Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Epic Characters or Epic Gear??

    • 1399 posts
    March 13, 2018 5:55 PM PDT

    Celandor said:

    While there are lots of great ideas in this thread, I'm wondering if one of the core aspects of horizontal progression isn't as simple as just making the players do more for their advancements?

    You don't have to shake up the levelling system, mess with class balance, add skill trees or even have an AA system.  Take away the automatic nature of what EQ did with skills like swimming or sense heading.  Tie advancement in those areas to something that can't be accomplished with a button smash.  Here are some specific examples.

    Direction finding should be tied to your skill as a cartographer or an explorer.  The more of the world you have explored/discovered with your character, the better you should be at reliably heading out in the right direction.   If you are using /follow, it should turn off any ability for your character to gain experience through exploration.  No points for back seat drivers.

    Swimming could be handled in a similar fashion.  The more areas you have explored underwater, the more your swimming skill improves.

    Crafting skills shouldn't advance appreciably if all you do is make the same clay pot 417 times.  You should be required to make an assortment of items.   Real mastery would only come if you also study crafting from different cultures.  You need breadth of experience to become a true artisan.

    Melee skills should be initially given through quests where your current skill (as both a player and your character) are tested.   Defensive skills should only be advanced when you're directly under attack.   Offensive skills should only advance when using the right weapon against a sufficiently sophisticated opponent.   Merely swinging your sword 200 times shouldn't make you better at riposte.  Hopefully, riposte will be something you use situationally in response to an attack by the opponent.  If you are AFK on auto attack, your skills shouldn't be increasing.

    Caster skills should also require quests and tests of skill to acquire.   Unlike melee skills, even in EQ, a caster would only level a particular ability through casting the right class of spell.   With the coloured mana system in Pantheon, this may have additional complications, but like the melee, it should require a conscious act to improve your skill.

    Perception or other abilities unique to Pantheon will hopefully follow suit and require active participation on the part of the player in order to improve.

    The bottom line is don't hand out abilities simply as a reward for reaching level milestones or time played.  Make us work for them and make the quests to acquire them also a test of our readiness to gain power.  

    No advancement in any area if there isn't a bum in the chair and not if that bum watching Netflix while playing Pantheon.  Learning a skill requires an attentive player.

    I like these ideas, how much of the world you have explored directly relates to your sense heading. Swimming vs. Underwater areas. Etc.

    Just for discussion... would it be going too far to break away from the numerical value for these abilities and replace them with percentages? If a player has explored 100% of the world his sense heading is at 100%. Swam in 100% of body's of water then his Swimming is at 100% etc.

    When an expansion came out and this added 25% more land and water masses this player would now be at 75%. Is that really that far off from a player being "max" level 50 and an expansion comes out and now they are 10 levels below the new Max of 60 or their Swimming was maxed at 100 and now they ate 25 points below the new max if 125?

    Could ANY stats. be a percentage instead of points?

    Could ALL stats. even str, ac, int, all be percentages, to be reduced by a percentage when a horizontal expansion came out?

    Edit: and yes what I'm suggesting is the player would swim 25% slower than he was. You would need to stay on top the expansions if you wanted to stay relevant.


    This post was edited by Zorkon at March 13, 2018 6:07 PM PDT
    • 1399 posts
    March 13, 2018 6:01 PM PDT

    Delete please


    This post was edited by Zorkon at March 13, 2018 6:02 PM PDT
    • 1860 posts
    March 13, 2018 6:51 PM PDT

    Zorkon said:

     

    I like these ideas, how much of the world you have explored directly relates to your sense heading. Swimming vs. Underwater areas. Etc.

    Just for discussion... would it be going too far to break away from the numerical value for these abilities and replace them with percentages? If a player has explored 100% of the world his sense heading is at 100%. Swam in 100% of body's of water then his Swimming is at 100% etc.

    When an expansion came out and this added 25% more land and water masses this player would now be at 75%. Is that really that far off from a player being "max" level 50 and an expansion comes out and now they are 10 levels below the new Max of 60 or their Swimming was maxed at 100 and now they ate 25 points below the new max if 125?

    Could ANY stats. be a percentage instead of points?

    Could ALL stats. even str, ac, int, all be percentages, to be reduced by a percentage when a horizontal expansion came out?

    Edit: and yes what I'm suggesting is the player would swim 25% slower than he was. You would need to stay on top the expansions if you wanted to stay relevant.

    There is another thread currently that is discussing small exp gains for exploration and most people don't seem to be in favor of that.  I can imagine what the response would be toward this...