disposalist said:geatz said:if it were to increase the validity of the world we are in, ala class interdependency like fast travel on wizards, then I might be for it, but no one is making that argument, they simply want it universally available to make it easier for them to play with their friend.It's more than mere convenience to be able to play with your friends. It's fundamental to the game's success. Not everything that was not in EverQuest or that was in other MMOs is bad.
geatz said:They are taking a spot, if there was no mentoring they wouldn't be thereYes they would, but they would be either an alt (and probably twinked) or would be powerlevelling them to get them up to the level they can play together properly. That is not a better thing.
The alternative to mentoring, powerlevelling or an alt? Not playing with your friend. Awesome.
Even if they were mentoring and 'taking a spot' how is that any different to playing an alt? I would love that explained to me.
geatz said:once a camp is broken it could take 20-40 minutes before you would need to start holding it, who knows I haven’t played yet, but obviously the potential is thereLet's say you could break a camp at high level then mentor down and hold it with your buddy. So what? Would it be better to break it and then powerlevel them because you can't mentor? Or break it then bring in an twinked alt?
geatz said:Alts cause enough issues like twinking we don’t need to add moreMentoring is not worse than bringing in a twink alt and it doesn't add more issues. The same person that would have brought in a twink or powerlevelled a buddy will just mentor them instead. Even if it were a problem, at worst it's the same problem.
geatz said:Well I don’t agree with that in EQ the "only" reason why I made alts was to play with friendsThat's not what I said, I said "alts are for experiencing a different class/race not covering a different level range". Myself (and everyone I know) when they freely make an alt, it's to try a different class-race and try new content.
Of course, forcing people to make other alts because it's the only way to keep in sync with friends means more alts, but why is that good? More alts doesn't mean more players.
geatz said:I do think that the worst players will abuse what they can, given the tools to do itThere is no abuse in mentoring that I can see. What abuse can you see assuming VR don't make a mess of it?
geatz said:I think the whole idea of mentoring is just a terrible idea. I don't think it's going to be implemented correctly because I think the whole reason why it’s being put in is toxic to the game worldAgain, please tell me what is toxic and wrong with being able to play with a friend of the same level? Why is mentoring worse than powerlevelling or twinking? Why is any different than playing an alt? Why would playing an alt be better than mentoring?
geatz said:I don't want these features to be in there or at least not for the reasons of convenienceNot all conveniences are bad. People need to get over that. Some things were simply not done in EQ because they were too tricky at the time. Some things simply did not occur to them. Some things were added later and done badly - this also does not make the concept bad.
Again, I don't want to seem combative - I'd happily be persuaded, but I'm not seeing your point.
It's not that hard to see why we disagree, we disagree on a bunch of foundational consequences. You seem to think that if there is no mentoring, that means that every person that would have mentored will now be powerleveling or twinking, you've made that insinuation multiple times, I think this is just ridiculous and not true, so that’s why we disagree mostly. You also don't seem to care or believe there any consequences to mentoring and that is just good for the game and for the gamers. How can I persuade someone that it's bad for the game when they don't believe my experiences or the evidence I present so it's really pointless for me to try and persuade you, I'm really trying to persuade others that are reading this. So far I haven't read any solutions that aren't already tried and true in current MMOs. I mean if you said you needed to seek out a warrior in order to mentor down or even if it was a class ability to mentor and you had to play that class to mentor up and then also include mentoring only be allowed in duo situation to prevent mentors sneaking in groups, I might be on board a little because it would increase class interdependency or just class uniqueness in the later case, which I think is good for the game. But I don't see that, what I see is a bunch players that want something easily accomplishable for everybody because they see a use case for themselves, these people aren't arguing for quick travel because they don't mind it, but in my mind it's the same convenience just for a different person. I again think it's a selfish feature for certain players and it needs to be thought out differently than you the advocates see it.
Tralyan said:disposalist said:Not all conveniences are bad. People need to get over that. Some things were simply not done in EQ because they were too tricky at the time. Some things simply did not occur to them. Some things were added later and done badly - this also does not make the concept bad.
I don't always agree with you, Dispo, but this is a great sentiment. I'm willing to bet that, if the functionality and prior years of MMO experience was there, EQ would have had some kind of mentoring system at its inception. It fits with what they were attempting to create. It might have had some negative and adverse effects attached to it, and it might have been punishing in some way, but it would have been there.
Just because other games do it badly, doesn't mean it's inherently bad.
I don't think so I'm not on board with everything that EQ did that was inconvenient and I don't think that all conveniences bad. I just think the convenience for the few at the expense of everyone else's experience is wrong. I didn't like the idea of spells costing regents. I didn't like that when I started I swam at a snails pace. I didn't like that sense heading skill. I didn't like that if I turned in the wrong quest items they kept them. I didn't like that hybrids couldn't bind. I could go on and on to be honest, there were a lot of things I didn't like about EQ and some of those were definitely more convenient to have had. I also didn't play every class so I don't know all the inconveniences that went on, but I'm sure I would have had problems with a lot of them.
But what exactly is taken away by a player mentoring down to play with a friend? Let's assume mentoring makes the person an average power level for a character that level and it can only be toggled in town. If it's that they take a spot in a group from someone else then how is it any different than the person leveling a separate character and using an alt to take that spot?
geatz said:Tralyan said:disposalist said:Not all conveniences are bad. People need to get over that. Some things were simply not done in EQ because they were too tricky at the time. Some things simply did not occur to them. Some things were added later and done badly - this also does not make the concept bad.
I don't always agree with you, Dispo, but this is a great sentiment. I'm willing to bet that, if the functionality and prior years of MMO experience was there, EQ would have had some kind of mentoring system at its inception. It fits with what they were attempting to create. It might have had some negative and adverse effects attached to it, and it might have been punishing in some way, but it would have been there.
Just because other games do it badly, doesn't mean it's inherently bad.
I don't think so I'm not on board with everything that EQ did that was inconvenient. I didn't like the idea of spells costing regents. I didn't like that when I started I swam at a snails pace. I didn't like that sense heading skill. I didn't like that if I turned in the wrong quest items they kept them. I didn't like that hybrids couldn't bind. I could go on and on to be honest, there were a lot of things I didn't like about EQ and some of those were definitely more convenient to have had. I also didn't play every class so I don't know all the inconveniences that went on, but I'm sure I would have had problems with a lot of them.
This is kinda the point though, Geatz. You didn't like those things AS THEY WERE IMPLEMENTED.
You didn't like that buffs cost reagents, but you liked being able to buff. You didn't like that turning in the wrong quest items resulted in losing those items, but maybe you still liked the quests worked otherwise. You didn't like that hybrids couldn't bind, but maybe you still liked that every class couldn't bind. You didn't like the sense heading skill, but perhaps you did like not having in-game maps and pointers to everything. You liked these features, you just didn't like the way they were implemented. So why could mentoring not be the same? You don't like the way mentoring was done, but that doesn't mean it can only be done poorly and it doesn't make it, at its core, bad for the game. It just makes it open for innovation.
Iksar said:But what exactly is taken away by a player mentoring down to play with a friend? Let's assume mentoring makes the person an average power level for a character that level and it can only be toggled in town. If it's that they take a spot in a group from someone else then how is it any different than the person leveling a separate character and using an alt to take that spot?
What if you just made it so that mentors can't go in groups of more than 2? Why do I as a group member have to be subjugated to mentors when I didn't enter into this arrangement. If all you want is to play with your friend why the need to join a group?
Tralyan said:geatz said:Tralyan said:disposalist said:Not all conveniences are bad. People need to get over that. Some things were simply not done in EQ because they were too tricky at the time. Some things simply did not occur to them. Some things were added later and done badly - this also does not make the concept bad.
I don't always agree with you, Dispo, but this is a great sentiment. I'm willing to bet that, if the functionality and prior years of MMO experience was there, EQ would have had some kind of mentoring system at its inception. It fits with what they were attempting to create. It might have had some negative and adverse effects attached to it, and it might have been punishing in some way, but it would have been there.
Just because other games do it badly, doesn't mean it's inherently bad.
I don't think so I'm not on board with everything that EQ did that was inconvenient. I didn't like the idea of spells costing regents. I didn't like that when I started I swam at a snails pace. I didn't like that sense heading skill. I didn't like that if I turned in the wrong quest items they kept them. I didn't like that hybrids couldn't bind. I could go on and on to be honest, there were a lot of things I didn't like about EQ and some of those were definitely more convenient to have had. I also didn't play every class so I don't know all the inconveniences that went on, but I'm sure I would have had problems with a lot of them.
This is kinda the point though, Geatz. You didn't like those things AS THEY WERE IMPLEMENTED.
You didn't like that buffs cost reagents, but you liked being able to buff. You didn't like that turning in the wrong quest items resulted in losing those items, but maybe you still liked the quests worked otherwise. You didn't like that hybrids couldn't bind, but maybe you still liked that every class couldn't bind. You didn't like the sense heading skill, but perhaps you did like not having in-game maps and pointers to everything. You liked these features, you just didn't like the way they were implemented. So why could mentoring not be the same? You don't like the way mentoring was done, but that doesn't mean it can only be done poorly and it doesn't make it, at its core, bad for the game. It just makes it open for innovation.
I've said multiple times that I could endorse mentoring, but not how it is being advocated. I've made that clear multiple times.
Look I've presented my issues with mentoring multiple times, but there is a refusal to aknowledge any of them and so no one is presenting solutions. I've presented several ways that I might be okay with which just seem to get ignored and so I believe that it is just a convenience feature that people want exactly as it is now in games and so I think it shouldn't be in.
MauvaisOeil said:Oh god, this is too much quote war to remain interested in the ping pong debate.
I don't think anyone is gonna agree to anything the other said, except twisting on will what the other said to show up his own voice. Better to move on on the subject.
But this is the only topic I post on still, it's the only thing left that I even care about lol
And that's your opinion and it's fine, now I don't think staying stubborn on each other's will make anyone change his mind. This post himself is probably not gonna change the gears of the game as much has already been planned and decided, and as we remain free to talk to each others about ideas and features, they won't remove them if they are planned. (I'm more confident on the adding side, but that might not be so sure).
"I like powerleveling, so long as it isn't overly advantageous and game-breaking. Some of my fondest memories from EQ1 involved some form of assistance from a higher level character. Earleir on it was benevolent strangers helping me out, and later on I was often helping lower levels. Me and my brother would also use our higher level characters to help level up each other's alts, often inviting other lower levels into our little group. It was a really fun, social aspect of the game that leaves the door open for all sort of roleplaying and mixing of different character levels in one area. It just needs to be kept in check." Said Dunlen the thread owner.
First: I agree with you, I dislike the Mentoring deleving/leveling system myself. The social aspect of EQ was based on a group or groups playing together and leveling as they went. Game designed mentoring feels like a cheat to me, when there are actual ways to delevel yourself. It seemed to me that this system was brought in because after several years on line, new people were not in such number as they had been. I felt then and still do now: if you have a friend that wants to game with you and you have been playing awhile but also want to play with that friend: make an alt and play together.
Second: Dunlen, as you seem to be comparing powerleveling and the Mentor system, I think they are two different systems although I may be splitting hairs. The player powerleveling was a system to push a character thru many levels as fast as possible: it had nothing to do with 'a form of assistance' like you discribe when benevolent strangers helped you out and then you helped others.
Helping others then was being social, playing the game the way it was designed to be played, imo.
Power leveling (one form of it) was when a guild member would make an alt: example a warrior if they were short of warriors. Then the guild members took turns playing that alt 24/7 until the alt was the level required to play with the guild. That sort of thing is not social playing as designed by the game, imo. At this point the game is no longer fun, it is work, as in a total grind.
But, because of it's very nature, EQ gave birth to many different kinds of play, intended or not. PRF may well do the same.
Finally: I do not like the game condoned style of Mentoring. I do like the player style of mentoring involving nothing more than helping each other.
geatz said:MauvaisOeil said:Oh god, this is too much quote war to remain interested in the ping pong debate.
I don't think anyone is gonna agree to anything the other said, except twisting on will what the other said to show up his own voice. Better to move on on the subject.
But this is the only topic I post on still, it's the only thing left that I even care about lol
You have not once directly responded to anything i have posted. This makes me think you only respond to posts. Here is what i think is happening. You just respond out of boredom.
Do you even support this game anymore? Or have you become a troll. There are some VALID arguments of my own and others that you completely dismissed. Do you agree with them or not? That is a VALID discussion. What this has become is a quotation ruined flame war and you are losing.... losing so bad. Debate wasnt really a thing in highschool, huh? Ya me either.
If you want to claim victory you need to prove your point. Where is the argument? All you have done is rebut. You need to reform the argument so that people will actually listen. Revisit page 1-5 and come back with a fresh perspective to argue about the current subject.
I LOVE THIS GAME AND WILL DEFEND HER. So why have i not gotten a quote in any of your responses? Huh? Huh? Too much? Fine ill shut up.
Can't we all even *pretend* we get along?
Nastiness just persuades anyone that isn't already committed that your position isn't worth thinking about since if it was you would give facts and explanations not attack other people that also support the game.
If the facts and explanations have already been given so you don't want to repeat them - good. Move on to another thread once this is the case - VR will read them and give them the weight they think they are worth with no need for further posts. VR will *not* decide based on the *number* of posts by any one person taking a certain position.
geatz said:You seem to think that if there is no mentoring, that means that every person that would have mentored will now be powerleveling or twinking
You're omitting two other alternatives I mentioned. That they would be just using a normal alt or would not be playing with their friend at all.
Using a normal alt, they will still be taking a group spot, no different to mentoring. Or if you think it is, how is it?
If that's fine then you're saying you'd be happier for friends to not play together rather than have mentoring, even though, unless low level zones are full, a mentor taking a spot to play with their friend will have no adverse effect on anyone and will allow people to play with their friends. In fact I believe devs have suggested mentoring is partly being added also to help ensure low level zones stay populated.
So. What is the bad thing about a mentor having a group spot if there is plenty of room in camps for everyone else at that level?
geatz said:You also don't seem to care or believe there any consequences to mentoring and that is just good for the game and for the gamers. How can I persuade someone that it's bad for the game when they don't believe my experiences or the evidence I present
You've presented no evidence and the experience you give is that other games haven't done it well, which is irrelevant.
Please tell me how exactly mentoring harms the game. You've ignored all my awkward questions. Just read some of them again if you'd like a prompt.
geatz said:So far I haven't read any solutions that aren't already tried and true in current MMOs.
What other MMOs let you retrieve a historical version of yourself so that you are guaranteed to be scaled correctly? I suggested that and the devs hinted it might be viable.
geatz said:I mean if you said you needed to seek out a warrior in order to mentor down
I previously suggested you might visit a Temporal Training NPC in a city who would 'swap' you for a previous version of you.
geatz said:mentoring only be allowed in duo situation to prevent mentors sneaking in groups
Only duo? Sneaking in groups? You again assume it can't be done well enough that it would be fine to group with them. There's no 'sneaking in' if there's nothing wrong with it.
geatz said:I again think it's a selfish feature for certain players and it needs to be thought out differently than you the advocates see it.
That's the point! We none of us know how it would be implemented, but you are convinced it *cannot* be implemented well and is in fact, in some way (that you haven't specified), impossible to implement correctly because it is so 'wrong'.
If it is so wrong you must be able to tell me exactly why. Not just because no one else has done it well before. What exactly is wrong with the concept if executed well?
dorotea said:Can't we all even *pretend* we get along?
Nastiness just persuades anyone that isn't already committed that your position isn't worth thinking about since if it was you would give facts and explanations not attack other people that also support the game.
If the facts and explanations have already been given so you don't want to repeat them - good. Move on to another thread once this is the case - VR will read them and give them the weight they think they are worth with no need for further posts. VR will *not* decide based on the *number* of posts by any one person taking a certain position.
But geatz seems so convinced, I genuinely am trying to pull out of him exactly what is wrong with mentoring. Maybe I shouldn't be so wracked with self-doubt, but I don't like to assume I can't be wrong.
Disposalist - I don't necessarily agree with everything you say in this thread but the arguments are presented well and politely.
Greatz I find somewhat less persuasive though I don't disagree with all he says by any means. But his arguments are also presented politely.
Apologies if this is simply wrong I didn't go back to read or reread every post in the thread.
My comment was directed not at persuasiveness and not *too* much at excessive repetition in making the same point over and over. It was directed at outright nastiness and personal attacks. As in "you just respond out of boredom" "do you even support this game any more" "have you become a troll" Then the post got nastier.
Any of us that studied debating learned that ad hominum attacks - attacks on the person making an argument and NOT directed at the position that person took - are weak at best and counterproductive at worst. Yes I know they are common - far too common - in politics but I am referring to debating. Humans being humans we will see ad hominum attacks here but let's all remember we are on the same side - we all support Pantheon - and we just disagree on crtain specific issues.
dorotea said:Disposalist - I don't necessarily agree with everything you say in this thread but the arguments are presented well and politely.
Greatz I find somewhat less persuasive though I don't disagree with all he says by any means. But his arguments are also presented politely.
Apologies if this is simply wrong I didn't go back to read or reread every post in the thread.
My comment was directed not at persuasiveness and not *too* much at excessive repetition in making the same point over and over. It was directed at outright nastiness and personal attacks. As in "you just respond out of boredom" "do you even support this game any more" "have you become a troll" Then the post got nastier.
Any of us that studied debating learned that ad hominum attacks - attacks on the person making an argument and NOT directed at the position that person took - are weak at best and counterproductive at worst. Yes I know they are common - far too common - in politics but I am referring to debating. Humans being humans we will see ad hominum attacks here but let's all remember we are on the same side - we all support Pantheon - and we just disagree on crtain specific issues.
You're right, Dot. Well put.
dorotea said:Disposalist - I don't necessarily agree with everything you say in this thread but the arguments are presented well and politely.
Greatz I find somewhat less persuasive though I don't disagree with all he says by any means. But his arguments are also presented politely.
Apologies if this is simply wrong I didn't go back to read or reread every post in the thread.
My comment was directed not at persuasiveness and not *too* much at excessive repetition in making the same point over and over. It was directed at outright nastiness and personal attacks. As in "you just respond out of boredom" "do you even support this game any more" "have you become a troll" Then the post got nastier.
Any of us that studied debating learned that ad hominum attacks - attacks on the person making an argument and NOT directed at the position that person took - are weak at best and counterproductive at worst. Yes I know they are common - far too common - in politics but I am referring to debating. Humans being humans we will see ad hominum attacks here but let's all remember we are on the same side - we all support Pantheon - and we just disagree on crtain specific issues.
Ad hominum attacks can be productive tools to get them back on point. I have not heard a single argument about what i have supposed as a convenient point of topic. Yet he professes to be done with all topics except this. I am baiting so that i can hear a true argument. If i hear no argument i am done. I have made MULTIPLE POSTS to argue against and i have not seen a point of interest. I am assuming completion.
Ps: Ad hominum works on 1.5 year olds
geatz said:
Like im gonna let that go by. Here's the arguement, it's unnecessary and a waste of development time, all the tools to play with your friend are already available through other means.
Stance noted, though VR likes to be the one to decide what is and isn't a waste of development time as they've often had to remind people who say VOIP is a waste.
FAQ says they don't believe it is a waste at all, so hopefully you can play around it by making your own "NO MENTORS" exclusionary groups.
4.11 Can I play with my friend’s new character using my high-level character? What about alts?
Yes, through the Mentor System. Mentoring temporarily de-levels your character and allows you to group with them. You will either scale down or assume the character you were at that lower level (TBD) and be a huge help. This will enable players to group together without one being overpowered and content trivialized.
The Mentor System is voluntary although there will be incentives to mentor, giving your character certain advantages (points, recognition, and other rewards – the details are TBD). We want to encourage people to help new players. Additionally, there will be incentives to create alternate characters through the Progeny System (where when you reach a certain level you can create an alternate level one character who will have some advantages over a brand-new character).
Anyway, and argument remain an argument. There are two options once it's announced : You either accept it and consider it, or refuse it and discard it's point.
There is no way to convince someone that discards every arguments, simply because it's a stance that won't accept change or different ideas, thus it's not bringing anything to the table or debate. You have the rights to keep the same opinion, but if you consider false, wrong or irrelevant everything different people tell you about a specific subject, that's just a closed mindset that will remain static and sturdy.
geatz said:alright, let me rephrase it then. It's unnecessary and therefore, a waste of development time, all the tools to play with your friend are already available through other means.
I will have to agree with this statement as an overall "need" for an additional way to power-level characters, not an advocate for a mentor system myself; however personally I think if it is implemented that there should be a cap of 20 lvls or some sort of control such as if you lvl down to mentor you are not able to lvl back to your current lvl for a week or so.
Like I said before, let the new players suffer as everyone else has, no better experience than that wich is earned.