Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO

While camping isn't theonlything I like, sometimes I like that I can hang out and chat with people and be a bit more chill, killing stuff as it pops rather than just screaming forward in a race to the end. The most recent instanced stuff I did was FF14, and the pre-endgame at launch consisted of speedrunning a single instance precisely 72 times to get geared up to do the 3-4 raidbosses and endgame raidzone. That was infinitely less enjoyable for me than just sitting around a camp, chilling out with a few bros, and waiting for my gear to drop.

Multiple instances of the same dungeon to prevent overcrowding? sure. a blitz from boss A to B to C? I don't really like that, and would prefer if it was one of MANY different play options, otherwise it gets very boring very fast. I liked that EQ had LDoNs but also traditional open dungeons.

If you want non instanced dungeons to work you have to have a lot of downtime to go with it or one group will just keep popping from camp to camp killing everything. Interesting to see if that is the game he is going to make. I for one have zero interest sitting on my ass going afk for 10 min playing a game.

tad10_sl said:

ProTip: People have different definitions of what's fun.

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Oh come on... You're telling me that after the initial break in, you enjoyed holding the Frenzy spawn for 4 hours? I doubt it. I'm sure the chance at loot was fun, and the odd interaction/tension with another group... But clearing the spawns every cycle was pure tedium. Not to mention, on my druid (snare) or cleric (heals) I felt bad taking a 3 minute shit break.

Quaid_sl said:

*shrug*

Ya those were pretty much the only arguments I could come up with for public dungeons, and I didn't find them all that compelling. I mean... You sacrifice a ton when you ditch instancing, including encounter design complexity and development time/money...

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It's not so much what camping provides as it is what instances take away. Allowing infinite replication of resources via instances destroys economies and almost certainly implies that gear (if it's an itemization based game) will be untradeable. Whereas when you have a server based game with only 1 particular spawn of a monster who drops 1 particular loot (or sometimes only does) it creates scarcity in that item, giving the item value.

Taking an example out of WoW, the only things that sold for good amounts of cash were tradeskill materials (and most of that was because of time-limited things like smelting/alchemy cooldowns and the passive bonuses they put for leveling tradeskills) or raid drops. Raid drops being valuable because they were split among a large amount of players and only had the chance to be dropped for that group of players once a week. In early cata raid trash was being farmed in excess in BWD and with it came items being sold on AH that dropped regularly from trash. Within 2 weeks the prices on these were tanked--the scarcity was gone and it was seen as an attainable item for anyone who wanted to spend a few hours in BWD.

There's contention of course whether this is good design, but economic control (and with it, something to spend resources on, like twinking or even GW2's siege weaponry expenses) adds another aspect of the game that will keep people playing for a long time. What would be the purpose of a game like say Eve Online without good economics in game?

edit: Also, why did they remove internets?

Quaid_sl said:

I don't understand how these two points are related to instancing at all. Please elaborate.

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Look at modern gaming.

Group dungeons: Instancing leads to "get me the fucking loot already" mentality which means short dungeons, a couple of bosses, then loot.

Raid dungeons: Leads to smaller and more complicated raids (I agree with you that instancing can result in much more complicated raid encounters than non-instanced). But goes against the desire to "bring everybody" to the raid that got lost in WoW.

I'm suggesting that Brad could do both: Let's say there is only one raid dungeon at release (not unlikely you'll agree). Make that dungeon three wings. Wings two and three are non-instanced. Wing one (the starter wing for the zone) is an instanced raid zone. The instanced raid zone prevents complete cockblocking so guilds can progress and it can have a more complicated raid encounter.

I'm not saying that Pantheon should be all things to all people, I'm saying in this instance (pun unintended) a recognized problem with completely non-instanced raid encounters (uber guild cock blocks everyone else) can be ameliorated at the same time NewCo can throw a bone in for people who want a complex raid encounter that is only possible with instancing.

But why can't dungeons be designed that way too? Why can't dungeons be designed like say... Guk... But the major encounters are all instanced? Ghoul lord and Arch Magus are in an instanced chamber that has a 30 minute lockout timer, but the rest of the dungeon with xp trash and mini bosses is public? Hell, the mini bosses could even drop tradable loot to combat the situation heallun mentioned.

Abefroman_sl said:

If you want non instanced dungeons to work you have to have a lot of downtime to go with it or one group will just keep popping from camp to camp killing everything.

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Or a very large dungeon with moderate downtime and fast respawn - back to VG again, KH could easily have held 5 or 6 groups camping and probably an additional group just running through to kill the bosses that were way at the end. Each group controlling roughly three or four spawning areas. I don't think anyone wants to wait 10 minute between kills.

Quaid_sl said:

Oh come on... You're telling me that after the initial break in, you enjoyed holding the Frenzy spawn for 4 hours? I doubt it. I'm sure the chance at loot was fun, and the odd interaction/tension with another group... But clearing the spawns every cycle was pure tedium. Not to mention, on my druid (snare) or cleric (heals) I felt bad taking a 3 minute shit break.

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There's a lot more to the game then pulling mobs. Some of the most entertaining conversations I've ever had were sitting in dungeons pulling (or waiting for pulls). And downtime in a game is a GOOD thing. Being able to go bathroom, smoke, or nuke a meal is a bonus. I'm also a parent. When they removed all time restrictions on dungeons it means once you commit to a group, your stuck for however long it takes to finish. You can't even glance away from your monitor or you will get left behind.

Quaid_sl said:

I'm sure the chance at loot was fun, and the odd interaction/tension with another group... But clearing the spawns every cycle was pure tedium.

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What you described might be interesting, I would give it a chance. The problem to me (As far as knee-jerk instance aversion) is that most instances are scripted events and are fun the first 2-3 times, but then lose their charm and become worse than camps. Watching some shitty miniboss dialogue script for the tenth time and then doing whatever stupid gimmick the fight requires is a novelty that's fun a few times and then awful. Like I said, I did like LDoN, so maybe something procedurally generated and not scripted would be fun, but god, I hate scripted events in instance runs, especially when the game dictates that you need to do that content dozens of times to advance. At that point it becomes a blitz to the finish line and loses any fun a dungeon provides.

Merlin_sl said:

I won't speak for anyone else, but I'm sick and tired of sprinting through dungeons at breakneck speed. I just won't do it again. Its one thing to do say, LDON. But when dungeon sprinting became all the thing is when I became totally disinterested.

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In my opinion, the majority of the content of any good MMO should be in dungeons, not overland solo content. That is all i want. I don't care if it is instanced or not... but the dungeons better not be linear 20 minute affairs. I want to spend a week ( several nights of gaming ) exploring a dungeon ( and NOT outleveling the content ).

Quaid_sl said:

But why can't dungeons be designed that way too? Why can't dungeons be designed like say... Guk... But the major encounters are all instanced? Ghoul lord and Arch Magus are in an instanced chamber that has a 30 minute lockout timer, but the rest of the dungeon with xp trash and mini bosses is public? Hell, the mini bosses could even drop tradable loot to combat the situation heallun mentioned.

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SWTOR has something like that for the story-missions and the harder normal (H2/H4) missions.... it does work if your game is designed around it (see "too much loot"-problem).

Quaid_sl said:

But why can't dungeons be designed that way too? Why can't dungeons be designed like say... Guk... But the major encounters are all instanced? Ghoul lord and Arch Magus are in an instanced chamber that has a 30 minute lockout timer, but the rest of the dungeon with xp trash and mini bosses is public? Hell, the mini bosses could even drop tradable loot to combat the situation heallun mentioned.

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This was done pretty often in EQ2. I remember one in particular early on in Varsoon's. Frenzy's FBSS was only valuable because there weren't many good alternatives in classic. Yes there's RBB, CoF and Bassoon haste gauntlets but those are all extremely difficult to get in the grand scheme of things. If you put the best loot (you implied the other bosses were 'mini') in instances, the outdoor public bosses become more of an annoyance while exping than something to be sought after or even controlled.

Merlin_sl said:

There's a lot more to the game then pulling mobs. Some of the most entertaining conversations I've ever had were sitting in dungeons pulling (or waiting for pulls). And downtime in a game is a GOOD thing. Being able to go bathroom, smoke, or nuke a meal is a bonus. I'm also a parent. When they removed all time restrictions on dungeons it means once you commit to a group, your stuck for however long it takes to finish. You can't even glance away from your monitor or you will get left behind.

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All of those things are in spite of the game, not because of it.

Downtime in a game is good if one is forced to sit in the same spot for hours and hours. The problem is that design isn't that appealing to most of us anymore.

It's subjective, but 35 minute dungeon runs are far better than 6 hour camps that give one plenty of opportunities for breaks for me.

Quaid_sl said:

But why can't dungeons be designed that way too? Why can't dungeons be designed like say... Guk... But the major encounters are all instanced? Ghoul lord and Arch Magus are in an instanced chamber that has a 30 minute lockout timer, but the rest of the dungeon with xp trash and mini bosses is public? Hell, the mini bosses could even drop tradable loot to combat the situation heallun mentioned.

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Because group dungeons work just fine non-instanced. That doesn't mean NewCo couldn't throw in a fully instanced dungeon or two like and Estate of Unrest equivalent that used instancing to further the haunted house feeling. But that's a lot of development time for little reward, IMHO - I agree with Tol, instance scripting/events are fun a few times then you just want to nuke the developer. And as Heallun mentioned, instancing screws up the economy, the leveling curve and, as others have said, the community.

One thing to remember is that Brad & his team would be shooting themselves in the foot if they implemented instancing everywhere. It would mean players would be able to rapidly move through content. They actually need non-instanced content because the contested spawns means slower leveling and itemization and gives them some breathing room after release to develop the expansion.

tad10_sl said:

Or a very large dungeon with moderate downtime and fast respawn - back to VG again, KH could easily have held 5 or 6 groups camping and probably an additional group just running through to kill the bosses that were way at the end. Each group controlling roughly three or four spawning areas. I don't think anyone wants to wait 10 minute between kills.

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That sounds fine to me. Problem is they won't be very social since you will have to worry about fast respawns. I just hope he makes the game that he would want to play and not what he thinks the majority of MMO players want to play. Way too many fucking different ideas on what people want in this thread already. I'll settle for fun.

I loved Eq1 dungeons and I have fond memories of them. So what did I love and how has it changed? Looking at it from a low level experience in LOIO I remember nervously heading to the Sarnak fort for the first time and making my way/getting help to wherever my group was going to be camping. Because of the mob str, down time, and respawn, we were pretty much allowed to sit at this camp and get plenty of kills + build community relationships/friendships, which are increasingly hard to form in modern mmos because of their fast food nature. I remember the fun of watching my wife lock down a bunch of mobs as an enchanter and saving us from certain death when we did not time our pulls and respawns correctly. Often there were not enough kills at our camp spot. So the grps tank and maybe the off tank would need to memorize the surrounding area (maze like in the sarnak basement area) and pull mobs back one at a time or chaining them. It felt like a challenge.

Fast forward to Eq2 and you have the potential for this set up, but a few things destroy the ability for this. The first things that hamper this are mob leashing, linked mobs that can't be split, and no real crowed control. Its a pain to deal with this while trying to feed mobs to a group and in Eq2 it just made more sense to roam because of it. Add to that the fact that unlike EQ1, Eq2 had many quests that really pushed one to roam instead of staying put and you can see some issues. I personally prefer big open dungeons. I like to see people. I like to worry about the dangers of a train (which is almost gone today). I like needing to really learn a dungeon and interact with it. I like being able to get lost in a dungeon. Sure instanced dungeons are neat and all, but I miss Eq1 and how its unscripted dungeons led to some of my best memories in an MMO. I guess a compromise would be to build dungeons that support how Eq1 did things, but at the same time have epic quests inside of them that might lead to an instanced battle (Eq2). However, do not make it so all the names/loot are only in these instanced areas. Perhaps even make these instanced areas pieces of a long arcing class epic quest that grows with your character perhaps ending in raids at high level. In reality I do not think camping is gone. I think the mechanics that made it fun have been absent in favor of a give it to me now fast food environment.

Ha ultimately there will be things we as individuals don't like but the game will still be a huge step in the right direction and that's what matters most.. As much as some people hate outdoor dungeons they really did slow up leveling and make loot dropping in the world more rare bc of their restrictions.. Like others have posted.. I don't want to be entitled to every drop a zone offers within a hour.. I'd rather my odds be bad. Maybe I'll keep going back to that zone or over pay on the market.

I would like to see dungeons that have multiple ways to get through them. You can get across that broken bridge if someone in the group has the ability to levitate, if not find the way around. You can go through that door if someone can pick the lock, if not go around. You can navigate those tight corridors if someone can disarm the traps, if not go around. Problem/puzzle solving would be quite nice for a change.

Thoughts on Darkness ? ( to Brad or others here ) - I would like to see darkness matter again. Either for different zone/mob behavior or perhaps more importantly immersion... Any game I play that leverages darkness ( dark souls, The Last of US etc ) really has me want darkness to come back to MMOs. DDO used darkness a bit ( not enough imo ) but I would like to see it return ...

thoughts ?

please God no instances. they go against the very nature of an MMO.