I always found it odd in EQ that I could easily track spawns that were within my range of distance without knowing anything about the spawns, such as if they are animals, insects, humanoids, players…etc... Obviously, in EQ you knew all of this information. I thought how EQ did tracking with Rangers, Druids and Bards was well done for its time, and the ability for Rangers to filter spawns seemed the right way to go since they had the best tracking skill.
However, if Pantheon’s Rangers, Druids or Bards have the tracking skill I would like to see it work differently than it does in EQ. As an example, I think having the player kill or study/observe the NPC’s in the world first before being able to see the NPC’s in tracking would make the skill more interesting, and perhaps it would take a few times of killing/studying/Observing the NPC before a player can track it.
This would play into the lore of the classes and give those classes something to do during downtime, and I suppose it could slow down the rush to out level zones so they can find every NPC in a zone before moving on to a different area. It would also create some options for unique titles depending on how many NPC’s you have encountered and can now track, or perhaps it gives you some other unique ability.
Thoughts?
Rint
In Lotro there were seperate tracking skills: animals/beasts, humanoids, and dead. I think that's a good place to start. I think it would be a great idea if you first had to kill a type of mob in order for you to track it. I think it would be great if you had to kill a named once before you can track it also, especially those rare ones ;) BDO has a mechanic where you have to kill a mob several times before earning "knowledge" of it, that allows you see more information. I don't particularly like this mechanic but I could see using it for a tracking skill. Or have certain characters only able to track certain things: Rangers/druids=animals, necros/sk/evil orientated characters=dead/undead, stealth characters=humans, or mix it up, I'm just throwing out ideas.
What I always found out of place was 'tracking' an NPC that did not move. Find me one raid boss mob in all of EQ1 that moved around in it's zone because I can't think of any. And yet even with them totally stationary, and quite some distance from the Ranger, he could 'track' it.
I always liked tracking in EQ with my ranger, however I could see the benefits of making it harder / more in depth. I think you should be able to track things without knowing what it is, where on your tracking list it might just show a ? or Unknown. Realistically if you knew how to track one thing you could track something else though you may not know what it is. But tracking it down would gain you that knowledge. Killing the mobs would give you the knowledge. But they should also be able to learn the knowledge from a teacher, be that an NPC or another PC
I've had some thoughts on this as well. I'll try to outline what I've been thinking as best I can. Assuming, we're aiming to be as realistic as possible in the approach to this system, you have to consider a few things. Killing scores of a certain type of animal or creature doesn't make you any better at tracking that creature. Let's use Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, as a reference. Aragorn wasn't a hunter, but, as a ranger, he was a very skilled tracker. He uses clues from his surroundings to determine a variety of things such as rudimentary past events, general movement directions, types of animals (or even different races of sentient life) present. He could even tell whether he was chasing Uruk-Hai from the orcs of Mordor or dwarves from hobbits while tracking. While years of killing orcs certainly learned him a great many things about their movement habbits, social structure, and general disposition, the actual act of killing them taught him nothing of tracking them. That he learned through a century of trial and error and practice. I don't like the idea of killing things to get better at tracking. It just doesn't make as much sense.
Second, we have to consider what effect learning tracking would have on gameplay. If tracking doesn't become useful until later on in the game because you need to skill up to 100, then tracking is effectively useless until higher level. We want tracking to be a useful skill that offers, say, Rangers a spot over a sorcerer that would deal more damage. I propose this: Let's assume you're playing a ranger, and you enter a new zone. You encounter a Grizzly Bear, and want to be able to track them. You get within range, and use the "Study" ability. Personally, I would make it a 10-15 second channeled ability that, when completed, would result in you learning how to track the animal or creature. This would be most effective in a group, but non aggresive MOBs could easily be learned with no risk. I see it working like this: You join a group, and being the ranger, you head off to pull MOBs back. You shoot an arrow, and make a B-line for the camp. The tank taunts, and everyone lays into it, but not you. Instead, you cast Study, and can now track Orcs. For the next pull, you can easily locate more orcs for the slaughter.
I hope that made a little sense. It does in my head at least. My biggest concern for tracking is that, in the spirit of usefulness or gameplay, that it will simply be something you toggle on and are given a list of everything in the zone. That's not how tracking something works. That's called magic, and it's not the tracking method I would expect a ranger or shaman to employ.
I don't have much when it comes to how tracking is implemented, but I will say that I don't believe any class other than ranger should have that particular skill. When we're talking about homogenization in the classes of Pantheon, it's more than just combat abilities. Tracking was something that set those poor, unervalued rangers apart from the other classes. Now, hopefully rangers in Pantheon won't be as shunned as they were in old EQ, but regardless, that should be one of the areas that they, and only they, shine at.
-Tralyan
X
Vandraad said:What I always found out of place was 'tracking' an NPC that did not move. Find me one raid boss mob in all of EQ1 that moved around in it's zone because I can't think of any. And yet even with them totally stationary, and quite some distance from the Ranger, he could 'track' it.
Severilous, Gorenaire, Talendor, Faydedar, Hoshkar, Cazic Thule, Innoruuk, Kelorek'Dar.... I can go on and on. Although, I am on the side of raid mobs being absolutely untrackable, and unable to be visually inspected without a raid present, so as to prevent poopsocking.
Wanderica said:I've had some thoughts on this as well. I'll try to outline what I've been thinking as best I can. Assuming, we're aiming to be as realistic as possible in the approach to this system, you have to consider a few things. Killing scores of a certain type of animal or creature doesn't make you any better at tracking that creature. Let's use Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, as a reference. Aragorn wasn't a hunter, but, as a ranger, he was a very skilled tracker. He uses clues from his surroundings to determine a variety of things such as rudimentary past events, general movement directions, types of animals (or even different races of sentient life) present. He could even tell whether he was chasing Uruk-Hai from the orcs of Mordor or dwarves from hobbits while tracking. While years of killing orcs certainly learned him a great many things about their movement habbits, social structure, and general disposition, the actual act of killing them taught him nothing of tracking them. That he learned through a century of trial and error and practice. I don't like the idea of killing things to get better at tracking. It just doesn't make as much sense.
Second, we have to consider what effect learning tracking would have on gameplay. If tracking doesn't become useful until later on in the game because you need to skill up to 100, then tracking is effectively useless until higher level. We want tracking to be a useful skill that offers, say, Rangers a spot over a sorcerer that would deal more damage. I propose this: Let's assume you're playing a ranger, and you enter a new zone. You encounter a Grizzly Bear, and want to be able to track them. You get within range, and use the "Study" ability. Personally, I would make it a 10-15 second channeled ability that, when completed, would result in you learning how to track the animal or creature. This would be most effective in a group, but non aggresive MOBs could easily be learned with no risk. I see it working like this: You join a group, and being the ranger, you head off to pull MOBs back. You shoot an arrow, and make a B-line for the camp. The tank taunts, and everyone lays into it, but not you. Instead, you cast Study, and can now track Orcs. For the next pull, you can easily locate more orcs for the slaughter.
I hope that made a little sense. It does in my head at least. My biggest concern for tracking is that, in the spirit of usefulness or gameplay, that it will simply be something you toggle on and are given a list of everything in the zone. That's not how tracking something works. That's called magic, and it's not the tracking method I would expect a ranger or shaman to employ.
I really like that "study" idea
I mentioned this in another tracking thread but want to make sure its seen here: (I will not use the term "exploit")
In EQ1, I two-boxed a powerful druid Druid and very powerful Mage and, with mercs, was an unstoppable force. I had a "routine" I followed and would, quite literally, farm named mobs.
Between porting, secondary recall, AA translocate, COTH and instant travel, I could get my duo virtually anywhere I wanted within 60 seconds.
I would port, land, check track and hit my /autofollow macro, run over and kill the named or PH, then port to the next zone on my list.
If I was in a big hurry, I wouldn't waste time killing PH's - I would just port,track,port,track,port,track until I saw a named and I would kill it. Sorting by "age" of spawn was also a key. If I knew the PH mob I simply looked to see if one is at the top of the list and I'd keep killing that one.
I could knock down 20-30 named mobs/PH's every half hour. By then, the mobs would start respawning and I would start the cycle over. Rinse and repeat. I was very (very) respectful to never KS anyone's camp (ever). I knew I had an unfair advantage so I would always do a CC and look around. But if things were quiet, like early mornings, I could run through SOD and HoT and take every named there was in 30-60 minutes.
I made a *FORTUNE* in loot and xp and coin. This actually got to be very, very fun.
But! this was *WAY* over-powered. Having the ability to port into a zone, see everything I need to know about the mobs is a huge unfair advantage. The foundation of this was tracking. I agree Rangers should have tracking - that's a core of who they are.
But this situation needs to be prevented: Perhaps don't have a spawn-order listing. Perhaps have the PH's always different. Perhaps have the nameds not be trackable (but a missing PH would give that away btw).
I don't know the answer but I can tell you this is a very easy way to gain a huge advantage. It needs to be throttled somehow.
As a non-tracker, take this with a grain of salt, but I think you should only be able to track a monster if you're within a small distance of their pathing. If uber_named_01 paths around the perimeter of a very large zone, you can sense their whereabouts based on how recently they were in or around the spot in which you're standing. The higher the tracking skill, the longer the trail stays "fresh" and allows the tracker to pick up the scent. Ultimately, a master tracker can lock onto a mob if he's anywhere on it's programmed path.
Talv
Vandraad said:What I always found out of place was 'tracking' an NPC that did not move. Find me one raid boss mob in all of EQ1 that moved around in it's zone because I can't think of any. And yet even with them totally stationary, and quite some distance from the Ranger, he could 'track' it.
Sev in EJ
Tal in Skyfire
Gore in DL
All three wandered once spawned if memory serves. Prolly a few other raid mobs as well as a ton of named mobs needed for quests or rare drops. Just sayin haha
I like the idea of making tracking a deeper skill or even possibly somewhat of a mini game? I think that adding some stochasticity to the skill is something that is very needed, but I also think that this would be a perfect example of the use of a more in-depth environment. It would make sense that if it was raining or had just rained it would be harder to find tracks and so you would be more likely to fail to track. Whereas if the area was muddy and the tracks are clear it would be easier.
I could see that also being coupled with the learning where your success rate for tracking was dependent on how much you had studied something. That being said I think you should be able to track anything given the right conditions, you don't necessarily need to know what tracks you are following to follow them.
I like many of the ideas presented here and feel there is much to take away from this discussion. Someone also mentioned that Tracking should be a Study skill and the more I think about that I like that idea better than having to kill a mob to be able to track it. With Terminus being formed from many different realms & worlds it would make sense that all the NPC’s in different zones would behave differently from one another, and perhaps interact differently with their environment that makes tracking them more difficult unless they have been studied properly.
The idea of a Ranger, Druid or Bard zoning into a zone and not seeing the type of NPC they are tracking sounds interesting, and the only way they can see the actually mob type or name is if they track the mob down and study it. Heck, they can randomly just start finding NPC’s throughout the zone and try to study them, and the key word here is “Try” to study. NPC’s shouldn’t like to be studied and should act either hostile or run away in fear, thus making it difficult for a tracking class to track them.
I think a Ranger, Druid or Bard should be able to track anything as long as they have encountered it and studied it, this includes all NPC’s including named mobs and raid targets (these should be more difficult to study…). For me personally this would be a game within a game and I would spend countless hours/days just finding and studying NPC’s so I can amass my tracking knowledgebase, this would also create tiers of trackers throughout Terminus due to everyone having a different tracking skill knowledge. Some players would be in huge demand and could profit from it by helping players or guilds track mobs that only they can track, or they can just be focused on some other reason to have the highest tracking knowledgebase.
In addition to studying and learning how to track certain mobs (or classes of mobs) it should take some TIME. They shouldn't be able to instantly zone in and see mobs. It takes a while to see telltale signs from a mobs passing.
And maybe they track unknown mobs.....they see tracks they've never encountered and don't recognize but it's clearly something.
Personally i would like to see tracking done similarly to Witcher 3 where you see footprints, maybe you can use a tracking interface to filter what you want to track, but you need to run around the zone to find the creature's path first. maybe as the tracking skill goes up you can see tracks that are older? or use smells to track? or maybe scent tracking is a racial thing? magical power tracking?
fazool said:I mentioned this in another tracking thread but want to make sure its seen here: (I will not use the term "exploit")
In EQ1, I two-boxed a powerful druid Druid and very powerful Mage and, with mercs, was an unstoppable force. I had a "routine" I followed and would, quite literally, farm named mobs.
Between porting, secondary recall, AA translocate, COTH and instant travel, I could get my duo virtually anywhere I wanted within 60 seconds.
I would port, land, check track and hit my /autofollow macro, run over and kill the named or PH, then port to the next zone on my list.
If I was in a big hurry, I wouldn't waste time killing PH's - I would just port,track,port,track,port,track until I saw a named and I would kill it. Sorting by "age" of spawn was also a key. If I knew the PH mob I simply looked to see if one is at the top of the list and I'd keep killing that one.
I could knock down 20-30 named mobs/PH's every half hour. By then, the mobs would start respawning and I would start the cycle over. Rinse and repeat. I was very (very) respectful to never KS anyone's camp (ever). I knew I had an unfair advantage so I would always do a CC and look around. But if things were quiet, like early mornings, I could run through SOD and HoT and take every named there was in 30-60 minutes.
I made a *FORTUNE* in loot and xp and coin. This actually got to be very, very fun.
But! this was *WAY* over-powered. Having the ability to port into a zone, see everything I need to know about the mobs is a huge unfair advantage. The foundation of this was tracking. I agree Rangers should have tracking - that's a core of who they are.
But this situation needs to be prevented: Perhaps don't have a spawn-order listing. Perhaps have the PH's always different. Perhaps have the nameds not be trackable (but a missing PH would give that away btw).
I don't know the answer but I can tell you this is a very easy way to gain a huge advantage. It needs to be throttled somehow.
Well, in the spirit of this "making more sense", I would agree having the ranger the main (possibly only?) class for tracking mobile mobs, and being unable to track stationary mobs. They could go a step further by making their tracking require actually moving near a pathing route for these mobs... Or at the very least require some time in a zone before listing what is there, so a person can't simply pop into a zone to see what's up and then move onto the next.
IMO most skills should be implemented on a side of caution or to a more limited sense. Because let's be honest, we as the players can and will find a way to maximize their use.
I really enjoyed druid tracking in Everquest. So there is not much I would want to see changed. For me, the big concern is that you do not want every class to be able to hack into tracking, such as a show eq type hacking program. Classes should have their own unique skill sets that others cannot perform.
The more thought I give this the more inclined I’m at changing the way Tracking works. First, I think that Tracking should be assigned to just the Ranger and Druid with differences between the two, as an example Druids should only be allowed to track animals, Insects, Dragons..etc.… anything that isn’t humanoid. Since Druids are nature based characters they should have to perhaps commune with nature and various animals, plants, nature spirits…etc… in order to track anything. Unlike a Ranger who should be able to Track a whole zone due to the nature of the class, the Druid should be limited to what is available within a certain range.
While Rangers should be able to Track anything regardless of the type of NPC it is, but as a twist what if Rangers were required to have a pet that tracked for them. The Ranger pets would of course need to be tamed and utilized as a skill in order to build up their tracking ability, and different pets can have different abilities for tracking such as: an Eagle being able to track anything that flies, Wolfs being able to track things on the ground, Squirrels tracking things in trees, Worms track things underground, or Seal’s tracking things in the water (these are just examples…). The list of pets and abilities could be endless depending how it’s developed and used.
Also, to continue the discussion on how the Tracking skill should be acquired and increased what if Rangers had to use trap’s designed to allow them to study a NPC so that they could add them to their list of trackable creatures. Obviously, adding in randomness of traps breaking and causing agro on the Ranger, or different types of traps to be utilized depending on the type of NPC would be needed to add some elements of surprise and unpredictability.
Just some thoughts….
Rint
Trustar said:...such as a show eq type hacking program...
I totally forgot about ShowEQ. I don't mean to go down a rabbit trail with this, but man-oh-man did that software give the big guilds an enormous advantage. It was the reason some players just seemed to always know when mobs were up. Good times.
Talv
Talvaris said:Trustar said:...such as a show eq type hacking program...
I totally forgot about ShowEQ. I don't mean to go down a rabbit trail with this, but man-oh-man did that software give the big guilds an enormous advantage. It was the reason some players just seemed to always know when mobs were up. Good times.
Talv
Ah, yes I remember ShowEQ. It was an impressive feat of engineering and development to which many guilds owe their success too. Whether or not someone creates a version for Pantheon it’s going to be a while and will still take some significant effort to convert it and gather all the data that’s required to make it useful. Perhaps Pantheon will encrypt their data packets from end-to-end to prevent the gathering of data that is required to make this work, or perhaps they’ll have another solution in place down the road. I don’t care either way if it’s available or not, it never affected my gameplay when I was playing. I knew of many guilds with RLF’s who used this daily for the exact reasons you stated due to the ultra-competitive nature of high end raiding.
Yeah, to have to learn how to track a particular monster (or perhaps just the 'type' (what was the word used by VR?...)) would be good.
Would add to the social aspect perhaps, too...
A: Can anyone help me find Blackfist Bigtooth, please?
B: What is he?
A: An orc chieftain I think
B: Not tracked him before, but I can track orcs and probably find his camp. I'd like to add him to my trackable list, so ok...
disposalist said:Yeah, to have to learn how to track a particular monster (or perhaps just the 'type' (what was the word used by VR?...)) would be good.
Would add to the social aspect perhaps, too...
A: Can anyone help me find Blackfist Bigtooth, please?
B: What is he?
A: An orc chieftain I think
B: Not tracked him before, but I can track orcs and probably find his camp. I'd like to add him to my trackable list, so ok...
Yes, the social aspects would be nice to see evolve from a new form of tracking.
Gawd said: Personally i would like to see tracking done similarly to Witcher 3 where you see footprints, maybe you can use a tracking interface to filter what you want to track, but you need to run around the zone to find the creature's path first. maybe as the tracking skill goes up you can see tracks that are older? or use smells to track? or maybe scent tracking is a racial thing? magical power tracking?
I like this idea too. I've suggested this before in a previous topic somewhere (can't remember now, was yonks ago anyway). I like the idea of something like this...
Highlighted colours to represent con levels or npc types... just like EQ's old tracker. Different styled footprints to represent the type of NPC; like claws, etc.. I also like the idea that a tracker had the ability to see older footprints where as non-tracks only saw the very "fresh" ones.. with fade/transparency of the footprints to represent it's over all age. +Named NPC's could have a special highlight to represent the fact it's "different".
This would also have other benefits of stopping people gaining an advantage when using a tracker window to see if named is up through walls.. and also it would encourage more social interaction by following the actual ranger/druid. Only major problem is if a NPC is perma stationary.. but that doesn't matter so much anyway, as they'll probably have specific spawn locations.
I just think its a better way than seeing a list of names (aka suddenly becoming psychic) and instantly knowing whats up and where.
+It's good for RP. Anyway, maybe VR will come up with something better.
fazool said:I mentioned this in another tracking thread but want to make sure its seen here: (I will not use the term "exploit")
In EQ1, I two-boxed a powerful druid Druid and very powerful Mage and, with mercs, was an unstoppable force. I had a "routine" I followed and would, quite literally, farm named mobs.
Between porting, secondary recall, AA translocate, COTH and instant travel, I could get my duo virtually anywhere I wanted within 60 seconds.
I would port, land, check track and hit my /autofollow macro, run over and kill the named or PH, then port to the next zone on my list.
If I was in a big hurry, I wouldn't waste time killing PH's - I would just port,track,port,track,port,track until I saw a named and I would kill it. Sorting by "age" of spawn was also a key. If I knew the PH mob I simply looked to see if one is at the top of the list and I'd keep killing that one.
I could knock down 20-30 named mobs/PH's every half hour. By then, the mobs would start respawning and I would start the cycle over. Rinse and repeat. I was very (very) respectful to never KS anyone's camp (ever). I knew I had an unfair advantage so I would always do a CC and look around. But if things were quiet, like early mornings, I could run through SOD and HoT and take every named there was in 30-60 minutes.
I made a *FORTUNE* in loot and xp and coin. This actually got to be very, very fun.
But! this was *WAY* over-powered. Having the ability to port into a zone, see everything I need to know about the mobs is a huge unfair advantage. The foundation of this was tracking. I agree Rangers should have tracking - that's a core of who they are.
But this situation needs to be prevented: Perhaps don't have a spawn-order listing. Perhaps have the PH's always different. Perhaps have the nameds not be trackable (but a missing PH would give that away btw).
I don't know the answer but I can tell you this is a very easy way to gain a huge advantage. It needs to be throttled somehow.
That was you??? Why that was just wrong! Wrong I tell you! Genius, but wrong...../snicker