Naunet said:Keno Monster said:There's never enough. You can't write a full story for an MMO like you can in a game like the Witcher because there is no end point, it's a living world.I disagree. MMOs represent an entire world. There's always room for new stories.
Think of the most story driven games you've ever played. A game like witcher 3 or the latest dragon quest where it's basically like you're "playing" a movie half the time. Dozens of hours of dialogue and cutscenes. And yet, 40, 60, 100 hours later, you're done. You consumed their story. 100 hours is going to be *nothing* in Pantheon. Or think of the games that are almost quite literally stories that you play, games like Alan Wake or Firewatch. They take 5-10 hours. That's the point of a single player game. An MMO "should" be about creating a virtual world, setting it up, and letting the players go. If there are little quests for flavor and lore, fine, but I don't think there should be some overarching plot that is defined by VR, that is a setup for failure in an MMO, because, as I said, it get consumed by MMO players so rapidly that they could never ever hope to keep up. Let us as players make the story as we go.
Keno Monster said:An MMO "should" be about creating a virtual world, setting it up, and letting the players go. If there are little quests for flavor and lore, fine, but I don't think there should be some overarching plot that is defined by VR, that is a setup for failure in an MMO, because, as I said, it get consumed by MMO players so rapidly that they could never ever hope to keep up. Let us as players make the story as we go.
We play MMOs in very, very different ways and value very different things in them.
I don't play single-player games for the most part. I enjoy the story in MMOs just as much as the rest of the game.
Keno Monster said: I hate that questing is going to be a big thing at all. Once people figure out where these story quest starters are, they'll just sit there and spam their investigate skill until they get it.
It's not going to be a big thing (in the way you mean), I will requote a part of my origional post:
So if there is no Quest Hubs and traditional quests will be reliant on factions and alignments, how am I supposed to get all the quest experience to level up?
Let’s go back to our Early Monk Gameplay video with CohhCarnage at 50:57 the question about grinding mobs vs questing to level up. Joppa lays it out for us.
Joppa says: “So our quest system, perception system is pretty unique. One of the decisions we made was to remove the leveling focus from our quest system, because part of what we are wanting to do is to move away from the 'On the rails' approach, that linear approach to questing. When questing is your primary way to level up then that's all you are really looking for is the next round of quests. So while there will be some quests that provide experience, the primary way you will level up in Pantheon is through combat, through vanquishing enemies. There will probably be some experience gains tied into certain, when your character gains skills in certain ways as you are progressing through the perception system for example or crafting system. We are open to the idea of tying some of those advancements into your adventuring experience. What you will not see is quest hub after quest hub filled with quests and then working through your quest journal as the fastest way to level.”
So since Questing and Perception Stories will not be a main source of Experience, then you only need to participate in Questing and Perception stories if you are interested in those stories.
Keno Monster said: I don't think "stories" should exist in a game like this. Create the world and let the players fill it and write the story themselves.
As I mentioned, there is no requirement for you to learn these stories. As you won't be limited in your progression because you don't want to do story quests. Plus you can still create your own stories if you want to. Just because VR writes stories doesn't mean these need to be the only stories. You can write the stories yourself too.
Keno Monster said: All a "story" does is require constant resources to create content that players will burn through like a single player game. There's never enough. You can't write a full story for an MMO like you can in a game like the Witcher because there is no end point, it's a living world.
I have never ever seen an MMORPG that doesn't include an overall story arc. Some people love them and get really into them, and some players simply ignore the story and just play the game as a hack and slash. That's totally fine either way. Nobody should be told how to enjoy the story. But I don't agree with you that just because there is no true end to the story because the world is ongoing, that you should just not write any story.
Keno Monster said: bind it to a movement key so their active perception ability just passively spams itself.
What if it has a casting time and a 'you must be standing still' requirement.
Keno Moster said: Everyone will find out where these perception "nodes" are.
As the VR Dev's have mentioned, they do know that eventually these kinds of things will be posted on 3rd party web sites and yes people will be able to walk directly to these spots to get the perception triggers. And if you are a player who just wants to do this, then that's totally up to you. It's just like in other games where people go find a 'Walkthrough' and then follow the guide making sure they do everything they are told as they go through the game. If this is how you want to play, it's totally valid and I'm not critical of it at all. Some people actually enjoy this.
But not everyone will play like this. Some people do love to 'figure it out on their own'. People love the surprise of coming across something interesting while they are out exploring or adventuring. If you read Joppa's explaination of how he came up with the Perception idea, he specifically talked about how he found this cool area that he was very curious about, but there was no 'story' that was available for him to learn more. So he ended up just walking away and never really thought about it again other than to ponder "I wish I could have known more".
Keno Monster said: Why go through all this trouble when you could just place unmarked quests that people could click on or otherwise interact with to start throughout the world
There will be unmarked quests that people can just interact with. Again to quote from my origional Post:
So what if I don’t choose to become a Keeper and unlock the Perception. Does this mean I can’t do quests?
To find the answer to this question we actually need to go back to the second Stream that the Dev’s did in June 2016. Aradune (aka Brad Mcquaid) is who explains this time: Early Gameplay Stream (1:27:39)
Aradune says: “To be clear, there will still be your more traditional quests. We are going to be using those for the bigger quests; the epic quests. Things that are really telling a story where you do need to do so many things in order to complete it. It’s a combination of the perception and as well as the traditional.”
I then go on to link video footage of Vress where he finds and completes (with Joppa's help) one of these Non-Perception based quests.
Keno Monster said: and move on to covering all the other super imprortant(ibid) fundamental requirements of a game this large.
I think one of the things most people are so excited about this game is the fact that they aren't really being guided to any 'fundamental requirements' in the game. If they want to find all the stories, they can do that. If they want to kill all the big named Enemies, they can do that. If they want to become the Master of crafting, they can do that. If they want to get a screenshot of every unique butterfly from each zone, they can do that. But none of these things are 'requirements'.
Nobody is telling you Keno that you must love perception and must do perception. If you don't want to... that's fine. Being a Keeper and using perception is going to be a choice. Joppa clearly said that you can play all the way through the game to max level and never even get the Perception skill. And if later you change your mind and at Max level go become a Keeper. You will still be able to go back and participate in any perception story arc you might be interested in. The choice is yours. Just because you don't become a Keeper doesn't mean you can't love Pantheon just as much as a player who does nothing but follow perception stories.
Excellent post filled with excellent feedback, ideas and criticisms so far - I love reading threads like this!
I'll just respond to one particular concern here quickly:
- Can't I just bind Investigate to my movement keys and max it out in a day?
No. While the exact mechanics of the Investigate skill are still being tuned, I can share three important pillars of how this ability will function:
1. Investigate will most likely be a channeled ability. Therefore, the player cannot Investigate while on the move.
2. Investigate will have a meaningful cooldown. The sweet spot will be short enough that you are not dissuaded from using it when you are curious about something you see, but long enough to dissuade players from spamming it every few feet.
3. This part is crucial: When you activate Investigate, it does not function like a radial, "sonar" effect. You will need to be looking at the discoverable thing, have it in your field of view, for Investigate to trigger the find.
So it's a bit more than just an 'Active' ability you click and forget. Once you activate Investigate, the your job is to use it to sniff out what's there to be found.
Not sure if I like the field of view thing. I see myself looking around trying to find it and always be wrong, especially with channeling and cool down (note that I agree with channeling and cool downs).
Maybe in close proximity?
Interesting Joppa, thanks for the clarification. I agree with this method too for obvious reasons. But I do have a question;
What about audible triggers? For example, "You hear 'something' nearby." It seems to me you might hear something without having to be facing the trigger.
Joppa said: Excellent post filled with excellent feedback, ideas and criticisms so far - I love reading threads like this!
I don't know about you guys... but when a Lead Developer calls your post 'Excellent' when it's all about the game feature he created... Well let's just say it put a big smile on my face :-)
OakKnower said: What about audible triggers? For example, "You hear 'something' nearby." It seems to me you might hear something without having to be facing the trigger.
Remember that the Investigate skill is used to find things that your passive 'insight' perception didn't notice or to gleen more information beyond that passive 'insight'. Audio triggers I think would tend to be the passively triggered kind. So the sound might trigger an 'insight' trigger, and then you may need to use 'investigate' skill to find where the sound is coming from, which is where the 'looking at the right thing' comes into play. Also, the 'investigate' skill allows you to find the interesting thing, even if you never got the 'insight' audible trigger.
I would think that two of the points Joppa brought up will also come into play...
1. Investigate will most likely be a channeled ability.
3. This part is crucial: When you activate Investigate, it does not function like a radial, "sonar" effect. You will need to be looking at the discoverable thing, have it in your field of view, for Investigate to trigger the find.
So if Investigate is channeled... you may be able to start channeling and then slowly look around at different things until the perception triggers. So if you heard the sound, and got a perception window saying "You hear a strange sound... where is it coming from?" You could stop and start channeling 'Investigate' and then pan your view around to look at the things all around you until suddenly the next perception trigger pops up when you are looking at the right thing.
I would think there may even be a duration you need to be looking at it; so you can't just rapidly spin your camera around... you have to look at the discoverable thing for at least a full second before it registers and triggers the find.
Of course you may not be able to see the right thing from where you are standing and maybe you'll need to try again from a different position. For example maybe it's on the other side of the rock your standing next to.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:So if Investigate is channeled... you may be able to start channeling and then slowly look around at different things until the perception triggers. So if you heard the sound, and got a perception window saying "You hear a strange sound... where is it coming from?" You could stop and start channeling 'Investigate' and then pan your view around to look at the things all around you until suddenly the next perception trigger pops up when you are looking at the right thing.
I would think there may even be a duration you need to be looking at it; so you can't just rapidly spin your camera around... you have to look at the discoverable thing for at least a full second before it registers and triggers the find.
Of course you may not be able to see the right thing from where you are standing and maybe you'll need to try again from a different position. For example maybe it's on the other side of the rock your standing next to.
If this is how it works I would totally agree. Click the ability, it takes a few seconds to "cast" as its a channelled ability. Then it becomes "active" for say 20-30 seconds and allows you to move around with heightened sensativity to your surrounings as you "investigate" the que your passive perception triggered.
Example: As walking through the woods perception triggers a message, "the smell of rotten flesh permeates the air". Click Investigate, becomes active, you search around places that may hide clues. Something that makes sense in relation to the clue, like a boulder that has fallen from a nearby cliff, crushing someone/some creature. As you look at the boulder it becomes clear what has happened and the smell is eminating from the corpse that has been here for just a short while, but long enough to start stinking.
From there a myriad of directions can be taken to open a quest line. For instance, upon further investigation you find a satchel containg a sealed note, bearing the seal of some unknown origin. Then you have to figure out the origin etc...
vigilantee13 said: Click the ability, it takes a few seconds to "cast" as its a channelled ability. Then it becomes "active" for say 20-30 seconds and allows you to move around with heightened sensativity to your surrounings as you "investigate" the que your passive perception triggered.
This is not how a 'channeled' ability works. A Channeled ability means that the effect only occurs while you maintain the 'casting'.
Let's use an example comparison from World of Warcraft:
Slow spell cast by Mages: Reduces movement speed of the target by 50% for 15 seconds.
Instant Cast
You cast the spell and then the 15s duration applies and you can go on casting other spells in the mean time.
Mind Flay cast by Shadow Priests: Causes % of Spell Power damage and Reduces movement speed of the target by 50%.
Channeled (3 second cast)
The slow effect is only active while you are actively casting the spell. If you end the spell early (before the 3 seconds) the slow effect is ended as well.
Joppa said: Investigate will most likely be a channeled ability. Therefore, the player cannot Investigate while on the move.
This means that for the effect to be maintained you need to continue casting. He also clarifies that you cannot be moving while the investigate is in effect. So therefore, your idea of 'casting' the ability and then being able to 'move around' to explore is directly counter to how he just explained it.
Joppa said:Excellent post filled with excellent feedback, ideas and criticisms so far - I love reading threads like this!
I'll just respond to one particular concern here quickly:
- Can't I just bind Investigate to my movement keys and max it out in a day?
No. While the exact mechanics of the Investigate skill are still being tuned, I can share three important pillars of how this ability will function:
1. Investigate will most likely be a channeled ability. Therefore, the player cannot Investigate while on the move.
2. Investigate will have a meaningful cooldown. The sweet spot will be short enough that you are not dissuaded from using it when you are curious about something you see, but long enough to dissuade players from spamming it every few feet.
3. This part is crucial: When you activate Investigate, it does not function like a radial, "sonar" effect. You will need to be looking at the discoverable thing, have it in your field of view, for Investigate to trigger the find.
So it's a bit more than just an 'Active' ability you click and forget. Once you activate Investigate, the your job is to use it to sniff out what's there to be found.
Excellent
Kiera said:Joppa said:Excellent post filled with excellent feedback, ideas and criticisms so far - I love reading threads like this!
I'll just respond to one particular concern here quickly:
- Can't I just bind Investigate to my movement keys and max it out in a day?
No. While the exact mechanics of the Investigate skill are still being tuned, I can share three important pillars of how this ability will function:
1. Investigate will most likely be a channeled ability. Therefore, the player cannot Investigate while on the move.
2. Investigate will have a meaningful cooldown. The sweet spot will be short enough that you are not dissuaded from using it when you are curious about something you see, but long enough to dissuade players from spamming it every few feet.
3. This part is crucial: When you activate Investigate, it does not function like a radial, "sonar" effect. You will need to be looking at the discoverable thing, have it in your field of view, for Investigate to trigger the find.
So it's a bit more than just an 'Active' ability you click and forget. Once you activate Investigate, the your job is to use it to sniff out what's there to be found.
Excellent really happy to see you guys thinking things through carefully and fixing issues before they come up.
((3. This part is crucial: When you activate Investigate, it does not function like a radial, "sonar" effect. You will need to be looking at the discoverable thing, have it in your field of view, for Investigate to trigger the find.))
I can think of two ways this clearly will work well.
1. There is an object that you are investigating to see if maybe there is something there that isn't obvious. It would make no sense to turn your back on it to investigate unless you are a race with sensory organs on your ar ....er .... on the back of your head.
2. You get some indication that there may be something in a certain direction. "You think you hear something a bit unusual slightly to the southeast".
If there is nothing whatever that should logically direct your attention in a particular direction I am not at all enthusuastic about having to spend an hour (remember that cooldown) every time you see a spot that *may* be interesting looking in all directions. Especially if the field of effect of investigate is a small angle and it will be *so* easy to use it 10 times but it turns out that as you turned you lagged or were just a tiny bit off and missed 25 degrees out of the 360 degree circle you turned. The 25 degrees that had the interesting item.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:
Conclusion
So now you’ve read through all of this and you’ve watched the video clips and you feel you have a better sense of Perception. Let’s conclude with one final Video that VR has put out that sums up pretty much everything we have seen so far.
The Perception System in Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen.
One thing mentioned here that was not clearly defined in any of the above video clips is found at 1:34 where it says:
“A wizard may be see something that a warrior can not. Through prayer a Cleric may be able to gain insight about an area or enemy that a rogue may never know.”
Your Race and your Class can open up or limit what perception stuff you will see.
What intruiges me about this is that I get the impression that a group could adventure in a dungeon and come up with different perception hints that would generate different stories. Stories that only the character would know. Imagine the conversation of the warrior " woops! get that?" - get what?- "that perception hint" - what hint?!?!?- "something about a ..." suddenly the player who is playing the warrior is telling the group a story about a forge or something in amberfaet. As a group member I might be intruiged and would want to help said warior pursue those goals. Likewise the cleric may get something else but would have to share- or choose not to!. Maybe only share that perception clue with her normal group or guildies, running back to the guild hall and stating they were just in this dungeon with a PuG and got this message about a lost soul begging for redemption in a shrine to the east. How far east was not clear for all that is east of us is ocean!.