Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

I hate QoL Features

    • 1019 posts
    July 10, 2019 6:37 PM PDT

    So many threads now and everyone's bringing up, "Oh, but it's QoL, no one wants to play a game with the mechanics of game from 1776!"  

    I do!  I'd rather see zero flippin' QoL features in the game and just point me on my way.  (ok, slight over exageration there)

    But come on!  Why do you think there even is a WoW Classic coming out?  Why is OSRS popular?  Why does P99 have (usually) twice the population of any other server on a EQ emulator?  It's not because these games are better than whats out there today, but it's because actions had meaning.  Everything wasn't handed to you.   Choices mattered.

    Ever play a game, and then play it with mods or a cheat code enabled?  Its no fun anymore.  Why? Because the challenge is gone.  Having to work for something makes it worth the reward.

    QoL features like "Equip All" after death, cheapen's death.  Know why you feared death in EQ, the dread of knowing you had to re-mem all your spells, loot all the stuff off your corpse and reequip all your gear.  That subcouncious knowledge of knowing all that work lie ahead of you if you died, was a driving force for doing all you could to avoid death.  (And don't give me the "What if I get DC'd and it's not my fault" bruh, if you get DC'd and it's not your fault, we all about to die becasue the only way someone loses connection now is if there is a giant meteor coming at us and it took out 7 or 8 satillites.)

    QoL  features like "Fast Travel" cheapens the adventure of traveling.  It trivalizes content and makes farming a thing.  Fast Travel in any form might as well be the same as ESO dungeon finders, where all you do is stand around queued up for a dungeon without having to go anywhere.

    QoL features like "Auto Consume" rations.  Yep, better players don't forget that stuff, it's one of the things that gets them in top end raid guilds, but players who don't pay attention complain and now it's a QoL feature that isn't needed, yet is in there to "level the playing field".

    QoL feautres like "Shard Banking"  being talked about in another thread, I won't rehash it, but it cheapens the play of the game.

    QoL features like any QoL feature cheapens the experience of the game.  

    QoL features are less QoL features and more, I'm lazy and I just want to see flashy bloom effects on my screen and pretty, big, foating numbers.

    • 521 posts
    July 10, 2019 6:52 PM PDT

    I Don't play games for the challenge, So QoL features for the most part are fine with me.

    • 1399 posts
    July 10, 2019 7:02 PM PDT

    Kittik said:

    QoL features like any QoL feature cheapens the experience of the game.  

    More often than not, that's the case. And for the good of Pantheon, I truly hope when it comes to this area they play it safe and DON'T add in any QOL feature as opposed to one that even remotely damages the "World" and turns it into a Game.

    Well said Kittik!

    And I really like your raiding example, A REAL raider is one that never forgets his food and drink, Never forgets to eat/drink them, Never shows up incumbererd with no bag space, Never shows up without regents, Never shows up late because he failed to move into the area in the day(s) before.....

    THAT'S the world I'm waiting for! 

    • 624 posts
    July 10, 2019 7:25 PM PDT

    Kittik said:

    QoL feautres like "Shard Banking"  being talked about in another thread, I won't rehash it, but it cheapens the play of the game.

    Long day at work, just got home and tired eyes read the above as “Bard Shanking”...wait, what!? That’s a QOL thing now?  Then I re-read it.

     

    Agree in general, I don’t want the game made too simple/easy/auto-pilot. Don’t sacrifice user engagement on the altar of QoL. And for The Keeper’s sake, no bard shanking.

    • 379 posts
    July 10, 2019 7:43 PM PDT

    There's a difference between QoL and challenge. The fear of death (in EQ) wasn't from looting your corpse and re-meming spells - it was from the EXP loss and hope that you could recover your corpse. There is also a major difference between QoL features and a complete modernization of a game (super fast paced with flashy numbers ie the direction WoW went and post-WoW mmo's).

    I understand where you are coming from, but challenge/difficulty does not have to equal monotony. We all want a slower-paced, challening MMO - we also hope Pantheon will be just that (but with an updated twist obviously).

    • 187 posts
    July 10, 2019 7:46 PM PDT
    Totally agree!! Especially the part about skanky bards!!! :-)
    • 1584 posts
    July 10, 2019 7:54 PM PDT
    I agree for the most part only QOL feature I would really want wpuld be group buffs, and TGB. But that's it.
    • 8 posts
    July 10, 2019 8:38 PM PDT

    QoL features aren't universally bad. Yeah things like dungeon finders and ubiquitous fast travel are bad, but features like UI customization or inventory search functions are handy tools that don't negatively alter how you go about interacting with the world. 

    • 388 posts
    July 10, 2019 9:46 PM PDT

    i would rather have almost no QoL vs too much. 

    we need level loss as well as exp loss. 

    • 379 posts
    July 10, 2019 10:45 PM PDT

    Flapp said:

    we need level loss as well as exp loss. 

    That's not really QoL, that's design/challenge. QoL is having a stack of 5 flowers vs. having 5 individual flowers, you can have both but it saves time and inventory space (management). Another example would be being able to right-click equip vs. having to drag & drop. The list goes on and on.

    • 116 posts
    July 10, 2019 11:10 PM PDT

    Quality of Life is feeling good and being satisfied with things in general.  Just because something adds quality to the life of the game does not necessitate the dimishment of challenge.

    What allows one person to feel good and be satisfied with their gaming experience is not what will please the next, that much is VERY clear from this thread.

    For the record, I feel good and am quite satisfied when I have been challenged and achieve things.

    So, I'll just point out that EXTREMES OF DO IT ALL FOR ME are not what I have in mind when it comes to QoL and leave it at that.


    This post was edited by Grayel at July 10, 2019 11:14 PM PDT
    • 124 posts
    July 11, 2019 2:18 AM PDT

    Like many have stated, Quality of Life holds a different meaning per person.

    For me, when crafting, i do not mind the eq1 original way, but the revamped way to me was much less time consuming as you didn't have to singularly drag each single item into the crafting slots to recreate the item. Instead you had to do it once with a succesfull craft to 'learn' the recipe and from there on you just needed to have the ingredients. And since i have made A LOT of grobb's liquidised meats, this was a good quality of life improvement in my eye's. Lazy? Maybe, but it definitely saved me from getting RSI.

    The equip all mentioned somewhere above doesn't really matter to me if i can just right click the item in my corpse to equip it. If i would have to drag it to the slot, this means looting will take longer and risk me getting killed again, having to do the same to 2 corpses now, not to mention finding a cleric to ress me. So yes this too is a quality of life thing for me. EQuip all doesn't even have to be that, 'take all' would be sufficient as an alternate option, so that when you're in a pinch you can loot your corpse and hike into naked safety.

    So yeah, for me i geuss Quality of Life entails that it makes my life easier, but not in a way that it makes the world easier.

    • 1315 posts
    July 11, 2019 3:56 AM PDT

    I think this thread really highlights that there is a desire for a specific server with ALL the QoL features turned off to give the clunkiest and most restrictive of gaming experiences.  This way several dozen of you can brag about having the only true old school game experience and all other servers are FILLED with WoW kiddies and special snowflakes.

    The rest of us will be happy with a thoughtfully balanced mix of QoL features and hand picked restrictions to create the most rewarding gaming experience while maximizing our available play times. 


    This post was edited by Trasak at July 11, 2019 3:56 AM PDT
    • 297 posts
    July 11, 2019 4:27 AM PDT

    There are dozens of people playing P99! Dozens!

    Some aspects of original Everquest were not designed because they were challenging. They were technical limitations at the time and had to be that way. That doesn't mean these game design decisions were better than what came after them. They just were what they were.

    We don't need fast travel or the ability to tank six mobs at a time with any class or a ten hour path to max level, but some features that came after 1999 in MMOs actually did improve the quality of the gaming experience. VR knows this, they are taking what they consider the good from many MMOs, not just original Everquest. I truly hope the game design learns from the two decades of MMOs that came after 1999. Not all changes were good, but some definitely were.

    • 228 posts
    July 11, 2019 6:09 AM PDT

    decarsul said:

    For me, when crafting, i do not mind the eq1 original way, but the revamped way to me was much less time consuming as you didn't have to singularly drag each single item into the crafting slots to recreate the item. Instead you had to do it once with a succesfull craft to 'learn' the recipe and from there on you just needed to have the ingredients. And since i have made A LOT of grobb's liquidised meats, this was a good quality of life improvement in my eye's. Lazy? Maybe, but it definitely saved me from getting RSI.

    Those who speak for typical QoL features, always insist that they want a challenging game just as much as anybody, but that convenience harms nobody, and certainly not the game/world as a whole. The truth, however, is that QoL equals faster gameplay, which is also what QoL advocates want.

    The above quote is a typical example of such a QoL feature. From a personal perspective it feels like a harmless improvement that crafting has become less tedious, but the poster inadvertently mentions the underlying problem him- or herself: "the revamped way to me was much less time consuming". When crafters can churn out more items per hour, the value of each item is proportionally reduced.

    This relationship between time spent and rewards earned is universal. If something takes months of hard work and countless failed attemps to achieve, the gratification is that much greater when you finally succeed. And the reward item will be extremely rare and valuable.

    I'm the kind of player who wants life in Terminus to be a struggle that takes all my tenacity and patience to overcome. I don't need to be entertained or rewarded every time I log on, but I do want to feel proud when I finally achieve what I set out for with my friends. I suppose it can be compared to triathlon. Practising is hardly "fun" or "entertaining", but I expect the first Iron Man makes it all worthwhile.

    People are different, and I fully accept that I and those like me are a minority in the gaming community, but my only reason for backing Pantheon is that I hope it will be our kind of game. This has nothing to do with nostalgia or EQ in the nineties.


    This post was edited by Jabir at July 11, 2019 6:10 AM PDT
    • 1584 posts
    July 11, 2019 6:16 AM PDT

    Jabir said:

    decarsul said:

    For me, when crafting, i do not mind the eq1 original way, but the revamped way to me was much less time consuming as you didn't have to singularly drag each single item into the crafting slots to recreate the item. Instead you had to do it once with a succesfull craft to 'learn' the recipe and from there on you just needed to have the ingredients. And since i have made A LOT of grobb's liquidised meats, this was a good quality of life improvement in my eye's. Lazy? Maybe, but it definitely saved me from getting RSI.

     

    The above quote is a typical example of such a QoL feature. From a personal perspective it feels like a harmless improvement that crafting has become less tedious, but the poster inadvertently mentions the underlying problem him- or herself: "the revamped way to me was much less time consuming". When crafters can churn out more items per hour, the value of each item is proportionally reduced.

    No it isnt, he alrdy had the materials to create it, the ability to farm is easier than others is what leads to the product losing it value or if it's stats don't match up to another, but spending another 15 minutes making an item doesn't, because he alrdy had the mays to make it.  Stop with the false information of if it can be made faster it cheapens the product, when truly if the product you are trying to make took 30 hours of farming to make 100 of them the price wouldnt fall, but if they took that 30 hours and made it 10 that would cause it to fall, which isn't a QOL feature, but the game in itself becoming easier which is not what we're looking for.


    This post was edited by Cealtric at July 11, 2019 6:17 AM PDT
    • 297 posts
    July 11, 2019 6:17 AM PDT

    You can make crafting produce the same amount of items over time without making it a tedious point-and-click every combine system.

    You can reduce drop rates, or increase failure rates, or require more crafting to skill up. All things that make the process less tedious but still retain the desired challenge, which in this case is output over time.

    QoL improvements are just that. They improve the quality of the gaming experience. They don't necessarily have to make the game "easy mode" or whatever. It's all in how you deisgn a system to make a game enjoyable and challenging rather than a tedious slog fighting against game systems instead of game content.

    • 3852 posts
    July 11, 2019 6:25 AM PDT

    Given that each of us has his or her own definition of whether a design choice is a quality of life feature, an essential element of gameplay, or an abominable atrocity which if implemented we will refuse to play the game, I see no benefit to debating the pros or cons of quality of life. Better to focus the discussion on specific decisons as we have so often been doing in other threads.

    • 1785 posts
    July 11, 2019 6:36 AM PDT

    I think that the letters "QoL' have been used so many times in this thread as a label for things people either like or don't like that they have lost all meaning altogether.

     

    So let's talk about what we really want or don't want, shall we?  Wasting our words debating a meaningless label accomplishes absolutely nothing other than getting people spun up and probably arguing.  No consensus will be forged.  Nothing useful to the community or to VR will result from it.

     

    Here's what I want in Pantheon:

    Meaningful choices and lots of depth and breadth in my character development.

    Challenging combat situations that push me to use the full range of my abilities.

    Interdependence that pushes me to work and socialize with others, both in combat and out.

    For every item to have a meaning and purpose of its own.

    A robust economy where crafting matters at all levels.

    A fun and engaging crafting and gathering sphere that is challenging in its own right, and doesn't just equate to mindless clicking or a money sink.

    Incentives to leave the beaten path and explore, across all spheres.

    A massive world where players can organically take different paths through the game's content and where the replayability level of any content is high.

    A new spin on all the great things that we've seen in MMORPGs for the last 20 years.  Something that truly evolves the genre.

     

    What I don't want to see in Pantheon:

    - Unnecessary tedium or complexity that serves no real purpose other than to be complex.

    - Archaic, overly simplistic gameplay systems that are put in purely for the sake of nostalgia, and not because they're actually all that interesting or fun in practice.

    - Systems and conventions that penalize players who can't spend every waking moment online, and prevent them from fully participating in the world or from experiencing content.

    - Content designed in such a way that it pits players againt each other in an overly competitive environment that leads to toxic behavior.

     

    Anyone think my list is unreasonable?

    • 1479 posts
    July 11, 2019 6:38 AM PDT

    Chanus said:

    You can make crafting produce the same amount of items over time without making it a tedious point-and-click every combine system.

    You can reduce drop rates, or increase failure rates, or require more crafting to skill up. All things that make the process less tedious but still retain the desired challenge, which in this case is output over time.

    QoL improvements are just that. They improve the quality of the gaming experience. They don't necessarily have to make the game "easy mode" or whatever. It's all in how you deisgn a system to make a game enjoyable and challenging rather than a tedious slog fighting against game systems instead of game content.

     

    One of the problem is that "tedious" is a definition depending of each person. As an example I don't consider bag management, bank sharing or such as tedious. I don't consider a corpse run as tedious, neither experience loss. The sole definition of tedious depends of what each of us is willing to do to obtain something. If everything considered as tedious by everyone is solved, you get nothing but a big chunk of nothing special.

    The point is simply : of course, a few qol every here and there can feel like no harm. But everyone has it's own claims of what should be QOL'ed, and if you sum everything up, maybe the results isn't much something.

     

    As for one, I'm not against QOL features, and many could please me. But I prefer to face adversity than dumb down the game to the point I no longer take pleasure playing.

    • 297 posts
    July 11, 2019 6:47 AM PDT

    I don't mind corpse runs in and of themselves.

    I do mind the prospect of losing everything I own because I died somewhere I can't reach, or can't reach on my own, and I can't find help to get there in time.

    That doesn't make the game exciting and challenging where death means something. That incentivizes me to make sure I'm not the slowest runner of the people I'm with, or to avoid taking risks because the risk so far outweighs any possible reward.

    If I need to retrieve my corpse to recover the xp loss, that is perfectly fine. I hate it, but it's fine and I'll deal.

    If I need to retrieve my corpse to recover my items, especially but not limited to if I could lose them forever, that is not good game design and results in far too many perverse incentives that are antithetical to being a good group member. Even if I can recover my items no matter how long it takes me to get to my corpse, that is far too much progress lost with no meaningful benefit.

    • 228 posts
    July 11, 2019 7:01 AM PDT

    Nephele said:

    I think that the letters "QoL' have been used so many times in this thread as a label for things people either like or don't like that they have lost all meaning altogether.

     

    So let's talk about what we really want or don't want, shall we?  Wasting our words debating a meaningless label accomplishes absolutely nothing other than getting people spun up and probably arguing.  No consensus will be forged.  Nothing useful to the community or to VR will result from it.

     

    Here's what I want in Pantheon:

    Meaningful choices and lots of depth and breadth in my character development.

    Challenging combat situations that push me to use the full range of my abilities.

    Interdependence that pushes me to work and socialize with others, both in combat and out.

    For every item to have a meaning and purpose of its own.

    A robust economy where crafting matters at all levels.

    A fun and engaging crafting and gathering sphere that is challenging in its own right, and doesn't just equate to mindless clicking or a money sink.

    Incentives to leave the beaten path and explore, across all spheres.

    A massive world where players can organically take different paths through the game's content and where the replayability level of any content is high.

    A new spin on all the great things that we've seen in MMORPGs for the last 20 years.  Something that truly evolves the genre.

     

    What I don't want to see in Pantheon:

    - Unnecessary tedium or complexity that serves no real purpose other than to be complex.

    - Archaic, overly simplistic gameplay systems that are put in purely for the sake of nostalgia, and not because they're actually all that interesting or fun in practice.

    - Systems and conventions that penalize players who can't spend every waking moment online, and prevent them from fully participating in the world or from experiencing content.

    - Content designed in such a way that it pits players againt each other in an overly competitive environment that leads to toxic behavior.

     

    Anyone think my list is unreasonable?

    No, but it's also not very concrete.

    Some will say that having no interactive map results in unnecessary tedium or complexity that serves no real purpose other than to be complex, while I would argue that the risk of getting totally lost poses an interesting challenge and rewards those who pay attention to their surroundings. And no, simply not using the map does not work as a solution.

    Another example: Like you I don't want systems and conventions that penalize players who can't spend every waking moment online. But I do think there should be content that can only be obtained by putting in an insane amount of time. That's not a penalty for people with real lives, it's a possibility to excell if you play more than is good for you.

    • 228 posts
    July 11, 2019 7:34 AM PDT

    Riahuf22 said:

    Jabir said:

    decarsul said:

    For me, when crafting, i do not mind the eq1 original way, but the revamped way to me was much less time consuming as you didn't have to singularly drag each single item into the crafting slots to recreate the item. Instead you had to do it once with a succesfull craft to 'learn' the recipe and from there on you just needed to have the ingredients. And since i have made A LOT of grobb's liquidised meats, this was a good quality of life improvement in my eye's. Lazy? Maybe, but it definitely saved me from getting RSI.

     

    The above quote is a typical example of such a QoL feature. From a personal perspective it feels like a harmless improvement that crafting has become less tedious, but the poster inadvertently mentions the underlying problem him- or herself: "the revamped way to me was much less time consuming". When crafters can churn out more items per hour, the value of each item is proportionally reduced.

    No it isnt, he alrdy had the materials to create it, the ability to farm is easier than others is what leads to the product losing it value or if it's stats don't match up to another, but spending another 15 minutes making an item doesn't, because he alrdy had the mays to make it.  Stop with the false information of if it can be made faster it cheapens the product, when truly if the product you are trying to make took 30 hours of farming to make 100 of them the price wouldnt fall, but if they took that 30 hours and made it 10 that would cause it to fall, which isn't a QOL feature, but the game in itself becoming easier which is not what we're looking for.

    I've never played EQ, but if you say so... (Actually, I'm far from sure what you tried to say. Proof reading and punctuation are real things.)

    It may well be true that the greatest time sink in EQ was harvesting, but that's completely beside the point. Less time crafting means more time available for harvesting, resulting in more items. The example may not be the best, but my point remains valid. Most QoL features accelerate gameplay.


    This post was edited by Jabir at July 11, 2019 7:34 AM PDT
    • 297 posts
    July 11, 2019 7:41 AM PDT

    Jabir said:Some will say that having no interactive map results in unnecessary tedium or complexity that serves no real purpose other than to be complex, while I would argue that the risk of getting totally lost poses an interesting challenge and rewards those who pay attention to their surroundings. And no, simply not using the map does not work as a solution.

    Another example: Like you I don't want systems and conventions that penalize players who can't spend every waking moment online. But I do think there should be content that can only be obtained by putting in an insane amount of time. That's not a penalty for people with real lives, it's a possibility to excell if you play more than is good for you.

    You can make a map that unlocks as a player explores, or allow for player-created maps in-game. There's no reason to insist players never have access to a map at any point. This is how you include a QoL improvment that doesn't detract from the meaningful challenge of the game. There's no value in not having a map the tenth time I run through an area.

    You can make things take a long time without requiring discrete chunks of time that are so long they can only be accomplished by people who have no responsibilities in their lives. A quest can take 100 hours but is able to be done in 2-3 hour intervals and does not require sitting at the computer for 100 straight hours. This is how you include a QoL improvement that does not reduce the meaningful challenge of playing the game.

    • 1315 posts
    July 11, 2019 7:58 AM PDT

    Jabir said:

    Another example: Like you I don't want systems and conventions that penalize players who can't spend every waking moment online. But I do think there should be content that can only be obtained by putting in an insane amount of time. That's not a penalty for people with real lives, it's a possibility to excell if you play more than is good for you.

    It all depends on the target audience for the game.  If the target audience is someone who plays 10-20 hour a week, (realistically that’s a ton of time for anyone other than retirees or class neglectful college students) then an achievement that requires 20 hours of continuous play should not be part of main line character progression.  It is perfectly fine for cosmetic/vanity rewards but not core progression.  On the other hand a core progression achievement that’s is broken up into 20 2 hour segments would align nicely with that target audience and would take up most of said players playtime over an entire month.

    The game is just not going to be designed to satisfy 80 hours of play time a week.  There is just no way an indy team can keep up with that consumption rate without alienating everyone not in that category.  The only way I can see that really work is if there is a 10X server.  A server where it takes 10 times as many kills/crafts to level as on main servers, death/critical failures loose 10X as much progress.  Rare mobs spawn 1/10th as often and all movement is capped at walking speed (going slower screws with animations).  It will take forever to progress and will involve an enormous amount of grinding.  Realistically this could/would match well with most of the optional game speed up QoL features disabled.

    I am certain that VR has a minimum number of active subscriptions required to validate the existence of a specific rules server and an overall minimum number of subscriptions to keep the doors open.  In order to have very niche hardcore gameplay available then there may need to be a few faster paced servers in order to attract enough players to keep the doors open. 

    Even if every last P99 player switched over, including everyone that only plays a few times a year that’s at most 10,000 users and that’s not going to cut it.  At $15 a month 10k players only generate $1.8m which by industry standard only a quarter can go to payroll so that’s 450k which is like 2 devs and 5 csr reps in a low cost of living area (San Diego is not).  I would guess that VR is going to need 5 officers, 12 devs, and 20 csr/qa at a minimum to operate which in turn needs 50-70k subscribers depending on how lean they can keep the company overhead.  There is just not enough hardcore players out there to float the entire company so you guys need to come to terms with the fact that there will be compromises in order to make the dream a reality.