Will there be classes that can kite or possibly quad? ^_^ Or will the weapons/spells everyone uses only be for fluff/flavor/appearence? I only ask this because i'm noticing kiting isn't possible in a lot of new games out there and everyone is thrown into a hack and slash crowd. Makes me sad.
It's a good question. Maybe @Bazgrim can chime in with some of his domain knowledge. From what we've seen so far, spell durations are significantly lower than they were in EQ. While it's obviously early in development there seems to be a philosophical change around how active players should be in combat that might make kiting less of a thing. We know there are snares and we know there are dots, we don't know kiting will be viable tho. Frankly I hope kiting and fear kiting are in the game. They are 2 of the very best examples of emergent gameplay in the history of the genre.
I have no doubt that kiting will be in the game, and probably root rotting. The question is at what lvl your character is pertaining to the mob that it is doable. I don't imagine you would be able to kite mobs higher level than you. Also, if they mix the mobs well with ranged and melee type mobs alike, then it will be difficult nonetheless, also mobs that summon you to them at higher levels. I would guess you could kite mobs that are light blue, green, and grey to you, but can you kite white, yellow, and red cons, like in eq, maybe white con, but probably not. If they make the mobs tough for a group your level to handle, then you will probably not have enough mana alone to kill one, but once your character is higher level and the mob is light blue or green and you have better spells I would say yea.
Kiting will certainly be possible in Pantheon. You will be able to cast some spells on the move and you can probably root and snare too. Perhaps it would be more illuminating to ask the question "will kiting be efficient enough to warrant use?" That question does not yet have an answer though.
Check out the following thread for some posts by Aradune and company.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1938/kiting-and-moving-while-casting/view/page/1
I dont think you'll ever see kiting like you did in eq1. But even in wow, you are able to kite certain mobs with certain abilities.
I honestly feel that kiting is one of those things that prevents people from grouping (I played a necro in eq1, and in most cases it was faster for me to log in a kite nonstop than look for a group, go to it. And hope good).
If pantheon is trying to really take a hold of the group aspect they will want soloing to be difficult and not worth it.
I would prefer that there not be kiting. I think it was an unintentional thing in EQ and they made moves to make it much less effective eventually (reduction of DOT efficiency when pursuing, etc). We don’t need a one-for-one equivalents of all things EQ in Pantheon. What should be done is to take the things which made EQ great and challenging, pushing for grouping and social interactions. I am not against soloing but it should be a progression which is much slower than grouping (diminishing returns). I did a considerable amount of soloing on EQ due to time constraints so it’s not like I have a hate on for soloing. Again, it should be a much slower XP gain than when grouped (assuming the preference of the game designers is on grouping).
I definitely don’t want swam kiting when bards show up (sorry bards) as this was a royal pain in EQ when a single player tied up a pile of mobs, not leaving much for others. Ideally, the devs will find that right balance while pushing the players in the direction which the game is being designed for. I feel confident that lessons were learned over the years from the variety of MMO’s out there and we will see some great design decisions being made.
Draygon said:I would prefer that there not be kiting. I think it was an unintentional thing in EQ and they made moves to make it much less effective eventually (reduction of DOT efficiency when pursuing, etc). We don’t need a one-for-one equivalents of all things EQ in Pantheon. What should be done is to take the things which made EQ great and challenging, pushing for grouping and social interactions. I am not against soloing but it should be a progression which is much slower than grouping (diminishing returns). I did a considerable amount of soloing on EQ due to time constraints so it’s not like I have a hate on for soloing. Again, it should be a much slower XP gain than when grouped (assuming the preference of the game designers is on grouping).
I definitely don’t want swam kiting when bards show up (sorry bards) as this was a royal pain in EQ when a single player tied up a pile of mobs, not leaving much for others. Ideally, the devs will find that right balance while pushing the players in the direction which the game is being designed for. I feel confident that lessons were learned over the years from the variety of MMO’s out there and we will see some great design decisions being made.
Some unintentional things are amazing and I hope they leave room for those things to emerge without too many mechanics that bind players onto rails.
From what I've witnessed so far, I'm thinking that kiting and root-rotting will likely be a strategies used by duo/trio teams. It would appear that the devs are really trynig to get away from solo gameplay (which is likely why the necro and bard were late arrivals due to "balance issues"). From the reveals we have so far (melee DPS, Tanks, Healers) none of the classes will likely be "efficient" at solo gameplay without being a twink or have OOR buffs. I am not saying that it will be impossible, but likely inefficient for the average player... perhaps something you can do while /LFG if you aren't into crafting or RP. It also looks like they are giving all of the classes a way to solo and recover either in combat or out of combat (by stopping combat altogether or healing themselves) so that not any single class is identified as the "ultimate solo class" (a.k.a. the EQ necro at all levels or end game SHD and ALL pure casters except Cleric).
With all of that said, I do appreciate the skill that was required for quad kiting of the Druid and Wizard or the Swarm kiting by the Bard. I *personally* feel that the risk versus reward was appropriate... one mistake meant death for the Wizard and Bard, or having to retreat as the Druid due to low mana. The Enchanter and Mage pet soloing required skill and had a decent risk vs reward. SHD required a lot of mana and was time intensive (due to low DPS) to fear kite as well as having the risk of the target being feared into more enemies if in an unknown area. The Necro/Shaman root-rotting was handsdown the easiest (laziest) gameplay in the game and hopefully what the devs are trying to avoid. The risk vs reward (or amount of skill required) of root-rotting was a bit unbalanced considering there was very little risk and the dmg to mana ratio of DoTs on rooted targets (on the 2 classes that already had nearly endless mana and could heal themselves) was insane.
Keno Monster said:
Some unintentional things are amazing and I hope they leave room for those things to emerge without too many mechanics that bind players onto rails.
I completely agree! I’m not advocating that everyone’s hands be tied so that people are stuck on rails as you said. Learning from problems of the past and working to encourage players to do what the environment is designed around is what I am interested in seeing. We all know also that players will still find ways to do things in unexpected ways which I think is pretty cool. If it causes aspects of the game to be trivialized, then obviously it needs to be fixed. I loved EQ, with all of its flaws and I would not have wanted it any different. It was fun figuring out some novel way of doing something that you had never seen anyone else do.
Draygon said:I would prefer that there not be kiting. I think it was an unintentional thing in EQ and they made moves to make it much less effective eventually (reduction of DOT efficiency when pursuing, etc). We don’t need a one-for-one equivalents of all things EQ in Pantheon. What should be done is to take the things which made EQ great and challenging, pushing for grouping and social interactions. I am not against soloing but it should be a progression which is much slower than grouping (diminishing returns). I did a considerable amount of soloing on EQ due to time constraints so it’s not like I have a hate on for soloing. Again, it should be a much slower XP gain than when grouped (assuming the preference of the game designers is on grouping).
I definitely don’t want swam kiting when bards show up (sorry bards) as this was a royal pain in EQ when a single player tied up a pile of mobs, not leaving much for others. Ideally, the devs will find that right balance while pushing the players in the direction which the game is being designed for. I feel confident that lessons were learned over the years from the variety of MMO’s out there and we will see some great design decisions being made.
Kiting was invented by EQ1. An unplanned functionality to be sure.
I still remember those first weeks after the launch when players first discovered the concept of being able to solo a yellow(or higher) mob with a Druid by snaring and dotting.
Almost overnight the servers filled up with new Druids. No joke, it seemed that maybe 25% or more of all classes online at any time were Druids, once people found out about kiting.
Druids got a soft nerf after a couple weeks that stopped the game from turning into an all Druid world. Essentially they nerfed down the effectivness of a DOT if the Druid/character was moving.
It's always interesting to see what unintended functionalities players will figure out.
It's kind of weird that kiting was not figured out in beta.
Porygon said:I dont think you'll ever see kiting like you did in eq1.
I can agree with this. Seems unlikely given what they are trying to create here. Teamwork and so forth. Also their comments on how difficult it will be ( not impossible ) to solo in this game. That said, its still a big unknown and we'll all have to see in beta.
Sidenote: These topics always make me wonder how many changes the dev's will consider moving forward. I've said this before and I'll keep saying it. My biggest hope, besides the success of this game, is that when the game goes into beta and the masses of people ( waiting for a new MMO ) swarm into the que, the dev's don't buckle of the myriad voices of player complaints about the things they aren't used to in a game like this and will ultimately want the easy way out. You EQ1 experienced players here know what I am talking about and we've seen many a forum topic about them. This will be the biggest test. I hope they stick to their guns.
Of course I don't mean cutting their nose off to spite their faces either. Success sometimes means change. They certain seem like they have firm vision of what they want.
I think this is an area where the AI can evolve to give players more of a challenge and make the game more realistic. If I am an orc, and I decide to attack a player, but the player keeps running away from me, and I'm losing life without being able to reach the player, why would I mindlessly keep charging at the player? So what I would do is put in ai subroutines that recognize when a player is kiting the mob and give the mob several responses.
zoltar said:I think this is an area where the AI can evolve to give players more of a challenge and make the game more realistic. If I am an orc, and I decide to attack a player, but the player keeps running away from me, and I'm losing life without being able to reach the player, why would I mindlessly keep charging at the player? So what I would do is put in ai subroutines that recognize when a player is kiting the mob and give the mob several responses.
- Run away.
- Sprint towards the player & root them
- Call for help
- Feign death
- Switch to ranged attacks
I like idea. But if a mob is snared, it shouldn't be able to run away or towards a player.
Calling for help is just going to create a distance that a player will drag a mob to before engaging it.
I do like mobs that swap to ranged. This happened in WoW alot. But I would want it to remain realistic. Casters obviously could cast spells, but like, a wolf shouldn't have ranged attacks.
If a mob feigns death, could not the player just continue attacking?
Porygon said:zoltar said:I think this is an area where the AI can evolve to give players more of a challenge and make the game more realistic. If I am an orc, and I decide to attack a player, but the player keeps running away from me, and I'm losing life without being able to reach the player, why would I mindlessly keep charging at the player? So what I would do is put in ai subroutines that recognize when a player is kiting the mob and give the mob several responses.
- Run away.
- Sprint towards the player & root them
- Call for help
- Feign death
- Switch to ranged attacks
I like idea. But if a mob is snared, it shouldn't be able to run away or towards a player.
Calling for help is just going to create a distance that a player will drag a mob to before engaging it.
I do like mobs that swap to ranged. This happened in WoW alot. But I would want it to remain realistic. Casters obviously could cast spells, but like, a wolf shouldn't have ranged attacks.
If a mob feigns death, could not the player just continue attacking?
Well, rooted is different than snared, at least in how I've always heard them used. I'll elaborate a little bit on how these ideas would work though.
AI trigger: After a certain period of time of being kited, the mob will realize it has no chance of defeating you and decide to use one of the following ai subroutines to counter your kiting. The AI can determine this by looking at the unusually high ratio of damage you have done to it vs damage it has done to you. The mob could end up using any of the following options, which would keep the mob's behavior unpredictable
1. Running away. The mob gets a buff "flight adrenaline" that provides immunity to root, reduced effect of snares, and increased run speed to help it escape you. It's agro list is wiped until it gets back to it's home location.
2. Charge attack. Mob enrages with a "fight adrenaline" buff (similar bonuses to flight adrenaline) and comes at you.
3. Call for help. Another possible outcome, possibly limited to humanoid enemies. The mob calls for help. This spawns one or more "scout" type enemies near the original location. Their behavior is to move towards the area where the call was made, specificallly looking for the players attacking the original mob and ignoring other players. The scout type mobs have resistance to movement debuffs, and powerful ranged attacks.
4. Use ranged abilites. Perhaps give humanoid melee mobs abilites like throwing a bola at the player's legs to root them. Yes, certain types of enemies wouldn't realistically do this, but animals like a wolf should have higher run speed, or other defenses such as the ability to scale & hide in trees.
5. Feign death. Mob drops to the ground, pretending to be dead & preventing the player from attacking it. The player must get within melee range to reveal the mob's status. If the player moves away a certain distance, the mob jumps up and then goes in to the run away mode.
zoltar said:5. Feign death. Mob drops to the ground, pretending to be dead & preventing the player from attacking it. The player must get within melee range to reveal the mob's status. If the player moves away a certain distance, the mob jumps up and then goes in to the run away mode.
Interesting concept, but would probably end up being predictable to the point of not at all mattering anymore. Would you get experience for making them do this? Double for killing them again? Implementing this sounds like it would be quite the endeavor to get right rather than making it just another tedious process to finish the job.
Madae said:zoltar said:5. Feign death. Mob drops to the ground, pretending to be dead & preventing the player from attacking it. The player must get within melee range to reveal the mob's status. If the player moves away a certain distance, the mob jumps up and then goes in to the run away mode.
Interesting concept, but would probably end up being predictable to the point of not at all mattering anymore. Would you get experience for making them do this? Double for killing them again? Implementing this sounds like it would be quite the endeavor to get right rather than making it just another tedious process to finish the job.
I think it would be an interesting mechanic in pack fights, if a mob during a teamfight drops on the ground and make you loose him as an offensive target, it can lead to people switching their focus to another ennemy only to see him waking up again and maybe, do something to turn the tables ?
zoltar said:Well, rooted is different than snared, at least in how I've always heard them used. I'll elaborate a little bit on how these ideas would work though.
AI trigger: After a certain period of time of being kited, the mob will realize it has no chance of defeating you and decide to use one of the following ai subroutines to counter your kiting. The AI can determine this by looking at the unusually high ratio of damage you have done to it vs damage it has done to you. The mob could end up using any of the following options, which would keep the mob's behavior unpredictable
1. Running away. The mob gets a buff "flight adrenaline" that provides immunity to root, reduced effect of snares, and increased run speed to help it escape you. It's agro list is wiped until it gets back to it's home location.
2. Charge attack. Mob enrages with a "fight adrenaline" buff (similar bonuses to flight adrenaline) and comes at you.
3. Call for help. Another possible outcome, possibly limited to humanoid enemies. The mob calls for help. This spawns one or more "scout" type enemies near the original location. Their behavior is to move towards the area where the call was made, specificallly looking for the players attacking the original mob and ignoring other players. The scout type mobs have resistance to movement debuffs, and powerful ranged attacks.
4. Use ranged abilites. Perhaps give humanoid melee mobs abilites like throwing a bola at the player's legs to root them. Yes, certain types of enemies wouldn't realistically do this, but animals like a wolf should have higher run speed, or other defenses such as the ability to scale & hide in trees.
5. Feign death. Mob drops to the ground, pretending to be dead & preventing the player from attacking it. The player must get within melee range to reveal the mob's status. If the player moves away a certain distance, the mob jumps up and then goes in to the run away mode.
I like these "clarifications" much more. But I think it should be limited. Maybe an anti-snare (anti-kite) disposition could be added to certain mobs. I dont think every mob should have this, but it would be a nice surprise if mobs could spawn with this 10% of the time or so. Keep things interesting. So you're never sure if the mob you're pulling is anti-kite or not.
Madae said:zoltar said:5. Feign death. Mob drops to the ground, pretending to be dead & preventing the player from attacking it. The player must get within melee range to reveal the mob's status. If the player moves away a certain distance, the mob jumps up and then goes in to the run away mode.
Interesting concept, but would probably end up being predictable to the point of not at all mattering anymore. Would you get experience for making them do this? Double for killing them again? Implementing this sounds like it would be quite the endeavor to get right rather than making it just another tedious process to finish the job.
You make things unpredictable by having multiple reaction behaviors and randomization in the triggering formula. So for example, starting when the mob reaches 70% hp and at every 10% after that, there's a probability check for the mob to choose one of the behaviors depending on the time the mob has been in combat, the damage it's done to you, and the damage you've done to it.
MauvaisOeil said:I think it would be an interesting mechanic in pack fights, if a mob during a teamfight drops on the ground and make you loose him as an offensive target, it can lead to people switching their focus to another ennemy only to see him waking up again and maybe, do something to turn the tables ?
IIRC this happened in the one MPG raid trial in eq1. Ot just required you to switch targets until the mob decided to stand up. Cant remember if this also happened in WoWs ToC raid. I'm pretty sure it did. It's a nice change to see mobs actually use the abilities they should have.
Kiting is great. It has its benefits, but it also has its drawbacks. It's especially nice for some people who can't dedicate themselves to a group (on call w/ work, or watching their kids, etc...) but actually want to get a little XP. Can't be done well in most dungeons, and even outdoors it has its risks, especially in densely populated areas.
I hate quadding. Almost every time I saw someone quadding who wasn't completely alone at an area, they were running around with one or two mobs for 15-20+ minutes trying to gather up 4 mobs. By the time they actually gathered 4 mobs, the first two mobs could have been killed, and their respawns killed, by other players. By the time the person actually kills the quad pull, the first two mobs could have spawned two times, and the third mob probably an additional time. They gimp the area's spawns for everyone else by taking forever to gather and kill the quad pull.
Now, I'm not against someone killing multiple mobs at a time or holding down a whole camp by themselves if they can do it even relatively efficiently. For example, if you are killing 10 mobs at a time with root and Spear of Fate, more power to you.
Also, I'm all for AoE pulls / spells (it was super fun in DAoC), but it shouldn't take you or your group 30-45 minutes to kill four mobs in a competitive area... Just no.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijaptl5zNAg
Kaen said:I hate quadding. Almost every time I saw someone quadding who wasn't completely alone at an area, they were running around with one or two mobs for 15-20+ minutes trying to gather up 4 mobs. By the time they actually gathered 4 mobs, the first two mobs could have been killed, and their respawns killed, by other players. By the time the person actually kills the quad pull, the first two mobs could have spawned two times, and the third mob probably an additional time. They gimp the area's spawns for everyone else by taking forever to gather and kill the quad pull.
I had no idea what "quadding" was and I was too scared to ask. xD Thanks for that description.
As for kiting... Isn't that always how squishy ranged characters kill mobs that don't die in a couple hits? You do your best to keep distance while firing away with spells/arrows/whathaveyou. I'd imagine ranged classes would have some way to maintain range - either through some root effect, a jump back, a slow, etc. Otherwise you'll just be taking hits to the face.