First off I want to say that I think the "Perception" system is a fantastic idea. I've seen a few streams of the pre-pre alpha where it was being discussed and I was curious; if you accept a Perception trigger event would that open up additional "helpful" dialogue among surrounding NPC's? Meaning if you see someone who needs help and decide to help them will there be additional triggers from other NPC's either in the immidiate area or elsewhere that may help point you in the right direction?
Thanks in advance!
Magics3 said:First off I want to say that I think the "Perception" system is a fantastic idea. I've seen a few streams of the pre-pre alpha where it was being discussed and I was curious; if you accept a Perception trigger event would that open up additional "helpful" dialogue among surrounding NPC's? Meaning if you see someone who needs help and decide to help them will there be additional triggers from other NPC's either in the immidiate area or elsewhere that may help point you in the right direction?
Thanks in advance!
It certainly could, we have big plans for this system, some of which you will see in the upcoming streams, so be sure to watch them live or the uploaded recordings after the events take place for more information ;)
Yeah, this is by far my most anticipated "new" feature for Pantheon. A lot of different directions you could take the system to improve an already great foundation. If you think outside the box a bit too, you could have faction or familiarity based perception cues as well - a halfling in their homeland may be more perceptive to things than say an Ogre.
Some people have concerns over the perception system. They think it's just an over-glorified system for the age ol' glowing question mark above the NPC's head. That instead of the glowing icon, you get a message box that pops up on your screen in place of the icon. And to that I say it's way too early to be worried over anything about this system, it's still in its infant stages. There are SO many different things they can do with this system and the possibilities should keep emerging even months maybe years down the road after release.
BUT, there are valid concerns. The perception system can't just simply replace the glowing icons above NPCs heads. The example we were given in the last stream it appeared to be just that, instead of a glowing icon a big message box pops up and asks if you want to engage or to ignore. Iirc the player didn't click on the NPC to activate this message box it simply appeared. And if I'm correct this is still immersion breaking because if the girl doesn't approach you then you should have to engage the girl before any message boxes appear right?
If I was designing it my main goal, for questing at least, would be to make sure the system is as subtle as possible. That's one of the main reasons of getting rid of the glowing icons above heads, because they are immersion breaking. The perception system, if done right, should be a system that nudges the player into quests as organically as possible. Using the same example with the last stream, you hear a girl crying (this could create great opportunities for great surround sound also) and if you choose to you can go look for whoever is crying. But the key here has to be to nudge the player and keep the system subtle, so as the player approaches the girl crying nothing is forced on the player. They have to physically engage the crying girl them self by clicking on her rather than the big message box appearing on its own. Let the player feel like they are controlling their story rather than the story being forced upon them. Obviously if an NPC approaches the players then you can spring the message box on them but if the NPC is minding their own business then require the player to have to engage them selves. Keeping this system as unintrusive as possible is what I think will really make it shine.
Other cool things that could happen:
- It's been said that players will level up their perception skill. Something that could be great for this is say you are too low a level in perception or if you have the wrong type of perception then possibly, using the same crying girl example, you never even hear the girl crying and you completely miss her altogether. You need a certain level of perception to access the given content.
- There could all types of triggers to begin these events: audio cues (crying girl, the sound of a backyard brawl), visual cues (you see a character who looks like he doesn't belong in this town/area, traveling down a wooded path you see through the clearing what appears to be smoke possibly chimney smoke or a bonfire etc), chat box cues could be for more of a telepathic/mental trigger (you sense the fire has been extinguished just recently, something about this wall seems out of place), a message box appears on the screen ('A lady comes running towards you' "Please, could you help me? My son has just been kidnapped I don't know what to do"). And so on and so forth.
-Ther could be different types of perception. Audio, visual, mental acuity, telepathy, smell, touch, taste? lol, history/knowledge, etc.
-Perception could be linked to giving players bonuses. A player with a high visual perception might get a bonus to using bows. Mental acuity could bolster magic, touch could bolster melee, etc.
I think this sytem could really grow into something deep and complex and add to gameplay in so many different ways. Of course you have the many possibilities with questing but it could be used in many other areas of the game as well.
Just my $.02 thanks for reading. Cheers!
Magics3 said:First off I want to say that I think the "Perception" system is a fantastic idea. I've seen a few streams of the pre-pre alpha where it was being discussed and I was curious; if you accept a Perception trigger event would that open up additional "helpful" dialogue among surrounding NPC's? Meaning if you see someone who needs help and decide to help them will there be additional triggers from other NPC's either in the immidiate area or elsewhere that may help point you in the right direction?
Thanks in advance!
Also, forgot to mention. This topic has been discussed many times so here are a few links if you want to get in on the discussion. A simple search with the keyword 'perception' brings all these up.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3580/question-about-perception
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3921/perception-question
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5485/another-perception-thoughts
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3382/bards-and-the-perception-system
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3745/perception-brainstorm-melee
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3482/perception-and-real-tracking-for-rangers
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4330/perception-system-secret-chests
This last one here I think is the biggest discussion over it. The link is...
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4634/quot-perception-system-quot-not-getting-it
Sarim said:NoobieDoo said:Keeping this system as unintrusive as possible is what I think will really make it shine.I think you're spot on with your whole post, but this is the essential part for me too.
That's a good point Noobie, and I would agree with both of you as well that I hope they are unintrusive, perhaps except for the first few levels/iterations of it to "get" how the system would work.
But, I guess when I imagine the "perception system" it would require the player to pay more attention to their surroundings and if they're not paying attention, miss an environmental cue or the like versus it being obviously slapped in your face like a glowing quest marker.
I'm pretty sure the preception system will not trigger every quest giver just the ones that look like they are searching for something or crying or some kind of an emotion to make you wonder what that person might want. Like the beggar in qeynos by the docks might trigger the preception skill due to him looking eerie or purposely staying out of sight of the guards below the docks, but the qeynos captain (GM warrior) who wanted you to collect "Gnoll Teeth" for him would not becuase he has other things on his mind and the Gnoll's are the least of his problems.
Raidan said:Yeah, this is by far my most anticipated "new" feature for Pantheon. A lot of different directions you could take the system to improve an already great foundation. If you think outside the box a bit too, you could have faction or familiarity based perception cues as well - a halfling in their homeland may be more perceptive to things than say an Ogre.
I certainly hope so. But the crying woman example is seemingly little more than a replacement for the ? over an NPCs head. And yes, I'm the first person to yell at someone else "PRE-PRE-ALPHA!".
Raidan said:Sarim said:NoobieDoo said:Keeping this system as unintrusive as possible is what I think will really make it shine.I think you're spot on with your whole post, but this is the essential part for me too.
That's a good point Noobie, and I would agree with both of you as well that I hope they are unintrusive, perhaps except for the first few levels/iterations of it to "get" how the system would work.
But, I guess when I imagine the "perception system" it would require the player to pay more attention to their surroundings and if they're not paying attention, miss an environmental cue or the like versus it being obviously slapped in your face like a glowing quest marker.
Not sure if I mentioned this in my post but yeah I think it's important too that the player be able to miss the cue altogether if not paying attention. BUT, I do feel like this is where the perception system comes into play.
Say a group of players are walking through a forest down a path. Off the path and into the woods to their right is a farm caught on fire. You can't really see the fire through all the trees and brush but if any of the members were to look to the right and UP over the treeline they would see smoke. Now, if they don't look in this specific direction they would miss the farm altogether. BUT, if someone had the appropriate perception level a message could pop up in the chat box 'you catch smoke out the corner of your eye' or 'you smell smoke' or what have you.
Couple other ideas.
Each event could have different perception cues. IF players can level up different perception senses like audio, visual, touch, smell, taste? (not sure how taste could open up quest dialogue) 6th sense or some form of telepathey or mental awareness then each event could access different skills. The burning farm could have cues for visual and smell. So players who worked on visual might get the message 'you catch smoke out the corner of your eye' and players who worked on smell might get 'you smell smoke' in their chat box. Players who don't work on these but work on hearing, touch. or the 6th sense would not get any cue at all. MAYBE if a player had a HIGH hearing perception they could hear the fire. But basically the idea is certain senses would give cues while others would not.
Taking this a step further, there could be a general or generic skill simply called 'perception'. Say a player has a high enough smell perception to get the chat message 'you smell smoke'. Obviously the player has to be paying attention to their chat box to see this and then can start looking around for the smoke. But does that message HAVE to stay in the chat box forever? Even though they have a high enough smell perception is it possible they could be distracted and still miss the smoke? I think so. So this is where the generic perception skill comes into play. A player with a high enough 'smell' skill could get the 'you smell smoke' message but since they have a low 'perception' skill the message could disappear in their chat box after being there for a few seconds. A higher 'perception' skill would cause the message to last longer. Maybe with a high enough 'perception' skill the message would last permanently or maybe all messages disappear after a while no matter how high your skill is.
Or maybe having a general/generic 'perception' skill isn't required. Maybe simply depending on how high your 'smell' perception is would determine how long the message stays on your screen. The idea is though that there is a chance to miss these cues if you're not paying attention even if you have a high enough skill level. The devs don't want glowing icons above NPCs heads but they also don't want players having to run up to every random NPC just trying to find out if they have a quest or not. So that is why I think they are designing this perception system. But say a player is maxxed out on perception and therefore his perception cues come up on screen and remain there permanently, is that much different than a glowing icon permanently above someone's head? I think some would say 'no' that's not much different and this is the concern some are having with this system because they don't see the possibilities.
In WoW pretty much every quest is received by finding an NPC with a glowing question mark above their head. In PRF, the way questing will differ...hopefully...will be, some quests will be received by hearing a sound, some by seeing something odd or out of place on your screen, some by little messages in your chat box that trigger your smell or touch or even 6th sense. Then, there will be a skill system for us to level up. Hopefully it is somewhat deep in which different players can work on different cues and maybe an individual player can not max out every perception sense. (maybe they can I don't know if this would be important or not) But either way, questing will be more involved (even though the devs have stated there will be less quests than the average MMO out today) but even so, the perception system could extend to other areas of the game and not just be strictly tied to questing.
I think I've thought about this system WAY too much the last few days so I'm gonna end here lol. Cheers!
One of the things I liked most about EQOA was the fact that you were not lead along quest paths on a leash. The quest was recorded in the player's journal, which gave very general instructions, and it was up to the player to figure these instructions out without any help from dots on minimaps or glowy trails on the ground. Pantheon's perception system has the potential to vastly improve even on that quest model, as one can imagine many ways it could be used (as Noobiedoo said above) to subtly give the player hints without any of the hand holding found in most games today. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this system goes. :)
Magics3 said:First off I want to say that I think the "Perception" system is a fantastic idea. I've seen a few streams of the pre-pre alpha where it was being discussed and I was curious; if you accept a Perception trigger event would that open up additional "helpful" dialogue among surrounding NPC's? Meaning if you see someone who needs help and decide to help them will there be additional triggers from other NPC's either in the immidiate area or elsewhere that may help point you in the right direction?
Thanks in advance!
I'm uncertain how we can form an opinion on it, let alone say it's a fantastic idea, when we don't even know what it's going to be, beyond the extremely limited view we had in the one video. Using the perception system to start a quest is, I guess, better than have a ? over an NPC's head, but effectively what else is it?
So after watching Jim's stream and him missing the "pillar" and trying to look at the crystal on the wall, I do think there needs to be some sort of visual cue attached to an object to help draw in the players focus, especially for an example like the pillar. The devs literally had to explain what to do so I think there needs to be some more work done on guiding the player to said item, maybe it has a light glow and can inspected.
Zeem said:So after watching Jim's stream and him missing the "pillar" and trying to look at the crystal on the wall, I do think there needs to be some sort of visual cue attached to an object to help draw in the players focus, especially for an example like the pillar. The devs literally had to explain what to do so I think there needs to be some more work done on guiding the player to said item, maybe it has a light glow and can inspected.
I noticed that too, but if there are too obvious/too many cues, it starts to become barely different from an NPC with a question mark over its head. We have already seen at the face on the rock in Thronefast that the music will change when you approach an area where perception may come in handy. That should be enough of a hint. The goal of perception is to make you experience the world naturally, without your hand being held. If you miss the cues, then oh well. The example in Halnir Caves was just a proof of concept anyway and is not representative of a finished product. I think there was just some confusion because the devs told him to look for a pillar, but didn't specify which one. When you're on your own in Terminus and don't have devs saying anything, it'll feel as organic as possible.
Bazgrim said:Zeem said:So after watching Jim's stream and him missing the "pillar" and trying to look at the crystal on the wall, I do think there needs to be some sort of visual cue attached to an object to help draw in the players focus, especially for an example like the pillar. The devs literally had to explain what to do so I think there needs to be some more work done on guiding the player to said item, maybe it has a light glow and can inspected.
I noticed that too, but if there are too obvious/too many cues, it starts to become barely different from an NPC with a question mark over its head. We have already seen at the face on the rock in Thronefast that the music will change when you approach an area where perception may come in handy. That should be enough of a hint. The goal of perception is to make you experience the world naturally, without your hand being held. If you miss the cues, then oh well. The example in Halnir Caves was just a proof of concept anyway and is not representative of a finished product. I think there was just some confusion because the devs told him to look for a pillar, but didn't specify which one. When you're on your own in Terminus and don't have devs saying anything, it'll feel as organic as possible.
Yeap, and I know its a work in progress why I offered some feedback. As far as the music changing, what if I have the sound off?
That was a perfect storm due to them fighting by the pillar, I think the message was missed, but unless it had a bit of a glow, then someone would be, ok why is that thing glowing now. One could then inspect it, get the message again then go from there trying to see what it was about and maybe finding the key.
I really think eventually there needs to be a bit more. Not talking about hand holding but once we see more of the system and experience it well have a better idea.
Kalok said:The Perception system isn't some sort of "guided on rails" quest giving system. It's entiirely possible that if his Perception skill were higher it might have a "glowinge aura" around it.
Perception doesn't seem like it's supposed to be an "exact science".
I know Kalok, I didnt say anything about being guided or shown the way. And that is a good idea on skill levels, for it to have more visual cues the higher the skill.
Perception should be linked to the dynamics of the world. By that i mean loads of secret processes the perception system eludes to. You could learn from the processs from players without needing the perception system. The processes should be things that happen on their own.
Such as clues to a puzzle that opens a door. You'll get the clue but the puzzle would still work without it,
or
discovering pelts from a mob and discovering leather stacked near a leather worker who would give secret exra bonus for leather you sell him.
I think for the perception system to shine it should be fun for the community without the clues. Player could learn and teach players about what to do.