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

Dyvim_sl said:

Seriously the next fucker that claims classes in VG were nicely balanced is now officially challenged to play a warrior up to lvl 55.
All the way getting laughed at by all the still playing masochists (yeah both of them) only to find out its the early EQ war - mnk dilemma all over again but with war -pal/dk.

Similar issues with clerics, although not that glaring, for full potential they were wanted to go melee mode while your bloodmage pal just laid back and out-damaged and -healed them on almost every mob easily. Still they were viable healers though.

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Who said balanced?

Dyvim_sl said:

Seriously the next fucker that claims classes in VG were nicely balanced is now officially challenged to play a warrior up to lvl 55.
All the way getting laughed at by all the still playing masochists (yeah both of them) only to find out its the early EQ war - mnk dilemma all over again but with war -pal/dk.

Similar issues with clerics, although not that glaring, for full potential they were wanted to go melee mode while your bloodmage pal just laid back and out-damaged and -healed them on almost every mob easily. Still they were viable healers though.

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I actually have a 50 (to lazy to level to 55) cleric. Yes, the BM are better classes but I enjoy wearing tank gear AND healing AND buffing so I have no issues with the class. It was a fun class to play. I think everyone can find a legitimate reason to complain about "x" reasons they don't like the class or feel they are getting screwed. I dunno, I don't care. Am I having fun? Yes!! If you can answer that, then your fine.

tad10_sl said:

No - that just subjects the monk to a mean RNG which is never good. As I said, better to think of it as Jedi Mind Tricks (or Psychic Neuralizer) than Human Opposum. You can keep using the JMT/Neuralizer and they'll keep forgetting you're there.

Though I'm fine with a class of mobs (undead spring to mind) being immune to FD (or ES if we're going the Jedi Monk route). But if you make undead immune to monk FD then you have to fiddle with Necro/SK FD so it doesn't become better than Monk FD (Necro/SK would get a different skill Feign Undeath that maybe didn't work against animals or whatever).

I'm not against mucking around with the mechanic, but I am against making it worthless (such as the subject to the RNG as you describe) or taking it away.

As noted, a key metric for whether a class is "good" in EQ and VG is whether the class is "unique". FD is one of the defining characteristics of the EQ/VG monk.

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There's no hint at a monk or SK or necromancer class existing in Pantheon, and if they do exist it's a coin flip if anything like pretending to be dead in an attempt to single out a mob will be part of their repertoire. Dont see this as a crusade againt FD please.

So with this out of the way, would it really be terrible to add resist mechanics? Resists/miss mechanics are fairly widespread in these types of games, so your reaction seems a bit strong. I didnt even suggest the result of a resist but you're not even considering the idea, it's outright bad apparently. You know what, I'm not even expecting a question now after typing this, it's gonna be "because it's bad". I just ask you consider other topics that arent as close to your heart more openly in the future.



That said, new question! Crowd control, how can this be improved upon from the EQ model? Since I only dabbled in VG until level 10 I have no clue about their version(s), any big differences or similar?

Personally, at the very least I would hope for more crowd control classes then EQ featured (2 dedicated and CC skills here and there in others). You had 3 healers, 3 tanks, lots of dps but for CC it was only enchanters and bards (and some people would even argue that, but people are stupid).

I could see a nature or ice twist on CC to allow another class to use the mechanics with different flavors but no other really good ideas. WoW did the "many classes get specialized single CC" which I wasnt really a fan of, and everyone else ran with that of course.

pharmakos_sl said:

disagree. soloing should be difficult for all classesat first.

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Fuck difficult at first, that implies easy later on. It should *always* be difficult so it's *always* better for me and Joe_necro that solos next door to team up while we're in the same area doing the same shit. You know, encourage people to seek out other people to play with and stuff. That doesnt start at the 6 person group, it starts the moment you go killing things.

EQ was the pinnacle of CC. Copy/paste. Change nothing.

Well... Okay... Charm probably can't be as powerful as it was.

Quaid_sl said:

EQ was the pinnacle of CC. Copy/paste. Change nothing.

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I tend to agree. I know things will change, it's been 15 years and a lot has been learned, but some things simply work very well.

One of the characters I played in EQ to high levels was an Enchanter (along with Cleric and Monk) and I can say that I really enjoyed playing an Enchanter. It was challenging, but very rewarding and fun to play.

Mr Creed_sl said:

Fuck difficult at first, that implies easy later on. It should *always* be difficult so it's *always* better for me and Joe_necro that solos next door to team up while we're in the same area doing the same shit. You know, encourage people to seek out other people to play with and stuff. That doesnt start at the 6 person group, it starts the moment you go killing things.

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Druids could root/dot, clerics could solo, wizzys/bards could kite, Rangers could fear/chase.....there was solo options in EQ. I see no need to make it more difficult then it was. The downside was it was slow as shit. Its a good tradeoff.

Dahkoht_sl said:

Just as an aside , as someone who enjoys world PVP tons , my hopes for a PVP for this game is a very long stretch goal and if it's made , then it's zek'ish put up a PVP server with no major class changes and have at it (teams/factions/ffa whatever).

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The thing is that assuming the make a game balanced on PVE, from 10 classes 7 will suck bigtime compared the other 3 right out of the box, so you start putting some limits on high number hits/crits, then the next problem becomes CC and after some deliberation you put in a resist mod for spells on players or diminishing returns or whatever, and then, and then... The result is you ARE using time/money on PVP after all, even though the initial idea was to open a RZ server and leave it at that. So honestly any mention of PVP has me worried because while I would enjoy a fantasy version of EVE, this isnt it, wont be it, and doing anything with PVP will take funds that could something else to the actual goal of Pantheon instead of a specialty server.

P.S. If they do it then FFA, players/guilds can align with NPC factions and give appropriate hits on kill. Consequences to your PVE existance as a result of PVP would be very interesting since this is mostly a PVE game even then.

No leashing please. If it's in, make it mob-dependent or very limited.

I think the people advocating for class uniqueness over class balance have it right. Balance leads to blandness. Uniqueness leads to exploration.

Quaid_sl said:

EQ was the pinnacle of CC. Copy/paste. Change nothing.

Well... Okay... Charm probably can't be as powerful as it was.

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I'm cool with a copypasta of the EQ enc, actually that would probably be an ideal situation for me. One thing I would ask is some consistency on how the class is treated throughout expansions though, Having your class abilities disabled (besides buff bitch) in large stretches of several expansions is pretty annoying.

Oh and dont farm out my illusions to every gimp rogue that sits in guk for 10 minutes, thanks. I do like collectibles like those were but it was twice as lame since I had no reason to collect illusion items AND they took mah spells! So illusion items can have unique illusions and I'm cool with it (some other enc will whine that he has to farm while it should be a spell for him, of course).

Dumar_sl said:

No leashing please. If it's in, make it mob-dependent or very limited.

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Dumar, focus on immersion. Leashing is good if it makes sense. So mob-dependent yes, but not very limited. Every guard should abort their chase early, for example. Their job is to guard, not run all across the commons. Maybe they should carry a ranged weapon for those pesky intruders.

Mr Creed_sl said:

T
So with this out of the way, would it really be terrible to add resist mechanics?

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You can already fail at FD in VG, and often. No need to nerf an already nerfed and mostly superseded (at the raid level) ability. Given EQ & VG, seems pretty likely that Monks, Necromancers and SK (though perhaps with slightly altered names) will show up at release, or as a stretch goal, or in some expansion. FD is a core ability for Monks and I'm guessing pretty useful for Necromancers/SK it's a lot more useful than just as a means of split-pulling - soloing, dropping aggro in a group if you've pulled mob of the tank, etc. Anything called a "Monk" in an EQ based game that doesn't have an FD ability (whatever it is termed) isn't really a monk.

As for CC - that was the Inquisitor joke. Sigil promised a CCing tank that never showed up. I was always more interested in the Berzerker class that never showed up, got stronger as you lost health.

I don't like leashing either.. I'd like it to vary based on a job like Creed said, or something as simple as stamina. Some mobs will have more and chase farther and others will have less.

Troy_Costisick_sl said:

I think the people advocating for class uniqueness over class balance have it right. Balance leads to blandness. Uniqueness leads to exploration.

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Imbalance is okay. It could even be stated that variation itself has in it some imbalance.

That's why I've always said WoW never truly solved any of EverQuest's issues. They just removed mechanics that caused the issues. Removal doesn't equate to a solution. If you remove social dungeons for instancing, you didn't solve contested spawns: you removed the mechanic that led to contested spawns and used a wholly different one.

WoW never solved the class issues in EverQuest. They removed mechanics and replaced them with different ones. Hollowing out the meaning of what a class is through total homogenization, making a chosen class not mean anything in the context of the world, by giving every class the ability to perform every role didn't fix the issue of not having a healer available for a group, for example. It turned all classes into fitting all roles so anyone could be the healer. That isn't a solution because you've now removed the idea and choosing of a class, what that class is. The WoW design team rode on the coattails of the technical and engineering talent all the way to the bank.

Let's be clear on what uniqueness is, let's be explicit: uniqueness isn't a different graphic or animation for the same mechanic or ability shared among classes. That's not unique, but window dressing. Uniqueness means the effect has someuniqueeffect on the world that only that class has. WoW had much, much less uniqueness in classes than EverQuest, and their "solution" to the no healer available problem led to this new problem, that of a class having no meaning.

Mr Creed_sl said:

Dumar, focus on immersion. Leashing is good if it makes sense. So mob-dependent yes, but not very limited. Every guard should abort their chase early, for example. Their job is to guard, not run all across the commons. Maybe they should carry a ranged weapon for those pesky intruders.

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I don't know if it's immersion but you do want some kind of logic in your game so I'm okay with not every mob running after you for forever, certainly undead shouldn't want to run into open sunlight if you were dungeon delving and opened up the wrong crypt. Makes the Day/Night cycle matter. Yada, yada, yada.

Sensible mob ai should determine leashing levels. Seems like it would be easy to implement. For example a herb of elephants may act defensively, and leash quickly once the threat moves away, and get back with their pack. An aggressive /predator ai may chase further but turn around when they tire/feel like they are moving into dangerous territory. Human/npc ai leashing should be heavily faction and territory dependent.

Boss mob ai should depend on individual behavior. A dragon guarding its treasure in a cave obviously wouldn't go very far. A roaming dragon may attack enemies for much further distances, and may follow longer depending on how much hate its developed for a player (ie accidental aggro the dragon may leash quicker; for a player attacking for 80% of the dragons health, the leash radius may be much further)

Your complete hatred of WoW blinds you to all the great things they did Dumar.

Creslin_sl said:

Your complete hatred of WoW blinds you to all the great things they did Dumar.

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I'm curious because I never played. So this is an honest question. What are the great things they did?

I know the WoW hate is strong here but I have to say, I really loved the hunter class early on. You had ranged and melee options (melee alot weaker but instead of killing that slowly they could have pushed it), you had a cool variety and content simply through taming, the pet performed adequately in groups, some limited CC through taps and some of the shots, and some fun spells like directly running your pet or farsight to round it out.