Niien said:
Mephile, I believe that if you liked what XI had to offer in terms of challenges in an engaging social environment, then you would most likely like a game like Pantheon, even if it wasn't 100% of what you personally would want from a game. I do like and appreciate that you are trying to bring in some other aspects from other well known games and as long as those aspects/features aren't based off of convenience, then I personally would be open minded to them.
Thanks and I certainly hope so. I don't expect pantheon to be the spiritual successor of final fantasy xi, I just want the best odds of this being a home. A lot of people here don't really know a lot about the game but trust me when I say that despite the differences they shared a similar core experience and they are about as close to eachother as you can get in the mmo market (aside from maybe vanguard and everquest, but this is from as best a comparison I can make and the testimonials of personal friends who started with Everquest and ended up in xi as well as some of the p1999 community). Trust when I say I wan't nothing to do with modern mmo design (i've just about given up on the genre since the things I like from it have pretty much died off) and that anything I suggest here is likely different from other places you have experienced it. Without debating it, instancing is a good example: There was instanced content in final fantasy xi but it was not even remotely similar to modern mmo instanced content and it was managed without making the open world dead. World content was offered there that worked by and large the same way it did in everquest (large group timed/random spawn bosses) and despite there being instancing item rarity and sense of a living world was maintained. Again, not making a point to debate but I would like to perhaps get people to open up a bit to the idea that this is a bit different.
I don't even know exactly where I am going with this... but I am not the enemy. I came to this project looking for an old school mmo because modern ones have abandoned the idea of a 'virtual world' mmo in favor of themeparks.
I am concluding my involvement in this thread at this point as I think it has serviced its purpose about as far as it will go. I at least have a 'better' picture of what Everquest/Vanguard's endgame is relative to my own ideals (and by extension the ideas that are likely to be present in Pantheon). Thanks to those who contributed to my understanding.
There are a couple of correlations between this thread and the "does it annoy you when everyone is a hero" thread.
It all comes down to the expectations of the player base.
I never finished my 10th Coldain Ring in Everquest, I couldn't ever get my guild to muster the effort, and that's okay. As good as that ring was I was still able to do my job in a raid. I had plenty of other awesome pieces to help mitigate the loss. Pantheon is looking more and more like the kind of game where not everyone is going to have BiS gear at all times. Where when you walk into town and you see someone with that sword you've been lusting after you actually have to stop and admire it.
I'm willing to bet 80% of the people on here signed up for exactly that.
ImmerseMe said:
A poster on page one mentioned an issue absolutely as core as it gets for me. He said, "I want to be clicking an ability every time my global cooldown is up..." and contrasted this to, "occasionally using an ability while auto attacking." This is the core reason I'm here; if I want to play a game in which I make split second decisions hundreds of times in a session, I'll simply go play WoW again. Despite said poster's implication that meaningful decisions, as opposed to rote repetition, are hard to come by in other games, I get all my intellectual stimulation on that front just fine from WoW, occasionally requiring some more hardcore gameplay to do so, admittedly. I WANT a game in which it is totally normal and okay for one player to provide a role that requires very little action, like rooting, dotting, or mesmerizing. Sure, if the minmaxxers want to maximize their actions per second, great. But I want, for example, conserving mana and maintaining an ample supply for emergencies, to be part of the game. Edit; to bring this back on topic, I'd like this gameplay to persist into endgame. I want to be able to raid with the single mom cooking dinner. Although I can't very well object to more elite content, as in the pyramid raid tier structure as mentioned earlier.
This is exactly what I'm talking about, and idk about cooking dinner while raiding but, it should definitely not be the most efficient means of battle to be pressing a button every single second.
Rallyd said:
ImmerseMe said:
A poster on page one mentioned an issue absolutely as core as it gets for me. He said, "I want to be clicking an ability every time my global cooldown is up..." and contrasted this to, "occasionally using an ability while auto attacking." This is the core reason I'm here; if I want to play a game in which I make split second decisions hundreds of times in a session, I'll simply go play WoW again. Despite said poster's implication that meaningful decisions, as opposed to rote repetition, are hard to come by in other games, I get all my intellectual stimulation on that front just fine from WoW, occasionally requiring some more hardcore gameplay to do so, admittedly. I WANT a game in which it is totally normal and okay for one player to provide a role that requires very little action, like rooting, dotting, or mesmerizing. Sure, if the minmaxxers want to maximize their actions per second, great. But I want, for example, conserving mana and maintaining an ample supply for emergencies, to be part of the game. Edit; to bring this back on topic, I'd like this gameplay to persist into endgame. I want to be able to raid with the single mom cooking dinner. Although I can't very well object to more elite content, as in the pyramid raid tier structure as mentioned earlier.
This is exactly what I'm talking about, and idk about cooking dinner while raiding but, it should definitely not be the most efficient means of battle to be pressing a button every single second.
Right, I think the idea is we still want to min/max, but in a different sense. We want to have more personal responsibility to what actions happen. Most of WoW is Run and gun, DPS and move. We want to have to think a little bit and determine if we should mez this mob or cc these 3 mobs. Like it was said, We have a healer that isn't just spamming heals but watching for certain situations. This was the beauty in EQ, there wasn't quite a DPS meter but we all had a role to fulfill.
Vorthanion said:
I'm hoping for mixed content for end game. I'm not a fan of raiding.
What would you consider mixed Vorthanion?
The same stuff we did leveling would be nice, only designed to be more of a challenge to justify the rewards. Also, having an alternative advancement system like EQ had would be another great way to progress at the end game without having to raid. Achievements that are both superficial and or beneficial to your character and or reputation. There should be stuff for soloers, small groups, regular groups, crafters, gatherers, raiders, explorers, puzzle solvers, socialites...etc. If you want an immersive and believable world, there needs to be plenty of non-combat systems, both fluff and important to your character, status, faction....etc. Grouping and raiding are not the end all, be all of the social scene in gaming.
Vorthanion said:
The same stuff we did leveling would be nice, only designed to be more of a challenge to justify the rewards. Also, having an alternative advancement system like EQ had would be another great way to progress at the end game without having to raid. Achievements that are both superficial and or beneficial to your character and or reputation. There should be stuff for soloers, small groups, regular groups, crafters, gatherers, raiders, explorers, puzzle solvers, socialites...etc. If you want an immersive and believable world, there needs to be plenty of non-combat systems, both fluff and important to your character, status, faction....etc. Grouping and raiding are not the end all, be all of the social scene in gaming.
I would love to see AA points or something similar from the beginning instead of starting at higher levels. Though if you're asking for a solo or duo end game I personally would have to be against that idea completely. If the best gear can be had from a group, then there would be no need for raiding. Bottom line is if it was designed for a group, then it's too easy, unless it is impossible. lol
I would also have to say that social and solo don't usually go together.
Niien said:Vorthanion said:
The same stuff we did leveling would be nice, only designed to be more of a challenge to justify the rewards. Also, having an alternative advancement system like EQ had would be another great way to progress at the end game without having to raid. Achievements that are both superficial and or beneficial to your character and or reputation. There should be stuff for soloers, small groups, regular groups, crafters, gatherers, raiders, explorers, puzzle solvers, socialites...etc. If you want an immersive and believable world, there needs to be plenty of non-combat systems, both fluff and important to your character, status, faction....etc. Grouping and raiding are not the end all, be all of the social scene in gaming.
I would love to see AA points or something similar from the beginning instead of starting at higher levels. Though if you're asking for a solo or duo end game I personally would have to be against that idea completely. If the best gear can be had from a group, then there would be no need for raiding. Bottom line is if it was designed for a group, then it's too easy, unless it is impossible. lol
I would also have to say that social and solo don't usually go together.
I'll take up the topic of Raiding in Vanguard.
Initially in Vanguard the toughest content was "Heg". It was a single group content mob that would lock to who ever tagged it first (unless you were a peace cleric and reset the mobs aggro and then retagged it for your group). Necros would exploit through the floor and tag the mob . Heg was on a timer based on when the mob was last killed. Then there was a Giant walking around. My raid group decided to try it and we killed it often which gave us "Lobster" (later we traded it for cloaks to the devs). Then the next big update if I recall was APW. You had to be keyed by doing a questline to gain access by killing group content If I recall correctly. APW had various raid bosses on different areas or "Wings" of the building. The basement crawl being the the worst as you basically pulled and fought as you ran down the hallway for 3-4 hrs. once you made it before the beholder type mob (I forget the mobs name) you would shoot off toward the right and at the end would be a mini boss that guarded the elevator and you could gain a key to gain access to that location from above with out having to reclear all that again every raid.
So then there was two more bosses then Kotasoth the final boss/Dragon. from a cleric stand point I used heal rotations on the maintank with little room for error the first few kills .
Lets see. Then after that was a bunch of over land raid content and the Griffin quest (flying mount) if I recall correctly. Wargolem and the giant worm if I recall correctly were a pain in the ass to kill. There was a turtle over land as well. lets see there was a few new zones if I recall but it was all filler crap with nothing really to offer but timesinks. Then the last thing the introduced was a floating castle or tower/temple thing which was more or less junk as you needed crap tons of plat to even do it which I personally found it a waste of time as it was not skill or raid based... but more based on how many accounts you had stuffed with plat.I had two accounts maxed on every toon, but I still thought it was crap. At that point I more or less left the game but came back briefly to be social for 4 months or so with some buddy's and raided a few over lands. so that briefly is raiding as I recalled it.
APW when it first came out was a pain in the butt before they nerfed it for the rest. I think PAIN and BoTs were the only to in there at first making head way. PAIN got the worlds first kill due to much QQ from the server and BoTs. I was 10 min behind or so them after a server reset with our raid group killing Kotastoh(I was in that raid lol ). At any rate was good fun.
Damn while im walking down memory lane I loved getting the supplies for the guild hall from all the dungeons. The contested content is what made the game fun. Hell I recall even in wow when it first launched the world dragons were very fun. 1 guild would kill the dragon. 2 Guilds would defend from other raids (PVP server) trying to kill the raid killing the world dragon that would randomly spawn on timers. I guess what I'm getting at is contested open world content makes a game so much more enjoyable at the end of the day and inspires team work of the raiding guilds on the server. even better if it is open pvp ffa with some sort of looting so you do not keep getting zerged all day by well equipped raids.