The current iteration of a Perception Trigger (in-game) looks like:
(This "scroll" appears at the top of the screen, and unrolls to almost the width of the entire monitor)
To me, that is just as intrusive, or equivalent to "hand holding" as this:
IMO... they need to make it just a line of text in the chat window. It would ultimately be your fault if you miss it because you were not paying attention, thus making a Perception check a reality.
Your thoughts?
Hi Bonechip,
I see what you mean but I think it is not the same or at least in my opinion. The WoW mechanic is a visible from a good distance marker or identifier. PRF and the use of Perception does not visually have a tell so to speak. You have to engage and approach or stumble over the quest or event. This also differs from the WoW or games like that. You still have to have a mechanic to interact with, but this eliminates the visual que for it.
Ox
I believe in their last stream with Cohh they specifically said this is only as is for testing purposes and will not be so blatantly obvious when actually implemented for play. Their intention is for you to actually USE the perception ability to determine if certain areas are worth inspecting, and nothing will simply say "Hey, look" even in chat. Essentially there won't be any indicators to use it, just plain old using your own eyes and talking with fellow players.
I don't believe that the hand-holding and intrusiveness are connected to one another. One could argue that literally anything in the UI is intrusive, so I don't think that is a good standard on which to judge the perception system as a whole. The exclamation point quest notification was indeed intrusive, but it is just the visual manifestation of the rails in the themepark.
As to the discussion of hand-holding, I think the whole picture needs to be seen since there will be a range of "hand-holdeyness" when all perception events are taken into consideration. Taking that ancient pillar as an example it could go multiple ways. If everyone who enters the dungeon has to pass by the bottleneck at that pillar and everyone gets the prompt, then that's fully holding your hand so you can't miss it. It's also fine to hold the player's hand on occassion if it's the exception rather than the rule. If you only get that ancient pillar trigger after pre-requisites (e.g. you're deep into a quest line of Halnir era architecture and you are exploring many dungeons and you stumble upon that trigger), then it's far from hand-holding. We are far from knowing how the perception system will feel in its entirety and that's what will matter.
Nanfoodle said:I like the current model and would not like to see it downplayed in any way. IMO a pop up is needed and I would hate to see it end up on my chat window that I spend most of my time ignoring when in VC with friends.
I will admit I have done that. LOL
The visual que is needed IMO. If your in the area what else can be used to keep the imersion from being broken?
Any thoughts?
Ox
On one hand I have no problem with the current alpha implementation so long as it were a trigger that required being in a small area and wasn't immediately obvious. On the other hand, it seems to be somewhat against how they've talking about having the perception system. So I imagine it might just be for testing purposes, making sure the testers can find the perception triggers.
The Pantheon Difference said:The Perception System
One of the most profound things about Pantheon is how we are designing the game from the ground up so that the Environment truly matters – we want players to care about the world they are in, and why things are the way they are. When you think of MMOs, when is the last time you discovered the meaning, or the history, or the secrets of a person, place or event without being told by a text box? What if we’ve conceived of a way to bring players back to exploring because they are compelled by what they see in front of them - not because a blinking light tells them to go there? In Pantheon, Wizards will be able to perceive things that a Warrior cannot. Through prayer, a Cleric may gain insight into an area, or a creature, that a Rogue could never know. Through our perception system, Pantheon will redefine how the game world becomes known, and how players will work together to progress.
Sarkden said:I believe in their last stream with Cohh they specifically said this is only as is for testing purposes and will not be so blatantly obvious when actually implemented for play. Their intention is for you to actually USE the perception ability to determine if certain areas are worth inspecting, and nothing will simply say "Hey, look" even in chat. Essentially there won't be any indicators to use it, just plain old using your own eyes and talking with fellow players.
Yeah I'm pretty sure I got that too. Maybe I'll go back and look, but I think so.
They also talked about the importance of music changes and subtle cues like that to signify when you find something noteworthy.
I really hope the Perception system isn't as blatant as a massive pop-up however it is styled.
A subtle music change plus a brief gamma-change-flash plus a subtle atmospheric text cue "tumbled pillars create shadows that could hide dangers and treasures alike..." would be more than enough.
If Perception really is going to be class-bound and optional, then I don't care how subtle it is.
If I will miss out on content, upgrades, quests, challenge and fun? I would prefer it's in my face. Call me selfish, but I'd rather get the whole story than just bits and pieces. If class quests, epic quests, diplomacy, world story arcs, racial story arcs or any of that are tied to perception? Then I'm skeptical about the "optional" claim. :)
vjek said:If Perception really is going to be class-bound and optional, then I don't care how subtle it is.
If I will miss out on content, upgrades, quests, challenge and fun? I would prefer it's in my face. Call me selfish, but I'd rather get the whole story than just bits and pieces. If class quests, epic quests, diplomacy, world story arcs, racial story arcs or any of that are tied to perception? Then I'm skeptical about the "optional" claim. :)
I think the idea behind it is to be a tool used to help progress the game's story driven content, but not lock you out of content.
The expectation of a quest dropped in your lap is not realistic. Its emersion breaking. The exploration factor is the one reason this works. Get to know your world and not blast through content. I think that is what the hand holding does. Its just an opinion of course but the story and exploration is game and how you experience the journey.
Ox
A visual queue like this seems fine to me. If you were paying enough attention to make your way to the right building, the right room, and looked on the right ledge, you deserve a notification to tsay you got the item you needed. Making it more difficult than that can make it seem like more of a job or chore in my opinion. Requiring 100% of my attention - for 1000's of hours, as an MMO is meant to- will not fit into my life at all(working parent). I would just not be able to get into the game, even though I really want to.
Getting a quest, opening the world map and seeing the exact point, kilometres away and arriving in the area to have the quest marker precicesly pinpointed(As in ESO and WoW) is complete crap and ruins the game... There is a balance to be made though, it is a game.
It's completly different, first of all your "perception" is based on a perception skill, this means if you have low level perception you'll not receive a message, perception also needs to be leveled up to be used effectly and for you to "percept" everything that's going on around you. Also the "percetion" are suposed to be things that stand out and your character noticed them, because they have enough percetion to spot it (just like when the DM roles dice on DnD behind his shield to check if you notice something), that's why it's such an obvious message.
On the other hand quest ! are simply telling you there's a quest there for you to pick up, indepentaly of your "perception" skill and everyone sees the same.
I agree. I think the scroll is a bit intrusive and heading down the hand holding road. I hope they have something more subtle as the final mechanic. I could live with the scroll if they don't change it, but only if you are close to a small trigger area, as other's mentioned. There should be some need to scout the areas you are in, so you don't miss a small special area in a room. Overall, it's better than a yellow exclamation point.
jpedrote said:It's completly different, first of all your "perception" is based on a perception skill, this means if you have low level perception you'll not receive a message, perception also needs to be leveled up to be used effectly and for you to "percept" everything that's going on around you. ...Very interesting. Are you confirming that this is an active skill like Tracking or Sense Heading in EQ1 that you need to tie to a keybind, press the hotkey, and might see a skill up, and must do this enough each level to max it out, per level?
Otherwise, it seems like it would be very challenging to "level up" a skill that you can't use on demand..
vjek said:jpedrote said:It's completly different, first of all your "perception" is based on a perception skill, this means if you have low level perception you'll not receive a message, perception also needs to be leveled up to be used effectly and for you to "percept" everything that's going on around you. ...Very interesting. Are you confirming that this is an active skill like Tracking or Sense Heading in EQ1 that you need to tie to a keybind, press the hotkey, and might see a skill up, and must do this enough each level to max it out, per level?Otherwise, it seems like it would be very challenging to "level up" a skill that you can't use on demand..
My understanding is that there will be two different ways to use Perception. One will be a passive skill that may pick up clues in an area if you meet the requirements (could be class based or perception skill based or a combination of both, among other factors) and the other is more of an active ability called "investigate."
There are three things I think about upon viewing that scroll with the pillar and the key:
-- What did you need to do to receive that message at the pillar? Eg. did you walk by it, does it only activate if you're a rogue, did you know there was a 'clue' somewhere in the cave thanks to a previous perception interaction, are you getting the hint because you have a specific item in your inventory?
-- What are you learning from that interaction? In this case we have a key. But we don't know what the key is for or who to give it to. We have no listed location from this specificly shown cue. It is possible that we knew, from a previous situation, that we might find a key here. But that knowledge means that this event is part of a chain and we must remember what we are looking for, what we are suppose to do with the key, and to whom or where the key needs to go.
-- What impact does the perception skill play in the presence / activation of this clue? Does it need to be a certain level for us to see the pop up? Do we get a slightly different hint, pointing us (not with an ! or an arrow, but with something that hints something *is* here) toward starting the events the pillar is part of? Or is it hidden if we don't have a previous piece? If we don't have high enough perception is there still some indication that something happens here, like the invisible spots cursors could scroll over in FFXI or is the area completely normal.
When I compare all of this to, say, WoW's quest system, where you roll up, hit the !, and kill four boars in the field 10 feet to the west, I don't see the similarities. WoW does everything in its power to make absolutely certain that you find every quest it can possibly give you. It even gives you the option to see old 'grey' quests that are no longer applicable to you. And in current WoW it even highlights the exact areas you go to do everything.
We also don't know if the information for perception will automatically begin when we step near specific things, or if we will need to interact with them in a specific way. I don't necessarily see the result of all of this preparation and planning being clear and visible being an issue, provided we needed to use our brains to reach the point where finding the information out became possible.
I will admit it's possible I am biased since my vision is not the greatest. And ultimately, what we need to see is whatever will be best for the community at large. I am very interested in the perception system and will, of course, do my best to figure things out on my own. However, I'm sure there will be guides if certain requirements and triggers are really giving me trouble, and I'd far rather get some help than try to push for changes to be made on my account if they would not be of benefit to the overall community.
disposalist said:Sarkden said:I believe in their last stream with Cohh they specifically said this is only as is for testing purposes and will not be so blatantly obvious when actually implemented for play. Their intention is for you to actually USE the perception ability to determine if certain areas are worth inspecting, and nothing will simply say "Hey, look" even in chat. Essentially there won't be any indicators to use it, just plain old using your own eyes and talking with fellow players.
Yeah I'm pretty sure I got that too. Maybe I'll go back and look, but I think so.
They also talked about the importance of music changes and subtle cues like that to signify when you find something noteworthy.
I really hope the Perception system isn't as blatant as a massive pop-up however it is styled.
A subtle music change plus a brief gamma-change-flash plus a subtle atmospheric text cue "tumbled pillars create shadows that could hide dangers and treasures alike..." would be more than enough.
It was indeed stated that what we saw during the stream was for testing. It's not uncommon in many types of programming that data will be output in a simple popup window or console to more easily monitor and debug during development. Once everything is working that output is removed or changed to a more natural format.
Having perception cues be a line of text in a chat window is the worst idea ever. Either people will just make a filtered chat window specifically for it (in which case it ends up being practically the same as a pop-up window but pepetually taking up screen realestate) or people will be rage-quitting left and right after missing their cue and wasting a bunch of time because their perception cue popped up right before a receiving several chat messages.
When you think of MMOs, when is the last time you discovered the meaning, or the history, or the secrets of a person, place or event without being told by a text box? What if we’ve conceived of a way to bring players back to exploring because they are compelled by what they see in front of them - not because a blinking light tells them to go there?
That text box is telling the player that they found the key. That task consisted of finding the dungeon, fighting your way through it, and finding that particular rock. This is perfectly consistent with what they laid out for the PS. Now, I can get behind the idea that there should be some tasks involving the perception system that are more complex than this example, and that the system should allow more subtlety in some circumstances. Absolutely.
Too obvious ? Maybe.
A chat line to warn of perception ? Please no.
Chat is already flooded by "X Begins to cast a spell" "A Y skin's smolder with fire" + social interaction, no one needs it to add some kind of leftover hint that you will miss should your friends be very social, very caster or very both.
I'd like a dedicated UI associated to perception, but I guess it would be similar to quest logs/journals/etc...
Sorry I Didnt read all the responses so i might be doubling up, but hand holding would be the quest being laid out for you... as in, here is the key its glowing!... now you have the key we have added a marker where the door for the key is! Now you have opened the door we have added a marker of which mob you need to kill! Now you have done that you have a marker of where the hand in location for the quest is.
It doesnt look like that is gong to be the case, it is more like... a pop up about the pilar being ancient / interesting. You look at it and if you can be bothered to look enough you find the hand icon for the rubble, you then have a key, you now just have a key... so hopefully you will find somthing that it fits into... good luck
I dont think that is hand holding, i think that is more like a poke in the side from a clue as you walk by... and after that prod, keep your eye out for any other little pokes that may or may not be related.
vjek said:jpedrote said:It's completly different, first of all your "perception" is based on a perception skill, this means if you have low level perception you'll not receive a message, perception also needs to be leveled up to be used effectly and for you to "percept" everything that's going on around you. ...Very interesting. Are you confirming that this is an active skill like Tracking or Sense Heading in EQ1 that you need to tie to a keybind, press the hotkey, and might see a skill up, and must do this enough each level to max it out, per level?Otherwise, it seems like it would be very challenging to "level up" a skill that you can't use on demand..
From what I've listened in the streams that's the idea I was left with, you have a passive percetion skill that will trigger if your perception is high level enough, or if you meet the race/class (because some perceptions will be exclusive to certain races/classes). And apparently from what 1AD7 say there will also be an active perception button, that I didn't know, but cool, it will be like DnD where the DM can roll your perception but you can also activly use it to search the area :)