The subject was discussed in length in the below post, and probably several others.
Per the FAQ:
9.0 Are dungeons open world or instanced?
All dungeons are open world. There are no plans for instanced dungeons at this time. The dungeons will be very large to handle multiple groups of players. More shards/servers will be added if overpopulation becomes a problem.
When they say dungeons, i'm fairly sure they mean ALL dungeons, raid or otherwise.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5349/raiding-open-world-instances-amp-zerging
They have discussed this and said teh instancing in the sense of Phinny or WoW etc will be out. They may however do shards like in Vanguard where you had 4-6 shards dependent on server population. Each shard multiple guilds can go into and find mobs up that they can kill.
After I left bots I joined Sacred Haven (a 2-3 night a week raiding guild that scheduled raids) We had a priority list. First we would look at all over land rand mobs to see what was up, if any where we would mobilize quickly to it and kill it. Since most of the mobs had a quick respawn with long lock outs we found them up more often then not. Second we looked at each shard to see if our perferred wing was open in any shard. If it was we would quickly mobilize to it and claim it. Most guilds in VG respected your claim so if you said Basement they wouldn't come mess with you but find a different shard. If our main wing was not available we then went to the next wing down that we did not hav eon lock out and did it.
All this is to say that even if we where not able to raid the main area we wanted each night, we where able to raid something becuase the shards made it so that almost always something was up for us that we did not have on lockdown.
DempseySR1979 said: I've read all those threads and it doesn't answer my question.
What is your question then?
They have made it very clear that there will be no instancing, but there will still be a lot of mechanics in place to mitigate the monopolization of content from top guilds
I'm sure there will be raids of a certain type that can be scheduled. For instance, we would schedule to clear PoF in EQ or different zones that weren't hotly contested all the time. That was just for the normal armor, and not for the gods of the planes themselves. They were highly contested, and that's what made them and their treasures desireable. Remove that, and Pantheon becomes just another boring game where everyone achieves everything.
There should be no planning for most bosses. No one should know exactly when raid mobs will spawn.
DempseySR1979 said: If there's no instancing or lockouts then you're right this isn't the game for me or the 200 members of my guild
I know nothing of their stance on raid lockouts. I think they have some new ideas that haven't manifested themselves yet.
Instancing, however, is throwing the baby out with the bath water. It's a cure worse than the disease. Why don't you let them show you how they can solve the problems you hate, without destroying the concept of a virtual world with fake arse instances?
DempseySR1979 said: If there's no instancing or lockouts then you're right this isn't the game for me or the 200 members of my guild
They will most likely have lockouts, no where have i seen it say there wont be lockouts. There will be no instancing is all we have said.
Dullahan said:I'm sure there will be raids of a certain type that can be scheduled. For instance, we would schedule to clear PoF in EQ or different zones that weren't hotly contested all the time. That was just for the normal armor, and not for the gods of the planes themselves. They were highly contested, and that's what made them and their treasures desireable. Remove that, and Pantheon becomes just another boring game where everyone achieves everything.
There should be no planning for most bosses. No one should know exactly when raid mobs will spawn.
If they do it like they did on Vanguard this more than likely wouldn't happen you can still schedule raids times and have a decent chance of finding most of the raid targets you wants or at least enough to fill up your raid time that you have desired to fill. Even though its going to be an open world doesn't mean they will always be killed upon being spawned cuase the higher lvl guilds probably alrdy had it killed before and wouldn't do it again due to being locked out.
DempseySR1979 said: If there's no instancing or lockouts then you're right this isn't the game for me or the 200 members of my guild
Don't be so pessimistic, give the game a try and see if you like it, if you don't like it it's fine they're not creating a game to please everyone.
Kilsin said:Enitzu said:Kilsin said:Again, we won't reveal our methods, it is best to wait until you can test them first hand yourself.
Shards alone are not the answer but in unison with other systems like lockout timers etc. they can work every well and promote good interactions between guilds. I am not claiming we have all the answers but at least wait until you see what we have implemented and test them with us to help with feedback, people are in the habit of writing things off before ever trying them and it needs to stop ;)Kilsin,
I know you're going to want to fry me but is this a confirmation of lock out timers? That's the main thing I want to know atm lol. Would help me break some RL friends away from the "I can't bat phone raids anymore" mindset.
No, it isn't man, just a possibility of a road we may go down if we think it will work in Pantheon :)
There is a pretty good chance there will be lockout timers.
This is the thread if you want to look it over: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5495/optional-hardmode-encounters/view/page/1
Azzudien said:DempseySR1979 said: If there's no instancing or lockouts then you're right this isn't the game for me or the 200 members of my guild
Bye
To be fair, even I would seriously consider not playing if they don't handle end-game raid content well. I'm not 13 anymore and can't just be ready for raids whenever and if I can't reliably raid or plan it out with friends then I'd consider it a heavy blow. The raid itself should be the challenge and finding/tagging a mob shouldn't be part of it. Quick respawns and long lockouts sounds just fine.
Dullahan said:They were highly contested, and that's what made them and their treasures desireable. Remove that, and Pantheon becomes just another boring game where everyone achieves everything.
There should be no planning for most bosses. No one should know exactly when raid mobs will spawn.
You mean they're not going to let me schedule a nice dinner date out with the Gorgeous Lady Vox on a Friday night at exactly 7:37PM EST like i wanted? Sounds like they might be trying to reintroduce a little surprise/suspense back to the MMO genre and take out some monotony and automation and maybe add a little fun competiveness or something. The horror!
Well there goes my weekend plans and my participation medal/trophy. :(
I'm fine with competiviness the only thing i don't want to see is where the top 2 guilds of the server or even 1 locks out all big targets from anyone to increase there progression, it simply would like to enjoy the game can we can achieve this with the differetn shards and lockout timers so even the best guild cant keep everything from the lower end guilds. There needs to be neutral ground and im not even saying this as a defense for myself for i know i will be joining a powerful guild myself and that is only becuase i know them through EQ so that is that on my part. I just want to keep the server alive and if we don't do something to have it to where the top guilds cant slow their roll and demolishing raid targets we simply won't either it be for the loot they drop for us or simply to stop other guilds to get their loot to benefit themselves.
Plus on EQ in phinney they have instanced raids and it by far thee most populated server in the entire game and i know we aren't doing instances but i'm sure the different shards/lockout timers will help our player base in the long run as for i believe if we dont have something in place it could sufficate it. This is only my honest opinion and i could be completely wrong depending on what VR has planned and everything but most of us are probably very skilled players and we know how to raise above any diffculty to become the best, and that will crush the weaker guilds if here is nothing to stop us.
I'm in agreement with you there Riahuf22.
I do not like the idea of raid instancing. As the quote I used from Dullahan above stated, if everyone is able to achieve everything with no competition/challenge then it makes things meaningless and gives me no real sense of accomplishment.
That being said, I do think there should be certain mechanisms in place to prevent 1 or 2 guilds from monopolizing all of the end-game content on every server. Because you are inevitably going to have some guilds that are full of (not really trying to be derogatory here) no-lifers with no job/school commitments who play 10+ hours a day and poopsock/batphone everything, where other guilds made up mostly of members who have a job, school and/or other commitments are unable to compete with those type of guilds even if the latter guild is actually made up of equally skilled or higher-skilled players.
I think the guilds that commit the most time to the game should have an advantage when it comes to consuming raid content and high-end encounters in general, but they should not be the only ones that are able to experience said encounters. But at the same time every single guild in existence should not have their own personal instance/access to all mobs/encounters in the game, because again that takes away any sense of accomplishment if half the population in the game is running around with the "Mighty Sword Of Dragon Vanquishing".
But for people who do want it to be the case where they can do any encounter at any time within their own instance, then there are plenty of MMO's already out that cater to that playstyle/mentality and Pantheon is not going to follow suit and aims to offer something different.
Not trying to be offensive/defensive I just didn't like the tone of one of the individuals above basically indicating they refused to even give Pantheon a chance if it didn't cater to them.
To be fair, outside of the few people who are able to see both sides like Riahuf22 and raelsmar to name a few, the OP will not get much love from this community when talking about raid competition/camping and what not. From what I've seen, and have distanced myself from here for a while, many in this community are looking for a game that is as tedious as possible. They want guilds with no-lifers, camping mobs for days, god awful corpse runs, and anything else that was god awful from EQ brought into Pantheon.
Now, I have stayed away from these forums for a good while because of it. And, I am sliently watching and praying that the VR devs understand that their fan base is now in their 30's, and in my case 40. I have given up all hope of instanced raids, so I can at least hope they have some kind of a lockout system. But, I still am very skeptical that they can even design a mechanically challenging fight in the open world without instancing. But, that was another thread and another time. I learned my lesson quick about having an opinion that was different from that of the EQ fan base here.
Anyhow, your worries are valid OP. I hope that VR would maybe show some love in one of these threads at some point. But, if they don't, we can always get a white knight or two to tell us how instances and non-camped content ruined the MMO genre. Even though WoW is prrof that it works, trying to show proof of this to these types of fanboys is like trying to prove to our current U.S leaders that climate change is real. Basically, science and data won't help. Some people are just too far gone.