Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

• Beez

  

  • 58 posts
   

  September 16, 2016 2:36 PM PDT

  This is an aspect I been thinking about for a while. Wouldn't it be awsome that once a month you have a specific monster or elite or anything that you could log onto and move freely around the world to kill players or whatever your heart desires. Could be fun for role players and could be fun for non role players.
  
  I'm sure there would be all sort of restrictions like you can't just choose a yeti and walk into a town away from forested woods and mountains. Yet this mob would belong to you and you could log it on once a month or week or whatever the case they might choose for a specific amount of time. They would drop loot or hides of greater quality. The monster you control should not be able to read or see text over head of players like names or titles. A system of language that would be the type of monsters only. And not understanding layer interaction depending the language choosen if this will be part of the game.
  
  It would add excitement knowing that your not fighting set rules and you wouldn't know know the skills of this monster so it would be a true fight as a monster can be intelligent and once they see who is doing what they could focus on whom they could. Have taunt from the tank take its target away and put himself in his place automatically for a predetermined time until he could switch back and so forth or decide to stay on a tank and try to drop him Letts say for combat.
  
  Or for role playing aspect could be creatures that could could speak in movement and they could focus on small groups of players not being aggressive unless attacked or even have abilities to hide and play tricks on players like slowing them or binding them while they are adventuring out of nowhere.
  
  There are so many things that could be explore in this aspect I could go on and on but let's see what you guys think!
• piellar

  

  • 15 posts
   

  September 16, 2016 3:04 PM PDT

  I think this idea of player-controlled monsters is very cool, but it requires the careful handling of PvP concepts inside a PvE experience.

  It opens up griefing possibilities; someone who doesn't like you tracks you and switches to a monster when you enter the designated player-monsters area to PK you. Since the death penalty will probably be harsher than in modern MMOs, it could sting. And if you remove death penalty from a player-monster, it could create collusion where a player-monster follows a group of PCs, does not attack, and only kills people about to die from normal monsters to spare them the death penalty. Or the player-monster scouts around for the players, to report where the named monsters are (since they don't aggro). Or attacks a second group of players competing for the same named monster in the dungeon. The drama can really flow with something like this.

  The closest mechanic I saw was when I played LotRO, they have a PvP map where players can roll orcs, worgs, etc to compete against normal players to control castles, mines, etc. However it just felt like regular "king of the hill" PvP and not an experience like what you're describing. When monsters are controlled by players, they tend to act totally differently than NPCs yes, but at the same time, it doesn't feel like you're fighting anything else but players anymore.

  Your post makes me wonder if Pantheon wants to go in the direction of PvP at all, it is a road fraught with peril for developpers, especially when your game wasn't designed towards PvP from the start (unlike that Camelot reboot for example).

  
  This post was edited by piellar at September 16, 2016 3:08 PM PDT
• Grymmlocke

  

  • 500 posts
   

  September 16, 2016 3:15 PM PDT

  Have to agree with Piellar on this.  Way to much potential for abuse.

• Sicario

  

  • 334 posts
   

  September 16, 2016 3:23 PM PDT

  Think we already have a thread regarding this here: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3824/i-once-logged-in-as-a-lizardman-shaman-quot-project-m-quot

  Check it out. Lots of good discussion.

• VR-Mod1

  

  • 9115 posts
   

  September 16, 2016 3:58 PM PDT

  Sicario is correct, (thanks Sic!).

  Please continue in the other discussion after reading through it all, we have replies from Brad in there too with some thoughts on this. I will go ahead and close this thread now, please use the search function prior to creating a new thread as in most cases you will find that someone has already posted the same idea and discussed sometime within the last 3 years. :)