Deadshade said:This is precisely the problem at the core of an epic which is wanted to be rare . What is "challenging" in an MMORPG ?
Running 100 m in 10" is challenging and a huge majority of people won't reach this target regardless how long and how hard they train .
Solving the Navier Stokes equations is challenging and sofar nobody on Earth did it regardless how hard and long they tried .
That is taking things way out of perspective.
Deadshade said:Nothing such in a solo fight in an MMORPG . To win it means basically to only find out by trial and error (or to read it on the Net what is much faster) what movements, spells, weapons and armour you need and then click a few buttons during a few minutes . Everybody can do that .
You consider that the necessity to have some minimal set of armour would define the "challenge" .
But then what would be challenging in getting these pieces of armour ?
Did you ever push your character to see how much you could accomplish without a group? There's a limit, and that limit gets raised every time you gear up your character a little. Gating behind progression in terms of gear aquisition is essentially how all raid progression is handled. There's no reason why this can't be translated to a solo fight. In reality, balancing a solo fight this way would be much easier than balancing a raid, since the degrees of freedom involved have been drastically reduced.
edit: I'll expand this to say that it need not be a single fight either. A warrior, for instance, might need to enter a 'Hall of Testing' where he might need to take on a number of opponents and defeat them all within a certain amount of time. Here we have a dps check, and since we know certain weapon types will be stronger against certain mob types, this might mean the warrior will need to go out and collect a few good weapons to meet the speed requirement for the task. Likewise, you can usually progress faster by engaging multiple mobs at once, but this requires having armor that's good enough to handle all the punishment. There's nothing preventing the creation of a solo challenge that's as long and involved as any raid encounter. And I don't buy the argument that it couldn't be made challenging.
Elrandir said:
There's nothing preventing the creation of a solo challenge that's as long and involved as any raid encounter. And I don't buy the argument that it couldn't be made challenging.
You don't need to buy anything .
But you do need to explain in what way the solo fight you imagine is challenging and how it will prevent 80% of players to win it .
You just keep saying that the player would have to collect some weapons and armour what would define the "challenge". But saying that it is so doesn't make it so .
So I must ask again - how is collecting weapons and armour "challenging" ?
I have said since the beginning that IF the target is rarity THEN there is only one way in MMORPG which is a huge time sink - very rare drops and very rare spawns . This is due to the fact that all MMORPG are intrinsically easy and simple . Perhaps one day with a very advanced AI and an evolutive world it will no more be so simplistic but we are far from being there .
Experience proves that the time sink method works , rarity target achieved .
For instance I had to abandon the enchanter epic in EQ because I was not able and will never be able to spend this massive amount of boring time . Rarity target achieved .
With your proposal I am 100 % sure that I would have my epic because I (and any other player) can collect any amount of weapons and armour provided that it doesn't involve days and weeks of staring at an empty screen waiting for a spawn .
What you must understand is that the issue is not to design an epic like you propose . It is easily feasible .
But the issue is that if the epic doesn't contain huge time sinks then it will not be rare .
Epic = Rare. Why?
Epic = Multiple skills showing rounded character progression. Definately!
I don’t see the need to make Epics, rare. Just difficult to get. As I have previously said, they should be a medal showing your gaming abilities, not your patience.
Artificial time sinks or gates (call them what you will) add nothing to the game except frustration and wondering what else you could be doing if you weren't sat here waiting incase someone else came by and stole "your" mob (if he ever spawns again... is he broken?).
Time sinks don’t have to be made from scarce mobs. Tie sections of the line into your level, your skills, an area of land that needs to be navigated and mapped, learning a piece of lore from nomadic people, gathering specific level tied elements in a specific place, etc., etc. All of these can be time sinks without feeling like one. I would much rather map a tough area and explore that region over sitting in one place waiting for something to happen.
Honestly? I think making rare spawns a part of a questline shows a lack of imagination.
For instance I had to abandon the enchanter epic in EQ because I was not able and will never be able to spend this massive amount of boring time . Rarity target achieved .
My point exactly. Why force someone to abandon such an iconic part of the game because they cannot be on line when a mob is active? Seems to me to be a stupid mechanic that only works for those that can spend huge amounts of time doing nothing. You want to be playing the game when you have the time, not waiting around. There are so many other mechanics that can be employed to make a time sink than mob scarcity. The mechanics should be included to promote game play. They have to be testing, difficult, involving others, but not rare, just difficult in some manner.
Deadshade said:You just keep saying that the player would have to collect some weapons and armour what would define the "challenge". But saying that it is so doesn't make it so .
So I must ask again - how is collecting weapons and armour "challenging" ?
I actually never said this. I said that the time necessary to do so would become the 'gate' preventing everyone from getting their epics right off the bat. In essence I was swapping out one form of bottleneck, the ultra rare spawn/rare drop, for a different bottleneck: the time it takes to 'gear up' which is something people find rewarding in it's own right, so it would be much less punishing in that regard. Of course, something like this is implementation dependent: if leveling and gear-acquisition happens quickly, then yes, everyone's going to do it. However, I don't think the design goal is for this to be that sort of game.
If you're seriously trying to suggest that a solo encounter or solo event could not be balanced in such a way that someone would need to be very well geared to stand a chance of success, then I don't know what to tell you. That's actually a fairly trivial thing to accomplish.
edit: I should add that in the warrior example I gave above, that was just to show how the acquisition of gear could be necessary for making the event/encounter beatable. In that example, access to the "Hall of Testing" would need to have some form of requirement imposed on it for each attempt as well. In the case of the shaman, I suggested traveling around gathering the reagents for their potion. In the warrior example it could be something like collecting medals by defeating champions hidden in different dungeons around Terminus in order to prove their worth, or something to that effect. Something like this would need to be in place to prevent the encounter from being beaten quickly through nothing more than brute repitition.
chenzeme said:Epic = Rare. Why?
Because it is an epic ? Bacause something that everybody has would be called a standard weapon rather than epic ?
No, seriously . I never said that it had to be rare . I said that IF the rarity is the target THEN the solution is a huge time sink and there is no alternative to it .
Now if I wanted to make it VERY rare I would make a huge time sink which is aditionally as boring as possible .
I invent nothing that's how EQ did it . Sure it was not fun and sure most players (me included) didn't like it but the EQ epic was rare . And this rarity was certainly the developpers' target because they surely knew what they were doing when they designed it boring, tedious and not fun.
That's all what I wanted to say . I have of course no idea what the developpers of Pantheon want . I don't know if they aim 5 % of players being able to achieve their epic or 80 % .
What I do know is that if it should be 5 % then it will look very much like the EQ epic .
If it is 80 % then it can be done solo for most parts and even if it takes 2 or 3 months because there are many steps, eventually almost everybody will have his epic
And of course because eventually everybody has it, don't expect that it will be better than a rare dungeon drop what, you'll surely agree, wouldn't make the weapon very "epic" indeed .
Deadshade said:
Because it is an epic ? Bacause something that everybody has would be called a standard weapon rather than epic ?
I really don't agree, sorry. Just because an item is an epic item doesn't mean it should be artificially rare. An epic tale takes the main character on a hard, and long journey, full of consequences and moral choices, with twists and turns that must be negotiated, all having varying and sometimes unexpected consequences. It is epic because of the difficulty of the journey and the choices made. Not everyone will get to hold the epic item; items will never be "a standard weapon". But it does mean that everyone who completes the epic journey will have something worthy to show for it and be rightly proud to show it off.
I stand by my previous view; the negotiation of the journey is the "epic-ness", not the ability to kill a rare spawn.
Take Beowulf, the epic anglo-saxon (I think) poem that everyone is familiar with. This is all about cause and effect, about a hero's journey, about that hero overcoming all enemies, even when the odds and stacked against him. Skirmishes, great battles, moral choices and consequence.
Even when he is waiting for Grendel, he meets the creature within the night, not months down the line. There is no epic wait, no twiddling thumbs, no passing the time of day with fellow waiters. The tale, the journey and all of the events and moral choices; these are what are considered epic, not the wait.
I seriously don’t get why it is acceptable to just sit for days waiting for a spawn? Really I don’t?
Give me a long and hard and morally challenging journey over a long and boring and pointless wait, any day of the week.
chenzeme said:Deadshade said:
Because it is an epic ? Bacause something that everybody has would be called a standard weapon rather than epic ?
I really don't agree, sorry. Just because an item is an epic item doesn't mean it should be artificially rare. An epic tale takes the main character on a hard, and long journey, full of consequences and moral choices, with twists and turns that must be negotiated, all having varying and sometimes unexpected consequences. It is epic because of the difficulty of the journey and the choices made. Not everyone will get to hold the epic item; items will never be "a standard weapon". But it does mean that everyone who completes the epic journey will have something worthy to show for it and be rightly proud to show it off.
I stand by my previous view; the negotiation of the journey is the "epic-ness", not the ability to kill a rare spawn.
Take Beowulf, the epic anglo-saxon (I think) poem that everyone is familiar with. This is all about cause and effect, about a hero's journey, about that hero overcoming all enemies, even when the odds and stacked against him. Skirmishes, great battles, moral choices and consequence.
Even when he is waiting for Grendel, he meets the creature within the night, not months down the line. There is no epic wait, no twiddling thumbs, no passing the time of day with fellow waiters. The tale, the journey and all of the events and moral choices; these are what are considered epic, not the wait.
I seriously don’t get why it is acceptable to just sit for days waiting for a spawn? Really I don’t?
Give me a long and hard and morally challenging journey over a long and boring and pointless wait, any day of the week.
The problem is you are assuming EVERYONE is Beowulf. That is the exact problem with most games is that everyone is the super hero because everything is so easy. Rarity is what makes diamonds expensive and 1950's corvettes one of the best automobiles ever.
When I think of epic, I think of grind. The level of difficulty in terms of needing a party or not is irrelevant in my mind. I want to know someone who got an epic spent time exploring the world... getting rare drops... killing rare things... building up reps. So for me personally... I don't care if most/all/none of it is group or solo oriented.
Maximis: The problem is you are assuming EVERYONE is Beowulf. That is the exact problem with most games is that everyone is the super hero because everything is so easy. Rarity is what makes diamonds expensive and 1950's corvettes one of the best automobiles ever.
I dont have anything against rare spawns or rare equipment. And totally get that rare is valuable. I think they do belong in RPGs, just not in epic story lines.
Epic-ness is about the "bigness" and complexity and intrigue of the story or quest. I dont want things to be easy, infact, I want the exact opposite. Epics need difficulty, and groups and bad-assed mobs and professions and solo parts and twists and turns. I think making an epic very hard to get can be achieved with out obvious time sinks. I just dont think you need to sit doing nothing but waiting to achieve that.
Eliseus: When I think of epic, I think of grind. The level of difficulty in terms of needing a party or not is irrelevant in my mind. I want to know someone who got an epic spent time exploring the world... getting rare drops... killing rare things... building up reps. So for me personally... I don't care if most/all/none of it is group or solo oriented.
I would respect someone who has done a lot of different things to get an epic item that used every aspect of the games mechanics over someone who is able to sit and wait for multiple mobs to pop. How can you be exploring if you have to wait for a spawn? When I think of an epic, I think of excitement, difficulty, being in the thick of the lore, making hard choices, no right or wrong, cause, effect and consequence. I dont ever think of grind.
Cart before horse.
Who knows how difficult, or EASY it will be to obtain a group?
Personally, I hope it is easy, because, although I have pleasant memories of shooting the breeze for hours on end while I farmed my "chromodrac guts". I also remember how horribly difficult it was to find folks to go after Phinegel. Not to mention some of the other events after him.
The point being.....
Who the hell knows? I like grouping, but does that mean everyone SHOULD group? I don't know. I certainly don't think that what I think is fun should be a REQUIREMENT for everyone else.
I completed the ranger epic from EQ (Switwind and Earthcaller) and the worst part of the entire thing was the waiting for spawns. The best thing was the progression and complete elation when I completed the quest line. Even without the waits on spawns, it was tough. I would have felt the same without those down times. I just think there are other ways in which to pause the progression that dont rely on rare mobs.
Deadshade said:
Nothing such in a solo fight in an MMORPG . To win it means basically to only find out by trial and error (or to read it on the Net what is much faster) what movements, spells, weapons and armour you need and then click a few buttons during a few minutes . Everybody can do that .
You consider that the necessity to have some minimal set of armour would define the "challenge" .
But then what would be challenging in getting these pieces of armour ?
Whats challenging about waiting for a rare mob to spawn? Everyone can certainly do that without the need to look up a wiki page.
A class-defining epic weapon should be irreplaceable. You should have to invest heavily in it's aquisition, and should not easily obtain something you would rather equip. To feel trully epic that weapon should be something nearly without equal that you treasure.
Investment can take on many forms, be it through wealth, time, teamwork, even tedium. (Of course, tedium is in the eyes of the beholder itself. I personally do not find the least bit of tedium in traveling back and forth across the world following a storyline and learning histories of my race/class, but maybe I'm completely nuts.) I believe that an "epic" weapon should require al of the above.
I can't reconcile the notion of a truly magnificent weapon that enspires awe and that I feel is a treasured reward that is obtainable solo, and the polar opposite idea that I may replace it through grouping to kill a named boss. If these two notions are at odds, then one of two things must be true:
1) The reward granted solo is of significantly higher power than it should be
OR
2) The "epic" reward that is easily replaced is not epic.
Isaya said:Somewhere in the post people got the idea that epics should be easy. As stated above i do not want to pick up my epic from a merchant for 50 coppers just to have one. I think it should be obtainable for everyone that wants to put the time in. But if Venril Sather is the target then My druid with 3 others will spend a lot of lifetimes trying to kill him and his mobs. That is the portion that i think needs changing. That and a few other steps are not for soloing or small groups. Maybe start the epic early like level 20 and make it last til level 50 or so. Who knows. But unless you are in a large guild you will never get a Venril Sather to just die for you because you are a nice person. Ulump Puljuk is another mob who without a strong group is a real tough sell. There are other mobs who are tough and not soloable but not unobtainable if you have a good group. But V.S. is actually unobtaiable without a good guild behind you given the spawn timer and location of him. THAT is the part of the quest that i think needs change.My vote would be for the whole epic be soloable or at least doable by a duo. In EQ the epic was unobtainable unless you belonged to a large guild. What made it worse was the drops for some items were a week apart and you had a number of guild rushing to the mob spawn as the timer wore down. If that is the case in Pantheon the epics will be as impossible as ever for most
Pantheon may not be like E Q in the epic quest portion but It sure would be nice if it was similar but doable.At least by a single group without the constant battle with others to get the items that you want.
Isaya said:Isaya said:Somewhere in the post people got the idea that epics should be easy. As stated above i do not want to pick up my epic from a merchant for 50 coppers just to have one. I think it should be obtainable for everyone that wants to put the time in. But if Venril Sather is the target then My druid with 3 others will spend a lot of lifetimes trying to kill him and his mobs. That is the portion that i think needs changing. That and a few other steps are not for soloing or small groups. Maybe start the epic early like level 20 and make it last til level 50 or so. Who knows. But unless you are in a large guild you will never get a Venril Sather to just die for you because you are a nice person. Ulump Puljuk is another mob who without a strong group is a real tough sell. There are other mobs who are tough and not soloable but not unobtainable if you have a good group. But V.S. is actually unobtaiable without a good guild behind you given the spawn timer and location of him. THAT is the part of the quest that i think needs change.My vote would be for the whole epic be soloable or at least doable by a duo. In EQ the epic was unobtainable unless you belonged to a large guild. What made it worse was the drops for some items were a week apart and you had a number of guild rushing to the mob spawn as the timer wore down. If that is the case in Pantheon the epics will be as impossible as ever for most
Pantheon may not be like E Q in the epic quest portion but It sure would be nice if it was similar but doable.At least by a single group without the constant battle with others to get the items that you want.
Seems to me like the question you should be asking is, "Why should I have to constantly fight other people for multiple rare mobs to get my epic?". And this is a very valid question. My answer would be to handle spawns, content dispersal and itemization in a way that prevents undo incentives to keep killing a mob that you've already gotten everything you can use from.
Remove any reason for a guild to lock a mob down, and they wont.
Dont make mobs with epic items a requirement for anyone to advance to a new zone or encounter. Guilds wont prevent others from killing it simply to block them from other content.
Dont make mobs with epic items also drop highly sought after gear. (This applies equally to items the guild might sell for wealth, or items they twink their alts with, or items they can multi-quest to others either for sale or for "helping" others.) Guilds wont farm the mob to gain wealth.
Don't make the respawn on mobs with epic items longer than is reasonable.
Now the only reason you cant go kill that mob is because someone else specifically working on the same epic already did and you have to wait for respawn. And hopefully the respawn is short enough that on any given day you have a reasonable chance it'll be up. The numbers of people who fall into this very limited category are finite, and so even if you're very unlucky at some point very few others will be contesting the content with you.
I never obtained an epic weapon for any of my characters in EQ, but I still felt the effects of being around others who were able to accomplish this feat. I was filled with awe, admiration, and inspiration. Epic weapons served as a huge motivator for me. I never got salty about not being able to attain one - I just respected the players that did.
Having these "gods among men", so to speak, is more than just a self serving tool (I want the best weapon!). They exemplify the pinnacle of accomplishement for a particular class that all players can see. Having players with epics be rare is a must for them to have this sort of impact.
Deadshade said:
No, seriously . I never said that it had to be rare . I said that IF the rarity is the target THEN the solution is a huge time sink and there is no alternative to it .
Epic should require 100% teamwork.
"We understand how healthy challenge in a game promotes teamwork, often blooming into profound relationships and enduring memories. We focus on these poignant elements of design and aim to provide our players with environments conducive to building reputations, friendships and alliances—as well as rivalries and notoriety."
"You will need friends in the game and your reputation can either help you progress or hinder it."
( Edit ) The only part that should be solo would be crafting, handing in items or talking to an npc to advance the chain )
I'm not advocating for a solo epic, but I find the idea that if it was created solo it would be easy absurd. How does solo = easy? I'm not a casual player and will dedicate much time into this game, so again, I am not advocating for solo epic, but I find this idea that it has to be group or bust rediculous.
Feyshtey: Seems to me like the question you should be asking is, "Why should I have to constantly fight other people for multiple rare mobs to get my epic?". And this is a very valid question. My answer would be to handle spawns, content dispersal and itemization in a way that prevents undo incentives to keep killing a mob that you've already gotten everything you can use from. ...
... Dont make mobs with epic items also drop highly sought after gear. (This applies equally to items the guild might sell for wealth, or items they twink their alts with, or items they can multi-quest to others either for sale or for "helping" others.) Guilds wont farm the mob to gain wealth.
It is a very good point, any mob involved in an epic quest line (from a death sense) really shouldn't have much value outside of the epic to stop farming of the mob. Otherwise it just makes the progression of the epic mob too difficult to even get a chance at interacting with.
Syntro: I disagree that time sinks are the only path. Let's break down what a player inputs into the game and see if we can find alternative routes to obtain a challenging status which leads to rarity...
I totally agree that there are other ways that have a more natural feel to slowing epic achievments down than having a point in the quest that forces you to wait on a spawn. I think that any mechanism that doesnt feel like you are waiting for a bus to come is acceptable. I would like to see mechanisms implimented that cause the player to spawn a mob or trigger a specific response from a mob. This means that the progression can occur when the player is ready and not when an arbitary amount of time has elapsed and gets around protectionism of mobs. But the circumstances in to allow the player to be in a postition to trigger the encounter is where the time sink happens.
Obliquity: Epic should require 100% teamwork.
I dont subscribe to this view. Epics must encompass everything that the particular game offers and in the proportions that the developers want the game to be played. Solo portions of the game (imo) are perfectly acceptable whether that involves a quest, knowledge accumulation, skill accumulation or whatever. Personally, I think that the percentage for solo portions should be fairly low compared to the grouping portions, but I don’t see why there can’t be sections to test the individual's role skills in a non-group setting. For instance, a quest that tests rogue specific skills (hiding, assassination, trap laying, etc.) or a cleric quest that involved devotion, healing and deity lore, would be worthwhile and be a test to see if the player is at a place with the character’s skill that make sense for that player to progress. Group based quests wont allow the character's role to be fully tested in the same manner that individual role specific quests would allow.
This doesn't even touch on tradeskills that I think must be a part of an epic item. Traditionally this is a solo endevour. There is possibilities of cross tradeskill interactions, but the creation of items is solo.
Eliseus: I'm not advocating for a solo epic, but I find the idea that if it was created solo it would be easy absurd. ...
I agree. The difficulty of a quest made specifically for a solo encounter is totally bound to what the developer creates. A solo quest can be easy or hard depending on the mechanics employed. Anything that can be levelled at the solo quests saying why it is easy can be levelled at groups too. So, for instance, a solo player could wait until his gear is good or he is high enough in level to make the encounter meaningless, isnt just a solo objection.
"While some MMOs have been designed with the goal and desire to appeal to all gamers, all of the time, we at Visionary Realms believe the future of MMOs is all about making more focused games, targeting specific gamers with distinct preferences. Pantheon is first a deeply social game. Players who desire cooperative play, working together as a team, and the shared experiences that result from playing with other real people to overcome challenges will enjoy Pantheon. Players who want an MMO to be their home and to interact with communities and player-driven economies will find what they are looking for in Pantheon. Why? We feel that, at least recently, the MMO players who enjoy these elements have been orphaned. In fact, the Visionary Realms team feels they are part of this orphaned group. And it doesn’t take a lot of research to find countless articles, blogs, and posts full of players looking for this kind of experience."
Epic quests should fit this and not only do I subscribe to it I pledged for it.
Why does it even take so much killing to get an epic, Maybe It takes only one huge Raid to get one Item and the rest takes months of discovery, gathering, and travel. Of course you will have to take out this and that along the way.
Basing an epic weapon on mostly just killing stuff seems so 1990's.
Hooray ! I am an idiot who killed a million pixel orcs and their leader but I cannot even add 2 and 2 so I had my guild do most of the work, I did some really serious waiting on spawns though.(Sarcasm)
Something different that involves a bit of depending on ones self to accomplish the task would be nice here. That is why I think it should be at least 50% solo so you can have your mettle tested.
The more I read and think about it I think my opinion rests here on this subject.
I will be so happy to have this game that I will be fine with whatever the end result is.
Panthe-ON! Brothers and Sisters
