Hi everyone! First off, I must say I have missed you (the community) and am impressed by Pantheon/VR! Ever since EQ2, many of my family members, friends and now in game friends I have met along the way have been searching for an MMO that really brought everything (diffuclty, group play, immersion, list goes on) together. We all have extremely varied backgrounds and interests from PvP/ Raids/ economy play/ Crafting / Housing etc. Most recently, we have been playing Legion (WoW) and we all feel the same way: "Nothing really matters". There is no sense of community, grouping has resulted in kill everything as fast as possible, crafting is meaningless outside of 1 or 2 professions, systems such as ingame loot tables/ dungeon journals (while cool in theory) have diminished any element of suprise and has essentially removed "adventuring for the unknown" and has now become see/queue/ for what you want right now. Things such as almost every player containing full "epic" gear (how is it remotely epic when everyone is wearing it) standing all around you. The color of a nameplate on an item shouldn't define the quality; difficulty, story, investment should. Aside from those things mentioned above, we find ourselves not having any "reason" or "incentive" to play outside of a raid day. There is no AA in place to help promote players to log on and help/play regardless of a scheduled group session. Some of my family, are not very experienced raiders and therefore do not get to experience combat gameplay with the rest of us as much as we'd like. Unfotunately, there aren't other alternatives where solo/duo play is possbile and still MEANINGFUL.
I know there will always be varied opinions but I really wanted to voice the dissappointment (my circle) has had with games since, and discuss some of the things we have enjoyed and certainly hope to come in Pantheon.
Character Investment / Uniqueness:
We miss the days where your character did not look / wear the same gear model (simple lazy color reskins) as everyone else. We miss the days wear you could recognize someone you knew/ or didn't know by a piece of their gear or weapon. We hope for long quests or progression towards weapons, gear, cosmetic items, mounts as opposed to simply getting free handouts with every "queue". We yearn for the ability to truly invest time in our characters and gameplay through many various aspects of the game. Combat / A Collection System / Housing / AA / Meaningful and Impactful Crafting are all incredible ways if done correctly, that can help keep players interested and invested in their game.
Housing:
It is great to hear that VR is looking into some form of housing post-launch. Housing was one of the features that kept us in some previous mmos longer than we would have ever been if the title did not have it. It has provided so many opportunities to enjoy a given title and allowed smaller groups of players (2-4) in a given session to do something OTHER than combat while still retaining a "meaningful" investment in your character. Some games did it better than others, and I won't dive into that here because it is a matter of preference, but the opportunities still remain true. It also provides players who may not be skilled at combat, an avenue to enjoy the game. Some of the best memories I had were seeing people "sell" their decoration prowless to others or all of my friends and I showing off our most recent kills, painting, funiture we crafted, lights we found from the world and so much more to each other.
A popular arguemenet against housing is that it promotes solo play and Isolation. I truly believe there has to be some form of solo play for many players to be able to enjoy relatively short play sessions, or other aspects of an mmo besides combat. I tend to be a pretty hardcore raider and PvP in some games. However, outside of those domains, I have become extremely bored without housing allowing me to invest time in my character.
Solo Play vs Soloing Content:
I have seen and heard much about Solo players and I feel that there could be two entirely different concepts at hand. The devs have stressed that combat will require groups and it should be difficult (I certainly hope so). This means that soloing mobs and levelling might be harder than expected. However,... "solo players".... doesn't HAVE to mean playing combat solo. Instead, what other aspects other than combat can a player do solo?. I already mentioned housing above and how easily it can provide an avenue of enjoyment for players looking to play alone or whom may not have others online during that specific play session.
Some other alternatives: Collections "SHINEYS" (Eq2): provided an alternative means of play that was relatively soloable and still retaining meaningful value (vanity items, utility items, auction house value). This is something someone who only has a limited play session, or may not be the best raider but a very good treasure hunter, can truly dedicate time and $ in.
Meaningful Crafting: Crafting should require a blend of group and Solo elements and be impactful at every stage of the game.
None the less, I am extremely happy to be able to support Pantheon and truly look forward to what is to come. The dev team and community leads have been incredibly engaging and has made a difference in my circle of friends.
TLDR: The biggest Issue my family/ in game friends/ and I have had with recent mmos: There is limited character investment, uniqueness, immersion and sense of adventure in most games. We have also struggled to find a game that provides truly challenging combat group play for our more experienced players while still providing some form of meaningful gameplay for our less combat experienced players.
Character Investment / Uniqueness: To some extent this will always exist, it would be nice to be able to accessorize the armor/outfits rather than change the color or pattern of the armor. They mentioned in the december demo video about wanting folks to know you had a "mithril" piece of armor on as being a status symbol. Perhaps if there were a few pieces of equipment that were guild unique or player unique, like belts, scaves, cloaks, hoods, sashes, ect... that way they could have different patterns or colors based on the characters desire.
Solo Play vs Soloing Content: Everything "meaningfull" should require someone else to take at least some part in the process. Be it crafting or leveling or questing.
Housing: Housing just plain doesn't work well, imho. Maybe Black Desert Online did a version of it best where there were guild houses and player houses in the cities but they were all different instances of the same building. I don't really want to see houses litering the land or filling up the countryside.
Dwyvyrn said:Solo Play vs Soloing Content: Everything "meaningfull" should require someone else to take at least some part in the process. Be it crafting or leveling or questing.
Aside from crafting "Leveling and questing" are most often direct results of combat. That is kind of the point I am making, there are systems that have been utilized in the past that were avenues for players to play solo without it being directly related to combat or trivializing combat.
Dwyvyrn said:Housing: Housing just plain doesn't work well, imho. Maybe Black Desert Online did a version of it best where there were guild houses and player houses in the cities but they were all different instances of the same building. I don't really want to see houses litering the land or filling up the countryside.
I know housing is a harder sell to many people. EQ2 housing was incredible to get things going for many of us, Wildstar and free form placement stepped it up even further. We spent days doing guild obstacles courses, challenges, theme contests etc. I personally would rather instanced housing vs litted lands as well.
EQ2 did player and guild housing the same. There were actual buildings in cities...when you clicked on the door you had the option to buy it, or see a list of people who owned an instance of that house that you could tour. There were differing rent rates and sizes etc but all were accessible just by walking through town. Added to that were all the cool housing items given as rewards throughout the game. Was really well done and did not clutter the landscape.
I have to admit that when Brad mentioned caravan type open world housing I cringed a little inside. What the heck does that MEAN exactly? I want my house to stay put lol. That being said....I will not judge until I hear more about it.
~MINX
Very good points made in this post.
"Solo Play vs Soloing Content: Everything "meaningfull" should require someone else to take at least some part in the process. Be it crafting or leveling or questing. "
Hell no! Group play should be more meaningful this is a group game. But someone should be able to make progress when they play alone even if it is *less* progress per hour. And that is even truer for crafting than slaying.
They have said if I remember correctly that they don't want instanced housing but also don't want landrushes and many people being locked out of having a house. The only way I can think of to accomplish this is to have such enormous numbers of houses that almost everyone on a server can have one. Vanguard had houses scattered in many places which was nice but the population was not as ...robust ....as any of us would have liked. Higher population means quicker exhaustion of housing unless you have (pun intended as usual) a boatload of islands or a very large one full of houses. Doesn't have to be on islands, of course.
dorotea said:Very good points made in this post.
"Solo Play vs Soloing Content: Everything "meaningfull" should require someone else to take at least some part in the process. Be it crafting or leveling or questing. "
Hell no! Group play should be more meaningful this is a group game. But someone should be able to make progress when they play alone even if it is *less* progress per hour. And that is even truer for crafting than slaying.
They have said if I remember correctly that they don't want instanced housing but also don't want landrushes and many people being locked out of having a house. The only way I can think of to accomplish this is to have such enormous numbers of houses that almost everyone on a server can have one. Vanguard had houses scattered in many places which was nice but the population was not as ...robust ....as any of us would have liked. Higher population means quicker exhaustion of housing unless you have (pun intended as usual) a boatload of islands or a very large one full of houses. Doesn't have to be on islands, of course.
Yeah the housing scenario seems interesting. Maybe they have something up their sleeve :P
totally agree with you in regards to solo play sessions.