mallocfailure said:You're forgetting one of the cool parts of early EQ2 - you didn't start Lore and Legend by killing mobs of that type, you started it by finding a book or some other lore about the creatures. These were often deep inside a dungeon - like the evil eye one was a book deep in Runnyeye. That's probably what people remember being dragged around dungeons for - looking for those L&L starters.
I don't recall when they changed L&L to auto-drop from the mobs, but it got a lot easier to get the master strikes once they did!
This is how they did it early on and I 100% agree it was far better than the gimped down version they changed it too later on.
I really liked the L&L of EQ2, it really became an unoffical quest of sorts, because no matter where you went you always kept a look out for those books. What I dislike about about such things is if you then never see that type of mob again after you completed thir L&L.
oneADseven said:mallocfailure said:You're forgetting one of the cool parts of early EQ2 - you didn't start Lore and Legend by killing mobs of that type, you started it by finding a book or some other lore about the creatures. These were often deep inside a dungeon - like the evil eye one was a book deep in Runnyeye. That's probably what people remember being dragged around dungeons for - looking for those L&L starters.
I don't recall when they changed L&L to auto-drop from the mobs, but it got a lot easier to get the master strikes once they did!
This is how they did it early on and I 100% agree it was far better than the gimped down version they changed it too later on.
Yeah - the original implementation was very well done. I would really welcome L&L or something like it.
xilith, there was another thread specifically for collectibles it has a title of ? just a couple posts down.
L&L's are kind of a collectible though so I can see your point. Both of these though are deemed "quality of life" peices of the game and many of us are just hoping a similar mechanic is in the game, or at least planned.
Bazgrim said:I think there are plenty more creative ways to give a passive reward to people who complete these than just a damage buff or a clicky. For example, in the DDO monster manual, some rewards for mastering a creature type allowed you see the mob's exact remaining and max HP on it's health bar. Otherwise the game would only ever show you percentages. And if you really wanted to come up with the exact number, you'd have to look back at your combat log and add up all the numbers. But mastering a race gave you a lot more easy knowledge about the creature's stats.
A tiny increase to damage might make sense, such as knowing about weak spots in the mob's armor that other chars might not know about because you have spent so much time fighting them. But with Pantheon, the possibilities are endless. Perhaps when mastering a creature type, you'd gain more insight about that mob's dispositions. These sorts of things are not OP, but are still nice little helpful perks. Realistically, it's probably better to have these sorts of goals/rewards not be something that you specifically set out to accomplish and grind out for days, but instead just be little bonuses for slaying that you have mostly already been doing anyway.
I agree Baz,
For me the LnL of EQ2 wasnt the answer with a clicky adding dmg to mastered mobs. I feel it should be something that could be multi-tiered and implimented with the perception system.
Say we use a simple mob that lives on multiple levels as an example, skeletons. So say after killing 100 you become an Initiate Skeleton Hunter, at 500 Adept Skeleton Hunter and 1000 a Master Skeleton Hunter. Say tier 1 you recieve the ability to see mobs actual hitpoins on the bar rather than percentage since by then you will have fought enough to know approxiamately enough about them to know this information, tier 2 you recieve a small % defense bonus vs. mob since youre learning their attacks, and 3rd level a small dmg bonus vs. mob due to finding their weak spots or vulnerabilities, which should take longer to understand fully than their attacks. Tied to this Master level could also be the ability to know a mobs disposition. Also I loved the idea of having a cosmetic reward tied to this system, like a pet or maybe even a wall mount for your home, so you could have a trophy room with different mob mounts decorating the walls.
But any way its done, I think it makes sense to have SOMETHING to add to the immersion factor thst hey I SHOULD somehow be better at killing skeletons after ive slayed 1000 of em lol.
The L&L system from EQ2 was pretty awesome but I can definitely see plenty of room for improvement. It just so happens that one of the features being developed for Pantheon could end up being the difference maker in how the L&L system is taken to a new level. The feature I am talking about (as have others) is perception. Here is the description for it:
One of the most profound things about Pantheon is how we are designing the game from the ground up so that the Environment truly matters – we want players to care about the world they are in, and why things are the way they are. When you think of MMOs, when is the last time you discovered the meaning, or the history, or the secrets of a person, place or event without being told by a text box? What if we’ve conceived of a way to bring players back to exploring because they are compelled by what they see in front of them - not because a blinking light tells them to go there? In Pantheon, Wizards will be able to perceive things that a Warrior cannot. Through prayer, a Cleric may gain insight into an area, or a creature, that a Rogue could never know. Through our perception system, Pantheon will redefine how the game world becomes known, and how players will work together to progress.
Looking at the above description, I can see plenty of ways the perception feature could be used to enhance the L&L system. It was mentioned how clerics could gain insight into a creature that a rogue could never know. Maybe it takes having a cleric, paladin, or necromancer in your group before players could unlock any L&L quest that involves undead? Maybe that same logic could be applied to each of the races. What if you needed an Ogre in your group before it becomes possible to unlock the L&L quest for the Wos Che? Maybe you need a Dark Myr in your group before you can unlock an L&L quest for various under-water species, or a Gnome for some sort of planar species? One of the really cool aspects of L&L in EQ2 was how you needed to find each "L&L Book" somewhere in the game world prior to initiating the quest. Rather than anybody/everybody being able to read these books, maybe you would need to have a specific class or race present who also has a qualifying perception score.
With the way Terminus is being constructed, I like to think that each race brings a different sort of value/experience to the table. Each race hails from their own unique planet and they also seem to have their own territories in Terminus. Maybe it makes sense to expand on the identity for each race and use perception as a way to allow the race of our characters to be more significant than what we have seen in other games. I think some players wouldn't necessarily like the idea of needing to have a Dark Myr in their group in order to unlock the L&L quest for some sort of Leviathan species but I personally think it would be pretty damn cool. I like it more when you put these perception triggers in places where each race has had some sort of influence on the world. Maybe in order to unlock the Leviathan L&L quest you have to find a magical book in an underground water temple and have a Dark Myr in your group that can translate it's code.
Bazgrim said:I think there are plenty more creative ways to give a passive reward to people who complete these than just a damage buff or a clicky. For example, in the DDO monster manual, some rewards for mastering a creature type allowed you see the mob's exact remaining and max HP on it's health bar. Otherwise the game would only ever show you percentages. And if you really wanted to come up with the exact number, you'd have to look back at your combat log and add up all the numbers. But mastering a race gave you a lot more easy knowledge about the creature's stats.
A tiny increase to damage might make sense, such as knowing about weak spots in the mob's armor that other chars might not know about because you have spent so much time fighting them. But with Pantheon, the possibilities are endless. Perhaps when mastering a creature type, you'd gain more insight about that mob's dispositions. These sorts of things are not OP, but are still nice little helpful perks. Realistically, it's probably better to have these sorts of goals/rewards not be something that you specifically set out to accomplish and grind out for days, but instead just be little bonuses for slaying that you have mostly already been doing anyway.
I agree with this for the most part. I'd rather not have some kind of direct combat power related gains but instead a system that offers combat knowledge/information, like actual/exact numbers for mob Level/Class/HP/Mana/AC/Resists.
But I'd also rather it be a mob specific thing, not an entire creature typing. I don't like the idea of killing a bunch of gnolls in one corner of the world and somehow becoming a master of all gnolls as it seems incredibly likely to me that there might be some very big differences between gnolls in one part of the world and those in another part of the world. So you might in time gain knowledge of all types of the gnolls of Blackburrow though when you encounter the gnolls of Splitpaw you'd only have a vague knowledge of them at best. They might have entirely different classes, attack patterns/dispositions, resistances, etc.
I think the rewards from EQ2 felt pretty appropriate. Each archetype had their own mastery strike and this ability shared a cooldown with every other mastery strike in the game. Fighters got a 3 minute buff that allowed them to proc extra damage against that mob type. Scouts (rogues/bards/rangers) applied a temporary mitigation debuff and a fairly high amount of damage. Casters got a very high damage nuke, and healers got a temporary pierce/slash/crush/attack speed debuff that also did some divine damage. Each character had a single master strike ability that would only work against NPC's after you completed their associated L&L quest. It nevert felt OP at all. I'm not sure how an ability like this would translate in Pantheon though considering limited hotbars and the traditional recast timer of the ability.
That said, I like the idea of allowing players a chance to harvest higher quality materials from NPC's that they have learned the L&L for. Maybe you get a 1% increased chance to harvest a "pristine skull" instead of a "fractured skull" for each person that has completed the quest. I personally like the idea of tying some sort of PVE element into it where you can exploit a weakness or have some sort of added mitigation vs that creature type but I'm not sure of the best way to implement something like this into the game. Part of me thinks a permanent buff would be okay as it would be a fun way to add horizontal progression into the game. I would certainly be more interested in grinding skeletons if it meant I would slowly gain an advantage against them over time than I would unlocking some sort of "Skeleton Slayer" title.
vigilantee13 said:Say we use a simple mob that lives on multiple levels as an example, skeletons. So say after killing 100 you become an Initiate Skeleton Hunter, at 500 Adept Skeleton Hunter and 1000 a Master Skeleton Hunter. Say tier 1 you recieve the ability to see mobs actual hitpoins on the bar rather than percentage since by then you will have fought enough to know approxiamately enough about them to know this information, tier 2 you recieve a small % defense bonus vs. mob since youre learning their attacks, and 3rd level a small dmg bonus vs. mob due to finding their weak spots or vulnerabilities, which should take longer to understand fully than their attacks. Tied to this Master level could also be the ability to know a mobs disposition. Also I loved the idea of having a cosmetic reward tied to this system, like a pet or maybe even a wall mount for your home, so you could have a trophy room with different mob mounts decorating the walls.
But any way its done, I think it makes sense to have SOMETHING to add to the immersion factor thst hey I SHOULD somehow be better at killing skeletons after ive slayed 1000 of em lol.
I definatly like the idea that as you kill more, you gain proficencies vs. that type of mob.
Kittik said:I definatly like the idea that as you kill more, you gain proficencies vs. that type of mob.
Just don't like the idea of power gain (increased offensive/defensive percentages) vs mobs for such a thing.
To me it's sort of a freebie, it's a passive benefit that players really don't have to put much effort into in general as most of your leveling you are going to be killing hundreds of not thousands of each the major mob types. It also seems unnecessary to me in the sense that if someone has killed 1000 skeletons, why then is it needed to make it even easier for that person to kill skeletons? They've already proven they can crush them up real good anyway.
I think a simple knowledge bonus would be good enough. If you can look at a mob and know all it's resists/AC/HP then you can always be using the most efficient abilities, effectively granting the player a boost. And it doesn't preclude sharing that knowledge with your group should they not know about what kinds of abilities/weapons to use.
I liked WAR's verson of this system, which involved a combination of first encountering a mob, finding rare mobs of a given type, tiers of killing (10/100/1000?), and more quest-like components such as finding a lair of a type of mob.
On the reward side they offered titles, cosmetic items, noncombat clicky items, and tactics (passives which you had to choose to be active) that affected the aggro ranges of the mobs and experience gained from them. Tactics were very specific to WAR, but the others are possibilities if you're trying to avoid actual combat advantages.