official forums is a breach of NDA/EULA so please keep that in mind when discussing topics or sharing information if you are part of one or both of those privileged groups.
oneADseven said:I mentioned that I had Joppa's permission to share that information. Sorry.
I appreciate it, man.
I just have to keep things within the guidelines and I wanted to use your post to remind others as I have seen a few instances of info being discussed a little too freely outside of the groups they were intended for.
No hard feelings, though <3
oneADseven said:I mentioned that I had Joppa's permission to share that information. Sorry.
I believe that technically, as Director of Communications, Ben D has the final say about what is public knowledge and what is not. Even Joppa has to go through him.