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

Arctic_Slicer_sl said:

Pyros didn't post a source; he simply had an anonymous quote that was far more whiny than it was objective; why would I take it seriously? Now that I know who it was; yeah he probably did know how to play his class but exaggerated whining is still exaggerated whining.

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Exaggerated or not, by OoW, a 2.0, anguish-geared monk could tank all group content and most bosses in Anguish, short of Vangl/OMM.

EQ had the WORST class balancing... Not due to the classes themselves, but due to the dev(s) in charge at the time. One guy would favor rogues... Rogues would get OP'd. Next guy liked mages, they would get OP'd etc...

Also... (And the same with VG) there were some devious players/ guilds in the beta testing. They would purposely tank their DPS stats to get a boost in the live launch... Or not report an obscure bug which allowed them an edge when the content went live.

Furor had his ego-rants for sure. Taking them at face value is the same as taking RR posts as pure, unbiased, fact as well. You gotta look past the emotional investments and bullshit to find the gem of fact at the center of it all.

Flank_sl said:

Lack of a grouping tool can prevent exploration. If you have to travel to a destination before looking for a group then people are more likely to just go to the popular destinations because they know that they can find a group then they get there. Personally, I do not like WoW's LFG tool because it automatically groups you with people, but I do like something like DDO's lfg tool as it just puts you in contact with other people who are looking to do the same content that you are.

As for travel, I think that mounts are a much bigger problem than teleporting. If you remove mounts then the world is effectively much larger and teleport points are further from the content that you want to get to. Also, mounts allow you to bypass otherwise dangerous monsters.

I quite like travel in early Lineage 2. You could teleport between major towns but it was expensive. You could scroll (recall) to the nearest town, so the most efficient way was to run half way to the next town and then scroll. You sometimes still had to run through dangerous locations, but once you knew the zones you could get to any town safely. You could travel the world in 20 minutes using scrolls, but getting to some dungeon entrances involved risk.

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To me they do need a global lfg tool. The breadth and width of which is "I am class x and level Y and looking for something to do."

From there people can interact and determine if they will meet up etc etc. I think this small tool is necessary as it helps facilitate pushes groups over the hump to being active and also allows new players or players who have no friends currently on a way to join up and perhaps fill in that eighth spot for a dungeon crawl.

Aeiouy_sl said:

To me they do need a global lfg tool. The breadth and width of which is "I am class x and level Y and looking for something to do."

From there people can interact and determine if they will meet up etc etc. I think this small tool is necessary as it helps facilitate pushes groups over the hump to being active and also allows new players or players who have no friends currently on a way to join up and perhaps fill in that eighth spot for a dungeon crawl.

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^^
This

By the way the game that absolutely killed all other games when it came to getting players to group was EQOA. Group sizes were only four but almost nobody left town with less than four and as soon as someone left everyone was trying to fill the fourth slot.

Why? Because a snake would give you 100xp for killing it solo. If you killed the same snake as a duo BOTH of you would get 200xp. Three players 300xp. So having a full group would give you 400% more experience than you would get solo and 33% more than you would get in a trio.

I love to solo in mmos but EQOA was the only one I never even bothered and it is one of my favorite mmos of all time. The reason I bring this up is this is a way to really make pantheon a group focused game using methods that have absolutely proven to work in other games.

The question is are people willing to sacrifice some solobility in exchange for knowing all players will be looking to be running a maximum group size at all times. It real changes how you play the game and I have never played a game where people were successfully pushed into interaction, for their one good, more than in EQOA.

Because of the huge benefits to grouping people had massive friends lists and like I said with a single drop out the other three people would be rolodexing for that fourth member.

Convo_sl said:

Huh? Did you play a wizard or Druid? Any idea how many people I've met from giving teleports to? If I wasn't already in zone offering to do it for $$ a lot of people would just ask me. The conversation would basically end in the person saying they put me on friends list. Sometimes I could help them out down the line and other times I was busy.. You're making this out to be much worse than it was.

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To be fair though, many times my Druid had to go anon or else I could not actually play as I would get an endless stream of tells for ports. Which I never was bothered with when I was traveling or hanging out but was not feasible every three minutes when actually grouping/killing mobs.

Arctic_Slicer_sl said:

Pyros, that guy sounds like someone that didn't know how to play their class. Any of the end game Velious or Luclin 2 handers(Gaudralek, Emp sword, Seru sword, etc.) were more than sufficient in holding aggro in end game Luclin.

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2h aggro was buffed in Velious (I recall tanking Vymm with a primal 2h for our first kill), but if you used a 2h over a Bloodfrenzy in Luclin, then you were certifiable. Guilds farmed Cursed well into PoP for those.

I took a break in Luclin so I never got a Bloodfrenzy, but I loved the shit out of my SoD and used that until my BoW. SoDs were just as much aggro as BoCs and slightly higher dps. Screw 2Hs without a hate proc.

Also, somebody's idea of 'aggroing fine' is quite subjective. Just because mobs aren't coming off you just means the casters aren't stupid enough to waste healer mana. Their DPS could be limited but you'd never know it without asking.

Torrid_sl said:

2h aggro was buffed in Velious (I recall tanking Vymm with a primal 2h for our first kill), but if you used a 2h over a Bloodfrenzy in Luclin, then you were certifiable. Guilds farmed Cursed well into PoP for those.

I took a break in Luclin so I never got a Bloodfrenzy, but I loved the shit out of my SoD and used that until my BoW. SoDs were just as much aggro as BoCs and slightly higher dps. Screw 2Hs without a hate proc.

Also, somebody's idea of 'aggroing fine' is quite subjective. Just because mobs aren't coming off you just means the casters aren't stupid enough to waste healer mana. Their DPS could be limited but you'd never know it without asking.

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I was the top-equipped warrior on the Innoruuk server (RIP) for a number of years until I left after we cleared Pop a few times, so my perspective on warrior balance in EQ1 is skewed. That said, I thought the class was fun and when played right was an asset in normal exp groups, and really helped in any situation except maybe AOE groups. One thing they should have done (not sure if they did this in later expansions) was add group disciplines for warriors that buffed the whole group in battle.

My memory is very foggy as this was over 10 years ago. Damn.

popsicledeath_sl said:

So, since we don't disagree on anything except apparently that the other person is reaching... for something...

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Well my position is based on the assumption that they plan to build a very large world. Just a couple of days ago Brad was talking about profiteering from travelling between different market areas, that requires long distances which you cannot easily cross at a whim. IF they change their plan on that then my side of this argument has nothing to stand on and you're right. How they plan to accomplish that with a smaller team, I have no idea. Maybe content design is very fast with Unity, maybe liberal use of copy/paste. But my understanding is that a huge world is absolutely their goal.

I finally got around to watching the Boogie interview and it's good, beats all those Q&A. If I hadn't already pledged I would have done so after the interview.

Mr Creed_sl said:

I finally got around to watching the Boogie interview and it's good, beats all those Q&A. If I hadn't already pledged I would have done so after the interview.

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Yea that boogie interview was gold. Boogie nailed the interview and Brad seemed very relaxed. I wanted them to keep talking for another hour.

Jimbolini_sl said:

These are the only Warriors I remember...

CAN YOU DIG IT?!!!!

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Warriors, come out to playyy

Convo_sl said:

I'm curious what LFG thinks of the proposed travel system?

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Sounds awesome.. except for the certain classes part.

Graye_sl said:

^^
This

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There should be no tool that let's me see a listing of people lfg. I want a channel where people have to talk and interact. There has to be activity on both sides: the person looking for the group has to be reading what people are saying, what groups are looking for more, etc; the groups looking for more have to be reading the channel just as equally. That system is much better than any stupid tool that severs interaction between both parties and the larger community.

Merlin_sl said:

Yea that boogie interview was gold. Boogie nailed the interview and Brad seemed very relaxed. I wanted them to keep talking for another hour.

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I think we all enjoyed. I would not doubt that Brad gets on again with him before this is over.

Dumar_sl said:

There should be no tool that let's me see a listing of people lfg. I want a channel where people have to talk and interact. There has to be activity on both sides: the person looking for the group has to be reading what people are saying, what groups are looking for more, etc; the groups looking for more have to be reading the channel just as equally. That system is much better than any stupid tool that severs interaction between both parties and the larger community.

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I don't know what's the difference of having an LFG window and getting an invite vs. typing LFG (whatever your class is) and getting an invite. Both actions are accomplishing the same thing, getting you in the group. The discussion from that point is happening within the group, not in the chat channel. Any social interaction that I had in EQ was group or guild only, it wasn't in no LFG channel.

Dumar_sl said:

There should be no tool that let's me see a listing of people lfg. I want a channel where people have to talk and interact. There has to be activity on both sides: the person looking for the group has to be reading what people are saying, what groups are looking for more, etc; the groups looking for more have to be reading the channel just as equally. That system is much better than any stupid tool that severs interaction between both parties and the larger community.

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Yeah, I"m sure the interactions will be so deep and meaningful with dozens of people spamming LFG with their info. Because that's what will happen.

Dumar_sl said:

There should be no tool that let's me see a listing of people lfg. I want a channel where people have to talk and interact. There has to be activity on both sides: the person looking for the group has to be reading what people are saying, what groups are looking for more, etc; the groups looking for more have to be reading the channel just as equally. That system is much better than any stupid tool that severs interaction between both parties and the larger community.

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Ask any VG player. The tool was there. It had lots of "simple" options with it.

Most people still spammed chat LFG/LFM.

It won't replace that, it provides a tool to assist IF used.

The only time the tool replaces common interaction is in the cases many of us are adamantly opposed to (auto dungeon finder/port group to xp location)

mkopec_sl said:

Dumar just wants a reskined eq.

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I'd play that.

mkopec_sl said:

Dumar just wants a reskined eq.

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The difference between listing your name/class/lvl as lfg in a seperate window or looking at the list of LFG people in a seperate chat window is really small, I'm sure he'd survive that. From there on it's up the players to start talking to each other in both versions.

Edit: just to add, yea I'd play that too (v.2002 pls!)

Vandyn_sl said:

I don't what's the difference of having an LFG window vs. typing LFG (whatever your class is) and getting an invite. The discussion from that point is happening within the group, not in the chat channel. Any social interaction that I had in EQ was group or guild only, it wasn't in no LFG channel.

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There is a mountain of difference. Most lfg in EQ was done in /ooc, but that is preferred over a 'window' that pops up and shows you who is lfg for which dungeon. If you don't see this difference, think about it more:

If there is no Architect to facilitate grouping, that means the players have to seek, interact, and form groups entirely themselves. So a player who is looking for a group has to constantly monitor and read /lfg or /ooc, right? He'll see every person's name who's talking, every shout for help, every insult, every group looking for more, every everything. Maybe he'll see someone familiar and message, maybe a total stranger. Maybe he'll see someone asking for a port that he'll do while he's waiting. Maybe he'll see someone selling a shiny SMR that he's been wanting. Maybe he'll see an old guildie's name that hasn't been on in years. Thatpotentialfor interaction is lost with a lfg window.

If you put something like that in, then what will happen is that any lfg channel will largely be silent. An ooc channel will still have traffic, but much less because people won't be in it to advance their character (to lfg), so they'll exit the channel. The result is a world that's much less interactive: all because the designers thought a lfg window would help facilitate interaction, when in fact the opposite happens.

edit: I admit I don't know how well it was used in VG, but I'm thinking of every other lfg system put in place by MMOG's - they've replaced any required interaction.