Well from one of my earlier posts, I'm sure this topic has probably been beaten to death as well, but here it goes.
Whats the deal with loot/drops?
My hopes is its going to be similar to Classic EQ. Meaning a mob could have a place holder, or a named could spawn, and then with that named mob, it has "chance" to drop X item depending on RNG.
I didn't like MMO's later on, where no one had to compete over loot, everyone all had the same gear because it dropped loot for everyone. Having that competition for mobs/loot really makes that gear feel special and unquie. It also brings out the best and worst in people, but that's what makes it so damn interesting. It makes it exciting and equally frusterating if you just pulled an all nighter because you got a good camp, and you blew off work or school, farming it all night till your eyes bleed, and just before you throw in the towel, the FBSS drops or some other classic masterpiece like the Manastone. More familiar to me thought would be that nothing drops at all and you go to bed angry and feeling defeated.
Would love to hear other peoples thoughts and opinions on this, or maybe even just be routed to the proper thread for this.
Cheers,
Whisk
I agree that loot should be specific pieces that a mob is programmed to drop, not based on the class of the character or worse yet tokens to be cashed in at the Uber gear vendor.
I do not, repeat NOT, think that it should resemble EQ with endless camping for mobs that have very long respawn timers or frequent placeholders.
Many of us that played EQ or similar games back in the day no longer have the time or stamina to spend all those hours camping bosses, and many newer players just won't do it - they are too used to games that work differently. Also it leads to too much competition on the pve servers - Pantheon should be more of a cooperative game than one that gives powerful rewards for camp breaking and kill stealing.
I think loot should be based on past and present involvement. so if you spend 4 hours fighting through a dungeon and get to a boss at the end you should get something good. If you just run through a low level zone and beat a boss who's just within level range you shouldn't get anything good. I'd prefer less RNG and more meritocratic rewards. Though i have no idea how the would work efficiently.
Whisk said:Having that competition for mobs/loot really makes that gear feel special and unquie. It also brings out the best and worst in people, but that's what makes it so damn interesting.
I'm with you, Whisk. Super interesting seeing how the different players responded to various situations. The types of game dynamics that encourage this sort of thing should be put on a pedestal (within reason, and in a balanced manor) because they create truely interesting human to human interaction, which is something sorely lacking in today's MMOs.
Aside from the rare mob camping, I really enjoyed the spontaneity of the average exp camp. Was another group going to be there? Were they going to have a better group/puller than you? Maybe you'd have the camp all to yourself, have an awesome group of players, and bring in some serious exp. Lots of variety!
dorotea said:I do not, repeat NOT, think that it should resemble EQ with endless camping for mobs that have very long respawn timers or frequent placeholders.
...Pantheon should be more of a cooperative game than one that gives powerful rewards for camp breaking and kill stealing.
You're bound to get some kickback on this, by me included. I played EQ a bit and FFXI much more (which was basically an EQ clone). A large group of players loved the way that rare mobs spawns worked in these games, and it was a pretty important part of what made these games what they were.
Competitiveness was also an important part. Let's not forget that competition is the foundation of all games.
Good to see a nice mix of responses on this.
I just know where I stand on it all. IMO once games, especially MMO's are hand held, and things come easy for the casual player, thats when its no longer interesting, once again, thats just my opinion. If this is just a repeat of another more modern system, "which I don't believe it will be" it'll make me question why I even pledged.
Yes I understand we're all older now. For the most part none of us are kids anymore or college students. Majority of us, I presume have wives, children, and careers, WITHOUT the time we used to have.
But, even without that time we once had. Doesn't mean the game should be made more casual IMO, just means we need to invest time, when we have the time to actually play, which would give the game a longer longevity. If in 3 months 80% of the players are walking around are max level, with the gear they want I feel the game would fail, and fail horribly, because that would be a complete repeat of everything that is currently out there. Not to mention if I was a developer of the game, that would be years of work for a few months of fun and people start to leave, I think that would be an awful feeling.
The second people reach their goals, and the majority of players have goals set, IE: get the gear they want, they usually start to drop like flies, one by one. It starts off by slowly not investing as much time as they did, and as the weeks pass, and months they just slowly dissapear and lose interest completely. I feel there always needs to be that things your striving for, even if its not loot, but social interaction.
P.S. I agree, farmed token system with NPC turn in for gear would be the nail in the coffin, might as well just play FF Online if you want that.
Eriugena I expect kickback - in fact I prefer it. I often go out of my way to express opinions that I know are not the majority view. Not as a troll - any opinion I give is a real opinion I want VR to consider.
One of the reasons for these forums is for VR to monitor to see the opinions of its most loyal fans, and to consider opinions we have on various issues. This works best if there is a range of opinions - disagreement sharpens the arguments on both sides of an issue. As long as we stick to the issues and don't say negative things about other people because we disagree on an issue, even if we strongly disagree. More than once opinions have actually changed as the opposing side did a very nice job of pointing out the plusses of its view and the minuses of the other view.
Most people want more competition than I want, and I think they will get it. But maybe *slightly* less than if those of us that prefer cooperation weren't here and didn't speak up.
Most people like the idea of bosses that take a long time to spawn and view the almost instantly respawning bosses in many MMOs as an abomination. I agree on the latter point and perhaps wrote carelessly on the former. Bosses that are needed to progress a quest or move on with a story line should not take endless camping and competition to get. Bosses that just give a piece of choice loot I wouild be close to Whisk's view though original EQ may have had excessive respawn delays.
My frustration in many games over the years hasn't been because choice loot isn't instantly available. Good loot *should* be hard to get and give a feeling of achievement. It has been when I need a mob to finish in an area and move on with my quests and the accursed thing is never there or is always camped. So I'm a lot more on Whisk's side than my snap response indicated.
I just wanna say, the responses from this are amazing. Everyone is actually civil. When does this ever happen on the internet? The Pantheon community is awesome. It just shows the loyal and dedicated fans Everquest & Pantheon has. Wish I hadn’t of been just a creeper over the last few years and had of got on here earlier. Can’t wait to be in Alpha and grouping with a lot of ya’ll.
” EDIT “ Also I reference Everquest a lot. I hope this doesn’t insult developers today that are working on Pantheon that had nothing to do with Everquest. If anything I feel they should take that as the highest level of praise. Without Everquest, MMO’s as we know it may not even exist. EQ classic is and always has been the best of what MMO’s has ever offered. IMO.
I think most of the issue here is balance. Lots of us loved the EQ style because it felt incredibly rewarding when you finally got your drop. But even though we loved the feeling of finally getting that drop we also felt defeated when we didn't get it or got KSed or simply ran out of time. I think there should be a good variety in difficulty of acquisition so that we can feel rewarded whether we have 2 hours or 20 hours to play. VR is super aware of this based on what I have read.
The other part of the loot issue is the value of loot itself. I don't like the idea of loot being the only measuring stick by which we judge each other. This is how 99% of MMO's are. Of course gear will always have a massive impact on the efficacy of your character, but providing us with many paths of advancement takes some of the pressure off of relying on gear and loot. Again, VR is super aware of this based on what I have read.
EQ classic was a seminal game that greatly shaped the development of the MMO universe in many good ways.
It probably was at least as good *for its time* as any MMO has ever been for *its* time.
EQ classic was pathetically primitive with a truly inconvenient system of slash commands rather than menus, terrible graphics, abominable amenities for groups and guilds, and the like by the standards of what a programmer can do in 2018.
Unless I have misread VR greatly Pantheon will have modern graphics, options, interface etc. but with an "old school" approach to how a game should work in terms of speed of travel, speed of leveling, more exploration and fewer quests, etc.
I want very few of the things EQ did because it was developed 20 years ago and they just couldn't do many things they would have loved to be able to do. I want most of its core gameplay philosophy.
Good points, dorotea. And I wasn't trying to downplay the importance of cooporation. I mentioned that competitiveness is important, but cooporation sure is as well. Like Xbachs said, it's a matter of balance. The best team sports are highly competitive but also highly cooperative.
Bazgrim said:Past discussions:
Loot: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/search/index/page/1?query=loot&type=forum_topic&submit=
Drops: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/search/index/page/1?query=drops&type=forum_topic&submit=
Thank you, Baz!
Please use the already active threads to discuss this topic folks, I will have to close this one up now as duplicate information is less likely to be collected by me and passed onto the devs.