Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Twinking?

    • 162 posts
    July 18, 2018 3:39 PM PDT

    If you ask me, twinking is necessary. Why not? Who does it cause harm to? It's a show of how much money you have made during your travels, or a show of how much you are willing to farm lol. Anyways, it hurts no one to twink, in fact it increases the stability of any market. If we can't trade twink armor, what else are we going to trade? EQ2 kinda sucked for me because armor was junk, the only thing worth getting was crafted armor, the nameds dropped junk that wasn't worth selling on the market, it was just horrible. I prefer to have a low end market. Make the raid loot no trade, quested, no trade, otherwise, let us trade it all. 

    Sure, a lot of people complain about twinking, of which i don't understand, everyone is welcome to have their own opinion, but look at the EQ market, and the fact that there were level 20 mobs that offered gear worthy of high end raids, mobs that had 3 or 4 different drops from rare to common, and it wasn't unheard of a level 60 going to a level 20 zone for an item they wanted badly enough. Or spells that dropped from specific mobs at the same time. The market was blooming with different types of gear, and different ways to build your character. 

    That's what I want to see out of a game, that's what will keep me coming back every day, and what will have me wanting to scour noob zones for nameds and keep the adventure alive, even when I am max level.

    • 3852 posts
    July 18, 2018 4:24 PM PDT

    I see no reason not to allow twinking as long as a low level isn't made *too* powerful by it. Necessary is a strong word - perhaps "desirable"?

    • 755 posts
    July 18, 2018 5:17 PM PDT
    Don’t get me wrong. I am all for twinking. I just want the game to be fair all around. A twinked level 10 should only be slightly better than a max level 10 regular groupable armor character. The stats of the armor should scale. The skills should scale, and the spells should scale. What EQ did WRONG and ruined the entire genre was to not scale spells and armor stats properly. They allowed for full stats and spell effects on low level characters. Once POP in EQ came out you pretty much could spend to win to get to the highest tier. By scaling EVERYTHING properly you avoid spend to win because no matter what armor you buy it will end up being the same across the board dependent on level. This would also specifically facilitate mentoring or progeny or any sort of level specific event ideas that might be implemented.

    I whole heartedly want there to be level specific raids similar to how naggy or vox booted you if you werent level 52. Allow for the mentoring system to drop us down to a specific level so we can join these raids. But dont give us BIS items from lower level mobs. Let us do it for the thrill of the experience so we can help people figure out how to complete the encounter.

    I want to be able to gift all my armor from my high level character to a new character and they would only have a “slight” advantage. But they wouldnt have to regear for 40 levels. Thats what im looking for. Saving the cost and energy to regear.

    I am actually a really big fan of no rent items if they are implemeted correctly and soulbound until you /camp or /quit. But i am done dictating.
    • 8 posts
    July 18, 2018 5:30 PM PDT
    I agree that there could be a concern with higher level geared Twinks, but don’t agree that it’s a concern that they will have endless power and crush a mob 10 levels higher. EQ isn’t really broken in that the higher the mob the less damage based on misses (which is often). Reward people who grind hard to have the ability to gear that twinks a new toon so they don’t have to go through the struggle all over again. It’s a rich gets richer scheme, but motivates newer toons waning to play more to gear out.
    • 755 posts
    July 18, 2018 8:05 PM PDT

    You can do have a rich gets richer scheme without having OP toons, PL spells, and just broken game mechanics. Just because something has existed for 19 years doesnt meant it isnt broken. EQ is and was an originally released broken game. Getting a fungi and two Scepters of Destruction at level 1 that proc... you tell me the game isnt broken. 

    • 151 posts
    July 18, 2018 8:12 PM PDT
    twinking just get a new toon up to the players ability level sooner
    • 755 posts
    July 18, 2018 8:14 PM PDT

    Or, hear me out, you create a pay to win situation where you buy droppable gear and you fly up in levels without really learning your class or the game. Congrats, you beat the game.

    • 151 posts
    July 18, 2018 9:04 PM PDT
    most items probably have a level requirement. The very few that don't are intentional or an error to be fixed.
    • 1714 posts
    July 18, 2018 9:18 PM PDT

    Hyperium said: most items probably have a level requirement. The very few that don't are intentional or an error to be fixed.

    What's your evidence for that? I think the opposite is true. 

    • 627 posts
    July 18, 2018 9:22 PM PDT
    @iksar i see, and agree that there should be limits to the madness of twinking. We can have the cake and eat it too. With a good scaling and balancing.
    • 755 posts
    July 18, 2018 9:24 PM PDT
    Are we talkin EQ? Because Pantheon has stated that they want items to be freely traded between characters. This means they are creating a system that allows for free trade and not level specific weapon/armor ranges. This means there is in place a system that counteracts these free roaming weapons and armor without level ranges.

    I feel as tho you came to this uninformed.
    • 627 posts
    July 18, 2018 11:22 PM PDT
    Ehm Kreed99 i have head all there is to hear from VR So i do not think I do.

    VR have said that an item CAN be used by a lower lvl char. But it will scale down, it will still be a great benefit, but we won't see the fullys scaled item on a low lvl char.

    There you have it, maybe you misunderstood something frankly do not know.

    • 151 posts
    July 18, 2018 11:28 PM PDT
    key word is probably... It's my thinking that allowing level 30, 40, or 50 gear on a newbie is game breaking. For us, gear traits are still speculation. I have faith in VR and Brad to do well with their production.
    • 151 posts
    July 18, 2018 11:34 PM PDT
    scalable is intentional. We've seen good scaling systems in other games.
    • 151 posts
    July 18, 2018 11:46 PM PDT
    probably wrong but from what I remember, I don't have time to go back and look at every stream or thread, I though whoever was talking said scaling is one of the options they're looking at and they could go but still being discussed and no decisions, that's it's to early
    • 839 posts
    July 19, 2018 7:03 AM PDT

    Iksar said:

    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. 

    That was a fantastic analogy!! :) 

    • 755 posts
    July 19, 2018 7:18 AM PDT

    BamBam said: Ehm Kreed99 i have head all there is to hear from VR So i do not think I do. VR have said that an item CAN be used by a lower lvl char. But it will scale down, it will still be a great benefit, but we won't see the fullys scaled item on a low lvl char. There you have it, maybe you misunderstood something frankly do not know.

    I may have worded it wrong. I was speaking about how on stream they commented that they want many items to be tradable, and scale to match the player level. To be honest, i wasn't replying to you, i was replying to another post. But the same applies.

    • 2419 posts
    July 19, 2018 11:25 AM PDT

    MauvaisOeil said:

    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.

    While this is indeed correct, a high quality higher level weapon used by a low level character could still prove better than an average or low quality low level weapon.  We all know that high level items have better baseline stats and more overall stats (resists, stat bonuses, etc) where low level items nearly always tend to lack them.  Even with the stat reductions, those higher level items essentially grow stronger as the player levels.  Thus the player does not need to think about replacing that weapon until it reaches the optimal level of that weapon.  During all those intervening levels, the player effectively saves all the costs and expense associated with upgrades. It is something that many take into consideration when passing down items.

    • 755 posts
    July 19, 2018 1:14 PM PDT

    Exactly, but you won't have godlike dmg. You will only be slightly better. Which is totally on board with what most people want - an advantage over another player.

    • 2138 posts
    July 19, 2018 3:13 PM PDT

    I get the feeling twinking wont be needed in pantheon to allow a player to overcome their lack of skill in the class they chose. I think each class will be challenging enough and good players easily disernable using normal gear that the game provides. I sont think each class will be easy to pick up, like it was say,in EQ.

    • 844 posts
    July 19, 2018 6:02 PM PDT

    In the beginning, in EQ1 is where Brad learned this important lesson about an open game with few rules and twinking.

    In the beginning, they had very few character restrictions in place. A level 10 charcter could go anywhere.

    And Brad learned that having no rules allowed for the exploitation of weak mechanics.

    Certain over-powered guilds groups, in the early days would ultimately dominate planes and become fully equipped in planar gear to the point they would ferry in their lowbie alts to soak up all the rotting drops. this led to level 10 characters running around with full planar nodrop gear, and epic weapons. And though the weapon damage may have been reduced for a lower level character, they were still vastly more useful than the common rusty weapons most had. But it also had the undesired affect of demoralizing average players just trying hard to get passing gear.

    This ultimately led to the simple fix, that would be just another "special mechanic fix" to an otherwise open world sandbox. They made access to planes level restricted to 46.

    The point of course, that those players were doing the ultimate twink, outfitting starting characters with the best in game gear.

    Twinking is not a great thing. Earning gear is vastly more satisfying. Twinking is close to p2w in my book.

    • 2419 posts
    July 19, 2018 6:52 PM PDT

    Manouk said:

    I get the feeling twinking wont be needed in pantheon to allow a player to overcome their lack of skill in the class they chose.

    It isn't a question about if it is needed. It is if there is even the appearance of having an edge, however slight, over using gear normally obtained at the present level.\

    [zewtastic said:

    Twinking is not a great thing. Earning gear is vastly more satisfying. Twinking is close to p2w in my book.

    Going to break this out per sentence:  Yes, it is not a great thing.  In your opinion. But you, the player did earn the items and did not pay real money to obtain it without effort.

    • 844 posts
    July 19, 2018 9:47 PM PDT

    Vandraad said:

    Going to break this out per sentence:  Yes, it is not a great thing.  In your opinion. But you, the player did earn the items and did not pay real money to obtain it without effort.

    No, the player on that character did not earn the items, the player on another character earned the items. It's not much different than just buying all the items for a character.

    Playing a game of this nature, in the spirit it is intended, does not mean running around with a max level character farming uber loot for all your alts.

    • 1584 posts
    July 19, 2018 10:02 PM PDT
    Ok twinking isn't okay to give you a huge advantage in this game, I mean it will give you an advantage yes, but like joppa said when a shaman gives a lvl 1 a lvl 50 strength buff isn't going to effect him like it would another lvl 50 character becuase of skill diffence, as in 1hs, or 1hb, so if these skills aren't up ac, 1hb, 1hs, dodge, parry all these stats will hardly be effected until you get the skills high enough for the stats and ac to work in your benefit like we think they will. Now I will admit you will be better than someone who isn't twined but I got a good feeling at most you will be hitting a little harder and maybe taking 1 or 2 more big hits but other than that it will all be just about the same, I'm sure the debs are sure twinking will be a thing and have made it possible to do so hut also made sure the difficulty will remain as in fighting red mobs in dungeons will still be a bad idea, or at least for what I've seen on streams it seems like that how it is going to be, plus if the want to spend the time farming the gear or in game money to get it than why shouldn't they be able to twin them out.
    • 690 posts
    July 20, 2018 7:33 AM PDT

    I think it's kinda unfair to be equating twinking to high level arse holes hoarding gear for their alts. I personally feel like that's boring.

    Much more fun to use the trade system to turn smaller amounts of money into bigger amounts of money, and also kill rare spawns for rare valuable loots as I level up, and then use the money to twink myself and level up my tradeskills to further twink myself.  If that doesn't count to you as "earning gear", then I can't help you. 

    It really sucks when there's level limits and whatnot. I get that it's to stop high levels from twinking friends and alts, but it also makes earning tons of cash early on effectively pointless. 

    The current plan to make really high level gears less effective due to character limitations is plenty, in my opinion, and it doesn't alienate my trade-before-experience playstyle. 


    This post was edited by BeaverBiscuit at July 20, 2018 7:35 AM PDT