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

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Rezz

Rezz

Mr. Poopybutthole
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etchazz said:
I never said you can completely remake EQ now, but I also don't spend endless hours in a thread dedicated to an EQ type game telling people why they're wrong for wanting one. If you hate EQ so much, and the idea of Pantheon, why the fuck are you constantly here posting?
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I check this thread rarely; this is the third time in literal months~

I have no problem with people wanting the game to come out and scratch their EQ itch. I also didn't claim that you wanted a remake of EQ. I'm pretty sure I also want this game (and a plethora of other games) to succeed, and I will most likely give it a shot regardless. Because I tend to play games in this genre, not "game." (Shots fired at the EQ homers who haven't played anything else) HOWEVER. This thread is literally littered with that mentality, and a lot of people claiming that EQ was a lot of things that it most definitely was not. Referencing myself, EQ had a shit-ton of varied playstyles that resulted in very different experiences of the game. The problem is that very few people make that connection and think their version of the game was close to reality. Hence my commentary regarding teleportation, needed classes, and raids. The people that -love- long travel tend to be people who can bypass it. The people that -love- required grouping dynamics tend to be classes that had an easy time getting groups. Do you see the issue here? The kid who was talking about pulling (lol) specifically said that if your puller was great then the situation I described didn't happen. Except it did happen for -every- other player in a given zone that wasn't part of that kid's group. So the experience of "it wasn't like that, man!" only existed for an absolute minority, where the reality was always "sit and wait for shit to happen" in 90% of cases. That means, and I hope I'm not being too forward, that his version of how the game actually worked is just fucking wrong. How is this thought process difficult to understand?

Didn't I say I enjoyed my time there, but I am also incredibly critical of it?

Also, look up my posting history in this thread. Just do a quick search and check the dates. Constantly is uh.... not the word I would use.

Really I just checked this thread to see if this "game" was even remotely close to release, and instead wandered into yet another EQ circle-jerk full of obvious misinformation and people supplanting actual events with rose-colored versions of said events. I am the arbiter of common sense when it comes to EQ, because apparently a lot of you fucks didn't play the same game as 90% of the playerbase. Your opinion of what the game was does not correlate with reality well.

MOVING ON.

Multiplying classes in EQ was always a strange situation, District 9 guy is pretty close.

Two necros in a group meant you were lollercoasting past difficulty. Necros were broke in -every- situation that wasn't strictly a raid dps environment, in which case they were still manafeeding lures/CHs most of the time. I had many a late night session in Seb with 1-2 necros sitting at zone where we just continued to pull and kill shit further in until repops. I sold more than a few Lammy's from those sessions because we all had bags full of random shit and gems. Two SKs in a group meant you were having mediocre DPS in most cases, unless they were both pulling in which case why the fuck were you using 2 SKs? One was sufficient in basically all situations. Paladins at least had group heals and stuff; we had darkness and FD and the ability to pull singles like champions. Once those were in place, SK damage was definitely not rogue/monk/ranger/caster damage.

Two mages... I can't honestly remember this ever happening on Live. OP as shit on the progression servers, but not even remotely common otherwise.

Two healers of any kind was overkill in a lot of situations. Two shamans meant one cast fewer spells once an hour, but double torpors on an SK tank was just lol-worthy. Same for paladins. My experience with grouping and warriors was kind of minimal; I was 90% puller+tank in every group. Stacking classes of certain types was generally beneficial, just with reduced gains as you went forward. 2 clerics was cool, right up until you realized that a single cleric could keep you alive and the second was just shit DPS. Very true for a lot of classes.

2 warriors prior to the 2h damage boost was just a waste of time. A monk afk auto-attacking was higher DPS than a warrior going all out.

Stacking classes was beneficial in some cases, and in rare occurrences during normal grouping it was amazing. But it was definitely hit or miss on being really useful or not.
 
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Ukerric

Ukerric

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Rezz said:
Stacking classes was beneficial in some cases, and in rare occurrences during normal grouping it was amazing. But it was definitely hit or miss on being really useful or not.
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Stop thinking about classes, think about roles. There are about 5 core roles in a group setting, which are:

- Tank
- Heal
- Group buff (long term/auras and short term boosts)
- Enemy debuffs
- CC

with the optional scout/pull "6th" role (which would require a 6th slot in a group).

That's what you need to build a group. The problem is that, if your classes are specialized in one of these roles, and one role only, then you quickly get into the imbalance of population problem. So, in a modern game, the solution is to spread the roles around classes, and have classes that fill multiple roles, so you have an easy way to getting a functional group. In WoW, that's the specialization, except that specializations require your class to pick one role before starting (which is ok), be used to play that role (harder), and also to gear for that role (not ok).

If you wanted a good class system, then my recommandation would be a dozen of core classes, each with a different combo of roles, both of which can be done whenever, and without gear swap. Say, you have 12 classes; 4 of them can tank - at any time -, 4 can heal - again, whenever -, etc, etc. If you have that, then you don't need to worry about being able to stack classes. Pick 3 classes at random from the pool, you've probably covered 4 roles of your group, you can pick a 4th that covers the last role, then whoever. Then you have flexibility, and making groups isn't "that hard".
 
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Pyros

Pyros

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Ukerric said:
Stop thinking about classes, think about roles. There are about 5 core roles in a group setting, which are:

- Tank
- Heal
- Group buff (long term/auras and short term boosts)
- Enemy debuffs
- CC

with the optional scout/pull "6th" role (which would require a 6th slot in a group).

That's what you need to build a group. The problem is that, if your classes are specialized in one of these roles, and one role only, then you quickly get into the imbalance of population problem. So, in a modern game, the solution is to spread the roles around classes, and have classes that fill multiple roles, so you have an easy way to getting a functional group. In WoW, that's the specialization, except that specializations require your class to pick one role before starting (which is ok), be used to play that role (harder), and also to gear for that role (not ok).

If you wanted a good class system, then my recommandation would be a dozen of core classes, each with a different combo of roles, both of which can be done whenever, and without gear swap. Say, you have 12 classes; 4 of them can tank - at any time -, 4 can heal - again, whenever -, etc, etc. If you have that, then you don't need to worry about being able to stack classes. Pick 3 classes at random from the pool, you've probably covered 4 roles of your group, you can pick a 4th that covers the last role, then whoever. Then you have flexibility, and making groups isn't "that hard".
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Would that make everyone be able to output the same damage, roughly? Cause while sure, you could then do whatever content with any number of people, any high end content is going to have strictly better setups just by virtue of how the damage is done and what they do on the side. Like how many classes do you really need that can tank or CC, the answer is, not fucking many. Assuming debuffs and buffs stack, even with diminishing returns, it's always going to be better to bring healer/debuff or healer/buff classes, since they do the same damage as everyone else, but also provide 2 non limited abilities. If you limit buff/debuff stacking, you're still going to have the issue with healers/anything being better than other classes, because of their abilities to just heal in case of, on top of doing damage and other support.

If you however have different damage values depending on the coupling of abilities, then you'll still see imbalances based on who does the most damage. It's relatively hard to perfectly balance DPS classes that have different playstyles and skills, and even if you do, it's hard to eliminate inherent advantages like range versus melee entirely. If one class does 5% more dmg than the others, since filling every role is so easy, then you'll want the exact minimum amount of other classes to fill all roles, and then everyone else to be the 5% more dmg class. Especially adds up if you do large raid group numbers.

I do think it'd be easier to make groups for normal content in this system, but raids, at least assuming you have some highly challenging tightly tuned content, will either be triviliazed by class stacking or balanced around it making the "pick whatever" system pointless for that part of the game. Not that I think it's necessarily bad, just not like obviously easier to balance. Plus there's always the issue that a lot of people want to do damage, not other fancy shit on the side. You can integrate some of the support stuff into your damage abilities(debuffs and buffs especially), but stuff like CC, heal and potentially tanking require a specific set of skills that some people just don't care about. So you might fill every role, but then you notice your healer/cc is actually only just healing, and you don't have another CC so you're running into issues. You might have enough healer/tank classes to not care about CC, but you could also be unlucky on that if you just go with randoms.
 
Ukerric

Ukerric

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Pyros said:
Would that make everyone be able to output the same damage, roughly?
Click to expand...
We've learned, like 10 years ago, that "dps" is not a good role to make.

Like how many classes do you really need that can tank or CC, the answer is, not fucking many.
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No, you need many. What you don't need is classes that will only tank, or only CC, etc.

If your group need "role X" to perform well, then a large number of classes should be able to do it. How many depends on the size of your group; if you have a 5-person group, then you need more than if your base group is a 6-person group.

The thing is, take those 5 roles, spread them, and what do you get?

- Tank + Heal = Paladin
- Tank + Buff = Warrior
- Tank + Debuff = Shadowknight
- Tank + CC = Monk
- Heal + Buff = Cleric
- Heal + Debuff = Shaman
- Heal + CC = Druid
- Buff + Debuff = Bard
- Buff + CC = Enchanter
- Debuff + CC = Necromancer

And voila. You have 10 classes, covering every role twice over, and it's extremely easy to make a viable group. Of course, you have to tweak stuff, so the "monk" wouldn't be a copy of an EQ monk, nor the druid. But you get an EQ-esque vibe, and a good base to make your game system.

None of these guys are dps. They do dps, but it's not the criteria by which you pick them.
but raids, at least assuming you have some highly challenging tightly tuned content,
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You don't. Leave that to WoW, they have the market cornered with the mythic raid stuff.

Make raids the social experience. You do raids because you want to play with all your guild at the same time, not because you want your e-peen harder and thicker. If you have to bring your top 20 performers and bench the rest, or worse, you need 5 cleric to sustain your CH chain like old times, your game will not be fun. It might be challenging but not fun.

Plus, ultra-challenging tightly tuned consumes vast amount of designer resources. If you stop worrying about that, you may end up making more diverse content instead.
 
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mkopec

mkopec

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tyen said:
cleric
mage
mage
mage
mage
mage


imo
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That was later on in EQ. Back in classic-pop era those pets were squishy as fuck. Only later did they give them many many passes of power throughout the years.Then on top of it all they nerfed the way exp was gained back in like late 2001, so yo had to do 1/2 the damage to a mob to get full exp, where as before you only had to do 1pt. This is why they were a joke in the first iteration of a progression server some years back, they were so fucking OP it was sily. Once people figured this shit out, everyone was rolling them to supply their mains with plats and shit later. Todays progression servers actually nerf the pets from live servers.

Also your group would profit from at least a snare class if youre going to go aywhere dangerous. Trust me ive played many a mage and the thing about mage pets is they like to change targets and let fleeing 10%ers go all the fucking time if there is more than 1-2 adds.
 
Q

qwertyqweqwertwqert

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etchazz said:
I also don't spend endless hours in a thread dedicated to an EQ type game telling people why they're wrong for wanting one. If you hate EQ so much, and the idea of Pantheon, why the fuck are you constantly here posting?
Click to expand...

Yes you do... You tell them to kill themselves:

etchazz said:
Hasn't been that long? Pantheon was announced three fucking years ago! They're still years away from completing a game that will look like it was made in 2001, if it comes out at all. Same goes for Star Citizen, except Star Citizen is even worse because they had the money to make a AAA MMO and have produced jack fucking shit! Do the world a huge favor and put your head under water until the bubbles stop.
Click to expand...

Face it, you are all dickheads.
 
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Muligan

Muligan

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I'm curious to what they're doing right now? When's the last time they've shown anything? Can't they at least lie to me once a month?
 
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zzeris

zzeris

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Muligan said:
I'm curious to what they're doing right now? When's the last time they've shown anything? Can't they at least lie to me once a month?
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They are already giving out a gigantic update once a year! Over 3 hours of hardcore time with Brad and the gang..totally fucking free!!! What do you expect?! Some Mozz sticks and powder, too? Making games is hard. Making games like 1999 games is even harder.
 
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Rezz

Rezz

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Ukerric said:
Stop thinking about classes, think about roles. There are about 5 core roles in a group setting, which are:

- Tank
- Heal
- Group buff (long term/auras and short term boosts)
- Enemy debuffs
- CC

with the optional scout/pull "6th" role (which would require a 6th slot in a group).

That's what you need to build a group. The problem is that, if your classes are specialized in one of these roles, and one role only, then you quickly get into the imbalance of population problem. So, in a modern game, the solution is to spread the roles around classes, and have classes that fill multiple roles, so you have an easy way to getting a functional group. In WoW, that's the specialization, except that specializations require your class to pick one role before starting (which is ok), be used to play that role (harder), and also to gear for that role (not ok).

If you wanted a good class system, then my recommandation would be a dozen of core classes, each with a different combo of roles, both of which can be done whenever, and without gear swap. Say, you have 12 classes; 4 of them can tank - at any time -, 4 can heal - again, whenever -, etc, etc. If you have that, then you don't need to worry about being able to stack classes. Pick 3 classes at random from the pool, you've probably covered 4 roles of your group, you can pick a 4th that covers the last role, then whoever. Then you have flexibility, and making groups isn't "that hard".
Click to expand...

Ahh, I was referring explicitly to EQ. There's been a lot of conversation about having -everyone- do similar damage, just having different specialities within a group. The problem arises, as has been brought up, when it comes to raids. If you have multiple groups with a normal xp group setup in a raid, you are incredibly inefficient. This is really the problem with raids and design in general for DIKU style games; if you have tanks, then it is basically superior (unless a specific mechanic creates a debuff on the tank that makes it unenviable to be receiving hits) to just keep the one tank up if aggro works like it does in most games. If it is random, then tanks don't matter and realistically it is simply better to do more damage/healing vs. taking hits, since you can't focus those hits on a specific individual(s). This leans heavily on the "bring the player, not the class" mentality, though this hasn't been super successful to my knowledge. Maybe WoW did something similar at some point, but the only other games I can think of did not have a developed raid game, such as Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World.

I'm personally a fan of the DIKU model when it comes to aggro, and much less regarding how Guild Wars 2 generally worked. That's not to say I am not open to design that heads in that direction, simply that I haven't seen the system done "right" yet.

Granted, this is all a little off topic, as Pantheon is pretty much 100% going to be very DIKU-centric and will focus upon "standard" group dynamics. I'd be very surprised if they go outside that model to any appreciable degree, since they are still heavily courting the old EQ/Early WoW fanbase as far as I am aware.
 
Ukerric

Ukerric

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Rezz said:
This is really the problem with raids and design in general for DIKU style games; if you have tanks, then it is basically superior (unless a specific mechanic creates a debuff on the tank that makes it unenviable to be receiving hits) to just keep the one tank up if aggro works like it does in most games.
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This is mostly a limitation of the boss tank and spank model of raids. WoW has the same problem in its modern design: every raid is designed for exactly 2 tanks, no matter how many players come. If you have a 5-group raid of 25, then you bring 2 tanks, not 5. Which fucks the dynamics because when you're not raiding, those 25 people need 5 tanks, not 2, so you get players who have to train for multiple roles (because you're requiring the best dps while raiding, but expect those guys to be tanks when doing the mythic+12 next day).

EQ had a solution; adds. In quite a few raids, you had a number of adds that, in combination, would be deadly, so you needed separate tanks to handle them. If your general dynamics call for 1 tank per 5 players, then a raid where you have 25 players need 5 tanks. You may squeeze 4 if one of them is incredibly better geared (or has a combo set of abilities and clickies that is massively better than the others) but it's risky as fuck.

Think SSRA Emperor. You had your best tank on the emperor, and you had those 4 other snake tanks (plus CC).

Of course, not every raid had that formula, but it can be adapted in quite a few varieties. It is slightly harder in the WoW format of raid scaling, because you need to pop variable amounts of adds, and your raid format should not have to vary across the instance (so if you need one tank per group, all bosses should need it).

Again, if your goal is to provide a social experience rather than the tightly tuned, world kill ranking scheme of WoW, those things matter a bit less.
 
Itlan

Itlan

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qwertyqweqwertwqert said:
What obvious and glaring problems? You never talk about the game, it is only the same few Brad memes.
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That they've been in production for 3 years working on a game that looks like it was made in 2001 and are still years away from putting out anything worth playing?

Try to keep up, bud.
 
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Fight

Fight

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Bruh, its looks like 2004, not 2001. It looks 13 years old, not 16 years old.
 
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Identikit

Identikit

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qwert why the fuck haven't you left to a place where people agree with you yet?
 
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