Aradune said:So I've said in the past that the death penalty will be somewhere in-between vanillia EQ and vanilla VG. So there will be a corpse. What is undecided is whether you just need to get to your corpse to lose less experience or whether it will have your items on it (and then is it all items or a subset?). And some other details.
The reason we've not made these decisions yet is that something like the severity of a death penalty needs to be determined during beta so we can tune it such that people respect the environment but aren't discouraged to explore and take risks. Something like this and the details of several other systems really require a decent population of people playing the game, listening to them, watching them, etc.
This is quite literally the reason I chose to invest in pantheon. After years of being involved in alphas/betas and watching dev teams completely ignore the playerbase it's refreshing to see that you aren't. I don't want to end up changing tenats of the hardcore style mmo but at the end of the day some compromises need to be made to make the game successful for all of us. Letting the playerbase guide those compromises, again without changing the tenats, we can have both a successful game with the style we all want
Riply said:I really don't understand why everything is so black or white with some of you guys, its either completely hardcore or completely watered down, casual, WoW clone based on the comments I read. There is an in between or even something in between that leans more towards hardcore, it does not have to be one way or the other. As I recall the core tenets were never defined as being as hard or harder then EQ1. The game is supposed to be a challenge again and with many comments from Brad clearly stating this is "NOT" EQ1 and he does "NOT" intend to bring in all aspects of EQ1, just the ones that make sense.
Eh, there are a dozen or so regular posters here who are really vocal about what they want. They're passionate about Pantheon, which can only be a good thing. I, like you, don't see things in black and white. I've seen enough to know that generally speaking those purporting to represent the "majority" view often grossly overestimate what the community as a whole actually wants. The only people motivated to post are those with strong opinions; the vast majority simply do not care enough to say anything. So that's why you see such extreme black-and-white opinions represented.
But we'll have plenty of time to test everything and give feedback before it goes live, and I am sure part of that process will involve re-thinks and tweaks here and there. At the end of the day VR exists to make money, and succeeding at that will require striking a delicate balance between what purists want, and what will increase the game's appeal to a broader audience. I think VRs approach so far has been the right one - a clearly defined vision, but without the arrogance of inflexibility.
itvar said:Riply said:I really don't understand why everything is so black or white with some of you guys, its either completely hardcore or completely watered down, casual, WoW clone based on the comments I read. There is an in between or even something in between that leans more towards hardcore, it does not have to be one way or the other. As I recall the core tenets were never defined as being as hard or harder then EQ1. The game is supposed to be a challenge again and with many comments from Brad clearly stating this is "NOT" EQ1 and he does "NOT" intend to bring in all aspects of EQ1, just the ones that make sense.
Eh, there are a dozen or so regular posters here who are really vocal about what they want. They're passionate about Pantheon, which can only be a good thing. I, like you, don't see things in black and white. I've seen enough to know that generally speaking those purporting to represent the "majority" view often grossly overestimate what the community as a whole actually wants. The only people motivated to post are those with strong opinions; the vast majority simply do not care enough to say anything. So that's why you see such extreme black-and-white opinions represented.
But we'll have plenty of time to test everything and give feedback before it goes live, and I am sure part of that process will involve re-thinks and tweaks here and there. At the end of the day VR exists to make money, and succeeding at that will require striking a delicate balance between what purists want, and what will increase the game's appeal to a broader audience. I think VRs approach so far has been the right one - a clearly defined vision, but without the arrogance of inflexibility.
This.
Gnog said:I love this thread and can't wait to explore dungeons with ya'll in the face of potential CR. I just wanted to comment on one theme running through the anti-CR/CR-lite position here, which is a concern that Pantheon needs to be marketable to gamers with less time to play, or less flexible real lives, or less tolerance for harsh death penalties. For example,
Malzuran said: You need to remember this. When EQ came out, there wasn’t really a good MMO that people played at that time. Maybe UO but it was a distant 2nd. Yuck. From a perspective of trying to market this game to the public and hope that it will capture a big audience, would you want to put all eggs in one basket and say screw it, let’s go back to old EQ style? Is that a smart thing to do? To need to understand, the old EQ still exists. What is the player base? It is profitable? Does anyone wanna play it still? Do you want to sub and play it? Ask yourself these questions.
I couldn't agree more with the sentiments of Dullahan/Nikademis in rejecting the idea that a game needs to be easy, or that death penalties need to be less harsh, to attract a sufficient audience to make this game viable. The risk of loss increases the satisfaction and social value of success, and gamers of all ages who seek to be challenged (and rewarded for intelligent gameplay) will come to understand harsh death penalties as a good thing. Also, as Dullahan and others noted, modern day gamers are generally more skilled than gamers back in the early 2000's, when MMORGPs were in their nascency. Modern day gamers will be attracted to the challenge, they will try the game, and they will subscribe. Build it and they will come. Players who are turned away from Pantheon because of its difficulty and harsh death penalties will be able to find other games to their liking.
As for whether VR needs to relax death penalties and other punitive mechanics to earn money from the game, only time will tell, but I can tell you this: there are not many things for which I'd throw down $1,000, and there are definitely no video games other than PRF for which I'd consider throwing down $1,000, but I have gladly done so for PRF for the chance of playing an MMO that is worthwhile again. The many people (myself included) who have contributed $1,000 or more for the development of this game are a testament to how strongly we believe in the core tenets that have been laid out (including death penalties) and did not do so in order to have it watered down for gamers who want to eliminate all the inconveniences associated with EQ-style gameplay because of their busy real life commitments. We contributed (and many more will contribute and subscribe) because of the promise of challenging gameply, harsh death penalties and the other game tenets make the game thrilling when you wander outside your comfort zone.
Personally, I would support a system that involves substantial experience loss on death (subject to rezzing for experience recovery) and permanent decay loss of items left on an unrecovered corpse after a substantial period of time (e.g., 14 days). I don't understand the strong opposition to potential item loss--the point of playing the game is to have a challenge and thrill in gaming each day, not to amass a bunch of digital icons with stat modifiers, right??
I think it's interesting that you're trying to make an argument about what you want for the game based on how much money you've invested. That's not the way it works, and, oh by the way, we've all invested our money in this game to one extent or another. So please, drop the entitlement with your pledge amount. You don't speak for any majority.
Another point you may have missed is that people are not asking for a "lighter death penalty". The argument being made is for VR to provide an option for people to punish themselves even MORE than the already hardcore death penalty to get their gear back if they are out of other reasonable options. The penalty should take even more exp than the original death, and this option should be on a very long timer. You're out of your mind if you think we want WoW death mechanics. Drop gear on death: yes - Lose a good chunk of exp on death: yes - The chance to delevel on death: yes (even though it sounds like they won't go this route) - An option on a 72-hour cooldown to summon my gear, incur ADDITIONAL exp loss, lose any chance for a res, and have a death debuff for a time (an hour?): Yes. Something like that is reasonable, you're entitled not to like it, but it feels like some of the folks here are completely close minded about anything different than what we had back in Vanilla EQ. It's not a matter of making the game “softer” it's a matter of being able to log in and play after something goes catastrophic, and you know you don’t have the capability of recovering your corpse anytime soon. Even by adding an even more devastating penalty to recover your corpse, it may be worth it to choose that option and summon your corpse if it gives you the ability to log in the next night and run with your friends. It’s by no stretch of the imagination anything game breaking.
People can keep making the argument that adding a few mechanics to the game, to make the game more accessible to the people that have less time these days than they did back in vanilla EQ, will not harm people’s desire to play the game, but what you're missing is, although these forums are a very small sample size, there are many of us here, right in front of you, telling you that you're wrong. I can say that factually because I happen to be one of those people. It's hard to argue me, and the people like me, out of existence. And before you forget my earlier point, I'm not asking for "softer" mechanics as it relates to death, I'm asking for an additional option that is even more "hardcore", but provides a needed solution to a problem many of us here know will exist. I know some of the folks here will continue trying to convince us that we’re wrong about this, so I’ll leave my post here as one argument saying a "summon your corpse option is needed", and I'll convert into another casual observer again. Oh, and one more time in case it was missed, we’re not asking for the game to be made “softer” or to have the tenants abandoned.
Katalyzt said:Gnog said:I love this thread and can't wait to explore dungeons with ya'll in the face of potential CR. I just wanted to comment on one theme running through the anti-CR/CR-lite position here, which is a concern that Pantheon needs to be marketable to gamers with less time to play, or less flexible real lives, or less tolerance for harsh death penalties. For example,
Malzuran said: You need to remember this. When EQ came out, there wasn’t really a good MMO that people played at that time. Maybe UO but it was a distant 2nd. Yuck. From a perspective of trying to market this game to the public and hope that it will capture a big audience, would you want to put all eggs in one basket and say screw it, let’s go back to old EQ style? Is that a smart thing to do? To need to understand, the old EQ still exists. What is the player base? It is profitable? Does anyone wanna play it still? Do you want to sub and play it? Ask yourself these questions.
I couldn't agree more with the sentiments of Dullahan/Nikademis in rejecting the idea that a game needs to be easy, or that death penalties need to be less harsh, to attract a sufficient audience to make this game viable. The risk of loss increases the satisfaction and social value of success, and gamers of all ages who seek to be challenged (and rewarded for intelligent gameplay) will come to understand harsh death penalties as a good thing. Also, as Dullahan and others noted, modern day gamers are generally more skilled than gamers back in the early 2000's, when MMORGPs were in their nascency. Modern day gamers will be attracted to the challenge, they will try the game, and they will subscribe. Build it and they will come. Players who are turned away from Pantheon because of its difficulty and harsh death penalties will be able to find other games to their liking.
As for whether VR needs to relax death penalties and other punitive mechanics to earn money from the game, only time will tell, but I can tell you this: there are not many things for which I'd throw down $1,000, and there are definitely no video games other than PRF for which I'd consider throwing down $1,000, but I have gladly done so for PRF for the chance of playing an MMO that is worthwhile again. The many people (myself included) who have contributed $1,000 or more for the development of this game are a testament to how strongly we believe in the core tenets that have been laid out (including death penalties) and did not do so in order to have it watered down for gamers who want to eliminate all the inconveniences associated with EQ-style gameplay because of their busy real life commitments. We contributed (and many more will contribute and subscribe) because of the promise of challenging gameply, harsh death penalties and the other game tenets make the game thrilling when you wander outside your comfort zone.
Personally, I would support a system that involves substantial experience loss on death (subject to rezzing for experience recovery) and permanent decay loss of items left on an unrecovered corpse after a substantial period of time (e.g., 14 days). I don't understand the strong opposition to potential item loss--the point of playing the game is to have a challenge and thrill in gaming each day, not to amass a bunch of digital icons with stat modifiers, right??
I think it's interesting that you're trying to make an argument about what you want for the game based on how much money you've invested. That's not the way it works, and, oh by the way, we've all invested our money in this game to one extent or another. So please, drop the entitlement with your pledge amount. You don't speak for any majority.
Another point you may have missed is that people are not asking for a "lighter death penalty". The argument being made is for VR to provide an option for people to punish themselves even MORE than the already hardcore death penalty to get their gear back if they are out of other reasonable options. The penalty should take even more exp than the original death, and this option should be on a very long timer. You're out of your mind if you think we want WoW death mechanics. Drop gear on death: yes - Lose a good chunk of exp on death: yes - The chance to delevel on death: yes (even though it sounds like they won't go this route) - An option on a 72-hour cooldown to summon my gear, incur ADDITIONAL exp loss, lose any chance for a res, and have a death debuff for a time (an hour?): Yes. Something like that is reasonable, you're entitled not to like it, but it feels like some of the folks here are completely close minded about anything different than what we had back in Vanilla EQ. It's not a matter of making the game “softer” it's a matter of being able to log in and play after something goes catastrophic, and you know you don’t have the capability of recovering your corpse anytime soon. Even by adding an even more devastating penalty to recover your corpse, it may be worth it to choose that option and summon your corpse if it gives you the ability to log in the next night and run with your friends. It’s by no stretch of the imagination anything game breaking.
People can keep making the argument that adding a few mechanics to the game, to make the game more accessible to the people that have less time these days than they did back in vanilla EQ, will not harm people’s desire to play the game, but what you're missing is, although these forums are a very small sample size, there are many of us here, right in front of you, telling you that you're wrong. I can say that factually because I happen to be one of those people. It's hard to argue me, and the people like me, out of existence. And before you forget my earlier point, I'm not asking for "softer" mechanics as it relates to death, I'm asking for an additional option that is even more "hardcore", but provides a needed solution to a problem many of us here know will exist. I know you’ll keep trying to convince us that we’re wrong about this, so I’ll leave this point here as one argument saying a summon your corpse option is needed. Oh, and one more time in case it was missed, we’re not asking for the game to be made “softer” or to have the tenants abandoned.
Also, well said.
Riply said:I really don't understand why everything is so black or white with some of you guys, its either completely hardcore or completely watered down, casual, WoW clone based on the comments I read. There is an in between or even something in between that leans more towards hardcore, it does not have to be one way or the other. As I recall the core tenets were never defined as being as hard or harder then EQ1. The game is supposed to be a challenge again and with many comments from Brad clearly stating this is "NOT" EQ1 and he does "NOT" intend to bring in all aspects of EQ1, just the ones that make sense.
Death penalties are great, they encourage people to think before jumping into situation, they help community and can be a great way to include a gold sink as well. But, in early EQ, I had at least a handful of friends that completely stopped playing because of corpse rot, which is a perfect example of something that is not needed and could go the way of softening the blow without removing the penalty of death. A system that (after a perdetermined amount of time) allows one to retrieve their corpse by some other method (i.e. NPC corpse summoning for a fee) is also a great way to stick the idea of death should be feared, without alienating that guy who for whatever reason just can't seem to get back to his corpse.
I guess more of my point is that you can have a death penalty without driving away what is probably a decent percentage of your target demographic for this game. This issue does "NOT" have to be black or white. Remember, the truely hardcore and even more the truely casual are most likely only going to be a small percentage of the target demographic, everyone else falls somewhere in between. That in between percentage is whats going to keep the lights on.
It really is a pretty black and white issue though. Either your product is different or it's more of the same. There is a spread of features that a game offers, and when more of them line up with other games, you ultimately have to compete with those games. When your game offers something different, you will appeal to other players.
Right now, far more have stopped playing MMOs than continued. Having followed the greater mmorpg community for the last 15 years, it was largely because people were unhappy with the direction the genre has gone in. These current offerings in the industry have sickly numbers, and most have had to rely on cash shops and gimmicks because people determined those game were not worth a subscription.
There is a reason these games cannot keep a decent playerbase for longer than 3 months, and I believe the answer lies heavily on the design of their challenge and reward system as well as the cooperative and social nature. When MMORPGs became more about accessibility and convenience, both the sense of accomplishment and the veil between virtual world and video game was destroyed, leaving players with something that was no longer compelling to play. If Pantheon will be a success, it will rectify this by restoring these things and doing so without compromise.
Dullahan said:Thanakos said:Has anyone here quit an MMO because of the death mechanics. ( Too easy or too hard?,)
Many, but the lite death mechanic is always a symptom of a bigger problem.
Thank you for contradicting your previous point. If Pantheon was released with every single other relentless "classic" hardcore principal in place EXCEPT they eased up a little on the death penalty, would you still play it? Would you consider that game to be "different" or "more of the same?" It's NOT so black and white. There are many different features that can be included and degrees to which those features can be implemented.
Edit: As a side note... I think it would be best to, at alpha, start with stricter mechanics and then ease up and work from there if needed. It'll be easier for most people to digest than the other way around.
Bazgrim said:Thank you for contradicting your previous point. If Pantheon was released with every single other relentless "classic" hardcore principal in place EXCEPT they eased up a little on the death penalty, would you still play it? Would you consider that game to be "different" or "more of the same?" It's NOT so black and white. There are many different features that can be included and degrees to which those features can be implemented.
Edit: As a side note... I think it would be best to, at alpha, start with stricter mechanics and then ease up and work from there if needed. It'll be easier for most people to digest than the other way around.
It's actually an affirmation. Up to this point, those things have been mutually exclusive, so therefore, it's not a contradiction. Yes, there are many variables but the death penalty is one that affects everything. You could pretty much use it as a litmus test as I do not believe one could achieve what existed in EQ without a similar death penalty.
Something I've found to be ubiquitous with people claiming something is "not so black and white", is they never seem to understand the topic, the options and or the impact they have one way or the other.
Katalyzt said: I think it's interesting that you're trying to make an argument about what you want for the game based on how much money you've invested. That's not the way it works, and, oh by the way, we've all invested our money in this game to one extent or another. So please, drop the entitlement with your pledge amount. You don't speak for any majority.
No, you misunderstood my point entirely. I did not mean, and would not, base an argument for game mechanics on money pledged. My point was that the distinguishing features of Pantheon, as it has been described, including stiff death penalties, are so appealing that they are worth investing substantial funds in. And if people are willing to contribute to the vision before the game is even developed, it bodes well for the subscriber base. That is all I was saying. I'm sorry if I was not clear or suggested that pledge amounts give some entitlement to shaping the game. That is not what I meant.
Katalyzt said: Another point you may have missed is that people are not asking for a "lighter death penalty". The argument being made is for VR to provide an option for people to punish themselves even MORE than the already hardcore death penalty to get their gear back if they are out of other reasonable options. The penalty should take even more exp than the original death, and this option should be on a very long timer. You're out of your mind if you think we want WoW death mechanics. Drop gear on death: yes - Lose a good chunk of exp on death: yes - The chance to delevel on death: yes (even though it sounds like they won't go this route) - An option on a 72-hour cooldown to summon my gear, incur ADDITIONAL exp loss, lose any chance for a res, and have a death debuff for a time (an hour?): Yes. Something like that is reasonable, you're entitled not to like it, but it feels like some of the folks here are completely close minded about anything different than what we had back in Vanilla EQ. It's not a matter of making the game “softer” it's a matter of being able to log in and play after something goes catastrophic, and you know you don’t have the capability of recovering your corpse anytime soon. Even by adding an even more devastating penalty to recover your corpse, it may be worth it to choose that option and summon your corpse if it gives you the ability to log in the next night and run with your friends. It’s by no stretch of the imagination anything game breaking.
The alternatives you've proposed here are reasonable, and I think you've made a good case for allowing a last-resort mechanism for gamers who truly cannot perform a corpse run due to real life commitments or other issues. A harsher XP penalty plus game timeout is a stiff penalty, I agree, and I think your proposal is reasonable. Thank you for explaining it in this detail.
Gnog said:Katalyzt said: I think it's interesting that you're trying to make an argument about what you want for the game based on how much money you've invested. That's not the way it works, and, oh by the way, we've all invested our money in this game to one extent or another. So please, drop the entitlement with your pledge amount. You don't speak for any majority.
No, you misunderstood my point entirely. I did not mean, and would not, base an argument for game mechanics on money pledged. My point was that the distinguishing features of Pantheon, as it has been described, including stiff death penalties, are so appealing that they are worth investing substantial funds in. And if people are willing to contribute to the vision before the game is even developed, it bodes well for the subscriber base. That is all I was saying. I'm sorry if I was not clear or suggested that pledge amounts give some entitlement to shaping the game. That is not what I meant.
Katalyzt said: Another point you may have missed is that people are not asking for a "lighter death penalty". The argument being made is for VR to provide an option for people to punish themselves even MORE than the already hardcore death penalty to get their gear back if they are out of other reasonable options. The penalty should take even more exp than the original death, and this option should be on a very long timer. You're out of your mind if you think we want WoW death mechanics. Drop gear on death: yes - Lose a good chunk of exp on death: yes - The chance to delevel on death: yes (even though it sounds like they won't go this route) - An option on a 72-hour cooldown to summon my gear, incur ADDITIONAL exp loss, lose any chance for a res, and have a death debuff for a time (an hour?): Yes. Something like that is reasonable, you're entitled not to like it, but it feels like some of the folks here are completely close minded about anything different than what we had back in Vanilla EQ. It's not a matter of making the game “softer” it's a matter of being able to log in and play after something goes catastrophic, and you know you don’t have the capability of recovering your corpse anytime soon. Even by adding an even more devastating penalty to recover your corpse, it may be worth it to choose that option and summon your corpse if it gives you the ability to log in the next night and run with your friends. It’s by no stretch of the imagination anything game breaking.
The alternatives you've proposed here are reasonable, and I think you've made a good case for allowing a last-resort mechanism for gamers who truly cannot perform a corpse run due to real life commitments or other issues. A harsher XP penalty plus game timeout is a stiff penalty, I agree, and I think your proposal is reasonable. Thank you for explaining it in this detail.
Apologies if I took your pledge comments outside of your perspective, I guess it was just the way it struck me. Text can be complicated like that.
Also, thanks for being open-minded and looking at the last-ditch corpse recovery option with an open mind. I think there are a lot of us that are sensitive to the game being dumbed down for convinces sake, but in my opinion there are a few options that can leave the social, harder content based tenants intact, but also come up with something new to close some of the gaps.
Either way, after watching the stream today, I have almost no fears of the game being made too easy. lol I lost count of the wipes.
72 Hours seems overkill. That's 3 days a paying customer may not be able to reasonably use the product. Surely there's a better solution.
Perhaps something like this. You die, you respawn at bind with no gear, corpse is rezzable within 1-3 hours for 96% or whatever XP. After rez timer expires, corpse becomes summonable and you incur additional XP loss. Something like that. Anything beyond that is just unnecessary.
Three whole days though? Please.
Thanakos said:Has anyone here quit an MMO because of the death mechanics. ( Too easy or too hard?,)
I've never quit a game because of the harsh death mechanic. I've actually found that I'm slowly moving toward perma-death games, which I would have NEVER thought I'd approach doing. (As a completely random aside, check out The Forest.)
I've quit a bunch of games because I was so lulled into nappy nap time because there was no reason to fear much of anything.
Liav said:Humperding said:1) All your worn items and bags stay on your corpse. You lose some xp (like 10% of level), partly regainable by a rez spell.
And then your power goes out for 2 days and all of your items disappear. You petition a GM and they either tell you they can't help you, or they offer to restore your corpse for you.
You're stuck with XP loss regardless. I don't understand why that isn't bad enough.
Laura said:That's sad to hear because Corpse Runs made dungeons that much harder and not a casual thing to do. When you go in a dungeon with your friends, because of corpse runs, everyone is on their toes. Everyone works as a team and everyone pays attention and everything seems 10 times more serious and heart racing. Without corpse runs, who cares... just fool around. That kind of gameplay mentality is boring.
Have you ever played a game without corpse runs? Fooling around doesn't get content cleared. Having corpse runs does nothing except add a massive time sink to recovering from failure.
If your raid wipes on Phinigel, in its current state, you're still looking at 10-15 minutes of recovery time due to running Clerics bag or logging them back in, rezzing, waiting for mana, buffing, waiting for mana again, then re-pulling.
Corpse runs turn a 10-15 minute punishment into a several hour affair. Punishing death is good, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Investing several hours in fixing a mistake is not how most people want to spend their play time. I guarantee it.
A game?! I've played hundreds of MMOs without Corpse Runs and I do vividly remember our mage jumping around agroing everything AoE the **** out of everything and dying. Sometimes he wipes us, sometimes he doesn't. And nobody cares! Group keeps going because when we die we're ghosts and as ghosts nothing hurts us... we go in the dungeon and BAM clear way to where we ended. What's the point of all this again? This **** is boring, if you hate Corpses Runs... why don't you go play every other MMO?! why ruin our only chance to make death something to fear.
Corpse Runs is not a massive time sink, that's not the purpose of it. Time sinks can be implemented in many ways where you don't notice them, like making you run from Poiint A to B doing a shitty quests (errand) that you don't want to do but the game makes you do. THAT is MASSIVE time sink. I've calculated my time in a game like WoW and I've noticed I spent EASILY 40% of my time... RUNNING from a quest area to another. Fighting for the quest is only a small portion of the time, rest is just running. This is what I call massive waste of time. Corpses Run mechanical purpose is to make content that much more challenging to approach because if you die, tough luck you have to start again breaking the camp or crawling back in where you started. This is a fundemantal game design phislosophy; it's not my problem you can't fathom this concept and think it is a time-sink. You just don't understand it.
Dungeons were that more difficult because of it in EQ. You needed to adjust your startegies, you needed mechanics like Evacuation in hand just in case. You needed your team member to work their ASSES because they know how death STINGS. You'll see stunts happening because of it; your team mates will feel like Turkeys in thanksgiving. You'll see that Wizard rooting, that ranger aggro-kiting the **** out of everything, everyone tries to save the healer, **** is on fire and everyone is on their toes and your heart is racing and you're going to have a heart attack... only then when you emerge victorious you just scream **** YES! THANK GOD THANK YOU HOLY TITS OF TUNARES! That kind of tension, excitement and challenge... ALL OF THIS IS GONE because of people like you.
I'm sick and tired of those passive boring MMOs. Oh, and by the way.. I hate raids. I hope Pantheon doesn't turn into another EQ post PoP. Raids are the most boring **** I've ever played.
Thanakos said:Has anyone here quit an MMO because of the death mechanics. ( Too easy or too hard?,)
I've quit many MMOs because the death penalty didn't exist, sometimes it wasn't the main reason but sometimes it is.
MMORPGs are a complicated beast; it's a combination of hundreds of game mechanics working together to give you a very certain experience. If you miss a few of those, you end up with a different dish. Evey mechanic should work together designed in a way that makes the whole experience feels adventerous and exciting. Most MMOs feel dull and too safe to even care. I trust the team behind Pantheon know what they're doing, Brad is the kind of designer who understands this very well. I hope he doesn't yield to what others say and do what he thinks is right.
I was exposed to EQ and was thinking "Wow, the future is promising... can you imagine how games will be if they take this and expand on it?".. guess what, that whole concept was forgotten... abandoned... no one wanted to adapt it... EVER. That experience NEVER was emulated; even the game that took most of its concept from EQ (WoW) does NOT even remotely emulate the experience. Pantheon is my only chance. I'm tired of waiting, it's been long years already. For once we deserve what we've been crying for.
I have played games my whole life. I was a GM (DM back in the day) for a couple decades. Our community is full of intelligent, passionate, creative individuals. I cannot believe that there is no way all of us cannot come up with a death penalty that hurts really bad, makes you fear (terror!) death, but doesn't force you to stay awake until 4:30AM on a work day.
This concept is beyond me.
Many ideas have been brought up here. Many that I would accept. Many that I would want to be even harsher than they were presented. We can do this folks. VR will do this.
Thanakos said:Has anyone here quit an MMO because of the death mechanics. ( Too easy or too hard?,)
Don't think I've ever quit one because of death mechanics per say. I have quit a couple because they were just too fast/easy though. Usually if I leave a game it's because friends did as well.
Ashvaild said: Hm..im not sure how to put this in words... By arguing for a lighter death penalty, people are proving the point. You shouldn't be ok with dying, you should fear it. Hate it. Do everything in your power to avoid it....get better gear, better spells, join groups, learn your class. You shouldnt be ok with dying, a stiff death penalty will accomplish this. Fear of dying will get your adrenaline going in those tight fights (i remember surviving a battle in eq with 3hp! Phew!). Gear stays on corpse. Exp is lost. I do like a last resort summon type ability with even more exp loss if all hope of a corpse recovery is lost (lose all exp gained in that level?) A light death penalty will severely detract from the game, imho. I think i'd lose interest after a couple months if there's no real danger. No consequences for my actions. Im really looking forward to exploring Terminus. I hope there's danger mixed in and that my curiosity just might get me in trouble.
agreed! The stiff death penalty increases risk factor. It makes people respect mobs, respect group mechanics and fight mechanics. It also weeds out people who don't take things seriously, because it teaches you that its not OK to get your group killed because you couldn't be bothered to learn a mechanic or you felt like pulling extra mobs just for fun. It makes running around in zones trying to get to your group or trying to cross the world an adventure. Nothing makes a game more exciting than when there are actual real risks involved in decisions, losing xp is a must-have!
Just to add, I think the some of the divide lives between players who want to play the MMO and enjoy the experience and the grind at a slower pace and the 'rush to end game/clear content' crowd that is so prevalent in MMOs now that can't imagine having to wait between boss attempts to get their purple loots. Some people play the game to play the game and to others it is a competition for server firsts and gear. which is fine, it's just not at all how I get enjoyment out of an MMO. CP's also add the need for things likes Evacs, invis, corpse dragging.. summons... which add flavor and utility to some classes.
OneForAll said:Just to add, I think the some of the divide lives between players who want to play the MMO and enjoy the experience and the grind at a slower pace and the 'rush to end game/clear content' crowd that is so prevalent in MMOs now that can't imagine having to wait between boss attempts to get their purple loots. Some people play the game to play the game and to others it is a competition for server firsts and gear. which is fine, it's just not at all how I get enjoyment out of an MMO. CP's also add the need for things likes Evacs, invis, corpse dragging.. summons... which add flavor and utility to some classes.
I don't know why chasing server firsts, killing raid mobs, and getting loot is considered mutually exclusive with playing the game.
It really sends mixed messages and only furthers the divide between people who enjoy different playstyles when the categories are defined as "playing the game" and "not playing the game". I'm pretty sure as soon as we enter our credentials and click "Enter World", we're both playing the same game.
While it seems you self corrected and said "it's just not at all how I (emphasis on I) get enjoyment out of an MMO", it still sends mixed messages with the rest of your post.
