Sarim said:I'm personally hoping for a lot of story based group content. Thinking of truly long, epic quests (epic not only in the sense of "do this to get your epic weapon"). Quests that you do not only for a reward, but instead just because its COOL to do them, because they tell you stories about the world etc.
I like raiding too, but I hope that Pantheon will not be another "get to max level in group mode, then switch to raid mode" game.
We will definitely have long and meaningful epic quests, which I am really looking forward to :)
Amsai said: I can agree with most of whats posted above. Im fine with limited and creative use of instances (not a game killer). And I will say achievement systems are not my thing, but if others enjoy it thrn fine. As to what Id like to see in endgame. Various activities from low man to normal grouos to raids. And Id like different methods for participating. Id like quest/item/trigger spawns. I dont want everything to be contested camps only. I want variety. And In camping situations Id much much much rather have the fights be harder and more difficult to get to/activate and with really low drop rates, than have excessive down time due to long spawn timers. I think 1 to 2 hours camping any mob is plenty. If you want things that take hours then have it be things like a frickin 6, 10, 15 hour quest that ends in spawning a boss fight every time you want to fight that mob.Im all for socialization, but I like to keep my camraderie with some action. As to drop rates i think 15-25% is a good area to be in. But it depends on the content, how many items in the loot pool, rarity of gear, and level of the gear. Also while I think a simpler solution is using raid caps. As long as challenge is not circumnavigated and things dont turn into absolute zergfests, ill be fine. I think it goes without saying, but a strong anti bot and anti cheating policy and enforcement.
Yeah, nice Amsai, you make a lot of good points too :)
Aggelos said:Azotate said:End Game content is kind of a big deal. It's where you keep or loose your player base. There should be planning in place to provide content updates on a regular basis. It doesn't have to be a complete expansion every year, but scheduling small updates like adding a new dungeon will go a long way toward maintaining the longevity of the game. That being said, things I would like to see at end game are;
1. Sufficient Raid Dungeons. I also enjoy scaleable dungeons; party size/intended level, party/max level, raid/max level. You get more bang for your buck and it can provide a way to tier loot for a particular faction/attunement if dungeons are tagged that way.
2. Epic Quests. Weapons, crafting, class specific quest lines.
3. GM/World Events. Outside of the standard events there should be random GM or world events specifically for end game. Who doesn't like a surprise seige.
3. Alternative Advancement. AA has always been a good way to keep players logging in at end game by providing an opportunity to specialize your character even further.
4. Achievements. I know not everyone will be sold on them, but I am a completionist and will happily run around the world to earn all exploration, combat, and faction achievements.
5. Faction. Rather through daily quests or other methods, maxing out faction is something I do at end game to gain access to unique titles and gear.
I love everything that I see here! Agree to the max!
Kilsin, I do have a question however. I know some people are against instances but without them how do you guys plan to create raid encounters that are engaging and require a lot of technical strategy to complete?
I mean any boss can be killed by just zerging it and if you allowed an entire zone to attack a raid boss it will turn into Guild Wars 2 and their pathetic world events. They are fun the first time but when I do them I just set my auto attack and walk away. Not very fun.
For open world encounters like raid bosses, there are a number of ways to deal with zerging, some of which is to make any alter or place where you respawn once dead far enough away that you cannot return in time to help, putting lockout on mobs like that so that when a group/raid engages that mob is locked to surrounding players/groups/raids (with mechanics/timing in place to stop abuse), lockout timers once mobs are killed that prevent you from interacting or engaging them again for a set time (e.g. 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week etc.), flags/keyed locks that require steps to unlock a mob and there are many more but we will avoid instances as much as possible and only use them when our resources are limited and it becomes the best way to handle certain content, like epic quests etc.
I think having a good mix of several of those options and balancing group/raid content by having some open world, some capped, some keyed/locked some timed etc. will help with mitigating zerging but even allowing a few mobs to be zerged for community fun every now and then can be cool :)
Pyye said:Here are some things I have thought of... Some of these have been mentioned but let me discuss what would keep me active at max level (until expansion hits)
1. AAs (Alternate Advancement) Points / Skills - There needs to be a good chunk of AA points that are only available at the max level. This is always fun to build up by doing your raiding and group content. These upper AA tier opportunities need to scale and not be super fast to obtain, since there will be lots to do as mentioned below.
2. Raid and Group content Access Quests - Why not offer an epic quest style for a key(s) to access some specifc high level zones. These will unlock and be available once a character reaches that max level. Kind of like Vex Thal key in EQ but a little more involved. Something that requires group activities for rare loots etc... I do not suggest these keys involve Raid content to solve.
3. Special Mount Quest Line - I was thinking this would be available to all classes by completing an epic style quest line once they reach max level. Once you obtain x, it would unlock the mount vendor and you can choose the epic mount of your choice. This would be something pretty nice and would obviously have to be better than any mount previously obtained.
4. Unlock an additional tradeskill option - (this is assuming that one player can not master in ALL tradeskills). Now at max level, you can choose an additional tradeskill to level up for that character. This would certainly add to the enjoyment and play time of a max level character and would be considered a "perk" to many that enjoy this stuff.
5. Special Fishing Trophy - At max level this trophy can be earned (through various fishing activities) and will allow a player to enter fishing contests , quests throughout the world. I am hoping that fishing can contribute to something "key" in this game and provide a good reason to participate.
6. Opens a Trinket slot in inventory - Was thinking at max level, this would open up a trinket slot in characters inventory. This trinket could have many possibilities, let me give some examples of... First idea, the player can aquire special class specific trinkets that offer unique traits contributing to the character's skill mix. Second idea, this trinket could be obtained be solving a line of new dungeons (think of this like a mini LoDN series), would take some time, and then build in power as new expansions become available. This would be very good reason to participate in those high level dungeon crawls, not matter what expansion is live.
7. Opens a Cloak slot in inventory - Instead of trinket, could apply to a cloak instead. A cloak would be a visible achievement, with many different style options.
If I think of more ideas, I will add to thread...
Nice idea's Pyye :)
Wandidar said:I think the first point is that there has to be sufficient end game content at launch to keep players busy until the next push of content. That, or the leveling curve needs to be sufficiently stiff such that players won't reach cap by the time the next content push comes... because the death of many a recent MMO is players reaching cap and feeling like they completed the game - or that the game was too broken to "complete" - before more content was launched.
I fully endorse the idea of some means of "forever progression" for my avatar - I want something that will make me feel like I can advance my avatar every single time I log in. This likely means AA.
I don't like dailies. No, that's not accurate. I hate dailies. That's accurate.
I think in the world of "there won't be solo content and group content, there will just be content" - there should be content that is still harder and easier... with harder content requiring more people, more skill, or both - and rewarding better stuff. But I should also be able to to kick back with 5 friends and go do a dungeon that we all enjoy... knowing that doing so may net me something tangible, and WILL net me that AA or whatever.
Yeah, I agree about slower progression and having end game content ready, I also share your hate of dailies ;)
Aldie said:Azotate said:End Game content is kind of a big deal. It's where you keep or loose your player base. There should be planning in place to provide content updates on a regular basis. It doesn't have to be a complete expansion every year, but scheduling small updates like adding a new dungeon will go a long way toward maintaining the longevity of the game. That being said, things I would like to see at end game are;
1. Sufficient Raid Dungeons. I also enjoy scaleable dungeons; party size/intended level, party/max level, raid/max level. You get more bang for your buck and it can provide a way to tier loot for a particular faction/attunement if dungeons are tagged that way.
2. Epic Quests. Weapons, crafting, class specific quest lines.
3. GM/World Events. Outside of the standard events there should be random GM or world events specifically for end game. Who doesn't like a surprise seige.
3. Alternative Advancement. AA has always been a good way to keep players logging in at end game by providing an opportunity to specialize your character even further.
4. Achievements. I know not everyone will be sold on them, but I am a completionist and will happily run around the world to earn all exploration, combat, and faction achievements.
5. Faction. Rather through daily quests or other methods, maxing out faction is something I do at end game to gain access to unique titles and gear.
I'd like to add housing to this almost perfect list. I like to collect items and build stuff so giving me the tools and location to do so would be amazing. Allow me to make my home public, if it's instanced, so players can visit. I love EQ2's model for this.
We intend on having housing ;)
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/#q33
epokkvg said:Ancient Port Warehouse..
One of the best designed Dungeon in MMO history.
I give credit were credit is due.
Yeah, man, I agree completely, APW was awesome from needing the key to enter to the size of it and the range in strats needed to kill a lot fo the mobs to gear drops/recipes etc. I enjoyed many years on many characters in APW :)
shihiro said:sdcord said:A raid that requires an Oculus or something similar. Maybe associated with the Dark Myr.
No way, no how. I get so sick in those VR devices.
Edit: If that's what you meant.
I am actually not a fan of Virtual Reality either, I won;t be buying into it and I thought I was the only one! lol
bigdogchris said:Rallyd said:
#2 no raid size caps.
I've always felt that raid cap sizes could be 'soft' to allow dynamic raiding. For example, the more players the more enemies spawn. Eventually so many enemies are spawning that you simply cannot just add more players to defeat it. This would allow raids of different sizes on the same encounter (to a point) but also allow raids with different player# soft caps be put in. Not every guild can raid 72 people and not every guild member wants 24 man raids.
Develop the game to be as flexible as possible.
Yeah, being flexible I think is the most sensible approach, having a good mix of capped/uncapped, keyed/flagged/open world etc. to allow almost everyone to raid/group in some form that they enjoy :)
shihiro said:After thinking about this, Campaigns would be something quite neat. Somewhere in the world, a BAM (Notorious Monster/Big A** Monster/Hunt Mobs, etc etc.) spawns leading a group of it's followers. It would technically be a "raid" type that doesn't always exist, and is basically roaming, and has several different "boss" monsters that could be in charge of these types of Campaigns.
That is a pretty cool idea, we actually had similar group/raid mobs like this in VG that roamed entire chunks (which were huge) shouting messages to anyone in the chunk about how they would make a meal of them etc. some required spawning by various methods but it was pretty cool content that a lot of us enjoyed :)
Rallyd said:#1 no instances, period.
#2 no raid size caps.
Tell me this: How would the developers create content that was challenging, exciting and rewarding for those participating when the number of bodies you can throw at it would be unlimited? There has to be some baseline against which the encounter is measured. Certain abilities, certain skills, certain spells all have to be taken into account. VR designs a raid for 50 and you bring 100. How is that a challenge? They see you bringing 100 people time and time again so the next expansion they design for 100...and you note the encounters are harder so you shove in 200. Soon enough nobody can beat anything.
Then you have the issue of loot. A single encounter can't drop something for everyone because that would ruin the re-playability. How would they balance loot drops when the number of players is unknown? Drop too much and you ruin the game. Drop too little and nobody will go back, ruining the game.
If you truly what unlimited raid sizes, that is where your instancing comes into play. The encounter can scale dynamically based upon those in the instance. Far more difficult, if not impossible, to do that on the fly in an open world.
Raids need limits. Does that mean 72 like in EQ1? Or 24 like in EQ2? I depends upon group size, player power and character abilities, skills and spells. I liked 72 in a raid as it felt big enough to make it exciting but not too large that I felt like I was just another body.
Now, for my preferences:
*If dieties are part of Pantheon, each should inhabit a realm (ala Planes of Power) that is accessible on a limited basis to followers of that diety. Followers should be on friendly terms with inhabitants like Tunare followers in PoGrowth. Only when given a raid for a specific reason are players allowed access to the realms of other dieties.
I do have a few additional points that aren't limited to end game content:
Kilsin said:shihiro said:After thinking about this, Campaigns would be something quite neat. Somewhere in the world, a BAM (Notorious Monster/Big A** Monster/Hunt Mobs, etc etc.) spawns leading a group of it's followers. It would technically be a "raid" type that doesn't always exist, and is basically roaming, and has several different "boss" monsters that could be in charge of these types of Campaigns.
That is a pretty cool idea, we actually had similar group/raid mobs like this in VG that roamed entire chunks (which were huge) shouting messages to anyone in the chunk about how they would make a meal of them etc. some required spawning by various methods but it was pretty cool content that a lot of us enjoyed :)
I never got to experience VG, a fact which I now regret. It would be interesting if all of the goblin tribes usually have some form of infighting, and then the adventurers (the players) come in and slaughter a bunch of different factions of goblin. All of a sudden, the Goblins now have an outside enemy, a motive to work together, and crown a Goblin King (something someone mentioned previously). The King could spawn at any main city of the Goblin "race". It would then promote Goblin Knights, Scouts, etc, which normally wouldn't be much of a threat to players on their missions to slaughter goblins, but now that they have a King, are much more (party/raid type) difficult. Until the king is killed (may require a full raid scenario), the goblins are empowered. NPCs in the area may even notice this fact, and Goblins may even raid and (if the game has a dynamic environment) destroy structures and cities owned by what the Goblins would deem "Hostile" people. Not only would this interrupt supply chains (if your market got attacked, for instance).
Kilsin said:shihiro said:sdcord said:A raid that requires an Oculus or something similar. Maybe associated with the Dark Myr.
No way, no how. I get so sick in those VR devices.
Edit: If that's what you meant.
I am actually not a fan of Virtual Reality either, I won;t be buying into it and I thought I was the only one! lol
It's a wonderful technology for simulators and things of that nature, but for anything else, i'm not a fan. I don't need more crap on my head when i game.
Vandraad said:Rallyd said:#1 no instances, period.
#2 no raid size caps.
Tell me this: How would the developers create content that was challenging, exciting and rewarding for those participating when the number of bodies you can throw at it would be unlimited? There has to be some baseline against which the encounter is measured. Certain abilities, certain skills, certain spells all have to be taken into account. VR designs a raid for 50 and you bring 100. How is that a challenge? They see you bringing 100 people time and time again so the next expansion they design for 100...and you note the encounters are harder so you shove in 200. Soon enough nobody can beat anything.
Then you have the issue of loot. A single encounter can't drop something for everyone because that would ruin the re-playability. How would they balance loot drops when the number of players is unknown? Drop too much and you ruin the game. Drop too little and nobody will go back, ruining the game.
If you truly what unlimited raid sizes, that is where your instancing comes into play. The encounter can scale dynamically based upon those in the instance. Far more difficult, if not impossible, to do that on the fly in an open world.
Raids need limits. Does that mean 72 like in EQ1? Or 24 like in EQ2? I depends upon group size, player power and character abilities, skills and spells. I liked 72 in a raid as it felt big enough to make it exciting but not too large that I felt like I was just another body.
Now, for my preferences:
- Raids a plenty. There can truly never be enough raid content. However much you think the game needs at any one time, double it becuase the players WILL chew through it quicker than you will expect.
- Alternate Advancement. Brought up by others and I'll just echo their thoughts. AAs are a great way to flesh out a character. Be wary though of using AAs to dramatically increase player power because all future content would need to be designed as if everyone had all their AAs filled.
- Faction based Raids. High end work on behalf of a faction against a mortal foe of that faction. Tie it in with quests.
- Class Quests. Class armor, class weapons (epics, though quickly the term 'epic' is underwhelming to later expansion drops) and class spell quests. Some handled solo, others group, some require multi-group raids. Allow for multiple completions at a time if several of same class work together.
- Diety* quests/raids. Obtain quests and/or raids from your diety.
*If dieties are part of Pantheon, each should inhabit a realm (ala Planes of Power) that is accessible on a limited basis to followers of that diety. Followers should be on friendly terms with inhabitants like Tunare followers in PoGrowth. Only when given a raid for a specific reason are players allowed access to the realms of other dieties.
I do have a few additional points that aren't limited to end game content:
- Loot dropped should make sense. Mindless beasts and animals should not drop weapons or coin.
- Raids should drop loot across all classes. EQ1 was crap at this. Look at PoFear and PoHate. Hate had the drops for your Holy Trinity, Warrior, Clerics and Enchanters and as a result was raided constantly. PoFear on the other hand, had the loot for the 'lesser' classes and was rared far less often. One could put together a pickup PoHate raid in minutes but PoFear? You had to bribe, cajole and otherwise drag people to PoFear raids as that zone wasn't seen as 'worth the effort'.
- Raid level loot should not be restricted by class to certain NPCs. Look at PoHate, PoFear, PoMusic and others and you'll see what I mean. Certain NPC types dropped loot for only a certain class. Depending on the distribution of NPCs throughout the zone, some NPCs were rarely killed because they were too far from the entrance and getting there took too long. Those classes who's mobs were right near the entrance quickly geared up fully (and never came back again) while other classes could take months or more to obtain their items. Screw that crap.
I would love to see mechanics in place to not prevent players from zerging (raid caps) but rather to DISSUADE players from zerging, mechanics that make it ultimately difficult to bring more people than are necessary. However the fact of the matter remains that if a guild brings 100 to kill something they can kill with 50, #1 that's a logistical nightmare, and will be much slower and less efficient than a smaller force. And #2, the amount of loot that drops is still unchanged, so feeding 100 mouths with something designed to feed 50 mouths is going to cause a lot of trouble, and more often than not will be more trouble than it's worth.
In short, dissuade zerging in any way you can, outside of raid cap sizes or instancing, I am against zerging but I do not want caps or instances.
shihiro said:Kilsin said:shihiro said:After thinking about this, Campaigns would be something quite neat. Somewhere in the world, a BAM (Notorious Monster/Big A** Monster/Hunt Mobs, etc etc.) spawns leading a group of it's followers. It would technically be a "raid" type that doesn't always exist, and is basically roaming, and has several different "boss" monsters that could be in charge of these types of Campaigns.
That is a pretty cool idea, we actually had similar group/raid mobs like this in VG that roamed entire chunks (which were huge) shouting messages to anyone in the chunk about how they would make a meal of them etc. some required spawning by various methods but it was pretty cool content that a lot of us enjoyed :)
I never got to experience VG, a fact which I now regret. It would be interesting if all of the goblin tribes usually have some form of infighting, and then the adventurers (the players) come in and slaughter a bunch of different factions of goblin. All of a sudden, the Goblins now have an outside enemy, a motive to work together, and crown a Goblin King (something someone mentioned previously). The King could spawn at any main city of the Goblin "race". It would then promote Goblin Knights, Scouts, etc, which normally wouldn't be much of a threat to players on their missions to slaughter goblins, but now that they have a King, are much more (party/raid type) difficult. Until the king is killed (may require a full raid scenario), the goblins are empowered. NPCs in the area may even notice this fact, and Goblins may even raid and (if the game has a dynamic environment) destroy structures and cities owned by what the Goblins would deem "Hostile" people. Not only would this interrupt supply chains (if your market got attacked, for instance).
That sounds like a really cool idea :)
Amsai said: @Kilsin Just curious. Is your answer to Aggelos your opinion or is it the way the dev team is leaning? Either way I like it. While I dont relish the thought of Zergs and camps for everything. A balanced approach of those different ideas you discussed sounds great. And yes a good Zerg is even fun to me every now and then.
It was my opinion in terms of balanced content but a lot of our team share a very similar view, we will be able to speak moire about it as we progress :)
Aldie said:Kilsin said:shihiro said:sdcord said:A raid that requires an Oculus or something similar. Maybe associated with the Dark Myr.
No way, no how. I get so sick in those VR devices.
Edit: If that's what you meant.
I am actually not a fan of Virtual Reality either, I won;t be buying into it and I thought I was the only one! lol
It's a wonderful technology for simulators and things of that nature, but for anything else, i'm not a fan. I don't need more crap on my head when i game.
Lol, I agree ;)
Driven said:I like Amsai am a fan of having many ways to handle spawns and the like. Another type is a lottery spawns which involved killing place holder mobs. Maybe also NM's that spawn under certain weather or atmospheric conditions.
Yeah, they are pretty cool idea's Driven :)
Kilsin said:Amsai said: @Kilsin Just curious. Is your answer to Aggelos your opinion or is it the way the dev team is leaning? Either way I like it. While I dont relish the thought of Zergs and camps for everything. A balanced approach of those different ideas you discussed sounds great. And yes a good Zerg is even fun to me every now and then.It was my opinion in terms of balanced content but a lot of our team share a very similar view, we will be able to speak moire about it as we progress :)
Awsome. :)
Vandraad said:Rallyd said:#1 no instances, period.
#2 no raid size caps.
Tell me this: How would the developers create content that was challenging, exciting and rewarding for those participating when the number of bodies you can throw at it would be unlimited? There has to be some baseline against which the encounter is measured. Certain abilities, certain skills, certain spells all have to be taken into account. VR designs a raid for 50 and you bring 100. How is that a challenge? They see you bringing 100 people time and time again so the next expansion they design for 100...and you note the encounters are harder so you shove in 200. Soon enough nobody can beat anything.
As I've explained many times here, this is a pipedream. The idea that you will keep a raid of 100 people together to zerg down content when other smaller, better coordinated guilds are doing the same content will not happen in the long term. As Rallyd said, its just too many mouths to feed. As long as its possible for smaller guilds to progress and get a crack at mobs, zerglings will not stand by and watch other players succeed while they, wizard24, waits for that fancy staff to finally trickle down their way.
The kicker is finding a way to prevent the uber guilds from locking down every spawn in the game. That may be a conversation for another thread, but suffice it to say you cannot allow players to merely drop a tracker on a boss spawn and be able to check it every few minutes. The process of even checking whether a raid boss is up should require a guild force. Not simply tracking or leaving a level 1 at a spawnpoint as has been done in the past.
Dullahan said:The kicker is finding a way to prevent the uber guilds from locking down every spawn in the game. That may be a conversation for another thread, but suffice it to say you cannot allow players to merely drop a tracker on a boss spawn and be able to check it every few minutes. The process of even checking whether a raid boss is up should require a guild force. Not simply tracking or leaving a level 1 at a spawnpoint as has been done in the past.
I've yet to see that type of discussion not quickly devolve into a flame fest, but competition and spawn locking is something the developers need to be very aware of.