So, I finally had a chance to re-watch the stream closer and had some time! and I jotted down some thoughts/notes while watching. I realized it had been too long since I had written my last novel - so I apologize in advance (Disclaimer: feel free to skip to the TLDR at the bottom).
The 2nd stream: there were some things that I liked, other aspects that raised questions, and hopefully some of my chicken scratch notes can spark some discussion, or, you can feel free to ignore the ramblings of a stranded MMO gamer with nothing better to do than talk about the MMO I want to play :). And, Kilsin, I do know there were a few posts regarding your favorite part of the stream, or hardmode hopes, etc., so feel free to consolidate my thread if need be.
So.. without further ado, and in no particular order of importance:
1. Fall damage - I'm all about realism, just glad Monty wasn't a bit higher or that would have been a death.
2. Visible HP/Mana bars & Spell Interrupts - At first, I thought they were an annoyance and hinderance on the screen; however, once the discussion of Spell Interrupts mid-cast could be used to add more strategy/depth to the combat along with the bleeding, I became more intrigued. However, I did not see a Mana Bar on the target's (mobs) that were selected - I'm assuming that's because they had no mana? And, if they did, I'm guessing you could /bash them close to the end of their cast to make them waste mana? And, if so, will you be able to tell how much mana the mob spell will cast as soon as they cast it? Or, will it be something the player would have to learn by repetition? This definitely peaked my interest as it is a nuance that I think could differentiate the good from great players. It also adds a new flavor to the old combat style without breaking the mold. Also, in addition to this, with the bleeding that occurs as the HP bars slowly drained, I was thinking of other spells/skills etc. that classes could have to "stop" the bleeding maybe more than even be healed. So, it wouldn't be twitch per say, but, a class would only have a few seconds before the Red HP bar caught up to the remaining green. (this would be different than a person dying and saving them from death by a last minute heal prior to the HP bar completely depleting).
3. No Maps - Guides/Wikis, etc. if you want, or something outside the game. So, I'm guessing this means a cartography type skill, or even right-clickable rudimentary mob type maps are off the table? I had mentioned lore based maps in the past where you would need to know goblin and learn their slang landmarks in order to understand them. Such as... orc hill for those that played EQ.
4. Perception System - Very cool, one of the systems I'm most interested in. I'll combine a few of my thoughts in this one. "The Pillar Looks Ancient" with the audio cue was great. Brought me back to the days of Dungeons and Dragons, Lands of Lore and the like - I oozed nostalgia on it in a good way. However, it did raise some questions after the puzzled was solved. Would the key stay with you permanently? Would you need to pick it up each time? Would each group member need to complete the step so if they returned they would have one? Would the door remain open after one group completed it? Or would all groups need to do it and the door would have a short respawn timer before being closed (The Door magically slams behind you). But, if it slammed, what would keep the group ahead from opening the door (unless they're greedy!).
5. NPC Names - I know it's pre-alpha, but the PC/NPC names became cluttered, and appeared to be distorted and become gigantic when close-up. I know there will probably be /togglenpcname off but, perhaps the player could choose a smaller font size if they wanted to keep them on? I also noticed that all NPC Names were capitalized versus just the named like EQ. Not a huge deal to me, but I liked the differentiation of "an orc" for a normal mob versus "An Orc Chieftan" for the named.
6. Assist - I know the red glowing target ring existed around what the current offensive target was, but the lack of an /assist command was extremely evident. A player "could" stand back and see what is being picked by the tank, but, I just thought the combat looked sloppier due to a lack of one - broken messes, multiple targets being engaged, etc. I also realize this was a demo and not hardcore gaming. I realize there was a discussion on not wanting to use macro commands to avoid exploits and to make it harder to box, etc.
7. Disposition System - Another very cool idea. I like the idea of transient mobs, and varied mobs. A thought that I had though was to perhaps offer some sort of perception cue as to what mob had spawned (i.e. if it resisted fire) have a message like... You begin sweating as you approach ahead... (hopefully something more creative than that). The only fear I have is the learnability point that was addressed by Joppa. That was a big deal to me in EQ as a puller especially - being able to learn spawn patterns, pathing, etc. It was one aspect of EQ that definitely made me stand out as a veteran and another layer that organically added to a player's skill based off their own experience versus needing to create artificial means.
8. Stats - I enjoyed when Monty talked about how his lack of CHA affected his inability to mes the mob. I'm assuming CHA for charm will be similar to EQ in that sense. It also made me curious if stats were going to be listed more explicit like VG, or implicit like EQ (in regards to spell crits, damage, etc.). Don't think anyone here would have to guess what I would prefer.
9. Battle Res - Not sure if this was just for the sake of the stream, but I wasn't a huge fan of this. A player shouldn't be able to be ressed mid-fight, with full health I believe and no penalities. I know it was discussed the death mechanics aren't in yet, so I'm assuming res effects aren't either. Disregard this point if so.
10. Torches/Ambient Lighting/Dynamic Lighting - Very cool looking, especially with the shadows casted. I was curious though if torches will take a hand slot (off-hand) like EQ, to make a player decide if the light is worth the AC loss from the shield, or damage loss from the dual wield, etc. Also, I saw that the dungeon had many torches throughout - will those go out as well and the player have to light them? Could a player take it for themselves?
11. Large Open World Dungeons - Just worth mentioning, it was awesome to hear - especially Brad's comment, paraphrasing a bit, "You could spend several hours and not see it all."
12. Open World/Non-Linear/Climate System - I like it all; however, I think it will be a very fine balancing act of not over-using the climate system or you'll create a "Sandbox" game, that will ultimately be on rails due to the climate system restricting players to a linear path until they can become acclimated. You guys did address this in the stream, but, I thought it was worth mentioning again. A big part of the magic of EQ to me was the sense of freedom and exploration that I hope Pantheon captures.
13. Placeholder Art/Animations - This is probably the #1 thing that gets discussed over and over again ad nasuem even though you guys have stated several times that it was. So, I have two suggestions, use one of Brad's flashing DISCLAIMERS every 25 minutes or so in the stream saying all art/animations is placeholder and subject to change, and, I think for marketing purposes, it would serve you well to at least try to create the race models in game to show as player characters, even if it is only one face at the time as you'll draw a lot of interest from that. I personally think animations/graphics don't matter at this point, but, based off all the comments I've seen everywhere, they obviously do and are keeping many people from jumping on board.
14. Death Penalty - Brad had discussed it will be between EQVanilla to VG, which he has been consistent with since the start of the site. However, what I will disagree with though is that a harsh death penalty is a bad thing because it makes timid players. If it does cause that, then, I think it did it's job as it has created the fear in the player to respect the content, and, those that are willing to risk that harsh death should be deserving of greater rewards. I know it's early, I know it's a balancing act, and I get it that not every is like me.
15. Harvestable Nodes - I wasn't sure how Pantheon was going to do crafting, if it was going to be more EQish from Mob drops, or VGish through nodes - and it appears based off Joppa's comment that those crystals will ultimately be harvestable, I'm guessing it will be harvestable nodes. If it is through nodes, I'm hoping some of the in-depth harvesting of VG makes a return like the group harvesting etc. I also hope that some of the materials will remain rare, which was easier for EQ to do based off the rarity of mob drops.
16. Spellbook & Fizzles - Spells with three boxes underneath. Will be interested in learning more about the codex, multi-colored mana (relic system), and how potentially a player will learn the other subclasses of spells. I was also glad to see that fizzles made a return. It looked like Monty needed to go fishing and raise spell skills!
17. Faction - I was glad to see that it appeared an EQish faction system was making a return based off the text in the chat boxes. I also liked Joppa's point of the faction foreshadowing the location that is being traversed (Black Dagger faction lowering).
18. Is it Nostalgia - Loved hearing the buff sounds, and seeing the skill gains - You get better at Fortification (52). Which raises the question... What's Fortification? A fancy synonym for defense?
19. Resists, Resists, and More Resists - Liked seeing these as well, and how they made sense. Higher level mobs in comparison to the character = more resists.
20. AoEs - Now, really my potentially only negative. During the train by a certain rogue... I saw some fire AoEs that were wiping the mobs out. That looked to WoWish to me... IF AoE's are going to be usable in Pantheon, I'd much prefer the AoEs like EQ where you had to truly weigh the risk/reward and the AoE could also be friendly fire and hit your own party.
21. Spawn times - I can't really remember where/when during the stream, but it appeared that the mob spawn times were fast - I know all this will be tweaked, just had made a note of it.
22. Quest Journal - This could be a pro or con for me. I know it's not 1999, but I also don't want it to be 2016 MMO either. So, the thought I had would be that the guildmaster could provide their "student" a quest journal, where the player could type in hand-written notes, or, perhaps if scrolls or drawings etc. were found supplement the journal. I don't want the journal to magically transcribe words from a NPC that was talked to, but I do think you could add some cool gameplay depth if implemented correctly.
23. 1st/2nd Floor - Very cool to be able to see what's ahead. But... I'm hoping that a player that is "too" curious and stayed too long could be blasted EQ style similar to the Festering Hags in EQ (did I hug the mansion wall too close?) Or.. would an AoE hit them?
24. Weapon Skill Differences & Climate System - Very cool that a skeleton would be damaged more by blunt weapons versus say piercing weapons, and that certain climates would require (or at least be recommended) to have certain gear; However, that's a lot of gear. As a warrior, I would want to have at least one of each type of weapon to be most effective, and tons of types of armor for all the climates. Not only would I be highly gear dependent, but, where would encumberance play a factor? Or, bandoliers, or fast switching of armor? I get the difference, but I think it's a very fine line between too much for the sake of difference.
25. Player Driven Economy - I liked the sound of that, on consumables... we'll have to see - especially if consumables mean potions. Not a huge fan of potions being able to diminish class interdependence.
26. 2 hour play times - I've noticed, like others, that I don't think it's a coincidence on the 2 hourish stream time to demonstrate that something can get accomplished within 2 hours. And, I am all for the meeting of groups, meaningful travel, etc. But, I was curious as Brad has mentioned that there were going to be "safe spots" in the dungeons to camp and return the next day. Would the safe spot just be considered an area where there were no roamers/spawns similar to EQ? Also, is Pantheon going to have a /recall feature similar to VG that if you did log in to the dungeon the next day and there was no one near your safe spot that you wouldn't be stranded? Personally the compromise if some sort of assistance/tool was going to be given to the player that I could make would be having a recall feature to your bind spot on a 24 hour timer or at least a 12 hour timer (versus the 1 hr?) that was in VG to avoid using it as a permanent fast travel feature.
27. Different Stream Perspective / Group Size - I love Monty, and don't mean to offend, but, I'd like to see the stream from a different perspective, preferrably Joppa as he took on the main narrator role and did really well with it. Or, perhaps even that sly training Aussie...Also, I would like to see a non-traditional group as others have mentioned, or even a group of 3-4 to see how a smaller group could survive/manage.
Overall though, Bravo, it was great stuff and my hype level is ever increasing.
TLDR: Really enjoyed the stream and it showed me a lot of neat stuff.
Good points. I am going to use a few of your numbers and ad to or question as well.
4. If the group inside Did open the door for you, would you be able to get out? Lock from both sides?
5. Noticed this as well. was curious about it.
6. is there a way to ad an assist function in game that isn't a macro? (i.e made by pantheon, not the player)
12. Good point here. balancing this could be interesting. I can see some players say, "lets go here instead, no need to worry about climate if we go to the next camp down the road."
14. I want death to be experience loss and the potential to lose a level, but I don't really want corpse runs. (the kind that can make you lose all your gear)
20. I grouped with wizards in EQ as a cleric, I never saw their AoE spells do dmg to group. confused here.
That's it.
Raidan said: @Naim Good question on the assist - probably is some way. And, I may have remembered the EQ AoE's wrong, I was thinking the "Rain" line did, but maybe it was just pets that got hit. I tried to do some Google-Fu and only found a bug fix in the Luclin era removing pets from being hit by AoEs like the rain spells. Either way I guess it would be a preference of mine then.
Rain AoE's in EQ hit the caster if he was in the vacinity (like AoE mez/root could also mez the caster) so you had to be out of range of the AoE's are based on mob you were targeting.
I am of the same feeling as you regarding AoE Raidan, it is one of the things i am watching nervously and closely, If AoE is overpowered or has no drawback as it is in most new mmo's then we are definitely heading in a different direction to what i am hoping. I think having powerful AoE's can basically funnel group strategy into one basic formula, round em up and AoE them down alll mobs dead at about the same time... In my opinion the few AoE damage spells in the game should be quite underpowered and limited to a few classes only, hurt the caster in range and be a real pain in the butt regarding agro for the tank / CC players to deal with. If AoE's are powerful and can be done with little repercussion then i fear we are going to be funneling people over time into an AoE mashing playstyle and minimal attention required to win.
Re your initial write up, they are some great notes there mate and great questions and it will be interesting to see how many of these VR can answer at this point in time!
Raidan said:13. Placeholder Art/Animations - This is probably the #1 thing that gets discussed over and over again ad nasuem
I think for marketing purposes, it would serve you well to at least try to create the race models in game to show as player characters
I personally think animations/graphics don't matter at this point, but, based off all the comments I've seen everywhere, they obviously do and are keeping many people from jumping on board.
keeping many people from jumping on board.
Just wanted to emphasize this because its that important. Pantheon could have the most brilliant, innovative and perfectly balanced gameplay of all time, but until it looks good at a glance, people will turn their nose up at it.
As Raiden said, from a purely marketing perspective for a crowdfunded game, nothing at this point will have a greater impact than visuals.
http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/452584/pantheon-live-stream-on-twitch-june-23rd/p2
Which is sad but Raidan and Dullahan are correct about how good Pantheon looks. Im just not sure much can be improved on at this point. They already have put in so much effort on places in the world like the locations from the streams. Besides that it looks good to me. Then again I play a lot of console and indie and mobile games, and while awesoem graphics are nice, awesome and addictive gameplay are better. But thats just me. Its why I ditched FFXIV after the revamp. It was defintely smoother and much prettier game, but the gameplay was severely lacking (to me). Mean while FFXI which has always had "okay" graphics but not great (PS2 limitations and all), had gameplay that was lightyears better than FFXIV (to me).
If I had to guess Im sure most folks that have funded Pantheon feel the same that great graphics are nice, but Im sure gameplay, immersion, community, etc. all trump graphics. So what can we do?
Dullahan said:
As Raiden said, from a purely marketing perspective for a crowdfunded game, nothing at this point will have a greater impact than visuals.
http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/452584/pantheon-live-stream-on-twitch-june-23rd/p2
Yea, I get pretty frustrated when visiting other forums. There is very little discussion that ever happens, mainly pot-shots from the masses and then those there is support of a particular game scrambling to defend themselves/it from the barrage that ensues. I’ve tried on so many occasions to remain an active member on forums like mmorpg.com but I so quickly get overrun by the rampant abject behavior. /sigh.
I don't mean to derail the thread by highlighting your point about visuals. Lot of good observations, Raidan. Too much to even discuss in a single thread.
Regarding AoE, Sunmistress is right about them not hitting friendlies in EQ. As a player on a PvP server, I always thought that was pretty whack about PvE servers. People had the luxury of basically exploiting AoEs, pulling huge packs of mobs into players and wiping them out. It may seem like a small issue, but its something highly exploitable.
I would hope that if AoEs aren't going to damage players on a PvE server, they should at least make the spell less effective with players nearby. For instance, if an AE hits a max of 4 targets but there is a player in range, the player should eat a charge. If there is a PBAE with unlimited targets, there should be some rule that prevents damage to any mobs around a player within range of the spell. More than one solution to that issue, but it should be addressed.
Dullahan said:I don't mean to derail the thread by highlighting your point about visuals. Lot of good observations, Raidan. Too much to even discuss in a single thread.
Regarding AoE, Sunmistress is right about them not hitting friendlies in EQ. As a player on a PvP server, I always thought that was pretty whack about PvE servers. People had the luxury of basically exploiting AoEs, pulling huge packs of mobs into players and wiping them out. It may seem like a small issue, but its something highly exploitable.
I would hope that if AoEs aren't going to damage players on a PvE server, they should at least make the spell less effective with players nearby. For instance, if an AE hits a max of 4 targets but there is a player in range, the player should eat a charge. If there is a PBAE with unlimited targets, there should be some rule that prevents damage to any mobs around a player within range of the spell. More than one solution to that issue, but it should be addressed.
Best way to clear POFear trash reallly.
It was also great for capping off AA's less than a month into Luclin.
As far as the OP goes #6: (and the questions that arose regarding assist) I am fairly certain they can provide a hotkey or keybind that is simply /ass MT or MA. Current era EQ has such functionality, they would just need to provide us with that button.
However I played the Twitch without sound, Did i miss a conversation on socials not being a thing? I could have swore somewhere i saw Kilsin or Brad say socials were going to be in game has that changed? If it has
/attack on, not a toggle on/off just a flat on needs to be a thing for realz.
Observation you missed:
"You feel hungry" message and the later confirmation that 'consumable' such as food etc woiuld be either drop or player-crafted (and/or summonable by Mages i guess). Sincerely hope this is continued as is another EQ starter feature: spell components. Don't recall if i read about them being included?
Watched the whole thing and impressed by the 'feel' they have already managed to incorporate with just PH models and sounds/effects. Will be (not so patiently) waiting for chance to assist in Alpha/Beta testing to help polish this into a showcase of 'How to made a damn fine MMO, rather than pander to the lowest common denominator'.
PS If I were their chanter I would have made more than a few salty 'You break it, you buy it' style messages to my team!