Kilsin said:Taledar said:Beefcake said:I am pretty sure, at this point, VR has already decided what systems will be in place. I doubt they are going to take up additional, convoluted systems to add in that would just delay their plans.
Let them get THEIR game out. Then we can start begging for feature creep.
I'm pretty sure you're wrong. I dont think anything in set in stone with much at the moment.
We actually do have a lot set in place that we will not be changing until we get it tested and gather feedback/tweak etc. We have been planning and developing Pantheon for a couple fo years now, so it is safe to say that many things are already covered and in place from all of the feedback and discussions that we have had over that time with you folks, there has to be some point in time when it becomes important to test the ideas, systems, features and mechanics that we have implemented, which is also why we will be changing to a more "game" centric mindset for the new forums and leaving the "dev forms" mindset behind with these ones, we are pretty much past the stage of requiring idea's and feedback and not into putting them into action and testing them, so while we love hearing thoughts and ideas it is usually just for fun or discussion amongst yourselves, we have most of these things covered for our game now :)
This sounds like a pretty big buzzkill. Does this mean that this idea is dead in the water and won't be considered? Is it not possible that VR may still find good ideas in the forum that can be stored for later consideration in case something from the existing plan doesen't work out? Should I stop posting new ideas or having meaningful discussions with other members of the community about their ideas? I have been very excited for the transition to the regular game forums for quite some time and am looking forward to participating in the new climate that is established but figured that as long as these development forums were in existence, it made sense to make the most out of this opportunity and to continue sharing input/feedback about the game as we push through the final stages of this pre-pre-alpha development phase.
It has been said a number of times before, this shouldn't be a shock as you were in some of the discussions he has said this before.
Kilsin said:That is pretty much it, we have settled on lots of these decisions over the last 3 years, we started these forums back in FEB 2014 and have been collecting info and taking feedback and suggestions ever since, to the point that we have already pretty much decided on most things and need to work on them some more and see them through to completion so we can test them. Which makes it hard but more reason why it was important to get in early on a game like this in development.
We will still take feedback and suggestions and ask for specific feedback on certain things but for big mechanics like this, it has already been decided and we need to test it before we even consider changing anything.
...
We are on record saying a few times now that if something doesn't work, we will remove it completely and either go without it or find a suitable replacement, we will not, however, make such drastic decisions without first testing them out thoroughly as we have a lot of combined experience on this team with many of our systems, mechanics and features and some of them are weaved into one another.
So my best advice would be to let the developers, who are also gamers, get these systems, mechanics and features into testing before providing feedback, so we can at least give them a chance and see how they work, we don't just add these things randomly for no reason, or without thinking about all possible issues that could arise from them, so it is best to wait and test them for yourself as no opinion in the world is going to change our plans until we know if they work or not ;)
The death penatly and fear you desire doesn't sound in the vision Brad has, where the penalty is said to be somewhere between EQ (which at max level was mostly just corpse runs and getting a rez) and VG (which I didn't play past beta so I don't know). But that doesn't mean you aren't free to throw ideas out there and engage with the community, which I think is what these forums are all about at this point. Just people interested in the game to speculate and talk about things together, not to influence the game mechanics or anything else at this point.
Iksar said:It has been said a number of times before, this shouldn't be a shock as you were in some of the discussions he has said this before.
Kilsin said:That is pretty much it, we have settled on lots of these decisions over the last 3 years, we started these forums back in FEB 2014 and have been collecting info and taking feedback and suggestions ever since, to the point that we have already pretty much decided on most things and need to work on them some more and see them through to completion so we can test them. Which makes it hard but more reason why it was important to get in early on a game like this in development.
We will still take feedback and suggestions and ask for specific feedback on certain things but for big mechanics like this, it has already been decided and we need to test it before we even consider changing anything.
...
We are on record saying a few times now that if something doesn't work, we will remove it completely and either go without it or find a suitable replacement, we will not, however, make such drastic decisions without first testing them out thoroughly as we have a lot of combined experience on this team with many of our systems, mechanics and features and some of them are weaved into one another.
So my best advice would be to let the developers, who are also gamers, get these systems, mechanics and features into testing before providing feedback, so we can at least give them a chance and see how they work, we don't just add these things randomly for no reason, or without thinking about all possible issues that could arise from them, so it is best to wait and test them for yourself as no opinion in the world is going to change our plans until we know if they work or not ;)The death penatly and fear you desire doesn't sound in the vision Brad has, where the penalty is said to be somewhere between EQ (which at max level was mostly just corpse runs and getting a rez) and VG (which I didn't play past beta so I don't know). But that doesn't mean you aren't free to throw ideas out there and engage with the community, which I think is what these forums are all about at this point. Just people interested in the game to speculate and talk about things together, not to influence the game mechanics or anything else at this point.
Eh, it would come as a shock to me. I understand that they have certain features figured out that they want to implement, but I haven't heard any details whatsoever on the death penalty at max level. From what I have observed, XP loss will be likely, but deleveling will not happen. That said, XP loss is trivial at max level which effectively decreases the penalty for end-game players. Is this intentional? My idea was to provide some feedback on that as I think death should continue to be meaningful at max level. Pantheon has been labeled as a hardcore MMO and based on the conversations I have had with hardcore players, there are many who are not in favor of the idea that the penalty for death would effectively have it's value diminished at max level. I'm not saying I speak for everybody. I'm not saying anybody has to do anything. I'm just pointing out that this is an area that is worthy of a discussion. If VR doesen't want to consider it, so be it, but I won't sit around idly when I feel that there is a demand, as small as it may be, to engage in this kind of topic and offer some feedback. As someone deeply vested into the game and it's success, who only wants to help, why would I just ignore an idea that could potentially improve upon what some players would be considered a pain point?
As far as the spirit conversion concept not being aligned with Brad's vision for the death penalty, how is that a fair assessment? I quoted the information available on the death penalty exactly and responded with comments on how this idea matched up pretty well with the vision that has been stated. Would you care to elaborate on how my idea would not fall into that vision? I was not basing the idea from any comment made in any post, but rather the FAQ as I feel that is an authoritative assessment on the official vision for the game. I have watched dev interviews from less than a year ago where it was mentioned that VR is always on the lookout for good ideas on the forum that could be considered for possible implementation. I know it has been announced that we will be transitioning from development forums to game forums, but I have never seen any official statement that would suggest that ideas are no longer being considered. It seems like a grey area to be honest.
"We have a lot set in place"
"It is safe to say that many things are covered"
"There has to be some point in time when it becomes important to test the ideas, systems, features and mechanics that we have implemented"
"Pretty much past the stage"
Based on that, it sounds like there are indeed many things that have been fleshed out, and that at some point in time, hopefully in pre-alpha which is probably at least a few months away, many of those ideas, systems, features and mechanics will have to be tested. If we are at that point right now, I would love to know. I spend a great deal of time trying to come up with ideas/concepts that could be considered by the development team and if there is no chance of them being considered, I think that message should be crystal clear. The vibe I have observed in the community as of late is that most people feel that their ideas aren't actually being considered, but I personally hold out hope that if any idea has enough merit and is well accepted by the majority of backers, that it would indeed be notated and at the very least be shelved and revisited at a later date.
I understand that there is a great deal of work that has been done but I also acknowledge that there is still a lot more in the pipeline. I would imagine that VR will be much more receptive to our feedback during the testing phases compared to right now, and I'm looking forward to that day. In the meantime, I feel that we have a wealth of knowledgeable and resourceful players that are sitting here in the community that try to keep themselves busy. I have noticed a trend whereas when people get bored, their participation levels go down. When they feel there isn't enough information coming out at what they would consider an acceptable pace, they go get lost in another game for awhile to alleviate some of the anxiety they deal with while playing the waiting game. Personally I have yet to get to that point and like to challenge myself daily to remain engaged, remain enthusiastic, and remain focused on providing valuable feedback that has the chance to potentially influence the game.
I do recall the quotes that you listed but that was regarding progeny, something that is listed as a major feature of the game and is an entirely different topic. I have chalked that conversation up as something we are not allowed to speculate on and that's fine. As far as the death penalty diminishing at max level, when has this ever been discussed? Is this not important enough to warrant having a conversation about right now? I have spoken with plenty of people about this outside of this forum and it's a conversation that a lot of people have a high interest level in. If something is worth talking about, and there has yet to be any known definitive feature or mechanic to deal with it, why wouldn't it be okay to create an open dialogue about it?
I don't know about you, but having these kind of conversations is one of the main reasons that I come to this forum. I enjoy spending time learning about the game so that when I talk to some of my friends who have taken a step back, for whatever reason, I can catch them up. When I try to bring in a new backer, I like having as much information as possible so that I can answer some of the questions they might have. When I talk to some of the gamer friends I have developed relationships with over the past 15 years and they ask me how is Pantheon going to compare to game X, game Y, or game Z, I like to be prepared with as many angles as possible that can help sell VR's vision for this game. Having players with that kind of mindset, in my opinion, provides a fresh extramural perspective from the community while also raising awareness for the game.
oneADseven said:Spirit Conversion is a concept that could be added to the game for max-level players. Upon reaching max level, players will no longer be able to lose experience which would nullify an important aspect of the death penalty. I believe that death should be meaningful at all levels and the idea behind this is to add an additional type of bankable currency (spirit power) to the game that max-level players can lose a portion of in the event of their death. Spirit power is accumulated by killing NPC's in the game, and the amount awarded would scale based on the NPC's level and whether or not it is a Named or Raid Boss. I am going to quote the FAQ as a reference point for how VR envisions their death penalty, and will then provide more information on how the system would work.
7.0 Will there be a ‘death penalty’?
"We want the player to respect and even fear the environment, but also to be enticed by it. A big part of achieving this balance is making sure there is an incentive to avoid death. While the details of this system are not yet fleshed out (and will likely be tweaked and changed a bit during beta), you can expect death to be something you’d rather avoid. That said, if a death penalty is too severe, it can keep players away from some of the more challenging and rewarding content, and we are keeping this in mind as well. So death will sting, but it will also not involve losing an unreasonable amount of experience, or levels, or a permanent loss of items."
The amount of spirit power awarded per NPC would scale higher and higher based on the challenge level of each NPC killed. Here is a rough outline:
(For the sake of discussion, raid bosses would only award full points if they are white con or higher, anything blue-con or lower would be treated as a named group NPC of the same con. A description of this color con system can be found at the end of this post.)
Contested large raid size boss = 50 spirit power
Contested mid raid size boss = 35 spirit power
Contested small raid size boss = 25 spirit power
Non-Contested large raid size boss = 20 spirit power
Non-Contested mid raid size boss = 15 spirit power
Non-Contested small raid size boss = 10 spirit power
Red-Con named group NPC = 8 spirit power
Orange-Con named group NPC = 6 spirit power
Yellow-Con named group NPC = 5 spirit power
White-Con named group NPC = 3 spirit power
Blue-Con named group NPC = 2 spirit power
Green-Con named group NPC = 1 spirit power
Red-con group NPC = .5 spirit power
Orange-con group NPC = .4 spirit power
Yellow-con group NPC = .3 spirit power
White-con Group NPC = .2 spirit power
Blue-con Group NPC = .075 spirit power
Green-con Group NPC = .025 spirit power
Now that we know how spirit level values could scale, let's consider how this concept could affect the death penalty in greater detail:
"We want the player to respect and even fear the environment, but also to be enticed by it. A big part of achieving this balance is making sure there is an incentive to avoid death."
The spirit conversion concept is literally predicated on the very first sentence. With this system, players would be forced to respect their environment, but they are also enticed by it because every NPC they kill can offer additional spirit power. When a player dies, they lose some of that spirit power. Spirit power can be used to buy something desirable. I don't want to lose my spirit power! Sounds like an incentive to avoid death to me!
"That said, if a death penalty is too severe, it can keep players away from some of the more challenging and rewarding content, and we are keeping this in mind as well. So death will sting, but it will also not involve losing an unreasonable amount of experience, or levels, or a permanent loss of items."
This is a great point, and in regards to just how much spirit power would be lost upon death, let's assume a value that could depend on several variables. Perhaps each death would scale the amount lost. Let's say it starts at 100 for the first death, 200 for the second death, 300 for the third death, and eventually caps at around 500, but resets daily? This is where the banking aspect comes into play, and it should be flexible enough so that players can develop a strategy with how often they use it. What if a player has the option to bank their accumulated spirit power as often as they like, but after each successive banking they are required to pay a gold/plat fee that scales higher and higher the more often you do it, but resets weekly? After the week is over that cost would reset to the point where your first spirit power bank is free and then it continues to scale up again. This could be an awesome plat sink. It allows players to mitigate the risk of their deaths for a cost while still maintaining a constant sense of danger/risk while they have any unbanked spirit power on their person.
I feel something like this would strike a very reasonable balance where all player types can benefit from the system and it's flexible enough to allow them to mitigate their risk. At any given moment, players would need to be cognizant of their surroundings and do their best to avoid death. They are still incentivized to adventure in the world as much as possible to maximize how much spirit power they can accumulate, and with the daily/weekly reset timers, there is enough of a cushion present that they won't find themself in a hole that they can't climb out of. By adding a currency cost to the banking process, this also introduces an important plat sink into the game that can help stem off inflation. By making the rewards for this system desirable, the art of avoiding death should be at the forefront of every player's mind while they navigate the dangerous world of Terminus. This kind of end-game risk vs reward death penalty would be very appealing to me.
The color con system has been used in many games but here is a reference point:
Red-con = 8 levels or higher
Orange-con = 4-7 levels higher
Yellow-con = 1-3 levels higher
White-con = Even level
Blue-con = 1-3 levels lower
Green-con = 4-7 levels lower
Grey-con = 8 levels or lower
*Edited to reflect the evolution of this concept.
** If you would like to see the original version, please check page 2 where multiple people quoted it.
This soulds like an alternate currency, is it worth trying to monetize aspects of the game?, like hard coding value to each stat on an item. F.ex: break-up value- fungi tunic has regen and 30 AC and a crafter should be able to break it down and salvage the regen and AC seperately to apply on another crafted item therefore having the item just as valuable to all classes, whereas I see the ideal and intent to be: the fungi tunic has no value to the mage. So the mage passes and none need it for an alt, or if they do have an alt then it becomes a greed item in a PuG. Among freinds perhaps a different story and the one with the alt gets it. If the desire is to eventually encourage a cash shop where each item can be used to buy or sell- all these ideas sound to me like they lead in this direction.
My understanding of the game is not to have an alternate currency. If you die, you die. However I do like the idea of how to make death meaningfull at higher levels- provided how much higher on horizontal progression that means. If it means losing skill sets like 1HB wherein you will need to re-train 1HB up to the previous level- that is something else and would make death meaningfull for higher levels as well as encourage horizontal progression in other battte skills- maybe even hand to hand!.
Otherwise I see this as being very convenient to have someone FTP for 10 levels, and die down ( necros used to call it Sac down) to generate - this alternate currency for free and start the dreaded mud-flation.
Only question I have is- on contested raid mobs, if there is no one else in the zone, then its not contested, right? If you killed it yesterday and it is grey to you today, and guild B comes in and kills the raid mob- stil not contested, right?- However if there was a value to be ascribed to a contested mob, maybe that would be a good mechanic for a PVP server but coulsdonly be facilitated by coding in a seperate loot set if two groups contested the same monster and attacked at the same time- I dont know, it is too complex for me,
I heard rumor that SOE paid for trips to the Fanfaire for a guild leader that sold items in game for RM. He made so much money it got their attention and created the situation in spome MMO's today. I wonder if all the guild members got to go. I hear playerauction still has pretty good deals for those games.
Manouk said:oneADseven said:Snip
This soulds like an alternate currency, is it worth trying to monetize aspects of the game?, like hard coding value to each stat on an item. F.ex: break-up value- fungi tunic has regen and 30 AC and a crafter should be able to break it down and salvage the regen and AC seperately to apply on another crafted item therefore having the item just as valuable to all classes, whereas I see the ideal and intent to be: the fungi tunic has no value to the mage. So the mage passes and none need it for an alt, or if they do have an alt then it becomes a greed item in a PuG. Among freinds perhaps a different story and the one with the alt gets it. If the desire is to eventually encourage a cash shop where each item can be used to buy or sell- all these ideas sound to me like they lead in this direction.
My understanding of the game is not to have an alternate currency. If you die, you die. However I do like the idea of how to make death meaningfull at higher levels- provided how much higher on horizontal progression that means. If it means losing skill sets like 1HB wherein you will need to re-train 1HB up to the previous level- that is something else and would make death meaningfull for higher levels as well as encourage horizontal progression in other battte skills- maybe even hand to hand!.
Otherwise I see this as being very convenient to have someone FTP for 10 levels, and die down ( necros used to call it Sac down) to generate - this alternate currency for free and start the dreaded mud-flation.
Only question I have is- on contested raid mobs, if there is no one else in the zone, then its not contested, right? If you killed it yesterday and it is grey to you today, and guild B comes in and kills the raid mob- stil not contested, right?- However if there was a value to be ascribed to a contested mob, maybe that would be a good mechanic for a PVP server but coulsdonly be facilitated by coding in a seperate loot set if two groups contested the same monster and attacked at the same time- I dont know, it is too complex for me,
I heard rumor that SOE paid for trips to the Fanfaire for a guild leader that sold items in game for RM. He made so much money it got their attention and created the situation in spome MMO's today. I wonder if all the guild members got to go. I hear playerauction still has pretty good deals for those games.
This wouldn't involve hardcoding specific values into any item, but rather NPC's. There are only a few characteristics that would need to be determined in assigning these values, which are the color con (level difference between you and the mob), whether or not it's a named, and whether or not it's a raid boss. To encourage grouping, only group level encounters or above would award spirit power. If something is solo con or designed for 2-3 players, it would not reward anything.
As far as it being an alternate currency, that's something I intentionally left open-ended. Spirit Power could be used as a universal faction of sorts but with the caveat that you would need to bank it and could lose some upon death. I don't feel this idea leads to a cash shop in any way, shape or form. These points, aka "spirit power" would ideally be used for something desirable. My personal recommendation would be to have a deep reward tree that would require players to save up for a long time. If someone is able to fully exhaust the rewards from this system, that would render it useless as players would then lose the incentive to avoid death. This could potentially be countered by adding some sort of temporary buff or consumable that would always maintain a value.
The big take away being, as quoted above, that they really want us to wait and try what they have planned and they will adjust from there.
So my best advice would be to let the developers, who are also gamers, get these systems, mechanics and features into testing before providing feedback, so we can at least give them a chance and see how they work, we don't just add these things randomly for no reason, or without thinking about all possible issues that could arise from them, so it is best to wait and test them for yourself as no opinion in the world is going to change our plans until we know if they work or not ;)
As for the Brad and the death penalty, I think it also falls into the same category. These major mechanics are something they already have a good idea where they want to go and test out, like the AH or progeny. Something they aren't actively looking for community suggestions for at this point.
Opinions and plans are great, but often until players are actually experiencing these critical mechanics and systems we developers need to wait and watch (and not commit to specifics).
So that will be our approach -- try the spectrum out in alpha and beta, listen to the community, experience it ourselves, and slowly but surely iron out the details.
Lastly, in the event that the community becomes truly split on something as critical as the Death Penalty and its associated mechanics, we always have the option to implement variations on the theme depending on the server/shard. Athough it's far too early to speculate with any certainty, the penalty for dying in Pantheon may turn out to be something that becomes part of our Alternate Ruleset Servers, with the details and severity depending on which server/shard you've chosen to play on.
...
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.
...
I hear you loud and clear. I would add that significant exp loss at death, most of which can be recovered when you return to your corpse, can be pretty compelling as well.
I don't mean to sound like I am saying that we shouldn't be talking about things like this and throwing ideas out there as I think it's fun to engage and look at different ideas and to respectfully debate even if all we are doing is weighing one opinion vs another. I am saying these ideas should be taken with a grain of salt and we shouldn't expect any of it to make it into the game at this point as we have no idea what VR is really planning for most of these things and they aren't ready to share with us yet. The lack of our knowledge of these things doesn't mean they haven't long been thought out on their end. It's not that there is no chance, just a maybe 1% chance. We have to wait and see what VR has in mind and try their vision before trying to patch holes that may not even exist.
Another reason the spirit power might not be the best is that it hurts MORE than losing exp. Losing exp you lose something intangible, exp is always exp. Losing this currency is losing progress toward something real, an equipped or otherwise actively used benefit. It also adds extra pressue, as Beaver said, "Otherwise people find themselves farming spirit power as a sort of job so they can keep up with their guildies. You'd see all sorts of problems like people not feeling like they have enough time to make alts or to even play the game for casual raiding. (because every raid they gotta farm up a whole bunch of spirit power to compete)." It taps into the daily/weekly/monthly quest type of mentality where you feel at a tangible loss when not playing your main character and a sense of falling behind if you were to want to play an alt for a while.
Iksar said:The big take away being, as quoted above, that they really want us to wait and try what they have planned and they will adjust from there.
So my best advice would be to let the developers, who are also gamers, get these systems, mechanics and features into testing before providing feedback, so we can at least give them a chance and see how they work, we don't just add these things randomly for no reason, or without thinking about all possible issues that could arise from them, so it is best to wait and test them for yourself as no opinion in the world is going to change our plans until we know if they work or not ;)
As for the Brad and the death penalty, I think it also falls into the same category. These major mechanics are something they already have a good idea where they want to go and test out, like the AH or progeny. Something they aren't actively looking for community suggestions for at this point.
Opinions and plans are great, but often until players are actually experiencing these critical mechanics and systems we developers need to wait and watch (and not commit to specifics).
So that will be our approach -- try the spectrum out in alpha and beta, listen to the community, experience it ourselves, and slowly but surely iron out the details.
Lastly, in the event that the community becomes truly split on something as critical as the Death Penalty and its associated mechanics, we always have the option to implement variations on the theme depending on the server/shard. Athough it's far too early to speculate with any certainty, the penalty for dying in Pantheon may turn out to be something that becomes part of our Alternate Ruleset Servers, with the details and severity depending on which server/shard you've chosen to play on.
...
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.
...
I hear you loud and clear. I would add that significant exp loss at death, most of which can be recovered when you return to your corpse, can be pretty compelling as well.
I don't mean to sound like I am saying that we shouldn't be talking about things like this and throwing ideas out there as I think it's fun to engage and look at different ideas and to respectfully debate even if all we are doing is weighing one opinion vs another. I am saying these ideas should be taken with a grain of salt and we shouldn't expect any of it to make it into the game at this point as we have no idea what VR is really planning for most of these things and they aren't ready to share with us yet. The lack of our knowledge of these things doesn't mean they haven't long been thought out on their end. It's not that there is no chance, just a maybe 1% chance. We have to wait and see what VR has in mind and try their vision before trying to patch holes that may not even exist.
Another reason the spirit power might not be the best is that it hurts MORE than losing exp. Losing exp you lose something intangible, exp is always exp. Losing this currency is losing progress toward something real, an equipped or otherwise actively used benefit. It also adds extra pressue, as Beaver said, "Otherwise people find themselves farming spirit power as a sort of job so they can keep up with their guildies. You'd see all sorts of problems like people not feeling like they have enough time to make alts or to even play the game for casual raiding. (because every raid they gotta farm up a whole bunch of spirit power to compete)." It taps into the daily/weekly/monthly quest type of mentality where you feel at a tangible loss when not playing your main character and a sense of falling behind if you were to want to play an alt for a while.
I'm sorry but the idea of people not liking a system because they can't keep up with it does not resonate with me. Pantheon is supposed to be a hardcore game and whenever I come up with an idea, I literally read every tenet of the game to make sure that it doesen't contradict a single one of them. Rather than trying to counter argue every single player concern that turns into raider vs non-raider, hardcore vs non-hardcore, forced or optional, etc ... I would like to propose a very simple outline on whether or not an idea can pass the eye test:
Is the idea related to anything that has already been described by VR on their FAQ page, and if so, does it align with their description:
7.0 "Will there be a death penalty?"
We want the player to respect and even fear the environment, but also to be enticed by it. A big part of achieving this balance is making sure there is an incentive to avoid death. While the details of this system are not yet fleshed out (and will likely be tweaked and changed a bit during beta), you can expect death to be something you’d rather avoid. That said, if a death penalty is too severe, it can keep players away from some of the more challenging and rewarding content, and we are keeping this in mind as well. So death will sting, but it will also not involve losing an unreasonable amount of experience, or levels, or a permanent loss of items.
I do not see a single aspect of my idea that contradicts anything in the above statement. In fact, the idea was custom tailored around this statement and touches on:
1) "We want the player to respect and even fear the environment, but also to be enticed by it."
2) "A big part of achieving this balance is making sure there is an incentive to avoid death."
3) "That said, if a death penalty is too severe, it can keep players away from some of the more challenging and rewarding content, and we are keeping this in mind as well."
4) "So death will sting, but it will also not involve losing an unreasonable amount of experience, or levels, or a permanent loss of items."
Does the idea contradict any of the game tenets? How many does it Reinforce?
I do not see a single game tenet that my idea contradicts. As far as how many it reinforces:
1) "A commitment to a style of play that focuses on immersive combat, and engaging group mechanics."
2) "An understanding that a truly challenging game is truly rewarding."
3) "An expectation that with greater risk will come greater reward."
4) "An understanding that player involvement is required for progression. All actions (or lack thereof) should have consequences. Positive actions should be rewarded. Apathy or lack of action should not be rewarded with bonuses."
5) "A belief that meaningful character progression will always involve a player increasing in both power and prestige."
6) "A belief that the greatest sense of accomplishment comes when it is shared - and earned."
If an idea can pass that test, then I will present it. I try to be as open-minded as possible when it comes to rebuttals because there are plenty of other aspects that could be taken into consideration. At the end of the day, though, I place a much higher value on how an idea relates to the core tenets of the game than I do any individual player preference. There is no perfect idea. I really wish that VR would present an idea for us to chew on more often but one of the reasons it rarely happens is because there are a few too many people out there who will naturally try to pick up on a single detail that doesen't accomodate their personal preference and then spell it out as doom and disaster. There is no sense arguing with someone like this because they will resort to any tactic necessary to undermine an idea while completely ignoring the other side of the equation.
The spirit conversion concept is sound. If it has a 1% chance of making it into the game, great, at least I know it was considered. If it has a 0% chance of making it into the game, well, the new game forums cannot possibly get here soon enough. As is with every idea I have ever presented, nothing is concrete. There is a reason a concept is called a concept. I wish more people felt inclined to provide constructive criticism on a concept rather than trying to uproot it from the ground, but that's asking for a lot. Human nature is human nature. Iksar, I do not view you as one of those people. You have voiced solid concerns and I appreciate that. I am not calling any other player out either, but I want it to be known that our community would make much more progress and that more players would get involved if they felt they could expect consideration, empathy, and an open-minded philosophy from their peers.
Playing devils advocate is a necessary evil and I find myself doing it quite a bit. It can make a really big difference with the end result of any conceptual idea as it generally leads to compromises or improvements that can enhance the original form. I still think there is plenty of potential with this concept, but unfortunately, don't have much solid ground to base it off of. That said, I will continue using the FAQ and Game Tenets pages as a reference point on whether or not I am actually providing a meaningful contribution. Thank you for your input.
A few other pieces of information that I consider important in regards to how this idea is perceived:
1.0.1 It sounds like Pantheon is bringing back a lot of ‘older’ MMO game mechanics. Is Pantheon a clone of older games or a modern MMO?
Pantheon is most definitely a modern MMO with modern graphics and new and exciting features and mechanics. There are already emulators out there that are clones of earlier MMOs and Visionary Realms has no desire to make another emulator. That said, we also feel that many of the features and mechanics of previous MMOs have been abandoned in more recent games, resulting in a less challenging, compelling, deep, and social experience. Pantheon, therefore, will indeed bring back some of these conventional mechanics and ideas but with a fresh perspective, some tweaks and revisions. We also understand that while gamers’ tastes don’t fundamentally change over time, their situations, lives, and responsibilities do. Likewise, some game mechanics often associated with earlier MMOs involved inordinate amounts of downtime, overly severe penalties, too much competition over content and resources, and even downright boring or overly repetitive gameplay. Our intention, therefore, is not to bring back ‘everything’ from the old days, but rather to pick and choose those which make sense and are needed to make a fun, social, cooperative, and challenging game.
Spiritual Conversion touches on:
1) "That said, we also feel that many of the features and mechanics of previous MMOs have been abandoned in more recent games, resulting in a less challenging, compelling, deep, and social experience."
2) "Pantheon, therefore, will indeed bring back some of these conventional mechanics and ideas but with a fresh perspective, some tweaks and revisions."
3) "Likewise, some game mechanics often associated with earlier MMOs involved inordinate amounts of downtime, overly severe penalties, too much competition over content and resources, and even downright boring or overly repetitive gameplay."
4) "Our intention, therefore, is not to bring back ‘everything’ from the old days, but rather to pick and choose those which make sense and are needed to make a fun, social, cooperative, and challenging game."
1.6 How do you plan to keep players interested without the hardcore grind of older MMOs? Will Pantheon be as hardcore as some older MMOs?
Keeping players interested and playing a long time, whether in one session or spread out over days, involves creating compelling gameplay. Player rewards, levelling, earning new abilities, and acquiring more powerful items at a reasonable rate are some ways to make your game sticky. Add in that grouping with others will be encouraged and rewarded and that people will be making new friends in-game and you have a situation where your comrades need you to log in with them in order to advance. Most people who want to be part of a team, to be a team player, respond well to this pressure.
As for how ‘hardcore’ Pantheon will be, we’ve said it wouldn't be as grindy, and the type of grind we were referring to involves tedious repetition. But that doesn't mean Pantheon won't be difficult, or involved, or require time invested in order to advance -- in fact, virtually all MUDs and MMOs are built around time invested as the primary advancement mechanism. Pantheon will both challenge and entertain you.
Spiritual Conversion touches on:
1) "Keeping players interested and playing a long time, whether in one session or spread out over days, involves creating compelling gameplay."
2) "Player rewards, levelling, earning new abilities, and acquiring more powerful items at a reasonable rate are some ways to make your game sticky."
3) "Add in that grouping with others will be encouraged and rewarded and that people will be making new friends in-game and you have a situation where your comrades need you to log in with them in order to advance."
4) "As for how ‘hardcore’ Pantheon will be, we’ve said it wouldn't be as grindy, and the type of grind we were referring to involves tedious repetition. But that doesn't mean Pantheon won't be difficult, or involved, or require time invested in order to advance -- in fact, virtually all MUDs and MMOs are built around time invested as the primary advancement mechanism. Pantheon will both challenge and entertain you."
Hello everyone. Please hear me out before dismissing this out of hand. This is an interesting thread. It has been causing me to think. It's apparent that there are players concerned about what happens when if/when characters reach max lvl and finish content and lost the trill of it all. The Spiritual Conversion is a concept, I think, that's really about a possible solution, unless I'm mistaken. After giving this careful thought how about this.... that VR create at a future point, when raids have been soundly defeated, create nightmare lvl raids to be available for those willing to try them? Something so intense that while victory is slim raiders can be occupied until such time new content is available and this may be an interesting time sink. That's providing players in the end prefer not to create an alt to experience a new class. At any rate it's an option.
Note: This last thought is more from my sense of humor and not really serious, yet may be interesting. Call me crazy lol, though I remember when on the Test Servers in EQ the Devs were toying with the idea of letting players control mobs when they logged in. The player could lvl a Mob to a limited degree and gain new spells/skills for the NPC. While this had problems for general world use due to players misusing them to grief players and the idea was scrapped. Still it may be interesting if players could control raid mobs to make it a true nightmare. Though this would become more of a PvP element so may not work.
Note: I edited this due to mispelling.
oneADseven said:Kilsin said:Taledar said:Beefcake said:I am pretty sure, at this point, VR has already decided what systems will be in place. I doubt they are going to take up additional, convoluted systems to add in that would just delay their plans.
Let them get THEIR game out. Then we can start begging for feature creep.
I'm pretty sure you're wrong. I dont think anything in set in stone with much at the moment.
We actually do have a lot set in place that we will not be changing until we get it tested and gather feedback/tweak etc. We have been planning and developing Pantheon for a couple fo years now, so it is safe to say that many things are already covered and in place from all of the feedback and discussions that we have had over that time with you folks, there has to be some point in time when it becomes important to test the ideas, systems, features and mechanics that we have implemented, which is also why we will be changing to a more "game" centric mindset for the new forums and leaving the "dev forms" mindset behind with these ones, we are pretty much past the stage of requiring idea's and feedback and not into putting them into action and testing them, so while we love hearing thoughts and ideas it is usually just for fun or discussion amongst yourselves, we have most of these things covered for our game now :)
This sounds like a pretty big buzzkill. Does this mean that this idea is dead in the water and won't be considered? Is it not possible that VR may still find good ideas in the forum that can be stored for later consideration in case something from the existing plan doesen't work out? Should I stop posting new ideas or having meaningful discussions with other members of the community about their ideas? I have been very excited for the transition to the regular game forums for quite some time and am looking forward to participating in the new climate that is established but figured that as long as these development forums were in existence, it made sense to make the most out of this opportunity and to continue sharing input/feedback about the game as we push through the final stages of this pre-pre-alpha development phase.
I have actually stated this a few times now, and it shouldn't come as a shock, development was always going to get to a point where we pass the input phase from the community, this is, after all, a game that has been in development for over two years, so we are now putting the finishing touches on a lot of our own systems, mechanics and features before opening up pre-alpha for people to help us test them, you are welcome to discuss new ideas but the likely hood of them being implemented is low, we always had a set vision for our game and while we take feedback and ideas on board at this stage of development it is unlikely to have an impact this late in development.
We appreciate all of the input and feedback over the years as it has helped us to get to where we are today, now it is time to finish implementing them and get them ready for testing. :)
Kilsin said:oneADseven said:Kilsin said:Taledar said:Beefcake said:I am pretty sure, at this point, VR has already decided what systems will be in place. I doubt they are going to take up additional, convoluted systems to add in that would just delay their plans.
Let them get THEIR game out. Then we can start begging for feature creep.
I'm pretty sure you're wrong. I dont think anything in set in stone with much at the moment.
We actually do have a lot set in place that we will not be changing until we get it tested and gather feedback/tweak etc. We have been planning and developing Pantheon for a couple fo years now, so it is safe to say that many things are already covered and in place from all of the feedback and discussions that we have had over that time with you folks, there has to be some point in time when it becomes important to test the ideas, systems, features and mechanics that we have implemented, which is also why we will be changing to a more "game" centric mindset for the new forums and leaving the "dev forms" mindset behind with these ones, we are pretty much past the stage of requiring idea's and feedback and not into putting them into action and testing them, so while we love hearing thoughts and ideas it is usually just for fun or discussion amongst yourselves, we have most of these things covered for our game now :)
This sounds like a pretty big buzzkill. Does this mean that this idea is dead in the water and won't be considered? Is it not possible that VR may still find good ideas in the forum that can be stored for later consideration in case something from the existing plan doesen't work out? Should I stop posting new ideas or having meaningful discussions with other members of the community about their ideas? I have been very excited for the transition to the regular game forums for quite some time and am looking forward to participating in the new climate that is established but figured that as long as these development forums were in existence, it made sense to make the most out of this opportunity and to continue sharing input/feedback about the game as we push through the final stages of this pre-pre-alpha development phase.
I have actually stated this a few times now, and it shouldn't come as a shock, development was always going to get to a point where we pass the input phase from the community, this is, after all, a game that has been in development for over two years, so we are now putting the finishing touches on a lot of our own systems, mechanics and features before opening up pre-alpha for people to help us test them, you are welcome to discuss new ideas but the likely hood of them being implemented is low, we always had a set vision for our game and while we take feedback and ideas on board at this stage of development it is unlikely to have an impact this late in development.
We appreciate all of the input and feedback over the years as it has helped us to get to where we are today, now it is time to finish implementing them and get them ready for testing. :)
Makes sense to me. I never expected the idea to be implemented but I did feel there was a good discussion point here that was worth delving into. A low chance is better than an extremely low chance which is what I figured to be the case. I'm excited to hear that the finishing touches are being put into place. I would much rather spend my time actually testing the game than speculating and it's refreshing to hear that we're getting closer to pre-alpha. I have talked to so many people who have varied opinions on when we would finally get to this stage and I think messages like this should be pretty reassuring to those who feel that we won't see the game released until 2019. I think this concept has been discussed in pretty good detail but I'm willing to continue talking about it with anybody interested. VoT actually did an episode on death and the death penalty today which I thought was pretty cool.
I think balancing the risk of death against the potential reward of pushing the limits is a very tall task. We will all experience death many many times so this particular topic resonates with me. I want it to feel like more than just a loading screen and a quick time out. The game tenets for Pantheon have attracted a very broad audience and I'm really hoping that the death penalty in particular slides a little more toward the hardcore side of things. This will make a world of a difference to me as it's a constant gameplay element that will factor into many of the decisions we make while we adventure through Terminus.
oneADseven said:Manouk said:oneADseven said:Snip
[...]
This wouldn't involve hardcoding specific values into any item, but rather NPC's. There are only a few characteristics that would need to be determined in assigning these values, which are the color con (level difference between you and the mob), whether or not it's a named, and whether or not it's a raid boss. To encourage grouping, only group level encounters or above would award spirit power. If something is solo con or designed for 2-3 players, it would not reward anything.
As far as it being an alternate currency, that's something I intentionally left open-ended. Spirit Power could be used as a universal faction of sorts but with the caveat that you would need to bank it and could lose some upon death. I don't feel this idea leads to a cash shop in any way, shape or form. These points, aka "spirit power" would ideally be used for something desirable. My personal recommendation would be to have a deep reward tree that would require players to save up for a long time. If someone is able to fully exhaust the rewards from this system, that would render it useless as players would then lose the incentive to avoid death. This could potentially be countered by adding some sort of temporary buff or consumable that would always maintain a value.
Ohh, I get it now- thanks for clarifying!- like a sort of deep Alternate advancement- or a reward for having been through an encounter that resulted in a death. So if someone had a certain ability or even an item - that would be exemplary of how well the player got around. or how well the player . played- (did not die)
Manouk said:oneADseven said:Manouk said:oneADseven said:Snip
[...]
This wouldn't involve hardcoding specific values into any item, but rather NPC's. There are only a few characteristics that would need to be determined in assigning these values, which are the color con (level difference between you and the mob), whether or not it's a named, and whether or not it's a raid boss. To encourage grouping, only group level encounters or above would award spirit power. If something is solo con or designed for 2-3 players, it would not reward anything.
As far as it being an alternate currency, that's something I intentionally left open-ended. Spirit Power could be used as a universal faction of sorts but with the caveat that you would need to bank it and could lose some upon death. I don't feel this idea leads to a cash shop in any way, shape or form. These points, aka "spirit power" would ideally be used for something desirable. My personal recommendation would be to have a deep reward tree that would require players to save up for a long time. If someone is able to fully exhaust the rewards from this system, that would render it useless as players would then lose the incentive to avoid death. This could potentially be countered by adding some sort of temporary buff or consumable that would always maintain a value.
Ohh, I get it now- thanks for clarifying!- like a sort of deep Alternate advancement- or a reward for having been through an encounter that resulted in a death. So if someone had a certain ability or even an item - that would be exemplary of how well the player got around. or how well the player . played- (did not die)
Exactly! Not only does it promote the idea of player prestige by showcasing players that have good death prevention habits, but it also creates a very important sense of danger at max level. In order for us to truly respect our environment, we must have something to lose. If it's only a short amount of time, that doesen't quite do the trick. Having the effect scale per death reinforces the notion of mastering the art of survival, but it also resets daily which means we would never find ourselves in a hole that we couldn't climb out of.
oneADseven said:As far as the spirit conversion concept not being aligned with Brad's vision for the death penalty, how is that a fair assessment? I quoted the information available on the death penalty exactly and responded with comments on how this idea matched up pretty well with the vision that has been stated. Would you care to elaborate on how my idea would not fall into that vision? I was not basing the idea from any comment made in any post, but rather the FAQ as I feel that is an authoritative assessment on the official vision for the game. I have watched dev interviews from less than a year ago where it was mentioned that VR is always on the lookout for good ideas on the forum that could be considered for possible implementation. I know it has been announced that we will be transitioning from development forums to game forums, but I have never seen any official statement that would suggest that ideas are no longer being considered. It seems like a grey area to be honest.
You're not honestly suggesting that random_forum_poster_8746 knows better how well any idea aligns with Brad's vision than the guy Brad hired as Community Relations Manager does, are you? That aside, the devs are under no obligation to answer to why they arent considering a particular idea presented on the forums. Nor would any rational person suggest it. If they did it would be Kilsin's entire job and he'd never keep up.
This team has been conceptualizing this game for years. Some of them have been in the industry for decades. They arent new to this and they do it for a living. You can damn well bet that 95% of the great new ideas we spew out here have been hashed out in great detail by them and in chats with other industry professionals. Regardless, a good solid design does not come from piecemeal additions in the later stages of development. If they accepted random stuff from the forums I'd be highly skeptical of both the diligence they had put into the design plan and their level of commitment to that design.
I also really enjoy these kinds of discussions, but fully understand that it's theory craft. It's chatting with people who enjoy the genre, love bantering back and forth about why's or why not's, but have no arrogant illusion that any of it will ever be used. Or if it is used it was planned out well before it reared it's head on the forums.
Feyshtey said:oneADseven said:As far as the spirit conversion concept not being aligned with Brad's vision for the death penalty, how is that a fair assessment? I quoted the information available on the death penalty exactly and responded with comments on how this idea matched up pretty well with the vision that has been stated. Would you care to elaborate on how my idea would not fall into that vision? I was not basing the idea from any comment made in any post, but rather the FAQ as I feel that is an authoritative assessment on the official vision for the game. I have watched dev interviews from less than a year ago where it was mentioned that VR is always on the lookout for good ideas on the forum that could be considered for possible implementation. I know it has been announced that we will be transitioning from development forums to game forums, but I have never seen any official statement that would suggest that ideas are no longer being considered. It seems like a grey area to be honest.
You're not honestly suggesting that random_forum_poster_8746 knows better how well any idea aligns with Brad's vision than the guy Brad hired as Community Relations Manager does, are you? That aside, the devs are under no obligation to answer to why they arent considering a particular idea presented on the forums. Nor would any rational person suggest it. If they did it would be Kilsin's entire job and he'd never keep up.
This team has been conceptualizing this game for years. Some of them have been in the industry for decades. They arent new to this and they do it for a living. You can damn well bet that 95% of the great new ideas we spew out here have been hashed out in great detail by them and in chats with other industry professionals. Regardless, a good solid design does not come from piecemeal additions in the later stages of development. If they accepted random stuff from the forums I'd be highly skeptical of both the diligence they had put into the design plan and their level of commitment to that design.
I also really enjoy these kinds of discussions, but fully understand that it's theory craft. It's chatting with people who enjoy the genre, love bantering back and forth about why's or why not's, but have no arrogant illusion that any of it will ever be used. Or if it is used it was planned out well before it reared it's head on the forums.
I am suggesting exactly the opposite. Perhaps you should read other posts on this thread so that you can appreciate the full context rather than trying to pick apart everything that has my name on it. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoy these kinds of discussions. Sounds good.
I think Kilsin made VR's stance clear on the matter of changes being made to the direction/path they want to tread. VR has spent some years in their efforts to deliver what we in the gaming community have desired for a very long time. Kilsin also was clear, I think, that we are free to engage in conjecture and share our thoughts and ideas with the understanding that we're highly unlikely, a diplomatic way of saying we won't, to influence VR's vision. Bearing this in mind, may I suggest that we take a breath and not take things too seriously.
If anyone does't like this Thread's solution to a preceived problem why not offer an alternative solution, just for giggles and grins? My suggestion would be nightmare lvl raids be available as an option for raiders who complete standard raids. Though I'm sure VR probably has considered that already and it's nothing new to the gaming community. However, that's not the point. This is about talking in a constructive way about ideas, views and what we think, hopefully in a thoughtful way, in a constructive way. Whether VR adopts any of the solutions we present is irrelevant. What is relevant is that we contribute amounst ourselves constructively.
If the premise of this thread is considered unworkable to some then why not see if the idea, in general, can be crafted to be workable? If that's not feasible, again I ask, wouldn't an offfer to the conversation of a differing view/idea be more.....worthwhile? Or this thread could simply be allowed to die off. Still I've enjoyed reading this thread and have hoped for a more thought provoking dialog.
Risingmist said:I think Kilsin made VR's stance clear on the matter of changes being made to the direction/path they want to tread. VR has spent some years in their efforts to deliver what we in the gaming community have desired for a very long time. Kilsin also was clear, I think, that we are free to engage in conjecture and share our thoughts and ideas with the understanding that we're highly unlikely, a diplomatic way of saying we won't, to influence VR's vision. Bearing this in mind, may I suggest that we take a breath and not take things too seriously.
If anyone does't like this Thread's solution to a preceived problem why not offer an alternative solution, just for giggles and grins? My suggestion would be nightmare lvl raids be available as an option for raiders who complete standard raids. Though I'm sure VR probably has considered that already and it's nothing new to the gaming community. However, that's not the point. This is about talking in a constructive way about ideas, views and what we think, hopefully in a thoughtful way, in a constructive way. Whether VR adopts any of the solutions we present is irrelevant. What is relevant is that we contribute amounst ourselves constructively.
If the premise of this thread is considered unworkable to some then why not see if the idea, in general, can be crafted to be workable? If that's not feasible, again I ask, wouldn't an offfer to the conversation of a differing view/idea be more.....worthwhile? Or this thread could simply be allowed to die off. Still I've enjoyed reading this thread and have hoped for a more thought provoking dialog.
I agree that some thought provoking dialogue would be welcomed. I prefer to stay on topic, particularly regarding specific pieces of data that I have pulled and cited as a reference point in how the idea came to be. If there is no chance of the idea being used, that isn't a big deal to me. I engage in these conversations for fun as I have always felt it would be pretty awesome to be a game developer. I am not, and most likely never will be, but still find a little solace in being able to share ideas like this amongst my peers in what I consider the best MMO community I have ever been apart of. I am the kind of person that enjoys a healthy debate because it can bring the best out of an idea. It has been stated that players are not only allowed, but actually encouraged to speak their minds freely and without restriction just in case an idea pops up that is worthwhile enough to be passed onto the dev team.
If someone would like to contribute to the idea in a positive way, I am looking forward to engaging in further conversation. There are several people who have provided constructive feedback on this thread that helped contribute toward the evolution of the idea. I really appreciate those who chimed in with an effort to see the concept improved, and hopefully some can agree that it has. For those who are not in favor of the idea, and those who seem to take issue with me exercising my right to engage in meaningful conversation, have you considered starting a thread where you can express your own creativity? It can be a fun outlet, especially when other players out there appreciate your idea. I have met many good friends on this forum purely through sharing ideas.
For those who insist on commenting on other player's ideas, if you're going to be hellbent on disparaging them, at least accept the challenge of keeping the scope of the conversation in line with what should be considered VR's vision for Pantheon. If there is an aspect of the idea that contradicts one of the game tenets or info that can be found in the FAQ, please do me a favor and spell that out, as it would be a huge issue.
The penalty for death is something that will have a constant impact on how we play the game while we are out adventuring. I get a lot of satisfaction out of playing in the more challenging areas of the game and will be spending the majority of my time at max-level. There is a certain kind of rush that I experience when I get to dance with meaningful death on my character and I want to make sure that this feeling persists beyond max level. That's really all this thread is about. Since we can't delevel, what is going to replace the XP loss aspect of the death penalty at max level? We don't know that yet, obviously. I have no clue whatsoever whether or not VR would consider this a valid concern and if they have already come up with an idea of their own on how to combat it, or whether they don't consider it a valid concern and are okay with the penalty essentially going down. Or, maybe we just haven't gotten that far yet? I have read on multiple occasions that the death penalty probably wouldn't be fully fleshed out until beta. That's a long ways away yet. Let's keep the creative juices flowing and maybe we'll unearth an ingredient that could compliment the existing recipe.
Epicedium said:Death Penalty should be severe.
I didn't like the soft language the OP used. Death something you'd prefer not to happen, like not getting your favorite flavor of ice cream.
The reason I want a severe death penalty (just like EQ, really.) has nothing to do with masochism, it's a fundamental component to the game. It promotes cooperative gameplay and makes the game high stakes. If it's not high stakes it won't be taken seriously.
If you had access to your corpse an EQ death with no res would set you back several hours. That's about right. Obviously if a group wiped deep in a dungeon and there's no other groups to help you that was more catastrophic.
The biggest risk to this game IMO is the devs not making death work properly. EQ with no death penalty, or EQ with a really soft penalty would have ruined that game. If groups have the mindset that they'll just go into a dungeon as deep as they can until they just die and then goto the next place, that means something is wrong. Groups need to be methodical and maximize their potential.
Ways death penalty can go wrong off the top of my head:
No corpses or no items on corpses.
Low level high % res spells.
Too many classes getting res spells.
Res scrolls(or whatever).
Soft XP loss that amounts to minimal real time.
a million other ways I'm not thinking of
Zircon said:Epicedium said:Death Penalty should be severe.
I didn't like the soft language the OP used. Death something you'd prefer not to happen, like not getting your favorite flavor of ice cream.
The reason I want a severe death penalty (just like EQ, really.) has nothing to do with masochism, it's a fundamental component to the game. It promotes cooperative gameplay and makes the game high stakes. If it's not high stakes it won't be taken seriously.
If you had access to your corpse an EQ death with no res would set you back several hours. That's about right. Obviously if a group wiped deep in a dungeon and there's no other groups to help you that was more catastrophic.
The biggest risk to this game IMO is the devs not making death work properly. EQ with no death penalty, or EQ with a really soft penalty would have ruined that game. If groups have the mindset that they'll just go into a dungeon as deep as they can until they just die and then goto the next place, that means something is wrong. Groups need to be methodical and maximize their potential.
Ways death penalty can go wrong off the top of my head:
No corpses or no items on corpses.
Low level high % res spells.
Too many classes getting res spells.
Res scrolls(or whatever).
Soft XP loss that amounts to minimal real time.
a million other ways I'm not thinking of
Thank you for chiming in. I agree that the death penalty should be high stakes, and appreciate you sharing some of the mechanics that you associate with how it could be done. While keeping in line with the various tenets and FAQ answers that have been cited, what would be the best ways to incorporate some of your examples into the game?
"No corpses or no items on corpses."
Corpses sound great. I like the idea of having tombstones which I believe has been mentioned. I wouldn't mind seeing certain items/gear dropping on our corpse as long as there is no potential for permanent loss. Depending on whether or not we see mechanics such as "tradeable" / "no-trade" / "un-attuned" / "attuned" / "soulbound" / "persistent" -- I can see plenty of potential in the possibility of gear/items dropping on our corpses.
"Low level high % res spells."
I agree and hope that there will be a large potency spectrum based on spell quality, spell level, cooldown, etc.
"Too many classes getting res spells."
What classes would you like to see have the ability to rez? For me, all healers are a given. Beyond that, I am interested in the possibility of paladins/necros/direlords/bards each potentially having some sort of rez functionality, depending on whether or not they have acquired the ability in the game. Whether the spell is a rare drop, class-quest-spell, or augmentation of some sort using the living codex or colored mana system -- or maybe something else entirely, maybe they could exist for those classes? Perhaps each class has multiple specs but the rez ability is limited between them?
"Res scrolls(or whatever)."
I don't like the sound of these at all, personally. Sounds like hax.
"Soft XP loss that amounts to minimal real time."
I would like to see the XP loss feel significant. That's a relative term and I'm curious what most players would feel was fair? I am thinking somewhere between 5-10%, depending on a variety of potential risk vs reward factors. This also touches on the reason for this thread which is XP loss being a factor of the death penalty. At max-level, how would XP loss affect us, knowing that we can't de-level? Would it accumulate as debt? If so, for me, that's basically a free pass until the next expansion whereas somewhere right before it launches, I just need to grind that level back. I share a very similar view between that and my thoughts on rez scrolls.
"a million other ways I'm not thinking of"
First thing I thought of when you said this was "hardcore XP acclimation." Increased risk for some degree of reward? Perhaps there could be areas that have "cursed mechanics" that alter the death penalty in ways such as increased XP loss, reduced rez effectiveness, increased rez debuff, or increased rez cast time?
Ideally, I would imagine seeing several of these "cursed" areas to prevent them from getting over populated. As far as the risk vs reward goes, I imagine big risk for a small to moderate increase in reward potential. Perhaps "curse" could also be a debuff that only certain classes or NPC's could cure, depending on various factors such as spell availability, component cost, etc. Perhaps certain items could be looted as cursed but be cleansed later, using similar requirements?
Thank you for chiming in. I agree that the death penalty should be high stakes, and appreciate you sharing some of the mechanics that you associate with how it could be done. While keeping in line with the various tenets and FAQ answers that have been cited, what would be the best ways to incorporate some of your examples into the game?
I don't think they need to reinvent the wheel here. EQ had this component of the game pretty much perfect but not everything. You die you lose a lot of experience. When people talk about the death penalties I think what is lost in the discussion is you're not supposed to die! You should be able to go days, weeks, without your character dying.
Corpses sound great. I like the idea of having tombstones which I believe has been mentioned. I wouldn't mind seeing certain items/gear dropping on our corpse as long as there is no potential for permanent loss. Depending on whether or not we see mechanics such as "tradeable" / "no-trade" / "un-attuned" / "attuned" / "soulbound" / "persistent" -- I can see plenty of potential in the possibility of gear/items dropping on our corpses.
Corpses mean you have to go back to where you died as an additional punishment for your death. EQ would allow you to give drag permission to others to move your corpse from dangerous areas. If you go deep into a dungeon you need to be certain you're not going to get your group wiped and have a bunch of corpses you can't get back to. You may only want to do this type of content with people you trust as opposed to any PUG. Remember, if everyone can just do everything without fear of consequence, then you just have WOW.
I agree and hope that there will be a large potency spectrum based on spell quality, spell level, cooldown, etc.
What classes would you like to see have the ability to rez? For me, all healers are a given. Beyond that, I am interested in the possibility of paladins/necros/direlords/bards each potentially having some sort of rez functionality, depending on whether or not they have acquired the ability in the game. Whether the spell is a rare drop, class-quest-spell, or augmentation of some sort using the living codex or colored mana system -- or maybe something else entirely, maybe they could exist for those classes? Perhaps each class has multiple specs but the rez ability is limited between them?
Clerics/Paladins(higher level, lower %). Druids should have a res in the form of evac, a group res on the ready whenever they need it, it was even better than res because you got the res before you died. Shamans also had a pre-death res in the form of slow. If you died with a shaman slowing the mobs you probably deserved it and also don't deserve an easy res. It sounds like your ideas are based on the presumption that everyone is going to be dying all the time. You're not supposed to die!
I would like to see the XP loss feel significant. That's a relative term and I'm curious what most players would feel was fair? I am thinking somewhere between 5-10%, depending on a variety of potential risk vs reward factors. This also touches on the reason for this thread which is XP loss being a factor of the death penalty. At max-level, how would XP loss affect us, knowing that we can't de-level? Would it accumulate as debt? If so, for me, that's basically a free pass until the next expansion whereas somewhere right before it launches, I just need to grind that level back. I share a very similar view between that and my thoughts on rez scrolls.
So clerics had a very high % res at higher levels in EQ, if you died 30 times on a raid, you would feel it despite the res. I like the idea of having to go back and grind to get it back. It gives you a reason to go back and group with friends who are still leveling instead of sitting their capped out. To me, though, high level cleric res was OP in EQ. If you were in a group and had a level 50 cleric friend/bot/etc nearby you effectively removed the death penalty. High level res should scale down to be what a cleric the same level as the person who died would be able to give them. It makes sense if twink items etc will scale down. Once you're level "50" and can receive a max level cleric res it should reduce some 95% of the death. But a level 50 res'ing a level 25 should not. If level 25 clerics can only res 30%, the level 50 res should only do 30% as well. As far as 5-10%, you mean of a level? I would think more in terms of time lost, because level XP required scaling. If 10% of level 45 sets someone back 2 weeks of real time that's obviously too much. A couple deaths should certainly knock out a play session at higher levels. Obviously if you die at level 5 it shouldn't be a big deal. As you go from 10's, 20's, 30's the incentive to avoid death considering how much more powerful your characters are needs to go up.
First thing I thought of when you said this was "hardcore XP acclimation." Increased risk for some degree of reward? Perhaps there could be areas that have "cursed mechanics" that alter the death penalty in ways such as increased XP loss, reduced rez effectiveness, increased rez debuff, or increased rez cast time?
To me death needs to work in a simple and dependable way. You die, you have a corpse there with your items and you lose xp. One thing I feel EQ got wrong, though, is that players weren't in my opinion rewarded correctly in terms of experience, and this is a separate conversation entirely but linked to death penalty. Groups were always incentivized to chain pull mobs and the most mobs/hour you could kill, generally, would be the fastest method of gaining experience. If groups go into dungeons that are difficult for their level and especially if they are going deep into these dungeons, they are taking on substantial risk, much more than the groups outside the dungeon chain pulling lower level mobs to the zone line but they're the ones getting rewarded. Instead of rewarding efficiency in terms of mobs/hour, the game should try to reward the people taking the most risk. Whether this means high bonuses for "red" mobs, or scaling XP bonus up relative to your level for a dungeon. ex, a group of 25's in a level 30 dungeon might get more bonus than level 30's in the same dungeon.
I think modern games have jaded people, the soft death penalties and res availability feel necessary because dying is a normal occurrence in those games. If people insist on dying on a regular basis they should make a lot of cleric friends and some monk friends too. It's not hard to drag your corpse to a cleric give them some gold for their mana and time, get your res and move on with your day and whatever silliness got you killed, don't do that again.
Zircon said:Thank you for chiming in. I agree that the death penalty should be high stakes, and appreciate you sharing some of the mechanics that you associate with how it could be done. While keeping in line with the various tenets and FAQ answers that have been cited, what would be the best ways to incorporate some of your examples into the game?
I don't think they need to reinvent the wheel here. EQ had this component of the game pretty much perfect but not everything. You die you lose a lot of experience. When people talk about the death penalties I think what is lost in the discussion is you're not supposed to die! You should be able to go days, weeks, without your character dying.
Corpses sound great. I like the idea of having tombstones which I believe has been mentioned. I wouldn't mind seeing certain items/gear dropping on our corpse as long as there is no potential for permanent loss. Depending on whether or not we see mechanics such as "tradeable" / "no-trade" / "un-attuned" / "attuned" / "soulbound" / "persistent" -- I can see plenty of potential in the possibility of gear/items dropping on our corpses.
Corpses mean you have to go back to where you died as an additional punishment for your death. EQ would allow you to give drag permission to others to move your corpse from dangerous areas. If you go deep into a dungeon you need to be certain you're not going to get your group wiped and have a bunch of corpses you can't get back to. You may only want to do this type of content with people you trust as opposed to any PUG. Remember, if everyone can just do everything without fear of consequence, then you just have WOW.
I agree and hope that there will be a large potency spectrum based on spell quality, spell level, cooldown, etc.
What classes would you like to see have the ability to rez? For me, all healers are a given. Beyond that, I am interested in the possibility of paladins/necros/direlords/bards each potentially having some sort of rez functionality, depending on whether or not they have acquired the ability in the game. Whether the spell is a rare drop, class-quest-spell, or augmentation of some sort using the living codex or colored mana system -- or maybe something else entirely, maybe they could exist for those classes? Perhaps each class has multiple specs but the rez ability is limited between them?
Clerics/Paladins(higher level, lower %). Druids should have a res in the form of evac, a group res on the ready whenever they need it, it was even better than res because you got the res before you died. Shamans also had a pre-death res in the form of slow. If you died with a shaman slowing the mobs you probably deserved it and also don't deserve an easy res. It sounds like your ideas are based on the presumption that everyone is going to be dying all the time. You're not supposed to die!
I would like to see the XP loss feel significant. That's a relative term and I'm curious what most players would feel was fair? I am thinking somewhere between 5-10%, depending on a variety of potential risk vs reward factors. This also touches on the reason for this thread which is XP loss being a factor of the death penalty. At max-level, how would XP loss affect us, knowing that we can't de-level? Would it accumulate as debt? If so, for me, that's basically a free pass until the next expansion whereas somewhere right before it launches, I just need to grind that level back. I share a very similar view between that and my thoughts on rez scrolls.
So clerics had a very high % res at higher levels in EQ, if you died 30 times on a raid, you would feel it despite the res. I like the idea of having to go back and grind to get it back. It gives you a reason to go back and group with friends who are still leveling instead of sitting their capped out. To me, though, high level cleric res was OP in EQ. If you were in a group and had a level 50 cleric friend/bot/etc nearby you effectively removed the death penalty. High level res should scale down to be what a cleric the same level as the person who died would be able to give them. It makes sense if twink items etc will scale down. Once you're level "50" and can receive a max level cleric res it should reduce some 95% of the death. But a level 50 res'ing a level 25 should not. If level 25 clerics can only res 30%, the level 50 res should only do 30% as well. As far as 5-10%, you mean of a level? I would think more in terms of time lost, because level XP required scaling. If 10% of level 45 sets someone back 2 weeks of real time that's obviously too much. A couple deaths should certainly knock out a play session at higher levels. Obviously if you die at level 5 it shouldn't be a big deal. As you go from 10's, 20's, 30's the incentive to avoid death considering how much more powerful your characters are needs to go up.
First thing I thought of when you said this was "hardcore XP acclimation." Increased risk for some degree of reward? Perhaps there could be areas that have "cursed mechanics" that alter the death penalty in ways such as increased XP loss, reduced rez effectiveness, increased rez debuff, or increased rez cast time?
To me death needs to work in a simple and dependable way. You die, you have a corpse there with your items and you lose xp. One thing I feel EQ got wrong, though, is that players weren't in my opinion rewarded correctly in terms of experience, and this is a separate conversation entirely but linked to death penalty. Groups were always incentivized to chain pull mobs and the most mobs/hour you could kill, generally, would be the fastest method of gaining experience. If groups go into dungeons that are difficult for their level and especially if they are going deep into these dungeons, they are taking on substantial risk, much more than the groups outside the dungeon chain pulling lower level mobs to the zone line but they're the ones getting rewarded. Instead of rewarding efficiency in terms of mobs/hour, the game should try to reward the people taking the most risk. Whether this means high bonuses for "red" mobs, or scaling XP bonus up relative to your level for a dungeon. ex, a group of 25's in a level 30 dungeon might get more bonus than level 30's in the same dungeon.
I think modern games have jaded people, the soft death penalties and res availability feel necessary because dying is a normal occurrence in those games. If people insist on dying on a regular basis they should make a lot of cleric friends and some monk friends too. It's not hard to drag your corpse to a cleric give them some gold for their mana and time, get your res and move on with your day and whatever silliness got you killed, don't do that again.
Could you expand on your thoughts as it relates to the death penalty at max level? I know you brought up examples of different classes having more powerful rezz spells, but what are your thoughts on the penalty itself? There have been strong hints that XP loss will be a factor of the death penalty, but it's also been stated that we can't de-level. That said, once we get to max level, I feel that the death penalty is being reduced significantly as XP loss would be obsolete at that point. Do you think the death penalty should be reduced at max level? Should other aspects of the death penalty be increased as a way to offset this? Something like an increased debuff, perhaps? The spirit conversion concept is, in essence, an idea that came to be as a result of this reduced death penalty at max level.
More than anything I would love for this thread to stay on point in the sense of discussing the impact of death at max level. Based on the information we have now, the severity of the death penalty appears to be reduced for max level players. How do you feel about that? What can be done about it? I know many players have said that the death penalty is supposed to be a hybrid of EQ/Vanguard. I never played EQ. How did the max level death penalty compare to prior levels in that game? Is the reduced severity intended? That's the big question mark I have right now as I truly have no idea, and that's why this thread is of significant importance to me.
Could you expand on your thoughts as it relates to the death penalty at max level? I know you brought up examples of different classes having more powerful rezz spells, but what are your thoughts on the penalty itself? There have been strong hints that XP loss will be a factor of the death penalty, but it's also been stated that we can't de-level. That said, once we get to max level, I feel that the death penalty is being reduced significantly as XP loss would be obsolete at that point. Do you think the death penalty should be reduced at max level? Should other aspects of the death penalty be increased as a way to offset this? Something like an increased debuff, perhaps? The spirit conversion concept is, in essence, an idea that came to be as a result of this reduced death penalty at max level.
More than anything I would love for this thread to stay on point in the sense of discussing the impact of death at max level. Based on the information we have now, the severity of the death penalty appears to be reduced for max level players. How do you feel about that? What can be done about it? I know many players have said that the death penalty is supposed to be a hybrid of EQ/Vanguard. I never played EQ. How did the max level death penalty compare to prior levels in that game? Is the reduced severity intended? That's the big question mark I have right now as I truly have no idea, and that's why this thread is of significant importance to me.
Sure, sorry didn't mean to derail the topic. XP loss was reduced at max level because you almost always got a high % res from a cleric. In EQ you weren't safe the second you hit 50, which took considerable time to achieve in classic EQ. You would want to max your XP bar into 50 and establish a buffer. If you only did raids and just died here and there you would eventually lose 50. Not trying to hate on the Spirit Conversion but this to me is the same as losing some marginal amount of gold in WoW when you die. In EQ, raids that went awry would have piles of corpses but you would also have plenty of 50 clerics to res, a hard night of raiding might amount to a single death without a res, which might require a play session worth of XP to get back. Remember, you died a bunch of times! You're not supposed to die! This includes raids! If you try a raid boss 2-3 times and fail, everyone gets a res, that won't be a huge XP hit. If you sit there for hours on end dying dozens of times, yeah that will and *should* hurt. From what VR has always said on the subject, it's clear to me they think people played EQ because it was the first game of it's type and they were willing to put up with a bad death penalty mechanic. This isn't true. People played EQ because it was a game to be taken seriously and the death penalty was the linchpin of that system. When you die in some hypothetical group and a level 10 bard res's you and you're net positive XP 10 minutes later that says to me Pantheon isn't really a serious thing. When you die 100 times on raids and you don't lose a level despite having never regained experience, that says to me Pantheon isn't a serious game. No one wants a low stakes EQ, the people who think they do will find out they were wrong only after it's too late.
Zircon said:Could you expand on your thoughts as it relates to the death penalty at max level? I know you brought up examples of different classes having more powerful rezz spells, but what are your thoughts on the penalty itself? There have been strong hints that XP loss will be a factor of the death penalty, but it's also been stated that we can't de-level. That said, once we get to max level, I feel that the death penalty is being reduced significantly as XP loss would be obsolete at that point. Do you think the death penalty should be reduced at max level? Should other aspects of the death penalty be increased as a way to offset this? Something like an increased debuff, perhaps? The spirit conversion concept is, in essence, an idea that came to be as a result of this reduced death penalty at max level.
More than anything I would love for this thread to stay on point in the sense of discussing the impact of death at max level. Based on the information we have now, the severity of the death penalty appears to be reduced for max level players. How do you feel about that? What can be done about it? I know many players have said that the death penalty is supposed to be a hybrid of EQ/Vanguard. I never played EQ. How did the max level death penalty compare to prior levels in that game? Is the reduced severity intended? That's the big question mark I have right now as I truly have no idea, and that's why this thread is of significant importance to me.
Sure, sorry didn't mean to derail the topic. XP loss was reduced at max level because you almost always got a high % res from a cleric. In EQ you weren't safe the second you hit 50, which took considerable time to achieve in classic EQ. You would want to max your XP bar into 50 and establish a buffer. If you only did raids and just died here and there you would eventually lose 50. Not trying to hate on the Spirit Conversion but this to me is the same as losing some marginal amount of gold in WoW when you die. In EQ, raids that went awry would have piles of corpses but you would also have plenty of 50 clerics to res, a hard night of raiding might amount to a single death without a res, which might require a play session worth of XP to get back. Remember, you died a bunch of times! You're not supposed to die! This includes raids! If you try a raid boss 2-3 times and fail, everyone gets a res, that won't be a huge XP hit. If you sit there for hours on end dying dozens of times, yeah that will and *should* hurt. From what VR has always said on the subject, it's clear to me they think people played EQ because it was the first game of it's type and they were willing to put up with a bad death penalty mechanic. This isn't true. People played EQ because it was a game to be taken seriously and the death penalty was the linchpin of that system. When you die in some hypothetical group and a level 10 bard res's you and you're net positive XP 10 minutes later that says to me Pantheon isn't really a serious thing. When you die 100 times on raids and you don't lose a level despite having never regained experience, that says to me Pantheon isn't a serious game. No one wants a low stakes EQ, the people who think they do will find out they were wrong only after it's too late.
You have mentioned the higher quality rez spells having an impact on the death penalty at max level. We won't be able to de-level in Pantheon like we could in EQ or FFXI so the quality of the rez has no bearing. There is no need for an XP buffer that we know of. Spirit conversion is an idea that reinforces the need for such a buffer. Since de-leveling has been ruled out, what are your thoughts on the max-level death penalty as it pertains to that observation, specifically? Should someone be able to die 400 times and deal with nothing but repairs bills, rez sickness, and worst case scenario, temporary item loss? I recall the same experience that you shared in EQ with how I played FFXI. You had to maintain an XP buffer that would keep people honest. If you were max level and de-leveled, you were in a heap of trouble because now you couldn't wear any of your max-level gear or use any of your max-level spells. This all but rendered you useless on any serious raid and needed to be avoided at all costs. This created a constant value for life on our character where pulling a Leeeeeroy Jenkins was much more punishing than it was in WoW.
And for a bit of clarity, with how I would envision spirit conversion, it should be far more valuable than gold in WoW. It would be a bankable resource that could be used on who knows what. Ideally, something desirable so that there will always be an incentive to avoiding death. Several ideas have been discussed but I'd rather not delve into that too deeply. Let's just say the spirit power could be used to purchase from a large loot/spell table, that also includes powerful consumables that will always have a consistent baseline value. Beyond that, banking this spirit power would also cost money. As it stands, paying for repairs is already something we'll deal with as it relates to death. I agree that it isn't enough. Spirit power is providing an entirely different resource, and one that ideally, we would be willing to spend our gold/plat on to bank it. The more you die, the more you lose (reset daily.) The more you bank the resource, the more it costs for future deposits (resets weekly.) This would allow players to mitigate their potential losses after extended farming sessions, but at a scaling cost that has both flexibility and structure built into it.
Death is supposed to sting, but not be so severe that it discourages people from taking risk. Spirit power provides a resource that always encourages players to take on risk (you have to kill stuff to acquire it, and the harder it is based on several factors, the more it awards) that you also stand to lose. There is a scaling slider associated with the amount you would lose upon death to reinforce just how important it is to avoid it. This would reset daily so that you never find yourself in a hole you can't climb out of. There is an additional scaling slider associated with the cost to bank this resource, and that's basicaly a way to prevent people from banking it leisurely which would diminish the value of having it on your person. The more often you bank it, the more you will have to pay. This would also reset, but weekly (maybe longer?) to ensure that players are able to make consistent use out of the system without going completely broke. There is a great degree of strategy with how you would maximize the efficiency of this system that involves avoiding death and various ways of tactfully using your time.