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

Daidraco · Oct 8, 2017

Levels are a thing of the past and I personally think that this discussion is a circle jerk. Item level, even though we had no way to accurately measure it in classic EQ, has always been a thing. Why it isnt a staple advancement path now is beyond me. It would leave developers with more freedom and allow the players more freedom to do what they want as well.

Zaide · Oct 8, 2017

When I gave the 9-13 day to max number I was talking about static groups that sleep in shifts and play 24/7 for those days. People asking for more than that are crazy, it will crush the casual population because once it goes far beyond that players will not feel like they're making meaningful progress. They will feel like there is no reason to log in unless they have a huge block of playtime. You can say there should be alternate progress options besides exp, and how max level isn't the ultimate goal but that won't change the fact that it is for most players.

Killing a Gnoll Commander at level 13 in Blackburrow and killing Lady Vox at 50 in Permafrost are not very different, the gameplay is the same but people still rush to max level to kill the dragon, even though you get the same auto attack press one button experience 40 levels earlier in Blackburrow. Why do they do this? When you set a maximum on anything it becomes the goal, and "levels" are so ingrained in gaming culture as the primary measurement of progress that Pantheon has zero chance of changing that dynamic even if they tried (they won't).

Dullahan · Oct 8, 2017

zzeris said:
Unfortunately, your argument is the one that's not based on reality. Where do you think WoW and other games based their design? Off this level and gear based game. The carrot for such games is the endgame with top notch gear. You mistakenly think they didn't have certain things as a design instead of just not finishing their game. If this game has an actual endgame? Endgame gear will be better. Endgame experiences will be more epic. Endgame will be where it's at. Bubble bursting time.

The only way this doesn't happen? If Brad releases his 3rd straight unfinished game. Then you, and your 20k friends will have that slow game as the hardcore move on to a game that is better made. Because people won't grind through hell levels and empty content waiting for Brad this time.

I agree that people won't grind hell levels in a game devoid of content. If that occurs, it would undoubtedly bring your predictions to pass. For the time being, that's just a straw man. With no publisher breathing down their neck, we have no reason to believe they have any desire or need to launch Pantheon before it's ready.

WoW is what would be referred to as anecdotal evidence, as none of the games that have tried to replicate that design have been particularly successful, and those that have survived did so almost entirely by dumping huge advertising money into them and relying on f2p scams. There is far more examples to point to that validate my thesis than refute it.

Before someone comes back with FF14 (the only other mainstream mmo that's doing better than average), consider how the game utilizes a mandatory storyline and prerequisites to instill meaning to your achievements throughout your journey to max level. It's a painfully linear way of doing it, but this is actually an example of what I'm talking about and has worked despite the other similarities between it and the rest of the WoW clones.

Dullahan · Oct 8, 2017

Zaide said:
When I gave the 9-13 day to max number I was talking about static groups that sleep in shifts and play 24/7 for those days. People asking for more than that are crazy, it will crush the casual population because once it goes far beyond that players will not feel like they're making meaningful progress. They will feel like there is no reason to log in unless they have a huge block of playtime. You can say there should be alternate progress options besides exp, and how max level isn't the ultimate goal but that won't change the fact that it is for most players.

Killing a Gnoll Commander at level 13 in Blackburrow and killing Lady Vox at 50 in Permafrost are not very different, the gameplay is the same but people still rush to max level to kill the dragon, even though you get the same auto attack press one button experience 40 levels earlier in Blackburrow. Why do they do this? When you set a maximum on anything it becomes the goal, and "levels" are so ingrained in gaming culture as the primary measurement of progress that Pantheon has zero chance of changing that dynamic even if they tried (they won't).

Level is the measurement because little else has ever mattered. Imagine if a player who rushed straight to cap was left ill-equipped to even consider attacking Lady Vox, if they were able to survive long enough to see her lair at all. That would flip the model on it's head.

For instance, beyond levels, EQ was originally designed to require players to collect resist gear in order to take on dragons, but because there was no raid cap or scaling system in place to combat zerging, few ever did it. Thus you had guilds of 75 players killing Gorenaire while a group of 24 could easily down her with the proper equipment. You can expect that sort of thing will be rectified in Pantheon, and I suspect that is how they will use their climate and resist systems, among others.

a_skeleton_03 · Oct 9, 2017

Dullahan said:
Level is the measurement because little else has ever mattered. Imagine if a player who rushed straight to cap was left ill-equipped to even consider attacking Lady Vox, if they were able to survive long enough to see her lair at all. That would flip the model on it's head.

That is called weapon skills or gear. It happens in a multitude of games and can be designed quite easily.

There needs to be an expectation though of a starting level (whether that is based on gear, weapon skill, or actual level) and an end goal.

There are games like EVE that have no actual end goal instead they have skills you can level forever and go down new paths.

I know you think you have stumble across this new idea but it's been done many times and does not make for popular MMO's in all actuality.

I don't know where you got this idea also that guilds didn't do resist gear. We most certainly did and any uber guild recruiting page had minimum amounts of resists you need to be able to meet at all times.

Dullahan · Oct 9, 2017

a_skeleton_03 said:
That is called weapon skills or gear. It happens in a multitude of games and can be designed quite easily.

There needs to be an expectation though of a starting level (whether that is based on gear, weapon skill, or actual level) and an end goal.

There are games like EVE that have no actual end goal instead they have skills you can level forever and go down new paths.

I know you think you have stumble across this new idea but it's been done many times and does not make for popular MMO's in all actuality.

I don't know where you got this idea also that guilds didn't do resist gear. We most certainly did and any uber guild recruiting page had minimum amounts of resists you need to be able to meet at all times.

Resist requirements were not a thing with everyone. I played on a blue and red server. Blue server had a lot of people, and it was a suggestion not a requirement. On blue servers, people even at max level didn't seem to understand how important resists were. On the red server it was imperative, and because resists were so important in pvp, we were able to do most pve content with half the numbers of our blue counterparts.

As for other forms of progression/gating, it may not be new (it was done in EQ ffs), but it's been severely underutilized in favor of streamlining for "end game".

Sadre Spinegnawer · Oct 9, 2017

If you rule out level grinds, then keys/shards and gateway zones/mobs for each key set only way to go. Otherwise the content monsters eat your shit in 72 hours. And plus, you need to add lockouts in addition.

What game has solved the problem of the content monster eaters? None. None has solved.

Ukerric · Oct 9, 2017

Dullahan said:
Thus you had guilds of 75 players killing Gorenaire while a group of 24 could easily down her with the proper equipment.

Yes, but Gorenaire didn't drop 1 piece of gear per 5 players. The zerg would litterally have to kill it three times more to get "the best" out of it. Which meant that it usually had a large churn because the ones who had managed to get geared got tired of redoing the content (like we have with weekly tomb).

Quineloe · Oct 9, 2017

EQ did Hell levels wrong anyways. I just did 40 this weekend on P99 and it really was doing the same shit that I had done in 39 for twice as long.

The proper way to do Hell levels in EQ would have been to move the "blue" area up a few levels. EQ supposedly gets harder because stuff goes green and you need to exp on stronger mobs to keep gaining levels. Pretty simple, right? Once you're level 5, level 1 turns green and you can't exp on decaying skeletons anymore, you gotta move up. If you're level 15, you'll no longer find blue Centurions, you must now do the castle to get a steady stream of Legionnaires and Emissaries - or move to the next zone.

But the blue range keeps growing and growing as you level. Only 3 levels wide at level 5, at level 60 everything 45 and up is blue. That's 14 levels that con blue. It's pretty fucking trivial to level through 50s hell levels since you can just stomp the same low blue shit mob over and over.

Hell levels should have reset that gap again every time. Ding 35 - no more exp from levels up to 30. Design your game properly around this (i.e. don't have the mobs of the next dungeon start at 29) and you have one hell of an incentive to make people move forward frequently. pun not intended.

BoozeCube · Oct 9, 2017

Quineloe said:
EQ did Hell levels wrong anyways. I just did 40 this weekend on P99 and it really was doing the same shit that I had done in 39 for twice as long.

The proper way to do Hell levels in EQ would have been to move the "blue" area up a few levels. EQ supposedly gets harder because stuff goes green and you need to exp on stronger mobs to keep gaining levels. Pretty simple, right? Once you're level 5, level 1 turns green and you can't exp on decaying skeletons anymore, you gotta move up. If you're level 15, you'll no longer find blue Centurions, you must now do the castle to get a steady stream of Legionnaires and Emissaries - or move to the next zone.

But the blue range keeps growing and growing as you level. Only 3 levels wide at level 5, at level 60 everything 45 and up is blue. That's 14 levels that con blue. It's pretty fucking trivial to level through 50s hell levels since you can just stomp the same low blue shit mob over and over.

Hell levels should have reset that gap again every time. Ding 35 - no more exp from levels up to 30. Design your game properly around this (i.e. don't have the mobs of the next dungeon start at 29) and you have one hell of an incentive to make people move forward frequently. pun not intended.

Well thought out, makes sense, decent design. I like it.

Fyff · Oct 9, 2017

Dullahan said:
Level is the measurement because little else has ever mattered. Imagine if a player who rushed straight to cap was left ill-equipped to even consider attacking Lady Vox, if they were able to survive long enough to see her lair at all. That would flip the model on it's head.

For instance, beyond levels, EQ was originally designed to require players to collect resist gear in order to take on dragons, but because there was no raid cap or scaling system in place to combat zerging, few ever did it. Thus you had guilds of 75 players killing Gorenaire while a group of 24 could easily down her with the proper equipment. You can expect that sort of thing will be rectified in Pantheon, and I suspect that is how they will use their climate and resist systems, among others.

Aren't people on the new progression servers killing Vox with like level 35 toons?

This isn't 1999 and the player base has the internet so they can bounce ideas back and forth and figure out exact mechanics of a fight in minutes or an hour. There needs to be a system in place that just makes everything totally different from EQ raiding. EQ raiding was easy as hell.

Zaide · Oct 9, 2017

Fyff said:
Aren't people on the new progression servers killing Vox with like level 35 toons?

This isn't 1999 and the player base has the internet so they can bounce ideas back and forth and figure out exact mechanics of a fight in minutes or an hour. There needs to be a system in place that just makes everything totally different from EQ raiding. EQ raiding was easy as hell.

We did that one time a few years ago and then a wave of raid changes came out to pretty thoroughly nerf it. EQ raid content was also pretty significantly buffed which was a positive and necessary change.

mkopec · Oct 9, 2017

Daidraco said:
Levels are a thing of the past and I personally think that this discussion is a circle jerk. Item level, even though we had no way to accurately measure it in classic EQ, has always been a thing. Why it isnt a staple advancement path now is beyond me. It would leave developers with more freedom and allow the players more freedom to do what they want as well.

Levels are not a thing anymore, because every game after EQ made levels trivial boring slog fest, a solo quest hub game that hardly no one enjoyed in a multiplayer game. Which everyone rushes through for that sweet sweet end game where the REAL game begins. Thats the real problem with levels and the entire leveling experience.

What you need to do is slow the fucking pace down and make leveling a part of the game again, to gain levels, feel more powerful, amass new skills, gear and armor with friends in a group focused game and actually make that a fun part of the game again. shit, in EQ back in the day I think it took me 6-8 moths to finally hit cap on my first character. and you know what? It was OK, because it was enjoyable.

I also think this entire gearscore bullshit has done more harm than good to mmorpgs in general. Its basically assigning some arbitrary number to your character so people can exclude or include you based on how high your number is. Totally artificial, breaks immersion and IMO its dumb. "LFM, Must be XXXX gearscore in order to play with me"

Jarek · Oct 9, 2017

Much of these problems, especially the gear score thing, stem from loss of MMO community. Your rep on the server should be your ticket to group, raid, etc. With cross server and LFG/LFR systems, no one knows who the fuck anyone else is anymore. Now you need a credit score (gear rating) in order to identify you.

zzeris · Oct 9, 2017

Jarek said:
Much of these problems, especially the gear score thing, stem from loss of MMO community. Your rep on the server should be your ticket to group, raid, etc. With cross server and LFG/LFR systems, no one knows who the fuck anyone else is anymore. Now you need a credit score (gear rating) in order to identify you.

People will always min/max. Even as a well known healer, there is gear that makes you even better. Same for all classes especially tanks. On Mkopec's point, part of the problem is generic ass spells. Clinging darkness, enveloping darkness, etc is the same damn spell. When leveling, it is good to get new things but when it's just a small upgrade of the same shit, that's pretty damn boring. I really like the idea of epic spells and quests for these spells in this game. I think it's one of their best ideas.

Fyff · Oct 9, 2017

Zaide said:
We did that one time a few years ago and then a wave of raid changes came out to pretty thoroughly nerf it. EQ raid content was also pretty significantly buffed which was a positive and necessary change.

So it was only possible in the game for 16 years. Got it

ZyyzYzzy · Oct 9, 2017

You guys are all missing one important thing. Sure epic spells, requiring killing raid bosses/doing long quests/achievements to progress your character are awesome, but in a MMO, those quickly become shitty fucking systems, which get much worse over time and make it very hard for new players or returning players.

pharmakos · Oct 9, 2017

ZyyzYzzy said:
You guys are all missing one important thing. Sure epic spells, requiring killing raid bosses/doing long quests/achievements to progress your character are awesome, but in a MMO, those quickly become shitty fucking systems, which get much worse over time and make it very hard for new players or returning players.

Yeah, stuff like backflagging new guys is a bummer.

ZyyzYzzy · Oct 9, 2017

pharmakos said:
Yeah, stuff like backflagging new guys is a bummer.

Not even that. What if one of the best cleric HoT is locked behind a long quest chain that requires multiple group targets and is rewuired to get the upgraded version in the current expansion. No one is going to want to go back and do it a year later for a new player or some cleric alt.

Quineloe · Oct 9, 2017

zzeris said:
People will always min/max. Even as a well known healer, there is gear that makes you even better. Same for all classes especially tanks. On Mkopec's point, part of the problem is generic ass spells. Clinging darkness, enveloping darkness, etc is the same damn spell. When leveling, it is good to get new things but when it's just a small upgrade of the same shit, that's pretty damn boring. I really like the idea of epic spells and quests for these spells in this game. I think it's one of their best ideas.

It was still a million times better than upgrading Fireball 1 with Fireball 2.

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

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