Bronsun said:I believe VS is using the Progency system so that twinking won't be necessary. From what I can tell you'll still be able to give your low level friends and therefore your alts good gear.
Nobody even knows what the progeny system is, or if it will even make it to launch, or if it will have anything to do with twinking.
There have been threads on twinking but by my beard I can't find em at the moment. I agree with the OP.
All we know is that weapon damage will be capped by your character's skill, meaning you won't be able to take full advantage of a powerfull weapon on a low level toon.
However there is no ETA on armor, and bonus stats. To what extent will they be changing the power of your low level twink ?
I don't think the game will feature a level limit on items, but maybe (like PoP and later era), a recommanded level that downgrade the item's stats depending of your level ?
No news on actual twinking though it will be possible to some extent or other.
Your skill in something will determine it, so your skill with leather armor will determine a lot of how good a piece of leather armor is on you. This skill level will likely be more important for the quality of the armor than the actual quality of the armor. Lower level characters will likely have caps on their skills to keep it somewhat balanced.
It'd be cool if some low level stuff dropped higher level gear that like leveled players couldn't use well quite yet. It would be nice if you could drop your gear on your progeny and have your progeny be more effective than he would be in regular gear for his level. But again, all of this stuff is TBA.
There have been plenty of threads on twinking or discussing twinking amongst other mechanics - I'll link one I started awhile back, also has the link to Brad's (Aradune's) Blog regarding twinking. If you /search the forums for twinking under "everything" you'll get a lot of returns.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2367/twinking-how-to-implement-w-o-trivializing-challenge
Here is another:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/7165/to-twink-or-not-to-twink/view/page/1
Hopefully twinks will make life easier (and longer) for the low level without removing most of the challenge. That is the impression I get for the most likely result.
Twinks do not need to be special drops that are more powerful than the low level could get. They can be game money enabling purchase of crafted items suitable for the low level but far better than he or she could get based on earnings at level. They could be crafted items themselves if the high level has the crafts or buys the gear and mails it. One can overlook just how beneficial normal crafted items are - and one doesn't need to kill a dragon to get them.
Keno Monster said:Nobody even knows what the progeny system is, or if it will even make it to launch, or if it will have anything to do with twinking.
There have been threads on twinking but by my beard I can't find em at the moment. I agree with the OP.
Progeny is explained on the website. At least what they are planning. It could deter twinking, but then again some people live to twink and will do it no matter what, if the game allows it.
Players will be able to 'retire' high level characters and then create their children as new characters, but these new characters, the 'progeny', will have certain abilities, stats, etc. that make them slightly yet noticeably better than a completely brand new character (but not to the point that it unbalances things).
Progeny is still very vague. If those new characters simply start out with a couple more of each stat then its not really worth it at all to destroy a max level for a new character. Much more info is needed.
As for twinking, it will exist. They have already said that the majority of items in game will be tradable
Bronsun said:Keno Monster said:Nobody even knows what the progeny system is, or if it will even make it to launch, or if it will have anything to do with twinking.
There have been threads on twinking but by my beard I can't find em at the moment. I agree with the OP.
Progeny is explained on the website. At least what they are planning. It could deter twinking, but then again some people live to twink and will do it no matter what, if the game allows it.
Progeny System
Players will be able to 'retire' high level characters and then create their children as new characters, but these new characters, the 'progeny', will have certain abilities, stats, etc. that make them slightly yet noticeably better than a completely brand new character (but not to the point that it unbalances things).
It's beyond a gigantic leap to say that a mechanic which hasn't been given even a moderately in depth explanation will make twinking unneccesary.
Frankly I don't even understand your connection between progeny and twinking. If anything, Progeny characters will be the most twinked because their player had a max level toon. If I'm losing my max level character, I'm taking all the no drop gear off of it and putting that stuff on my new level 1 progeny.
In short, as others have said, yes, twinking will be possible. Most items will be tradeable and will not have minimum level requirements. But the player's skills (1H Edged, 1H Crushing, etc. for example) will limit how much damage that player can do with it.
From the FAQ:
13.12 Are items going to have level or stat requirements and what do you think about twinking?
In general, there will be no hard level limits. High-level items will scale down to prevent too much power in the hands of a low-level character. There will still be lots of reasons to trade in your items such as sacrificing them at temples for long term buffs, augmenting your items, etc. Over time, this will cause more powerful items to trickle down. It is, however, our responsibility to stay ahead of that curve by introducing new content with better items to drop and craft. It’s more difficult to design properly, but we feel it creates a much more vibrant and open player driven economy.
Also see: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/blogs/151/70/twinking-good-or-evil-or-in-between
Keno Monster said:It's beyond a gigantic leap to say that a mechanic which hasn't been given even a moderately in depth explanation will make twinking unneccesary.
Yea. I have to agree we know nothing about how progeny is going to work. I mean they even contradict themselves in their explanation. Saying thenew char is "noticeably" better, but it won't be unbalanced... I don't see how that is possible.
We are hoping that they are implementing scaling so that everything is based on the soft skill caps of the player level. This is really about the only way mentoring down to that level and avoiding PL/Twinking would work. The reason EQ was so rampant with PL/Twinking is they only had some items and spells with hard level limits, and only later on implemented recommended vs required level limits. So if they scale the correct skill that deals with Damage Shields properly you would only see like a 1pt DS vs the full 45pt DS.
Wig said: Asaaaah, dude? Correct me if I’m wrong, but in EQ the gear stats are fairly low, so it doesn’t make a HUGE difference in your characters stats. What I see is that the real damage/mitigation comes from buffs/damage spells and these can only be acquired at certain levels.
It was mostly that in EQ stat effectiveness scaled by level so twinking a lowbie with high end drops didn't really give massive amounts of power, the biggest game changers for a twink character were weapons (if melee dps), flat +hp/mana items, and any haste items. Though the +HP/Mana wasn't that big of a help since regen was also a flat amount and not a percentage so once it was expended you pretty much got used to just working with roughly the same HP/mana as any untwinked characters when grouping.
If they do similar things with level scaling of base stats and have better damage (soft) capping and some AC (soft) capping then twinks should only be slightly more powerful for the first half of levels.
As for spells though, I don't know. I personally like not having the effectiveness reduced when cast on low(er) level players, it was always awesome as a lowbie having a passing high level give you a damage shield/regen/haste etc but I know how it can be used to powerlevel which would encourage more boxing with time.
But the true arguement is this: Any spell can be cast on any player, it is just scaled to that level of effectiveness. This way if they implement a MGB spell system you only have to cast it once and everyone gets the effect based on thier level and it wouldnt matter who cast it. But you would still need to have the reverse level cap where a level 5 version isnt as effective as a level 50 version.
BamBam said: I absolutely loved twinking in eq, giving my bard alt fungus and some nice weapons and just go ham with a ton of how rgn and dps was a blast. I rly hope we see the same kind of possibilities in pantheon. There are vert few things that is bad about it, sure you could be strong compared to the content you are doing but rly, who cares. If a player want to use some of he's hard earned items or gold to have fun, by all means let them do it.
The main concern is that it can trivialize difficulty for groups (or remove players from the grouping pool for early-mid levels which is also bad) and it also deflates newer players when next to someone decked out in the group.
Trust me i get the same rush of destroying stuff with gear from previous toon. But this is a new game and they are trying to promote grouping and fairness for all and limit the OP aspect of EQ. Lets face it, EQ had a broken system. They are also trying to promote a mentoring and progeny system which we have little information on. Although they have stated they want all armor to be tradeable the only way to accomplish this is with a robust skill system and soft level caps. You are going to have a skill for basically everything under the sun. Probably even a skill for looking at the sun also lol
I would love to see a system that matures as the game does. Maybe once the 2rd expansion hits.. all gear from the base game becomes account bound and loses level requirements.
This would allow for players to think all they want while still ensuring that the game is maturing.
Making it account bound prevents the influx of raid quality items into the market... but also allows a player to help catch up an alt that could be behind a little.
Iksar said:BamBam said: I absolutely loved twinking in eq, giving my bard alt fungus and some nice weapons and just go ham with a ton of how rgn and dps was a blast. I rly hope we see the same kind of possibilities in pantheon. There are vert few things that is bad about it, sure you could be strong compared to the content you are doing but rly, who cares. If a player want to use some of he's hard earned items or gold to have fun, by all means let them do it.The main concern is that it can trivialize difficulty for groups (or remove players from the grouping pool for early-mid levels which is also bad) and it also deflates newer players when next to someone decked out in the group.
Yup. New players don't get to learn how to play their characters properly when alongside twinks that are more powerful than they should be for the encounters they are doing.
BamBam said: I am sorry iksar and disposalist I don't buy your arguments.. Any player will learn he's class at some point playing with a twink or no twink. And there will be plenty of ppl to grp with and places to farm. And it will take awhile before we see decked out twinks, ofc we will see decent gear passed down from a main to alt but not the top end gear That will take a long time.
What about the mentoring system? Take a high level person with high level gear and drop them down the a lower level. Do you still expect them to have the same stats as the higher level version?
BamBam said: I am sorry iksar and disposalist I don't buy your arguments.. Any player will learn he's class at some point playing with a twink or no twink. And there will be plenty of ppl to grp with and places to farm. And it will take awhile before we see decked out twinks, ofc we will see decent gear passed down from a main to alt but not the top end gear That will take a long time.
My argument isn't about players not learning their class. It's the power of twinking unchecked (or even if like EQ) can allow players to solo the majority of their way until mid-level content which takes them out of the grouping pool for others, primarily first time levelers/untwinked characters looking to group. And when those twinks are in a group they trivialize the challenge to varying degrees. Finally non-twinked characters tend to feel a bit deflated next to them watching their numbers trail behind feeling like they aren't contributing much. A little extra power is fine but there is a line that unbalances things.
If a group were a six person bicycle, bringing in a twinked out player (with no balancing/scaling) would be like slapping a motor onto the thing. Sure you could pedal hard but it won't really make a difference, all you really have to do is steer at that point.