oneADseven said:Syrif said:Apologies if my memory is off, but isn't oneadseven the guy/gal who has referenced FF14 a lot?
I rarely bring up FF14, but when I do, I mention how it's an abomination to everything that made FF11 great.
odd. Anyway, I‘ve said all I wanted to in this thread. Cheers.
oneADseven said:You do realize that the caravan feature is something that Brad has described as part of his "Vision" multiple times right? What direction/vision of the game are you talking about? It was in Vanguard and it's something he wants to bring back to Pantheon.
Brad also not too long ago was gunning for fast ports between the cities until his team pulled him back out of the rabbit hole. Brad has gone a little soft over the years concerning somethings and I think he tries too hard to appeal to the modern generation in order to garner interest.
See, I think Brad is being what a good businessman and politican is, they don't hardline a stance in hopes that they can garner support in places that may not be ideal.
I disagree with Brad in that approach. I think if you open your doors to the homeless, you are likely to end up with things missing. That is, if you go off trying to create bridges to modern gamers, all you are going to end up doing is burning the bridges of your traditional ones.
You know how I know this? Because it is the same thing many MMOs have done over and over for years. You can not serve two masters. Either they design the game with one ideal in mind, or the other. There is no compromise as to cater to one is to attack the other which is why most traditional gamers see the caravans as nothing more than a fast travel cheat designed to cater to mainstream.
I love grouping with capable and honorable people. I have met some awesome people in pick up groups who have ended up becoming regular groupmates. Also, if you are fortunate enough to have people you already know to group with, that is the best.
I do solo from time to time but find it more difficult as I like to take on harder encounters and generally need a group for that. Mostly, I will solo when I know I don't have a lot of time to devote to doing something so I don't inconvenience others.
Tanix said:oneADseven said:You do realize that the caravan feature is something that Brad has described as part of his "Vision" multiple times right? What direction/vision of the game are you talking about? It was in Vanguard and it's something he wants to bring back to Pantheon.
Brad also not too long ago was gunning for fast ports between the cities until his team pulled him back out of the rabbit hole. Brad has gone a little soft over the years concerning somethings and I think he tries too hard to appeal to the modern generation in order to garner interest.
See, I think Brad is being what a good businessman and politican is, they don't hardline a stance in hopes that they can garner support in places that may not be ideal.
I disagree with Brad in that approach. I think if you open your doors to the homeless, you are likely to end up with things missing. That is, if you go off trying to create bridges to modern gamers, all you are going to end up doing is burning the bridges of your traditional ones.
You know how I know this? Because it is the same thing many MMOs have done over and over for years. You can not serve two masters. Either they design the game with one ideal in mind, or the other. There is no compromise as to cater to one is to attack the other which is why most traditional gamers see the caravans as nothing more than a fast travel cheat designed to cater to mainstream.
I would say that although MMORPGs were originally designed with the gameplay in mind, the majority of MMOs since WoW have been about the $$$. With that said, if we (PRotF) cannot attract AND maintain a financial baseline, then nobody will be able to play the game as it was originally intended because of the lack of development. And before people argue that "a game going free to play is just as good as a subscription platform" I will add that the only thing that makes those games successful is that the fanbase of those games are typically playing because it was their first MMO and therefore has emotional and psychological/subconcious ties that have nothing to do with wether or not the game had purple unicorns that teleported you from city to city or if you had to wait 40mins for a boat that took another 20mins to get you to your destination. (Difficult travel is an oldschool concept that those of us that experienced it "feel" should be in all games because of the emotional connection we had with it). People's "feelings" don't always make money, and at the end of the day VR needs to make money to keep the game going strong.
I'm ok with whatever the devs decide because there are a lot of other aspects of PRotF I'm looking forward to.
MauvaisOeil said:OneAd is a FFXI afficionado, as much as I am an EQ afficionado. The result is sometimes sparky.
The ironic thing about this is that I only played FFXI for maybe 12-15 months. It was a short-lived experience but certainly ranks up there as my favorite all time, with only EQOA (my first MMO that I played for a little over 2 years) coming close. I remember the day I got my first PC right before EQ2 came out ... thinking that I was going to take the "MMO Experience" to the next level. I played EQ2 for a long time but my memories of that game pale in comparison to what I had in FFXI. The only reason that I bring up FFXI so much is because it doesn't seem represented all that much on this forum. It was very similar to EQ. If you took the game tenets for Pantheon and attached them to FFXI it would be a perfect fit. So yes ... I catch myself citing FFXI all the time ... but it's mostly because I get tired of the "EQ or nothing!" echo chamber around these parts. I'm sure EQ was a fantastic game but I have heard plenty of pain points associated with it that were basically non-existent in FFXI. I try to share examples of how they may have alleviated those pain points mostly because there is admittedly room to grow and improve. If we aren't looking at FFXI as a magical MMO that we should be drawing inspiration from then something is wrong. Again, the tenets are a perfect fit ... and that should mean something.
Yeah because it's impossible to draw inspiration from something that you didn't work on personally, right? You realize that FFXI was inspired by Everquest, right?
Darch said:
Tanix said:
oneADseven said:
You do realize that the caravan feature is something that Brad has described as part of his "Vision" multiple times right? What direction/vision of the game are you talking about? It was in Vanguard and it's something he wants to bring back to Pantheon.
Brad also not too long ago was gunning for fast ports between the cities until his team pulled him back out of the rabbit hole. Brad has gone a little soft over the years concerning somethings and I think he tries too hard to appeal to the modern generation in order to garner interest.
See, I think Brad is being what a good businessman and politican is, they don't hardline a stance in hopes that they can garner support in places that may not be ideal.
I disagree with Brad in that approach. I think if you open your doors to the homeless, you are likely to end up with things missing. That is, if you go off trying to create bridges to modern gamers, all you are going to end up doing is burning the bridges of your traditional ones.
You know how I know this? Because it is the same thing many MMOs have done over and over for years. You can not serve two masters. Either they design the game with one ideal in mind, or the other. There is no compromise as to cater to one is to attack the other which is why most traditional gamers see the caravans as nothing more than a fast travel cheat designed to cater to mainstream.
I would say that although MMORPGs were originally designed with the gameplay in mind, the majority of MMOs since WoW have been about the $$$. With that said, if we (PRotF) cannot attract AND maintain a financial baseline, then nobody will be able to play the game as it was originally intended because of the lack of development. And before people argue that "a game going free to play is just as good as a subscription platform" I will add that the only thing that makes those games successful is that the fanbase of those games are typically playing because it was their first MMO and therefore has emotional and psychological/subconcious ties that have nothing to do with wether or not the game had purple unicorns that teleported you from city to city or if you had to wait 40mins for a boat that took another 20mins to get you to your destination. (Difficult travel is an oldschool concept that those of us that experienced it "feel" should be in all games because of the emotional connection we had with it). People's "feelings" don't always make money, and at the end of the day VR needs to make money to keep the game going strong.
I'm ok with whatever the devs decide because there are a lot of other aspects of PRotF I'm looking forward to.
The "financial" aspect of this game was apparently settled years ago, or so I thought. It was understood that they didn't need a large amount of subscribers, that because of their "pay as you go" and limited investor influence, they would be able to create, operate and continue development of the game with as little as 10k subscribers. Keep in mind that EQ at its peak had near 800k subs and games like P1999 have had around 10k players at one time (not all playing at the same time).
If you do the math, it doesn't take that much for them to make a very very healthy amount of money based on small subs.
That said, I don't buy the argument that the only reason people are playing is because it was their first MMO. That is rather an insulting premise to establish because it bases itself on the fact that the players are too stupid to understand anything and are emotionally pining for the past. This is far from the truth as has been argued by MANY in these forums when pressed about WHY they enjoyed the games of the past. Now certainly there may be some kids who view games like EQ with eyes of being a child playing it on their parents computer, but as has already been stated, MANY people that played EQ back in the day were full grown adults (25+) and know EXACTLY why they enjoyed EQ back in its release, so the idea that catering to the traditional concepts is just chasing after a bunch of kids who just can't remember is honestly a bunch of garbage.
So I don't make my arguments on "emotional" views of being a child back in the day. I make them from a game play standpoint, understanding that in order for there to be value in reward, there must be risk AND effort and those come in many forms, passive and active. We also know how lacking those elements of play have destroyed games. You call Travel just some emotional connection, but travel has proven that it turns a large world into a small one. Travel also plays a part in speeding up development time (taking time to get places is yet one more subtle element of slowing progression).
There are numerous subtle elements in play to which traditional game systems have merit and to which modern games have empirically shown to be true.
You may not care about these things, but many of us do and it was the entire point why we followed this game. I mean, do you know how many MMOs I pay attention to that are slated to come out or have come out over the last year or so? None. Why? Because they are all garbage mainstream games chasing after mainstream design.
If pantheon was sold as that from the beginning, I wouldn't be here, yet it was sold not as a mainstream game, not as a money maker chasing a larger base of players, but a specific concept aimed for a specific type of player that appreciates the basis to which games like EQ and VG were designed around.
For some of us, this is the last game we are going to follow or hold out hope for and if it does not deliver, we will drop out of the market entirely.
So, I do not accept anything VR decides to do as matter of blind faith, for if they decide to ignore the mission statement they first established, they will end up being yet another sell out money grabbing company that rode in on the backs of the traditional fans in order to profit off mainstream (aka Larian Studios). This may be just another game you are following and willing to try before you move on to another, but not for people like me. This is the end of the road.
oneADseven said:Yeah because it's impossible to draw inspiration from something that you didn't work on personally, right? You realize that FFXI was inspired by Everquest, right?
I‘m sure a lot has been inspired by Everquest, anything from art to MMO’s. :)
FFXI and WoW have always been complete, 100% garbage in my opinion.
Syrif said:oneADseven said:Yeah because it's impossible to draw inspiration from something that you didn't work on personally, right? You realize that FFXI was inspired by Everquest, right?
I‘m sure a lot has been inspired by Everquest, anything from art to MMO’s. :)
FFXI and WoW have always been complete, 100% garbage in my opinion.
although I agree to certain extent , I do not agree that ffxi was garbage , simply a different game it was skill based type game . WOW on the other hand did not appeal to me (sure it appealed to others ). felt to cartooney to me . ( personal opinion ) .
I enjoy to this day Bauldars gate , eq , yes even old word games (zork to name one ) . but What I miss is the commadare we all had with not only Vanguard ,eq ,yes even ffxi . it was more then graphics , more then the quests (or theme parks ) . It was coming together as one for the good of OUR enjoyment and community . we made those game !!!!!!!!! . without each n everyone of us those games would not be heard of nor less played without each and every one of you :):):):):) ..
Pantheon should not be theme parky , nor gimmicky , but a game we can all call home .
It should be what they imagined what they feel will be the game they intended it to be . ( regardless whether i or you wish it to be otherwise ) .
Please forgive my preaching :) .... Enjoy, Pantheon comes from a great idealist . same person who made(IMHO) mmo great .. Nostalgic sure ... but what works we don't fix .. rest is mox nix ..
Grouping of course is prefered, but it is all ging to depend on the population spread through the world and availability to find groups.
Depend lot on clas too, as I assume only a select few classes can successfully solo, and being able to gain xp on your own power is useful.
In EQ1 it was always pretty easy to send out /tells to anyone you could find on /who all 'class' and basically hire up a team to meet you at whatever spot you wanted to go.
Now the popular group spots are of course anything thats safe and provides a steady stream of xp, like basically anything near a zone line was always popular. If you loogged on, sent out a bunch of tells to randoms and built up maybe 5 guys ready to roll, then ran to whatever zone and began to break in and start moving to a camp deep in a dungeon, things could go wrong easily. I remember in EQ1 some zones (Cazic Thule, Kedge Keep, Runnyeye, SOLA, UpGuk, Splitpaw Lair) were almost never attempted due to difficulty and going farther from zone line became basically a huge gamble as these zones were so small and hard to navigate, with so many caster mobs it wasnt even worth it. Completely wiping inside a dungeon wold put you back literally hours (xp loss plus time for corpse recovery) so some zones never got their proper due.
Pantheon seems like the dungeon zones are huge and should be better, but I just hope group action can be more interesting with actually exploring zones, but grouping with randoms and atempting to break into a dungeon was almost too hard to make it worth it at some zones, with . SOLB I remember the zone lines were close enough at some of the camps you could get away with it. Anyway, just a ramble but yea, alot fo cool zones never really got ther due, Runnyeye was a literall hell hole of swarming goblins, that undead Tower zone in Feild of Bones was almost impossible to go deep down in without wiping, SOLA was crazy, and UpperGuk same, usually not straying far from zone lines at any point unless that was just my experience. Unless you had a great group of focused individuals ready to accept the challenge.
I don't want to derail the thread anymore but I do want to close out some thoughts. I started a new thread here:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/10128/ffxi-a-story-by-soberdwarf
There is a link to a design documentary video of FFXI in there. I don't want to spoil anything but I will say that the "solo vs group" topic is an extremely important takeaway in that video. I am all for the "stubborn design" of making the vast majority of the game group reliant. At the same time ... that stubborn design choice played a huge role in the downfall of FFXI. By the time they tried to do anything about it, it was too late. It's imperative to consider the lessons that history has taught us and to take a responsible and proactive approach to leveraging them. I have total faith that Pantheon will remain true to their group-centric vision and philosophy. I also have faith in their ability to innovate and improve the overall "worldly" sensation that we miss in MMO's -- some degree of solo play is perfectly reasonable and we need to see what that looks like in testing. The sky isn't falling ... Pantheon isn't becoming WoW 2.0 ... the original backers aren't being tossed to the curb ... the game is evolving, please give it a chance to grow.
Tanix said:
Darch said:
Tanix said:
oneADseven said:You do realize that the caravan feature is something that Brad has described as part of his "Vision" multiple times right? What direction/vision of the game are you talking about? It was in Vanguard and it's something he wants to bring back to Pantheon.
Brad also not too long ago was gunning for fast ports between the cities until his team pulled him back out of the rabbit hole. Brad has gone a little soft over the years concerning somethings and I think he tries too hard to appeal to the modern generation in order to garner interest.
See, I think Brad is being what a good businessman and politican is, they don't hardline a stance in hopes that they can garner support in places that may not be ideal.
I disagree with Brad in that approach. I think if you open your doors to the homeless, you are likely to end up with things missing. That is, if you go off trying to create bridges to modern gamers, all you are going to end up doing is burning the bridges of your traditional ones.
You know how I know this? Because it is the same thing many MMOs have done over and over for years. You can not serve two masters. Either they design the game with one ideal in mind, or the other. There is no compromise as to cater to one is to attack the other which is why most traditional gamers see the caravans as nothing more than a fast travel cheat designed to cater to mainstream.
I would say that although MMORPGs were originally designed with the gameplay in mind, the majority of MMOs since WoW have been about the $$$. With that said, if we (PRotF) cannot attract AND maintain a financial baseline, then nobody will be able to play the game as it was originally intended because of the lack of development. And before people argue that "a game going free to play is just as good as a subscription platform" I will add that the only thing that makes those games successful is that the fanbase of those games are typically playing because it was their first MMO and therefore has emotional and psychological/subconcious ties that have nothing to do with wether or not the game had purple unicorns that teleported you from city to city or if you had to wait 40mins for a boat that took another 20mins to get you to your destination. (Difficult travel is an oldschool concept that those of us that experienced it "feel" should be in all games because of the emotional connection we had with it). People's "feelings" don't always make money, and at the end of the day VR needs to make money to keep the game going strong.
I'm ok with whatever the devs decide because there are a lot of other aspects of PRotF I'm looking forward to.
The "financial" aspect of this game was apparently settled years ago, or so I thought. It was understood that they didn't need a large amount of subscribers, that because of their "pay as you go" and limited investor influence, they would be able to create, operate and continue development of the game with as little as 10k subscribers. Keep in mind that EQ at its peak had near 800k subs and games like P1999 have had around 10k players at one time (not all playing at the same time).
If you do the math, it doesn't take that much for them to make a very very healthy amount of money based on small subs.
That said, I don't buy the argument that the only reason people are playing is because it was their first MMO. That is rather an insulting premise to establish because it bases itself on the fact that the players are too stupid to understand anything and are emotionally pining for the past. This is far from the truth as has been argued by MANY in these forums when pressed about WHY they enjoyed the games of the past. Now certainly there may be some kids who view games like EQ with eyes of being a child playing it on their parents computer, but as has already been stated, MANY people that played EQ back in the day were full grown adults (25+) and know EXACTLY why they enjoyed EQ back in its release, so the idea that catering to the traditional concepts is just chasing after a bunch of kids who just can't remember is honestly a bunch of garbage.
So I don't make my arguments on "emotional" views of being a child back in the day. I make them from a game play standpoint, understanding that in order for there to be value in reward, there must be risk AND effort and those come in many forms, passive and active. We also know how lacking those elements of play have destroyed games. You call Travel just some emotional connection, but travel has proven that it turns a large world into a small one. Travel also plays a part in speeding up development time (taking time to get places is yet one more subtle element of slowing progression).
There are numerous subtle elements in play to which traditional game systems have merit and to which modern games have empirically shown to be true.
You may not care about these things, but many of us do and it was the entire point why we followed this game. I mean, do you know how many MMOs I pay attention to that are slated to come out or have come out over the last year or so? None. Why? Because they are all garbage mainstream games chasing after mainstream design.
If pantheon was sold as that from the beginning, I wouldn't be here, yet it was sold not as a mainstream game, not as a money maker chasing a larger base of players, but a specific concept aimed for a specific type of player that appreciates the basis to which games like EQ and VG were designed around.
For some of us, this is the last game we are going to follow or hold out hope for and if it does not deliver, we will drop out of the market entirely.
So, I do not accept anything VR decides to do as matter of blind faith, for if they decide to ignore the mission statement they first established, they will end up being yet another sell out money grabbing company that rode in on the backs of the traditional fans in order to profit off mainstream (aka Larian Studios). This may be just another game you are following and willing to try before you move on to another, but not for people like me. This is the end of the road.
I would just comically like to point out that nowhere in my post did I mention "EQ". I was referring to MMOs that were once subscription that went free to play having the primary player base consisting of players that had that game as their first MMO and having emotional/sentimental attachments of some sort. There are several MMOs that applies to. You don't see new players joining games that have gone free to play that stick around for more than a few weeks to try the game out. I'd be willing to bet money that the majority of people "seriously" playing EQ right now were playing it before WoW came out (although they may have played something else, they went back to their first). Same can be said for ToR, DAoC, Rift, EQ2 and several others that lost subscribers and had to go FTP; people may log on to try them since they are now free, but they likely aren't a part of the game's communities unless they have some emotional/sentimental attachment to it. My whole point was referring to the fact that we need subscribers, and we need to attract more than just us EQ fans... VR understands this; and ultimately we have no choice but to "accept what VR decides to do" or don't play.
Also... this has nothing to do with group vs solo :)
I think we are seriously just taking this topic way to seriously, for one by Kilsin post it seems they have alrdy made their dicision I mean I could be wrong but I'm sure this far along they have at least gotten this far into making their game. And like I said some may not like it, but to me for as long it doesn't really reward anything but low end gear and low exp rates it won't be a problem, some will obviously disagree with this and say only certain classes should be able to solo at certain times, but the problem with that scenario is that usually means the tanks and healers are the ones they can't solo, and if they can't solo they don't get picked as much as the other classes (which will more than likely happen anyway just to a bigger degree). So if you want it to where their is like a 10% tank, 15% healer, 75%dps is your server pop than choose your way cuase that will probably be what happens cuase most people are going to choose the easiest way to level even when it goes truly against what they want to do becuase of how they were made not to solo. But if you make all the roles solo to an extent than I could seeing those percentages go up to like 20, 25, 55 which looks a ton healthy, faster grps getting formed, making friends faster (becuase making grps are faster), hopefully making the te community not so tight knit where people only grp up with certain people becuase making grps are so hard to do becuase most people aren't rolling tanks and healers. I could seriously keep going on and on by how only a certain amount of classes soloing ultimately is a bad design but I'll leave it to just this.
Riahuf22 said:I think we are seriously just taking this topic way to seriously, for one by Kilsin post it seems they have alrdy made their dicision I mean I could be wrong but I'm sure this far along they have at least gotten this far into making their game. And like I said some may not like it, but to me for as long it doesn't really reward anything but low end gear and low exp rates it won't be a problem, some will obviously disagree with this and say only certain classes should be able to solo at certain times, but the problem with that scenario is that usually means the tanks and healers are the ones they can't solo, and if they can't solo they don't get picked as much as the other classes (which will more than likely happen anyway just to a bigger degree). So if you want it to where their is like a 10% tank, 15% healer, 75%dps is your server pop than choose your way cuase that will probably be what happens cuase most people are going to choose the easiest way to level even when it goes truly against what they want to do becuase of how they were made not to solo. But if you make all the roles solo to an extent than I could seeing those percentages go up to like 20, 25, 55 which looks a ton healthy, faster grps getting formed, making friends faster (becuase making grps are faster), hopefully making the te community not so tight knit where people only grp up with certain people becuase making grps are so hard to do becuase most people aren't rolling tanks and healers. I could seriously keep going on and on by how only a certain amount of classes soloing ultimately is a bad design but I'll leave it to just this.
Ok low exp... low gear...
Let us go with that. How low? This was the point of my entire post when I spoke of this balance.
Certainly people are going to want their rewards from solo content to be be proper right? If not, lets do this...
Let us say if a group mob drops 100,000 copper (keeping the same type to avoid confusion), then how about the solo mob dropping lets say... 5 copper?
As for items, let it be so worthless, that they vendor for the same with maybe only 1 item ever dropping off the mob.
So, you kill a solo mob, designed to be solo'd remember, it drops 10 copper in total (item/cash). That is 10 thousand times less than what a group mob will drop.
Now lets say that most items in the vendor shop cost around 100,000,000
Now, lets make the exp similar in its return as well.
You good with that?
See, this way soloing can't have an real effect on the current economy or that of risk/reward or exp. You get to solo, get things, go through the motions, but you don't get any real major benefit fromit.
We good? Or are you now going to say that the solo mob should be "comparable" in its exp/rewards? Maybe you will say that the solo mob should be 1/3rd the value of a group mob? Or maybe 1/6th, you know... because you are being generous and all. Same with the money... do you see the problem yet?
So, remember we are building solo content (ie content DESIGNED to be solo'd). So, lets take the worst class for kill rate and we make it so they can solo the mob at the ability to gain money/exp at that rate. Sound good? It is fair right?
What about that DPS class that can take on content a heck of a lot faster than that class? Maybe they are going to kill at a much higher rate than that worst class. So, lets say that while the worst class is killing making exp and money at 1/6th the rate of a group, that dps class is kiling at 1/3rd, maybe 2/3rds of the group. Heck, grab one more DPS class and they are killing faster than group rates.
See the problem?
Content DESIGNED to be solo'd is a can of worms that will completely imbalance the game.
This is why you don't DESIGN solo content, you DESIGN group content and then if someone is able to solo it, fine.
Now why do I say this? Because, like in EQ, a person who figured out how to solo a group designed mob had to spend enormous amount of time and effort to do so AND only certain classes could even do it with positive effect in a practical manner.
This is how DESIGNING content to be solo'd harmed a lot of MMOs. So, as I said, they shouldn not cater to soloing. They should design content to be grouped, and.. if players learn how to solo, more power to them. This will keep soloing down to a limited application (ie certain classes only really being able to solo, and most classes only being able to solo certain mobs at certain times in their levels and under certain conditions).
Also, lastly, where do you think emergent game play came from? It is a result of a great need. People spent lots of time trying to figure out how to do content with less, with the less than ideal classes, etc.. There was no content designed for every player. Grouping was what EQ was about and if you didn't have the best group available, you worked with what you had. You learned how to use various spells to achieve similar results of other classes (ie ghetto CC with rooting, fearing, stuns, pet tanking, etc...). You used healing from less than ideal classes and adapated your group to that formation (charm a mob that can heal and let it heal the party). You learned how to pull certain mobs solo, how to watch pathing behavior and patterns, etc...
There were no bouncing balls, road signs on how to play, or content designed to cater to people who didn't have time, couldn't find a group, or just wanted to solo.
See, when I see people talk about all these features they want. I don't think they understand at all what made EQ what it was. Hardship, having to think outside the box, having to make due with what you had was EQ and you will not get back that level of play by handing people solutions that they should be forced to find on their own. EQ was a game, not an entertainment park.
Whoa Tanix that's one heck of a response! I strongly agree with your point here, that content specifically designed to be soloed is damaging to the overall experience. The statement thrown around of 20/60/20...solo/group/raid only makes sense if the bottom level mobs are soloable really otherwise it's as you say here some classes will be very strong at soloing and complete the solo content twice as fast...and those classes will have very little incentive to group up if they are getting tons of XP/loot. I mean if the game is gonna have special solo content will those mobs be restricted to only one player fighting them? Will there be special solo player dungeons? Or will it be like EQ where there are a few weak mobs at the entrance for solo players to farm?
If a game doesn't push players to form groups to progress most players will not form groups. Not because players hate forming and joining groups but because the content is too easy and they simply don't need to. Why would you want to form a group if you can get all the XP/loot for yourself at a much higher rate than with a group? Player behavior in MMORPGs can be molded to a great extent...the communities in WoW, GW1, GW2, EQ, EvE are pretty different in behavior due to the different game design/mechanics reinforcing certain behaviors. Instanced vs Non instanced, AH vs Player Trading, PvP vs PvE, large Death Penalty vs minimal Death Penalty the list is long.
Solo friendly game design kills group content, just as a group friendly game kills raid content. People take the path of least resistance it's just basic human nature. If there are totally viable paths for every class to solo to max level I wouldn't call Pantheon a group focused game because most players will be soloing at that point.
@ Ziegfried
Yeah the people for pushing solo content are being disingenuous when it comes to solo. Basically they want designed solo content and not the natural process of the higher level you go, the more lower level things you can solo. These lower level mobs can give you the same experience and low tiered gear that these people say solo designed content should have and they still won't care. They want solo mobs that are their level. That is it. Those same mobs can give you the same exp and low tierd gear as a mob that is 5 or 6 levels below you and they will accept it. It's just the fact that they are low leveled mobs that is the problem even though it is technically soloing.
Tanix said:Riahuf22 said:I think we are seriously just taking this topic way to seriously, for one by Kilsin post it seems they have alrdy made their dicision I mean I could be wrong but I'm sure this far along they have at least gotten this far into making their game. And like I said some may not like it, but to me for as long it doesn't really reward anything but low end gear and low exp rates it won't be a problem, some will obviously disagree with this and say only certain classes should be able to solo at certain times, but the problem with that scenario is that usually means the tanks and healers are the ones they can't solo, and if they can't solo they don't get picked as much as the other classes (which will more than likely happen anyway just to a bigger degree). So if you want it to where their is like a 10% tank, 15% healer, 75%dps is your server pop than choose your way cuase that will probably be what happens cuase most people are going to choose the easiest way to level even when it goes truly against what they want to do becuase of how they were made not to solo. But if you make all the roles solo to an extent than I could seeing those percentages go up to like 20, 25, 55 which looks a ton healthy, faster grps getting formed, making friends faster (becuase making grps are faster), hopefully making the te community not so tight knit where people only grp up with certain people becuase making grps are so hard to do becuase most people aren't rolling tanks and healers. I could seriously keep going on and on by how only a certain amount of classes soloing ultimately is a bad design but I'll leave it to just this.
Ok low exp... low gear...
Let us go with that. How low? This was the point of my entire post when I spoke of this balance.
Certainly people are going to want their rewards from solo content to be be proper right? If not, lets do this...
Let us say if a group mob drops 100,000 copper (keeping the same type to avoid confusion), then how about the solo mob dropping lets say... 5 copper?
As for items, let it be so worthless, that they vendor for the same with maybe only 1 item ever dropping off the mob.
So, you kill a solo mob, designed to be solo'd remember, it drops 10 copper in total (item/cash). That is 10 thousand times less than what a group mob will drop.
Now lets say that most items in the vendor shop cost around 100,000,000
Now, lets make the exp similar in its return as well.
You good with that?
See, this way soloing can't have an real effect on the current economy or that of risk/reward or exp. You get to solo, get things, go through the motions, but you don't get any real major benefit fromit.
We good? Or are you now going to say that the solo mob should be "comparable" in its exp/rewards? Maybe you will say that the solo mob should be 1/3rd the value of a group mob? Or maybe 1/6th, you know... because you are being generous and all. Same with the money... do you see the problem yet?
So, remember we are building solo content (ie content DESIGNED to be solo'd). So, lets take the worst class for kill rate and we make it so they can solo the mob at the ability to gain money/exp at that rate. Sound good? It is fair right?
What about that DPS class that can take on content a heck of a lot faster than that class? Maybe they are going to kill at a much higher rate than that worst class. So, lets say that while the worst class is killing making exp and money at 1/6th the rate of a group, that dps class is kiling at 1/3rd, maybe 2/3rds of the group. Heck, grab one more DPS class and they are killing faster than group rates.
See the problem?
Content DESIGNED to be solo'd is a can of worms that will completely imbalance the game.
This is why you don't DESIGN solo content, you DESIGN group content and then if someone is able to solo it, fine.
Now why do I say this? Because, like in EQ, a person who figured out how to solo a group designed mob had to spend enormous amount of time and effort to do so AND only certain classes could even do it with positive effect in a practical manner.
This is how DESIGNING content to be solo'd harmed a lot of MMOs. So, as I said, they shouldn not cater to soloing. They should design content to be grouped, and.. if players learn how to solo, more power to them. This will keep soloing down to a limited application (ie certain classes only really being able to solo, and most classes only being able to solo certain mobs at certain times in their levels and under certain conditions).
Also, lastly, where do you think emergent game play came from? It is a result of a great need. People spent lots of time trying to figure out how to do content with less, with the less than ideal classes, etc.. There was no content designed for every player. Grouping was what EQ was about and if you didn't have the best group available, you worked with what you had. You learned how to use various spells to achieve similar results of other classes (ie ghetto CC with rooting, fearing, stuns, pet tanking, etc...). You used healing from less than ideal classes and adapated your group to that formation (charm a mob that can heal and let it heal the party). You learned how to pull certain mobs solo, how to watch pathing behavior and patterns, etc...
There were no bouncing balls, road signs on how to play, or content designed to cater to people who didn't have time, couldn't find a group, or just wanted to solo.
See, when I see people talk about all these features they want. I don't think they understand at all what made EQ what it was. Hardship, having to think outside the box, having to make due with what you had was EQ and you will not get back that level of play by handing people solutions that they should be forced to find on their own. EQ was a game, not an entertainment park.
So your saying becuase other games that attempted solo content have failed to meet your standards so therefore if pantheon does it will immediately fails too? You have absolutely no idea how it is planned, or how they plan on implementing it, and for that matter neither do i, but what I am saying is that like I said before if their is no solo content than eventually people will get tired of trying to find grps to do literally anything, like THEY DID IN EQ AND WENT TO WOW. and than eq finally made it to where they made mercenaries so you didn't need to find a fully functional group, becuase the servers were getting emptied by everything being all grp orientated, so honestly yeah I went from playing EQ almost from the beginning to where it is now and it bare bones, and yes they realized that at the beginning it being group orientated was a great feeling, and it worked until after enough time pasted and people got tired of not getting in groups, people literally just sitting at zone lines spamming LFG messages hoping within a hour or 2 they could finally get a grp, or a friend to get online or maybe even come to there house just so they have a reason to get off the game other than they couldn't get anything done. So yes when you asked me when I played EQ from the beginning I did and unlike you, I am also remembering all the bad things that were wrong with eq, it wasn't prefect it wasn't suppose to be it was one of the first mmos ever it was suppose to have flaws, don't you think by now we would try to improve on them I stead of making the same mistake.
And btw if all soloing ever gave me was exp period I would be fine with it. No money, no drops, no nothing just exp, just cuase at least I am ultimately able to advance my character further without relying on a grp 100% of the time to do it, so does that answer your question?