If there is a post-stream thread I'm missing, I apologize, please merge this thread if that is the case.
That being said, I want to congratulate the team on an amazing stream, and touch on a few of my take-away thoughts.
The first thing I noticed was the caster classes were being very active in melee. Is this intentional, or is it just a byproduct of being lower level and trying to eke out every ounce of DPS from your character at those lower levels? Based on the ties to EverQuest, I’m used to seeing casters sitting and medding between casts, so I’m curious about the direction of these classes in Pantheon.
I won’t go too deep into the next observation, since I know there will be heavy balancing to combat pace through alpha and beta, but it seemed as though the caster mana regen, while slower than most MMORPG’s on the market today, it’s a little faster than I would have expected. On the flip side of that coin, I noticed the more powerful the spells cast the more mana expended (fairly extreme). It looked like, at times, some of the wizard blasts were taking roughly 40%+ of his mana pool. This concept seems like it could be a workable balance, and I’m guessing as mana pools increase, even with higher regen, reaching max mana will take time. I’m interested to see how this plays out.
One last elements that has me excited, pertains to all of the complications the group encountered throughout their “crawl” into the depths. If you take away the GM abilities that were necessary to keep the stream on pace to display the intended content (in dungeon resurrection spawns, GM on the spot resurrection, etc…), and extrapolate that into a live game scenario for players, last nights run would have had a TON more downtime (a good thing imo). There were several times Aradune died, as well as others in the group, that would have led to a total group wipe, thus resetting their entire run. This is the real world, filled with real threats I’m dying to be involved with. In EQ, either you guys would to have slowed down and pulled more carefully, or you’d have spent the whole night trying to re-clear back down to the lower levels. I loved it.
I’m curious to hear what other people’s thoughts are post stream? Maybe some of you picked up on some stuff the rest of us missed. I know that was true for me based on the first stream.
I noticed movement of a tree around 35:33 ish that the tree was moving close to the group as they were fighting. I was taking in as much as I could. I thought that was awesome that there is another environemnt in action while the fight was enganged.
Great stream!!
watching it again...LOL
Ox
Loving the focus on exploration and doing away of the mundane quests. Quests via the perception system are a brilliant idea and like someone mentioned during the video; ties nicely back to a table top D&D experience.
There should only be 2 types of quests imho
The direction indicator via vanguard is simple and effective. I'm in agreement that this is all we need to replace the standard 'mini-map' Really drives pantheon further into exploration...
Keep the current focus and looking forward to pre-alpha.
Aradune said:Thanks for the comments all -- please continue -- comments and questions welcome!
I'm curious about my observations about the casters meleeing. Was/is that by design, or was that just player preference during the stream?
Then again, maybe I should not put too much emphasis on the playstyle of a guy that loots during combat! :P
The positive:
Overall graphics and lighting! The game looks similar to TES: Skyrim.
And the overall difficulty level seems to be high. The bosses wiped the group very easy.
The negative:
Two hours long slaying very generic mobs. I hope the fights will be streamlined in the future. Lowering the hitpoints of the mobs and the players could help.
Greetings
I don't have feedback per se, because this is pre-pre-Alpha and many things will change, so commentary or questions are null, as I think about it.
It seems like you have a clear roadmap in terms of the things you are working on and the order you are working on them, and that's a very good thing.
So far, so good. Keep on keepin' on.
EDIT - I thought of one thing: I liked the person who made the comment re: perception, along the line of "We want the location [dungeon] you are in to tell you the story as you explore it, so that's partly what the perception system does." Whether or not I correctly got the gist of his comment, I like the theory behind it: you should learn more about the lore of the place you are in and its history, as you explore and adventure within in it. So, kudos.
Aradune said:Thanks for the comments all -- please continue -- comments and questions welcome!
Like many others I've been following your work since the days of EverQuest. I've seen the successes, the trials and the tribulations that has followed you thoroughout your career. I was in the twitch chat yesterday under "Unhappymeals25" to which you answered my question regarding the Gold Seller plague that's bound to come. The sheer fact you did not disregard my question and answered it showed to me that you care greatly about this and your community. It may sound dumb but in my 30 years of gaming, the few questions I've asked of the Devs has fallen on utter silence. Kilsin also answered my following question. I made the decision that night to pledge on the Originator's section based on this small interaction.
I love the direction of this game. I will be contributing to this community, work on helping to new comers and spreading the word while we wait for this amazing game to its full creation. The stream yesterday sold me.
philo said:Amsai said: I would actually like that autoattack to be a bit faster and the encounters to be a bit longer. Mobs die to fast.
This is what I thought as well.
I'm not super worried about the current auto-attack rate. With the exception of Brad's Fiery Avenger it seems like everyone is using pretty basic weapons (probably high delay), and they're still level 10 toons, so there are probably a lot of un-implemented weapon's skills. Rolling a new toon in EQ always feels like you're fighting through molasses until you get good gear and skills like double/triple attack, dual weild, etc.
I'm just glad to see mobs that don't roll over the second they get hit.
I thought it really looked good. Congragulations to the entire VR team on a job well done.
I was wondering, is Tharren the Lost a place holder ? He looked pretty dang good if he was.
If you drop a sword on the ground will it point north ?
Is the current fizzle rate normal at that level or will it be better?
Will that key be a forever key for the person that picked it up?
Can you make a stew out of Ratkin ears?
Many of the surfaces showed a great deal of subtlety and are excellent quality. I think the fights were well balanced for the most part and lasted about the right amount of time, Maybe a bit too many hit points on the basic mobs. I saw Aradune kick that first time and it had an old school EQ look as did much of the fighting. My audience and I were pumped while all 4 of us huddled around my monitor.
We were a bit suprised at how much mez was needed at that level and on Basic Mobs; will that be needed frequently?
The perception system was very well explained and I love it.
I had fun and I was just watching.
After I set the quality in Twitch to Source it looked so good and was a pleasure to watch.
The first part of my post is praise. Yes, devs, please do bask in it! You deserve every bit of it. The second part covers some of my questions/suggestions for improvement and the third part a couple of ideas. The two last part will kind of bleed into each other. Like a leaking wound (Haha, I had to!)
Thank you for another very, very cool stream! The game is looking better and better all the time. I’m so very glad I pledged a while back! I love how the game has the old school feel, while at the same time not being EQ (although it is my favourite game of all time). The stuff I really loved in more detail — in no particular order and some things were only mentioned in the chat:
* Aradune’s Ragnar Lothbrok look
* beautiful environment/vistas (I’ll be taking screenshots and more screenshots!)
* look of the spell book
* falling damage (yay!)
* the tactile feel of the red from damage and light blue of used mana
* huge Keep and Caves
* more than one entrance to the Caves
* diverse way of learning about things (e.g. bookcases)
* environment telling part of the story (giving an extra layer to exploration)
* resting/sitting/medding taking advantage of the environment (stairs, uneven ground)
* no maps (other then on fan sites or ones you draw yourself)
* dynamic lighting of torches (how the shadows move in conjunction)
* MOB disposition (fear of fire)
* key/perception ftw!
* variation in namned MOBs (both static and dynamic)
* dynamic environment (cave-ins)
* hole in the floor!
* mention of roaming badass MOBs aka hearing a rumble as a warning
* avatars falling onto their hands during battle
* the little details and humour, like “you hailed a corpse - how exciting!”
* the nameplate slider: very cool
* LOADING, PLEASE WAIT… (yay!)
Now for my questions/suggestions:
- the resting/sitting stance with the head bowed down looks like mourning/regret rather than resting (I’d prefer avatars looking straight ahead)
- the "no script buttons" allowed I like, since they limit boxing. But I do find buttons like “incoming [target]”, “complete heal on [target]”, /loc and the like to be very useful. Are the latter ones in?
- I’m guessing all parts of the UI will be customisable? Having the casting time bar above my spells would be more intuitive for me personally than having it right below the buffs
- mushrooms are harvestable I gather?
- will there be more little details in the Keep/Caves? E.g. the room with the fireplace would need a bit of furniture, the wraith rooms some scattered skulls and cobwebs, and the mines some carts and crates etc. to enhance the ambience.
- torches have a limited burning time? I’d like that
- casters meleed a lot - I hope that will change down the line
- The message “Aleister, you may use Pick the Mind again” message. I’d prefer to have greyed out buttons instead
- about the warning of a bad MOB approaching: hearing a rumble — will that be accompanied by stuff like dust falling from the ceiling or perhaps the fire in braziers dying down briefly or an atypical and transient mist forming?
- body type system: does it include MOBs not only taking less damage from certain weapons/spells but also some being immune to some of them? I hope so
- the no ports is a bit of a bummer for me. Perhaps a compromise of porting to very few locations in the world?
Ideas:
# crafting: I really like the system in Fallout 4, where you scrap looted junk to its constituents in order to craft new things like furniture
# domesticated animals and plants at your house for food crafting. You must care for them from time to time or they vanish
# if there’s a shaky allegiance within a group of bad guy MOBS, one of them yelling: “Help! I’m under attack!” would yield different responses from their MOB peers like “Yeah, right. Cry wolf why don’t you!”
# there’s one quest in Oblivion (I think it was there) where you entered a painting and fought there. The surprise and complete other type of environment was a fun experience for me. This type of stuff could be varied endlessly for mini-crawls or raids, e.g. the environment itself could send the group to sleep to fight in a dream or the group could be shrunk down/shape-shifted to test their aptitude for a faction/epic quest
# having high end weapons also have a kind of a soul, which can point your group to things otherwise unknown/being generic in a zone or two
# AAs that will let your group combine their attacks into a very rare bigger one (not a hit kill one, though) usable once per raid for example
# having NPCs react to players not only based on faction, but also in game achievements
Edited: fixed a couple of mistakes I made.
I thought it was excellent for a pre-alpha, the overall feel of the game was right and looked really good IMO for this stage of development.
Arrows pointing at group members is pretty awsome. As for maps, cool no maps!! Though it would be kinda cool to have a cartogrophy system or something. Perhaps letting players create maps through crafting in some way to either use or sell to another player.
Really liked what we saw of the perception system and am looking forward to more.
I was also kind of not expecting mana regen to be so fast, but I suspect that perception may change at higher levels.
Taunt seemed about right for a lvl 10. And from what I could see it looks like it will be a game of knowing/managing your own agro. Another plus for group play.
I think they may have been overly busy with the stream and chatting etc, seemed like the cooperation levels weren't quite there. Focus/Assist didn't happen most of the time and many mezes were broken. At least one wipe could have likely been avoided had better cooperation been achieved. So I guess I would have loved to have seen how well it worked when the group was working really well. That said, I'm glad to see that lack of cooperation does create a wipe as it should.
-Az
@amsai: it's my assumption that any in-game mechanic that is shown will be figured out by people who are watching for it, or at least speculated upon. that's how discussions start with the devs to ask for more information concerning something a viewer has witnessed. i'm not here to give you a talk on civics or acceptable behavior, you are free to abide by any codes of civility you choose. and yes, when you waste people's time in a game that has actual risk/reward penalties you are going to see exactly that sort of thing happen. should it pique your fancy, take a look at old eq server boards' blacklists.
edit: streams and information should be happening like this because they are asking for financial commitments before a product is released. if this were, for example, blizzard, who was not streaming their content or releasing periodic updates in the same way about warcraft you would be correct. this is how they are solidifiying financial backing (kickstarter, pledge packages, early accesses, name reservations, etc.) and need to continue pushing content like this upon potential backers to show legitimate forward progress (and not EQN).
@Abryca
Different strokes? To each their own I suppose. I just dont think it adds anything to the discussion or speculation. Those are good things, and even better without personal attacks and unwarranted negativity. Heck, its especially important to be critical as well, but as constructively as possible. Again this was never a personal attack on you to be clear. I just think you catch more flies with honey than vinegar is all.
And yes I was a captian of an endgame guild for years. I know all about the drama, the competition, and the importance of having dedicated guild mates that know what they are doing and in whom you can rely on. I know these things. But I think its at that point you school the player not blast them. Then again maybe its my play style. Im definitely a hardcore gamer, but I maintain a casual outlook. Roll with the punches, laugh off the deaths (you have to if you want to tank). I guess it disturbs me to see people get that upset over a casual demo.
Carrie Fisher had a joke about the Star wars franchise and how George Lucas was shrewd with it. The joke was: "After I did star wars I had to pay George Lucas 2 dollars every time I looked in the mirror to brush my teeth for the use of my image." I hope you guys model NPC's after your likeness and dont tell anyone, keep it a easter egg.
Some were asking about PvP, and Joppa- I think- PK'd Kilsin for training the group at the end of the stream as a bit of fun.
I realy have a better understanding of the perception concept now- and the idea that the dungeon or terrain tells the story as you go from the clues picked up from perception.
I also liked the mob interactions like yelling for help and general insults to the attackers. They tell you they are "add"ing themselves and that makes the encounter more immersive.
As always, the fights are a good pace and stresses the need for interdependence.
and ooh! what's the relic inventory slot? hmm?
Since fashionquest is real- how about a character image in the center of the gear UI? as you take on and off pieces or armor, those also appear/disappear on the character image un the gear UI?
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Maybe rangers can have a perception environment focus effect unique to the class, they will get the clues like everyone else but if they engage their focus the message- where-ever they are- crowds the screen with "a bunny nibbles apiece of grass/the guard shuffles uncomfortably/a bee zooms by/the panther eyes you hungrily/the wind rustles the tree and it creaks/a wave surges on the shore"....wait- panther?! where you would have to sift through all the messages because you were temporarily incapacitated from the focus.
I can also see a rogue getting a perception hint while sneaking like "overhears a whispered conversation" that is available only to the rogue- and the rogue can communicate it to the group ": hey guys, wait a minute I need to sneak over here a bit closer to her the full conversation" triggered by the rogues proximity and being unseen- maybe even as part of an epic quest line or guildmaster training.
One thing i didnt see was the low health mob running away. Smart humanoids usually know when thier ass is about to be handed to them, and they run to either evade gettin ganked or run for help. Course..maybe thats in a later version, but i always thought that was a nice tactic to use against us..lol. Druid/Ranger for the snare win!