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

Evernothing said:

I was also in FnF during TSS, TBS and quit before the end of SoF.

What was your name?

I was a Bard, name was Kevian I think.

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Berserker named Naap. I remember your name.

I also had FnF get my monk banned due to ghosting to max AA's and gear. Scaar was such a moron. After I applied to FnF my account was banned a few days later. Maybe it was chance but I doubt it. So I applied with my Berserker twink instead. I ended up getting the monk unbanned a couple years later after Daybreak took over.

Zubei said:

I was on Karana/The Rathe.

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So was I originally. I ended up raiding with Nightsomething. Sinlainu was the typical fat stay at home female cleric that were so prevalent in EQ.

I was also in Farsight with Prathun. There were a few times where he would say something and I'd question how he knew certain things. Now it all makes sense.

Dullahan said:

This is why I've long said Pantheon should not only be hard, it should be harder than EQ. That doesn't mean you have to permanently lose your gear when you die, but it should mean better AI and reactive combat, on top of all the other conveniences of EQ (like a random red con bear/griffon/guard smashing you).

If Pantheon moves back towards Vanguard and the mainstream (rather than EQ), I'm afraid it's fate will be the same. Without those inconveniences that made people need each other, we'll never see that sense of community we saw in EQ.

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I agree. Busting my balls is what makes the EQ experience different to all the other games. I think if there is a group to join and routine combat to be had, people would rather just do it in one of the other big budget mmos, high end graphics, casual questing, some pvp battlegrounds and stuff to do for variety, etc. Pantheon is never going to be able to compete with the big ESO type games out there imo, and should separate itself from that crowd, and being hardcore is one of the only ways I think it will be able to do that. It doesn't have to be brutal or unfun, but it should be more like a survival game imo. Dvinn to zone, 1 shotting everyone in his path. The red con orc cent that wanders right up to Kelethin. Dorn. SG to docks!!! That cyclops that wanders around west commons, etc. It needs all that and more. There was a thing that Vanguard was going to have but I don't think it had in the end, which was for a spider to appear out of nowhere in the ceiling in a dungeon and crawl down become an add, surprising the group. Imo Panthoen needs stuff like that. There should be new ways for people to die so even hardcore EQ players will fail and have new things to learn and it will feel like a fresh new experience, not just reskinned EQ.

Also I think it really needs highly customisable characters/classes. It is ok to mirror EQ but I think if healers all just have big heal, fast heal, HoT, and group heal, they will get bored because we have played that way since the 80s. And same goes for all the other classes. Even us old timer EQ fans have since played games like WoW with the tree healer, and Rift with that awesome healing where you cast a spell on the mob instead of the player and the players hit the mob to heal themselves, and Vanguard with the awesome blood mage or disciple etc. I think the classes should be a lot more like Vanguard rather than EQ, people need to spend time thinking about how to setup their hotbar, not just letting it default and being able to win by pressing 1234.

Also I would love for the character building to be like Vanguard. The attribute points system in that game is about as good as an RPG has ever been. When I first 2 boxed in that game, I went with bard and shaman, and I built the bard as a tank because he can wear plate, and built the shaman as a pure caster healer. It worked but it was hard work. An experienced player said I should respec them both, and make the shaman into a bear shaman who can tank, and the bard into a squishy but deadly dps. I tried it and the difference was enormous. They were like entirely different classes, just from respeccing their points. The difference between building like a tank and building like a dps felt like the difference of playing an EQ Pally and an EQ rogue. I really want to get a character sheet in Pantheon with stats and stuff that I spend some time thinking about. I would like to get a feel for my class and then boost stats that I feel are lacking. If I die a lot I can increase his stam or whatever, and if I am never dying, I can go all out dps. I think they should do this because:

1) Vanguard already did it so they know they can do it again
2) It will make it different to every other MMO because games today are all child proofed and sterile because they are scared of letting people gimp themselves or whatever
3) It will let players think about their characters and use their brain power to create their builds, and this is stuff you just don't get much in gaming anymore. Most games are scared to let players think for themselves.

Lets talk about something we can all agree upon.

I think we all want a large robust list of spells for our spell books. If I don't have 15 different ways to give myself ultravision as a shaman i'll be disappointed.

I'm tired of the ultra slim downed narrow focused abilities in current MMOS. I don't want to start with fireball at lvl 1 and just upgrade it 10 times while I level up.

I never want to see Fireball Rk II in my life give me useless fluff names. Things like "Primal Fireball" is acceptable if it's like a high end raiding upgrade.

I want Summoned Items, Bags,Armor,Focus Items,Corpse run gear, Booze,Fireworks. I want a bunch of shit that is useless in combat but is fun in community settings.

Also one of the biggest flaws original EQ had was Melee vastly outclassed casters overtime in almost all situations due to int and gear not affecting damage.

I was a big fan of focus items but I hope they go with the narrow approach and have it affect certain spell types and not just +10 damage.

Kuro said:

I mean, the other side of that shitty equation was Melee generally being garbage out of the gates (Except Monks, half the time the stupid Unarmed scaling basically comped them intro-level raid weapons after leveling). Which is why Rogues were always adamant that they deserved to outdamage Wizards at the end of the day, based on their garbo performance before being geared to the teeth. Neither place is particularly great to be in, and having both kinds of scaling present in a population is pretty much a guarantee of conflict and spite.

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That's true but starting lower and having a higher ceiling will always better than starting higher and having a lower ceiling.

I don't expect it to be a problem it was a pretty obvious oversight in original EQ that any developer would know.

Truthfully stats in EQ didn't really mean much you could get 255 to your main stat all the way back in Kunark and Velious just turned into a HP/resist fest since you could max out your stats with buffs/Avatar.

That's something they need to be cognizant about in Pantheon.

I like all the spells and variety of buffs in EQ, but I found buffing to be a big chore. I hope there are no buffs with a duration less than 90 minutes. Except some special stuff like spirit of cheetah or whatever.

Vinjin said:

I believe it was Joppa who responded to the question in last week's stream regarding Monks and being able to use weapons vs bare hands. He said that while they are continuing to evaluate this, his personal preference was that Monks would be best suited to use their bare hands vs equipping weapons. Kinda surprised by that since it presents an obvious issue - bare fists can be balanced against weapons from a damage/delay perspective but how do you get around the issue of stat loss.

I'm guessing it's because they are either A) planning on some other way to augment Monk fists (i.e., consumables) or B) it's a consequence of choosing higher DPS. In other words, Monk+bare hands will parse out higher than all other classes but it comes with a price (i.e., stat loss).

Personally, and this is coming from someone who plans to play a Monk as a main to start, option A would be fine but option B would be way more interesting. Again, it's about choices.

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C. Make monk weapons that don't have a damage and delay but just give stats.

Burning handwraps of Ro
+2 str +2 dex +10 fire sv fire
Effect: Burning Hands.

No weapon stat it just augments the monks fists and gives some stats.

And unless they design the class from ground up with that I don't like the "fist only" design.

If every monk has the same weapon it seems bland to me that a scrub monk and a top tier monk basically have the same weapon.

Also I think it would be boring! You lose two gear slots that everyone else gets to upgrade!

now...
(BRAD IF YOUR READING THIS AWESOME IDEA BELOW PS HIRE ME)

What if we make Monks the "Proc" class.. they all have the same fists but every monk "weapon" augments it with a type of proc that they would switch out depending in the situation.

Viney wraps of Tunare
Effect:Snare
Icy gauntlets of E'ci
Effect: slow
Barbed sabatons of Zek(for feet)
Effect: Bleed
And so on.

I would also give them a line of self martial buffs that give them self procs like paladin's had later in EQ.

This way a monk can lower his DPS for more utility say equiping a defensive proc if he has to off tank.

Or he can go extreme DPS if he knows he won't pull agro.

Also for the sake of gear management I would make gloves a paired item. So you don't have to carry around 15 sets. Meaning one glove effects both hands.

You tune procs on an average Proc per minute to ensure effective non streaky dps and you also tie procs to the monks dex score to help with stat concerns.

Basically you take an EQ monk then stir in a little last Airbender magic and you got yourself a winner.

Thoughts?

Edit: Sabatons/Boots should be added effects for any class that can kick. The effects should for the most part be more generic than monk specific glove effects as to not overpower other classes. Something like Dots/Damage/etc.

Just so if a warrior who has kick equips them he can utilize the effect for a little bonus or if a rogue equips the boots for the stats but can't kick he still has a nice piece of gear. Think of them as bonus effects. Just to make it easier for itemization.