Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Mundane Weapon Immunity

    • 15 posts
    February 18, 2017 2:24 PM PST

    I didnt see a discussion around this on search, but what are you thoughts on monsters requiring "magic" weapons to be affected?  This of course occurred in EQ (hello ghoul or willow o'wisp) and was common in D&D.  Do you feel this should be carried into Pantheon?  Would you want it expanded on in someway?  For instance perhaps certain monsters may be resistant or even immune unless your weapon has a certain "+" value or rating.

    My thoughts was it was an interesting mechanic, but I felt the initial implamentation could use some tweeks and punished melee a bit more than required.  I could see buff spells like "Magic Weapon" in addition to the potential summoned items Mages could hand out.  Consumable oils or potions could help in soloing or asking a wizard for him to buff your weapon?

    Just thoughts...

    • 432 posts
    February 18, 2017 2:49 PM PST

    I like this idea and felt it was missing in newer MMO's i've played. 

     

    I felt it fun to see people fighting wil o wisps in EC because I knew they had something I didn't and it made me want it even more so I could be the one defeating those creatures.

    This goes well with panthion I feel, its another thing you have to prepare for. 

     

    did you prepare fire spells to fight the ice elemental?

    Does your Summoner need to pass out magical weapons or does the Enchanter need to embue everyones weapons so they can kill the monster immune to mundane weapons?

     

    Fun strategies!

     

    -Todd

    • 668 posts
    February 18, 2017 2:53 PM PST

    I would not be surprised if similar forms of this were found within Pantheon.  They did hint there would be situational fighting, having to be properly prepared to beat certain mobs.  Hoping it gets to the level of regular mobs around the world as well.


    This post was edited by Pyye at February 18, 2017 2:54 PM PST
    • 64 posts
    February 18, 2017 3:37 PM PST
    I remember being in nektulos on my lowbie sk with a troll shaman and a wizzie. We were camping the undead near the ec zoneline. A lesser mummy popped and the shaman pulled it with a spell then I ran up to hit it and "immune". Lol...I knew the other two would bite it so I ran to the bridge guards and just took a seat in the middle of the bridge til he came for me and was killed by the guards. Lol...good times.
    • 1618 posts
    February 18, 2017 6:59 PM PST

    From the FAQ...

    What about the notion of magical versus non-magical weapons?
    Lower level items will have their limits. Many will not be ‘magical’, limiting the types of mobs you can engage. That said, the first few levels should go fairly quickly and then advancement will slow as the player gets into the meat of the game. Roleplaying-wise it’s traditional to start with more basic equipment, then gain access to more powerful non-magical gear, and then eventually magical gear and even planar gear. High level items will include procs (the ability to cast spells themselves), bane bonuses, regeneration & spell focus bonuses, and more.

    • 763 posts
    February 19, 2017 12:38 AM PST

    Of particular interest are:

    Beefcake said: From the FAQ... Many will not be ‘magical’, limiting the types of mobs you can engage.

    and

    Beefcake said: From the FAQ... bane bonuses, ...

     

    #1 indicates that (some) mobs will have 'immunity' or resistance to 'mundane' weapons!

    #2 indicates (hopefully) a return to the use of the kind of thing last seen in a p'n'p D&D session:

    Longsword of Orc Slaying: +2 +4 vs Orcs, 'of slaying' vs Orcs

    'Giant Slayer': 2 Handed sword, +3, +5 vs Giants, 3x Damage vs Giants

    and so on!

    • 724 posts
    February 19, 2017 3:26 AM PST

    There were hints in very early videos and discussions that there'd also be differences in how effective certain weapons would be against certain mobs. Like, blunt weapons being better vs skeletons than daggers. I'm not sure if that's still planned (didn't re-check FAQs). I hope it is! So, I guess there will be quite a bit to consider when you move into battle as a melee class! :)

    • 24 posts
    February 19, 2017 4:06 AM PST

    I would like to see lots of immunities, to most types of actions a player can do.

     

    slashing, piercing, bludgeoning immunity/resistance/vulnerability, also magic death immunity, ability score modification immunity, fire/cold/acid/whatever immunity/resistance/vulnerability, spell immunity/resistance, etc.

     

    All of this promotes teamplay.

     

    But :

     

    I would prefer those immunities to be dependant upon the mob type (undead, contruct, faerie, etc) and not based on the rare mob or boss types. I don't want to see all bosses suddenly immune to everything cool a player can do, and regular mobs vulnerable to everything.

    Why should an experienced human (a human boss) be immune to all CC, etc ? there is no reason, except forcing difficulty where it doesn't fit and that makes people only look for regular damage where the other effects should be stronger. In most games, the stronger the effect is supposed to be, the less useful it is, because all strong opponents are immune to it. Then you just all end up hitting with a sword, which is a nonsense to me.

    This kind of setting encourages the lone wolf selfish and mute DPS player (which is quite common these days) to boast around his DPS, and makes the witted teamplayers feel useless, with all their complex strategies being uneffective as soon as difficulty rises up.

     

    So i'm in favor of regular damage immunities, as well as all the others. But i think it should more depend on the weapon base damage type (piercing, etc), and less about the weapon being only +2 instead of +3. That would lead to grinding gear just to be able to take down a mob and progress into a new zone, which is not so fun in my view, unless acquiring the right item it is decently easy with a few hours playing and involves no low rate RNG like random chest loot. There will already be climate resist items to collect, if you now add complex magic weapon requirements just to defend yourself against mobs, it might end up being a total grind for gear.

    And i know by experience that gear-grinding based games are no fun. For example, i played Archeage several years, i played 1000+ hours, and my weapon still deals around only half of the max damage a maxed mythic weapon does. If you put here the same long grinding basis for magic weapons, but even prevent the character from doing any damage in certain conditions, thus closing areas, man that wouldn't be fun. Getting something to cope with new mobs should be reasonably easy and acquiring that gear should be set on stable basis (no low-rate RNG to depend on).

     

    On the same principle, i'm in favor of mobs and bosses with spell immunity, for example. But there should be a decent way around it and that should not prevent mages from doing solo zones or make them look for a warrior partner for days. Indeed, you don't always choose who to team up with.

     

    So immunities are a good way to make players play 100% and play together,  but it should be considered carefully, as this kind of thing is a rage quit factor.

    Cheers


    This post was edited by Gideon at February 19, 2017 6:33 AM PST
    • 668 posts
    February 19, 2017 6:48 AM PST

    If weapon and or gear selection IS important amongst varying mobs, I would like to see a system that allows you to easily manage weapons and armor.

    I quick thought would be a drop down menu off of your weapon slot primary attack hot key that you could easily switch weapons.  Similar finction for armor slots...  If it is required to open up your inventory each time, I hope we will have a special storage location for these unique items.

    • 3237 posts
    February 19, 2017 7:20 AM PST

    Pyye said:

    If weapon and or gear selection IS important amongst varying mobs, I would like to see a system that allows you to easily manage weapons and armor.

    I quick thought would be a drop down menu off of your weapon slot primary attack hot key that you could easily switch weapons.  Similar finction for armor slots...  If it is required to open up your inventory each time, I hope we will have a special storage location for these unique items.

     

    I used to swap my shield out a dozen times in EQ2 when I used the Tower of Stone ability.  It granted a couple stoneskin procs on use, but also caused damage to the shield.  So before I ever used this ability, I would swap to on of my lower quality shields (I was so stacked my lower quality shields were still epic and fabled quality) to take the shield damage, and once Tower of Stone wore off I would swap back to my main shield that had the best stats/block%.  I had about 5-6 shields on my hotbars ... would just clik the icon on the hotbar when I needed to switch and then click a different link to go back to my main.

    • 999 posts
    February 19, 2017 7:38 AM PST
    I always liked needing magic weapons - I remember my first combine longsword and the PGT! However, I also remember the requirement became trivialized though a few years after launch in EQ. I think in addition to magic weapons, bane bonuses, etc. from the FAQ, this is also where we may see Pantheon use situational gear in areas like a Lava zone for example. The fire based mobs may resist or be healed by a fire weapon, so you shouldn't use the Fiery Avenger but instead the Ice Brand. No official word on that, just my opinion.
    • 1921 posts
    February 19, 2017 8:01 AM PST

    Have all the immunities or weaknesses you want, provided:

    The players have an in-game means of determining these immunities or weaknesses before combat begins

    or

    The players have an in-game means of determining these immunities or weakenesses during combat that is quick and easy.

    ---

    The mechanism to determine them should be either related to lore you've read in-game, using in-game books, or related to the number of those types of creatures you have killed, the time you've spent fighting them, or INT, or WIS, or your your Race, or a combination thereof. 
    The visual feedback could be as easy as a brief colored aura, outline or icon/indicator that shows either what they're resistant to, what they're susceptible to, or both.  Think of it as an assessment skill or evaluation skill.

    And no, simply making something 100% immune to one damage type and providing no indication is not fun, or entertaining.  Making players parse the log file to determine resistance is not fun or entertaining either.

    If developers provide an in-game mechanism, then they can use such a feature widely, and innovate with it.  In particular, if players are given the ability to alter and create Environments, then if they knew a creature could be damaged more or could only be damaged while exposed to a particular Environment, then they could utilize that in their gameplay.  Innovative, Fun and Challenging.

    • 151 posts
    February 19, 2017 8:08 AM PST

    vjek said:

    The players have an in-game means of determining these immunities or weaknesses before combat begins

    or

    The players have an in-game means of determining these immunities or weakenesses during combat that is quick and easy.

    ---

    The mechanism to determine them should be either related to lore you've read in-game, using in-game books, or related to the number of those types of creatures you have killed, the time you've spent fighting them, or INT, or WIS, or your your Race, or a combination thereof. 
    The visual feedback could be as easy as a brief colored aura, outline or icon/indicator that shows either what they're resistant to, what they're susceptible to, or both.  Think of it as an assessment skill or evaluation skill.

    And no, simply making something 100% immune to one damage type and providing no indication is not fun, or entertaining.  Making players parse the log file to determine resistance is not fun or entertaining either.

    If developers provide an in-game mechanism, then they can use such a feature widely, and innovate with it.  In particular, if players are given the ability to alter and create Environments, then if they knew a creature could be damaged more or could only be damaged while exposed to a particular Environment, then they could utilize that in their gameplay.  Innovative, Fun and Challenging.

     

    I personally believe this would be too much "hand holding" for my preferrence. I loved that there were unknowns in EQ and you talked with the community to theory craft and figure stuff out. It didnt take too many times fighting that ghoul to figure out you were doing something wrong. People are smart. We dont need a flashing UI element to tell us to switch gear or use a diffrent spell type.

    • 62 posts
    February 19, 2017 8:32 AM PST

    Sarim said:

    There were hints in very early videos and discussions that there'd also be differences in how effective certain weapons would be against certain mobs. Like, blunt weapons being better vs skeletons than daggers. I'm not sure if that's still planned (didn't re-check FAQs). I hope it is! So, I guess there will be quite a bit to consider when you move into battle as a melee class! :)

    This is correct and still being planned. The body type system was mentioned again most recently in the December stream and how different weapon types will be more/less effective against specific body types. Joppa stated while they were in Amberfaet that they forgot to bring it up while they were fighting in The Gate, that the scale body type was already implemented. If you watch that stream from Cohh's perspective, you can actually see him get the combat message "This weapon is not fully effective against Scale." while fighting the Emeraldscale mobs.

    EDIT: I'm actually re-watching the December stream now (trying to get my daily Pantheon fix) and I just noticed Cohh got the message "This weapon is almost useless against Bone", while fighting a skeleton in Avendyr's Pass. So they definitely are implementing stuff along these lines. I would assume it would be for magical weapons as well, per the FAQ.


    This post was edited by Mandalorian2K at February 19, 2017 9:04 AM PST
    • 264 posts
    February 19, 2017 8:59 AM PST

    Blaeys said:

    I didnt see a discussion around this on search, but what are you thoughts on monsters requiring "magic" weapons to be affected?  This of course occurred in EQ (hello ghoul or willow o'wisp) and was common in D&D.  Do you feel this should be carried into Pantheon?  Would you want it expanded on in someway?  For instance perhaps certain monsters may be resistant or even immune unless your weapon has a certain "+" value or rating.

    My thoughts was it was an interesting mechanic, but I felt the initial implamentation could use some tweeks and punished melee a bit more than required.  I could see buff spells like "Magic Weapon" in addition to the potential summoned items Mages could hand out.  Consumable oils or potions could help in soloing or asking a wizard for him to buff your weapon?

    Just thoughts...

    I agree with Magical Weapons for Magical Monsters. It was most apparent for me at lower levels in EQ (0-20) that I needed a Magical weapon and may not of had one. Later in the game it seemed like it was never a problem very often at all. I think this type of system was done well and made a Magical Weapon a desired thing. It was part of the steps you took as you leveled up in D&D and EQ to ensure you equipped yourself properly.

     Going to D&D for inspiration on this and other things is great as far as I am concerned. I think a magical weapon would be a bit difficult to get at level 10 but doable, with the magic weapons becoming more common by level 20. 

    I also think a weapon with +1 to something should be a very treasured item at level 10.

     Ranged Weapons that are magical like a lucky Bow or something would be cool too, or Mirrorswords, if you get both Mirrorswords and duel wield them they are Magical , but on their own they are not.

     

    • 3852 posts
    February 19, 2017 9:42 AM PST

    I basically agree. I also go back to the early days of Dungeons and Dragons which may not be a coincidence.

    Modern games make it ridiculously easy to gain levels - EQ2 being one of the worst offenders if not the worst. Pantheon is committed to a better approach. Modern games equally make it ridiculously easy to gain abilities and attributes - oops my level one character just tripped - ooh she fell over the robe of +50,000 in the tutorial, sure glad I didn't miss that. A level later its used to wipe her nether parts and discarded as insanely underpowered.

    A plus one weapon used to be an enormous accomplishment and one that didn't happen very often. Maybe a noted adventurer famed across an entire *continent* would have one that was plus 3. Much better to go back in that direction IMO.

    A necessary corollary is having enemies that can only be hurt by specialized weapons (plus one or better, flaming, freezing) equally rare. Trolls shouldn't exactly swarm like honeybees. Its fine to have edged weapons e.g. do half damage against skeletons or even to have any non-magical weapon do partial damage against certain enemies but full immunity should be very rare at the levels where the weapons are very rare. Otherwise life for a new character will be quite Hobbsian - nasty, brutish and short. Even if she isn't a gnome or dwarf.

    • 2419 posts
    February 19, 2017 10:33 AM PST

    Best example (or worst depending upon your view of 'bane' type weapons) was Lord Inquisitor Seru in Sanctus Seru on Luclin.  Oh sure, you could go after him with regular weapons but only the weapon proc (like Smite) would affect him.  So you had to go on a quest across Luclin (Ssra Temple, Fungus Grove, The Deep, The Grey) to gather components to fabricate your own NoDrop seru bane weapon.  Through just normal group level XPing you could easily gather the items needed long before you ever got to the point of facing Lord Seru, provided you decided to keep some odd drops that didn't appear to be anything special.

    • 1618 posts
    February 19, 2017 12:45 PM PST

    Raidan said: I always liked needing magic weapons - I remember my first combine longsword and the PGT! However, I also remember the requirement became trivialized though a few years after launch in EQ. I think in addition to magic weapons, bane bonuses, etc. from the FAQ, this is also where we may see Pantheon use situational gear in areas like a Lava zone for example. The fire based mobs may resist or be healed by a fire weapon, so you shouldn't use the Fiery Avenger but instead the Ice Brand. No official word on that, just my opinion.

    EQ wisps kicked my ass until I figured out the magical resistance thing.

    • 999 posts
    February 19, 2017 2:34 PM PST

    Beefcake said:

    Raidan said: I always liked needing magic weapons - I remember my first combine longsword and the PGT! However, I also remember the requirement became trivialized though a few years after launch in EQ. I think in addition to magic weapons, bane bonuses, etc. from the FAQ, this is also where we may see Pantheon use situational gear in areas like a Lava zone for example. The fire based mobs may resist or be healed by a fire weapon, so you shouldn't use the Fiery Avenger but instead the Ice Brand. No official word on that, just my opinion.

    EQ wisps kicked my ass until I figured out the magical resistance thing.

    Haha - yeah, mine was a Ghoul in Unrest - Ghoul Root + No magical weapon.... bad times

    • 1921 posts
    February 20, 2017 11:12 AM PST

    Maximis said: ... I personally believe this would be too much "hand holding" for my preferrence. I loved that there were unknowns in EQ and you talked with the community to theory craft and figure stuff out. It didnt take too many times fighting that ghoul to figure out you were doing something wrong. People are smart. We dont need a flashing UI element to tell us to switch gear or use a diffrent spell type.

    Just to be clear, this much "hand holding" already exists in EQ1 , EQ2 and other games.  You just have to either read the log file or parse the log file to determine the information.

    Resistances, Immunities, and Weaknesses are in those games, there's just  no internally consistent or in-game / immersive mechanism to determine the information that is fun, innovative, or challenging.  Giving players access to the same information that already exists, but making it yet another time sink, hardly seems like hand holding, to me.

    It doesn't have to be a flashing UI element.  It could be very subtle.  It could be something that requires dozens, hundreds, or thousands of hours of play time to acquire the ability, PER target type.

    • 690 posts
    February 20, 2017 7:48 PM PST

    As mentioned the FAQ has a part where it talks about a more in depth method. Rather than Elder Scrolls where you need a magic/silver weapon in order to hit a ghost, It seems like some things will simply be resistant or immune to some damage types, like for example slimes not caring so much about being cut. 

    That said, I do hope Pantheon has plenty of realism. Non Liquid/gas/spirit based enemies could theoretically be at least sort of damaged by any kind of weapon. Dragons have eyes, Dagger weilders can buff the crap out of their arms so much they can shove that dagger directly into some full plate and out the other side (or more simply into the armor joints). So at the very least, in many situations, restricting some physical types to "crit only" rather than "doesnt work" would be far more realistic, IMO.

    • 187 posts
    February 21, 2017 2:48 AM PST

    There were a lot of arguments about how things "punished" melee (or punished healers because they couldn't solo, or punished this or that class because they couldn't heal competitively).

    What is important to remember is that anything that "punishes" you, punishes your entire group. Remember the guy above who knew that HIS inability to get aggro because he couldn't melee WOULD KILL THE GROUP so he ran to the guards??

    These seeming "punishing" things force players to depend on each other. In this way, these melees that typically can run around at low levels soloing for hours now have reason to reach out to casters after they unexpectedly actually get killed by something.

    What you see as "punishment" is actually one of the most important "devices" that cause people to work together where ordinarily they would just solo their way through those levels.

    • 1618 posts
    February 21, 2017 3:09 PM PST

    Amris said:

    There were a lot of arguments about how things "punished" melee (or punished healers because they couldn't solo, or punished this or that class because they couldn't heal competitively).

    What is important to remember is that anything that "punishes" you, punishes your entire group. Remember the guy above who knew that HIS inability to get aggro because he couldn't melee WOULD KILL THE GROUP so he ran to the guards??

    These seeming "punishing" things force players to depend on each other. In this way, these melees that typically can run around at low levels soloing for hours now have reason to reach out to casters after they unexpectedly actually get killed by something.

    What you see as "punishment" is actually one of the most important "devices" that cause people to work together where ordinarily they would just solo their way through those levels.

    Agreed.

    • 1281 posts
    February 22, 2017 6:04 AM PST

    I'm absolutely FOR this type of weapon combat flavor including bane weapons and damage reduction where certain enemies are more/less immune to damage types (slashing crushing, piercing, etc).

    A classic DND example is skeletons receive 5 points of damage reduction to everything except bludgening (crushing) due to lacking organs (no flesh/organs to slash or pierce).

    I do recall Joppa saying in one of the Twitch streams that they will have this style of mechanic in game.

     


    This post was edited by bigdogchris at February 22, 2017 6:07 AM PST
    • 2886 posts
    February 22, 2017 8:06 AM PST

    I don't have any hard evidence for this, but deducing what we've seen so far, there's no doubt in my mind that having a magic weapon will be crucial against certain mobs.