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

Khane_sl said:

Oh god... please do not make CC like it was in WoW. You really want CC to work like that? It sounds terrible. Why should I only be able to "magically cage" something when it's "out of combat".

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Why should faking your death 5 times in front of the same mob still trick them?


The CC I want is more like Vanguard. There were plenty of pulls where you'd basically say "I can -insert cc you can do on incoming-" and you'd talk and formulate a strategy. The tank would shoot an arrow into the group of mobs, and everyone had to act, often having to time your CC as the mob ran past. And shit wasn't definite, so you still had 'oh crap' moments and you had to pay attention to the order of kills.

I found it far more interesting than either waiting for the perfect FD single-mob pull, or the opposite of pull them all and get pissed off if the one class in your group who is the CCer doesn't perform perfectly. What's wrong with getting people involved, talking in down-time (ABOUT the game and what they're doing) and then having a group execute a plan that when it works takes timing, communication and skill, but still doesn't trivialize combat into a one-at-a-time system?

Lost Ranger_sl said:

We stopped using monks as pullers soon as bards got their aggro dump. They pulled MUCH faster, and could bring 2-3 mobs at a time. Then mez the mobs and line them up to get killed in order. Good bard had mobs in camp at all times, and only stopped if the healer needed mana.

Fuck monk pulling honestly. Slow, and boring as hell for everyone but the monk.

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That sounds like it's great.... ummm efficiency?

No thank you, though, that doesn't sound very fun or challenging for anyone but, again, the ONE person doing the pulling.

popsicledeath_sl said:

Why should faking your death 5 times in front of the same mob still trick them?


The CC I want is more like Vanguard. There were plenty of pulls where you'd basically say "I can -insert cc you can do on incoming-" and you'd talk and formulate a strategy. The tank would shoot an arrow into the group of mobs, and everyone had to act, often having to time your CC as the mob ran past. And shit wasn't definite, so you still had 'oh crap' moments and you had to pay attention to the order of kills.

I found it far more interesting than either waiting for the perfect FD single-mob pull, or the opposite of pull them all and get pissed off if the one class in your group who is the CCer doesn't perform perfectly. What's wrong with getting people involved, talking in down-time (ABOUT the game and what they're doing) and then having a group execute a plan that when it works takes timing, communication and skill, but still doesn't trivialize combat into a one-at-a-time system?

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Yeah... in fact I like the idea that in vanguard with a good Psi, you could bascially be without enough dps or even with out a dedicated healer and get some stuff done... I truly hope for an enchanter type spellcaster where CC is its game.

I guess I should be clear bc there were plenty of groups without a monk or bard that did just fine.. It's an option.. I can't see the issue with the utility tbh. Just like I can't see a problem with a warrior pulling 3 mobs and the chanter locking down 2.. Put the utility in and worry about making the AI more challenging. Allow the players to come up with unique and efficient ways to tackle the content.

Rangers and back up clerics were sometimes used to pull if a group really needed that.

Merlin_sl said:

I see where your going with this, and to some extent I agree. But again, your starting to lean to the, "lets speed things up, less downtime, more efficiency, lets stay busy, keep moving".....and I can't help but think the idea is already going a place we already decided may be quicker, yes, and may keep the players attention, yes, but ultimately, also leads to speeding the game up to much. And then its just a push and were GOING GOING GOING, keep moving, keep the pace up, no downtime, no stopping etc.....It would have to be balanced or were right back to where we started, the very reason we are not happy with the newer game mechanics.

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Yeah, so the devs would have to make their game mechanics balanced? Not a bad idea!

And Vanguard combat had its pros and cons. It was generally, early on, a good balance. It wasn't arcade style like many new games, but when you did have downtime it was usually because you were discussing a plan, direction, drops, etc.... something other than simply having to either wait for the puller to split mobs or because everyone had to med.

I definitely don't want EQ levels of downtime. I don't need to be locked into an elevator with nothing to do but talk to strangers as a poor excuse for socializing. If you're not an idiot, play your class well, chime in with some situation-relevant ideas, maybe make a few jokes here and there, I'll add you to my friends list and would love to chat with you after the group, not in the middle of 'playing' because we're having to wait all the time for non-active things like mana or single pulls.

The pace of COMBAT needs to be more like EQ than modern games. That's different than the pace and frequency of downtime.

popsicledeath_sl said:

That sounds like it's great.... ummm efficiency?

No thank you, though, that doesn't sound very fun or challenging for anyone but, again, the ONE person doing the pulling.

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Group wise the puller should be bringing new mobs in as fast as the group can handle.

tad10_sl said:

@popsicle you either have class interdependence and people get bored sometime waiting for a pull, a port, a rez, a sow, etc. Or you make an mmo where everyone can do everything and there is no class uniqueness or flavor or connection. I'll take the former.

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Or you have a happy balance and stop using extreme hyperbole! =D

Bad: needing a cleric or you can't group.

Bad: not needing a healer because everyone can self-heal

Good: needing a healer, and lucky-fucking-ducky there are three different classes that can heal and they're actually fun so nobody is ever 'forced' into being the one class that can heal but is boring by their guild or friends because you can't do a thing without that one class.


Bad: needing a warrior because they're the best tanks

Bad: not needing a tank at all because everyone just button mashes and it's GW2, until you get into dungeons and everyone flips out and the game suffers from the divide.

Good: needing a tank, but, what do you know, there are several classes to choose from that all tank differently, but effectively, giving players more choices, less looking-for-one-class situations, and maybe they're even fun to play....

etc.

Don't play dumb, tad, we both know Vanguard's class system was superior, and it was because it didn't do away with the holy trinity, it just expanded it so more classes could fill more roles and were more fun to play, while mitigating (but thankfully not eliminating) the fact you still had to fill certain roles in a group.

tad10_sl said:

Group wise the puller should be bringing new mobs in as fast as the group can handle.

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Thank you, Lieutenant obvious?

May as well design a dungeon with mobs lined up one at a time, as then the encounters could be designed to be more challenging... ah, but that's the point, the whole purpose of that style of pulling is to make the combat as easy, safe and efficient as possible. Which, again, no thank you.

popsicledeath_sl said:

Or you have a happy balance and stop using extreme hyperbole! =D

Bad: needing a cleric or you can't group.

Bad: not needing a healer because everyone can self-heal

Good: needing a healer, and lucky-fucking-ducky there are three different classes that can heal and they're actually fun so nobody is ever 'forced' into being the one class that can heal but is boring by their guild or friends because you can't do a thing without that one class.


Bad: needing a warrior because they're the best tanks

Bad: not needing a tank at all because everyone just button mashes and it's GW2, until you get into dungeons and everyone flips out and the game suffers from the divide.

Good: needing a tank, but, what do you know, there are several classes to choose from that all tank differently, but effectively, giving players more choices, less looking-for-one-class situations, and maybe they're even fun to play....

etc.

Don't play dumb, tad, we both know Vanguard's class system was superior, and it was because it didn't do away with the holy trinity, it just expanded it so more classes could fill more roles and were more fun to play, while mitigating (but thankfully not eliminating) the fact you still had to fill certain roles in a group.

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+1 to this.

popsicledeath_sl said:

Or you have a happy balance and stop using extreme hyperbole! =D

Bad: needing a cleric or you can't group.

Bad: not needing a healer because everyone can self-heal

Good: needing a healer, and lucky-fucking-ducky there are three different classes that can heal and they're actually fun so nobody is ever 'forced' into being the one class that can heal but is boring by their guild or friends because you can't do a thing without that one class.


Bad: needing a warrior because they're the best tanks

Bad: not needing a tank at all because everyone just button mashes and it's GW2, until you get into dungeons and everyone flips out and the game suffers from the divide.

Good: needing a tank, but, what do you know, there are several classes to choose from that all tank differently, but effectively, giving players more choices, less looking-for-one-class situations, and maybe they're even fun to play....

etc.

Don't play dumb, tad, we both know Vanguard's class system was superior, and it was because it didn't do away with the holy trinity, it just expanded it so more classes could fill more roles and were more fun to play, while mitigating (but thankfully not eliminating) the fact you still had to fill certain roles in a group.

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+1

I really enjoyed the Necro in VG as I was more than just a mana battery on raids unlike EQ where necros were needed for 2 things, Mana for the clerics and corpse recovery when shit went wrong. Take note Brad, take note!

popsicledeath_sl said:

Thank you, Lieutenant obvious?

May as well design a dungeon with mobs lined up one at a time, as then the encounters could be designed to be more challenging... ah, but that's the point, the whole purpose of that style of pulling is to make the combat as easy, safe and efficient as possible. Which, again, no thank you.

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Except you toss in mobs that aren't fooled by FD.. There should be times when a puller says I can't split that or a messer says I can't mezz that.. Sometimes you might have need a tank to lock down 3 mobs and over work the healer.. There are ways to include everyone without doing away with features.. Make the shit very situational and constantly changing throughout a dungeon.

delirium_sl said:

+1

I really enjoyed the Necro in VG as I was more than just a mana battery on raids unlike EQ where necros were needed for 2 things, Mana for the clerics and corpse recovery when shit went wrong.

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Or those bizarre Plane of Sky raids where everyone had to kill each other so you could summon their corpse up to the next island since only so many keys or whatever were handed out when the boss mob died. Remember those?

popsicledeath_sl said:

Don't play dumb, tad, we both know Vanguard's class system was superior, and it was because it didn't do away with the holy trinity, it just expanded it so more classes could fill more roles and were more fun to play, while mitigating (but thankfully not eliminating) the fact you still had to fill certain roles in a group.

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Sure the class system better, but Mobs were leashed so FD pulling was minimal and I ended up as an off off tank or dps. Pulling needs to be part of the design, but yes with multiple classes that can effectively pull: monk, bard, wtf, and pull in different ways.

/aside in your FD 5x. That doesn't bother me but dumb animals should not be FDable. Just as undead shouldn't be sleep able. If you fall down in fake death in front of a lion or giant cockroache they are more likely to eat you than ignore you

Troy_Costisick_sl said:

Or those bizarre Plane of Sky raids where everyone had to kill each other so you could summon their corpse up to the next island since only so many keys or whatever were handed out when the boss mob died. Remember those?

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Yep, actually I am dead serious about this, my frist trip to the plane of fear was right when I dinged 50. Some other guild failed miserably at trying to break in and begged me to sumon corpses. Offered to pay me, pay for all the coffins and have a Wiz port me in. Aparently that guild either had no necros, or none of them were on. I don't remember the name of the guild anymore as it was sometime back in 2000 on the Bertoxx server, but I will never forget the reason I was invited to POF was for corpse recovery lol.

delirium_sl said:

Yep, actually I am dead serious about this, my frist trip to the plane of fear was right when I dinged 50. Some other guild failed miserably at trying to break in and begged me to sumon corpses. Offered to pay me, pay for all the coffins and have a Wiz port me in. Aparently that guild either had no necros, or none of them were on. I don't remember the name of the guild anymore as it was sometime back in 2000 on the Bertoxx server, but I will never forget the reason I was invited to POF was for corpse recovery lol.

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Interesting I played on Bertoxx, but that wasn't my guild. I just remember the PoSky raids being really long, lame, and requiring a necro. Anyway, back on topic...

Convo_sl said:

Except you toss in mobs that aren't fooled by FD.. There should be times when a puller says I can't split that or a messer says I can't mezz that.. Sometimes you might have need a tank to lock down 3 mobs and over work the healer.. There are ways to include everyone without doing away with features.. Make the shit very situational and constantly changing throughout a dungeon.

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Yes, things like that help, but if you design the game such that it doesn't become a situation of the one right way to play, then you don't have to add in methods of countering that one right way to play.

This was the problem with EQ game design. You had aspects like single pulling with FD become the one right way to play the game. Eventually, you get other classes that are given or find ways to also accomplish that one right way to play the game. Then, you suddenly have to develop the game around that one right way to play the game.

Just make the game varied from the beginning and it's not an issue. In Vanguard, you could FD split mobs. It wasn't always necessary because there were plenty of other options as well. There weren't huge discussions and game-changes based around FD splitting, because it was just one tool, not the holy fucking grail that it became in EQ.

Extend that to solo-pulling in general not usually being necessary. Again, you didn't have huge, widespread changes to the game or design philosophy to address the issue, because it wasn't an issue. Sometimes you'd try to solo pull something, usually if solo, usually most classes having some convoluted mechanism to accomplish it. But in a group, you certainly didn't sit around waiting for a good puller. Get this, you simply, used your entire group to engage the enemy with a plan suited to the group makeup.

I wouldn't mind AA's if it is just maybe some QOL things like learning certain ports for non port classes. Would I would prefer is graphical AA's. That fireball has a shade of blue to it or that sword swing has a red streak. Little shit that doesn't take up huge development time but something that can set players apart. It also doesn't add another barrier of entry for new people that want to raid or play. You will be able to tell the old school players from certain effects without running into the problem of balancing shit around AA's.

popsicledeath_sl said:

Or you have a happy balance and stop using extreme hyperbole! =D

Bad: needing a cleric or you can't group.

Bad: not needing a healer because everyone can self-heal

Good: needing a healer, and lucky-fucking-ducky there are three different classes that can heal and they're actually fun so nobody is ever 'forced' into being the one class that can heal but is boring by their guild or friends because you can't do a thing without that one class.


Bad: needing a warrior because they're the best tanks

Bad: not needing a tank at all because everyone just button mashes and it's GW2, until you get into dungeons and everyone flips out and the game suffers from the divide.

Good: needing a tank, but, what do you know, there are several classes to choose from that all tank differently, but effectively, giving players more choices, less looking-for-one-class situations, and maybe they're even fun to play....

etc.

Don't play dumb, tad, we both know Vanguard's class system was superior, and it was because it didn't do away with the holy trinity, it just expanded it so more classes could fill more roles and were more fun to play, while mitigating (but thankfully not eliminating) the fact you still had to fill certain roles in a group.

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The closest game that managed to balance class roles and group formation as far as my MMORPG experience go was City of Heroes.
The key was to have a variety of classes mix/match in your group. You didn't even need to have a Defender (the ultimate support archtype) if you have a couple of capable Controllers (some can heal).

I think we need several pure healing/support and hybrid heal/support classes in the game so we don't go into that Cleric-Bottle-Neck crisis that was in EQ.

delirium_sl said:

Yep, actually I am dead serious about this, my frist trip to the plane of fear was right when I dinged 50. Some other guild failed miserably at trying to break in and begged me to sumon corpses. Offered to pay me, pay for all the coffins and have a Wiz port me in. Aparently that guild either had no necros, or none of them were on. I don't remember the name of the guild anymore as it was sometime back in 2000 on the Bertoxx server, but I will never forget the reason I was invited to POF was for corpse recovery lol.

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Interesting. That might have been my first guild. Was the guild leader named, Maximillius, or something like that? We did an 8 hour corpse run and finally had to get a real guild in there to help. Can't remember who. Might have been Prophecy or Phantom Raiders.