Hey guys,
Wondering your thoughts on what the meta will be for party make ups. On the streams we've seen usually 2 tanks (Machail and Aaradune as an offtank), a cc, a healer (Joppa) and 2 dps. In one of the streams, Joppa mentioned cheating a bit with the heals because he was playing Shaman and didn't have a priest with him so he was giving the priest buffs out. Do you think that needing 2 tanks and potentially 2 healers for every party realistic when in other games the trend seems to be more people wanting to play DPS? In some games that have party or raid finders they had to customize some of the content to fit like 3 healers, 2 tanks, and like 20 dps because the wait times for healers and tanks to present themselves was too long. Do you think you can squeak by with a tank, a healer, a cc/damage, and 3 dps which will burn monsters faster? I know the obvious answer is 'make more tank and healer friends' but it seems like it could be challenging to find enough to go around unless they're all super distinct and have other exciting things that draw people to play them. Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I don't have EQ1 memories to pull from. What are your ideas for tanks and healers vs dps for make ups?
I think we will usually see a standard party makeups of tank/healer/cc/3 dps as far as the roles that are fullfilled.
I am confident that most groups will be more efficient/skilled than what we tend to see on the streams once people have leveled up and learned the ins and outs of their characters. 2 tanks or 2 healers is a nice safety net that makes up for other short comings but they won't kill as quickly as having more dps.
I got the impression their groups were a little challenged in what they were fighting and also still not fully fleshed out in their capabilities. It seemed the groups for the streams were either designed for survivability for the sake of stream continuity or guest interest in playing.
I am sure there will be numerous group combination avaialbility, but it is also quite evident all group make ups will NOT be created equally. Some will be more optimum than others. As far as I am concerned, this will be a good thing. I used to get a thrill at getting a poor choice group combo and attempting targets we should not be able to win, just to see if we could.
@Miracle
"Do you think that needing 2 tanks and potentially 2 healers for every party realistic when in other games the trend seems to be more people wanting to play DPS?"
Typically that's the case in most MMOs but not all and you have to take into consideration the group size, archetypal structure, etc. Let's start where you have a game where the optimal group size and makeup is six people and in the construct of a Tank, Healer, Support/Control, DPS, DPS, DPS. That would mean HALF of all players on the server to fit that optimal group setup should be playing DPS at the least. As has been shown in numerous polls for Pantheon, that isn't the case. Now, that could change but I don't see it growing as much and if it did, I don't see it reaching the required 50% considering how detailed VR has made the Healer and Tank classes, not to mention their ability to fill a multi-role setup.
The other consideration is Pantheon combat. Think of Pantheon as less action-adventure combat and more Dungeons & Dragons combat or your CRPG (Computer Role Playing Game - aka Classic such as Baulder's Gate, NWN, Pillars of Eternity, Divnity: Original Sin). The combat is more geared to the methodical borrowing from concepts made popular in Everquest 1, Vanguard or even Vanilla WoW. For this reason, the game isn't only about burning relatively easy creatures down. Even the most mundane combat is a fight for your life where the synergy of your group using various tanking, healing, support/utility, crowd control, and dps abilities to achieve your goal. Damage only fits one of those five as the game is looking to expect all of them with roughly the same level of importance.
If the polls remain through to live, you'll have a shortage of DPS which is fine considering while they are useful for determining the speed of content, they also aren't the end-all-be-all where you manage a simplistic rotation popular during that month which you then spam ad nauseum. This method becomes monotonous and boring and has developers introducing artificial structure to challenge DPS classes. What they should have done from the start was redesign DPS and introduce challenges from within the class itself to include worrying about aggro and more emphasis on managing resources. This is in fact something Pantheon is looking to do. The goal is to make the archetype more varied and organic from within its role and to give the feeling of the interconnect between you and the mob a bit more tangibility.
In the below link are three links to three individual breakdowns I made from the polling data. Within those sheets is [SOURCE] which has the link to the actual poll results. My breakdown is on the basis if the server has that makeup, how a group of six would look. As it stands, on average a group will only be able to find 1 or 2 DPS classes for that group. I then normalized the grouping which showed the distribution of that 6th DPS slot. Healers are overwhelmingly going to be 50-80% of that meaning if the trend continues, we'll see a ton of secondary healers acting as heavy Utility with side Heals and side DPS. This is why 'Utility' is attributed to each of the classes in the 'roles' category of their sheet. All have various forms of utility which operate within, but more importantly, outside their specific archetype. What I see is a lot of Druids and Shamans operating as secondary with an emphasis on Utility which if you've read their spell sheets, the two classes are full of various utility spells.
This also applies to Tanks but less so and you can expect to see a lot of Warriors or Pallys acting as secondary and focusing more on heavy Utility with a bit of DPS such as with the Warrior or Utility with side Healing and some DPS such as with the Pally.
Pantheon won't be like your more recent MMORPGs from 2006-2018 as it's a revisitation to when the world had depth, challenge and risk. The best metaphor is people who take high risks, that feeling you get when you escape a dangerous situation, how your senses open up or become heightened. It's not quite the same but the feeling is noticable within the two types of games where you have high risk vs those without or that you can solo or play mostly as a single player game.
So, to answer your question, I would say that party makeup will have variations with only the latter end of difficulty requiring a more rigid composition such as your Tank, Healer, Support/Control, DPS, DPS, Utility/Heal/DPS. However, you will find that there's as much if not more group content outside of dungeons as in them and you'll have people trying to solo or your duos, groups of 3, 4 or 5. The content and your party makeup determines the composition. Unlike more modern MMOs, there will be content setup so any of those compositions are possible within the organic structure of event-risk.
The below link takes you to the polling data.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S3oS2Ksbltt5tA3Sf5nO6Xod4goODaPFUYPwuWfhNsU
Over the years i have seen quite a few crazy combo's. At lower levels you can get away with certain things that you wouldnt be able to at higher levels. There are still opportunities for some interesting combo's. I once was the main healer on a Beastlord to a group of SK's and Monks. Sometimes things work.
Thanks everyone for your input!!
@Janus
I have never seen these polls and I'm actually quite amazed at the outcome of these! Very impressed to see that people are so looking forward to playing healers and control classes! I appreciate the input and the work you've done to forge such a great answer.
Keep in mind, I never issued the polls. The last one for instance was given the day after the pure caster reveal which tends to skew numbers towards the classes being revealed. In that case it was the Enchanter, Summoner and Wizard.
I plan to be issuing my own regardless of what others do in targeted points of just before the end of Pre-Alpha, two during Alpha and one during Beta, possibly one just before release. That should be enough history to go by and with a trendline to follow to give the best possible outcome.
Typically as Enchanter in EQ, barring slows, and other debuffs, through Hastes, Mana regen and charm, I would out-pace a single DPS slot. If all the DPS are melee, the haste alone can come close to a single DPS class. So while that's possible, I wouldn't say in all cases it's faster. While an Enchanter for instance can out dps a DPS class through passive and direct damage, they don't stack well considering the passive approach. For that, DPS are perfect for that 4th, 5th and 6th slot.
There are so many choices based on the skill of the players. Also will depend on how many classes have CC abilities.
Traditional:
Group 1 - Tank, Heals, CC, 3 dps
Group 2 - Tank, off tank, heals, CC, 2 dps
Group 3 - Tank, main heals, off heals, CC, 2 dps
Untraditional:
Group 4 - Tank, 2 heals, 2 CC, dps
Or what I like to call So Crazy It Just Might Work...
Group 5 - who needs dps or healers, cycle cooldowns go go tanks!
Group 6 - None Of Us Will Die But Nothing Else Will Either Probably
Group 7 - 5 dps and 1 healer (otherwise known as: Healer's Worst Nightmare)
Group 8 - support 4 days (maybe we can seduce the mob to death)
Group 9 - You're A Tank And I'm A Healer Who Needs Other People Let's 2-man Everything!
Looking at it, my guess would be:
Tank
1. Paladin.
Taunts, Plate and Mitigation, Emergency Rez if the healer drops. That backup rez could be a camp saver deep in a dungeon.
Off Tank
2. Monk. Why? Emergency Taunt and tanking ability, Pulling, DPS. Two tanks would likely sink killing speed, a good monk can provide off tank duties in a pinch, and in the meantime can Feign Death pull to avoid training your group deep in a dungeon.
Healer
3. Cleric. Direct heals, HP and AC buffs, both in and out of combat resurrection spells. Seems like the healing class that provides the most insurance for tough encounters.
Crowd Control
4. Enchanter. CC, Slows, Haste. I mean, the greatest class from EQ1 still has all the OP goodies rolled into this version. And in this group, there are two combat rezzers that can get him back up when he inevitably bites the big one.
DPS/Utility
5. Summoner. Pet for Enchanter, wide range of utiltiy spells, pets, dps. The great utility class. The pets can provide extra tanking, healing, or dps. The synergy with the Enchanter brings extra DPS to the group. Wide range of utility abilities to help get the group to restricted access areas and help them stay there for an extended time.
DPS
6. Wizard. Burst dps, ports. Good synergy with Enchanter's mana regen. Ports help get the party where they want to go and out of dungeons. Most likely the best burst DPS in game for those named boss fights, competition for a mob with other groups, and moments when something needs to die fast.
philo said:I think we will usually see a standard party makeups of tank/healer/cc/3 dps as far as the roles that are fullfilled.
I am confident that most groups will be more efficient/skilled than what we tend to see on the streams once people have leveled up and learned the ins and outs of their characters. 2 tanks or 2 healers is a nice safety net that makes up for other short comings but they won't kill as quickly as having more dps.
That might be a bit different given how some of the class design is. For example, having two tanks can be pretty useful with skills like the warrior's Wall of Shields could give an added incentive to bring two along as well as having an off tank if needed. Then there's the other subskills that could aid in the environmental stuff such as the druid's Vinewoven Bridge. I think we'll probably start with that initial build for groups, but find that it tweaks as we explore the mechanics more.
Kratuk said:philo said:I think we will usually see a standard party makeups of tank/healer/cc/3 dps as far as the roles that are fullfilled.
I am confident that most groups will be more efficient/skilled than what we tend to see on the streams once people have leveled up and learned the ins and outs of their characters. 2 tanks or 2 healers is a nice safety net that makes up for other short comings but they won't kill as quickly as having more dps.
That might be a bit different given how some of the class design is. For example, having two tanks can be pretty useful with skills like the warrior's Wall of Shields could give an added incentive to bring two along as well as having an off tank if needed. Then there's the other subskills that could aid in the environmental stuff such as the druid's Vinewoven Bridge. I think we'll probably start with that initial build for groups, but find that it tweaks as we explore the mechanics more.
You and others are straying from the OPs original question. Of course there will be alternative group makeups that can work.
Do you think that needing 2 tanks and potentially 2 healers for every party realistic
I do not think that is realistic. Also note that I specifically said "as far as the roles that are fulfilled" A direlord or druid can very likely fill that dps role if there are other tanks/healer available for example. Those dps slots dont have to be wizard or rogue etc...though the exp might be better if it was.
The best group is going to be:
Warrior, Cleric, Shaman, Rogue, Rogue, Rogue.
Rogues being a pure dps class are usually going to rank at the top in regards to maximum possible dps.
Rogues also have utility when it comes to crowd control.
Warriors will be the best tank for most situations
Clerics will be the best healers for most situations
Shamans provide damage mitigation in the form of slows and synergize with melee classes very well.
If the cleric runs low on mana the shaman will backup heal for the short time needed to meditate
Just going on pure speculation, this is probably correct :
The best group is going to be:
Warrior, Cleric, Shaman, Rogue, Rogue, Rogue.
Of course, depending on the situation you may replace the shaman or cleric with an enchanter but...
The high melee dps (with little to no down time compared to mana classes) and all of the other abilities rogues bring to the table will likely make them choice #1 in the dps role.
Hide/sneak and aggro drop abilities, as well as minimal CC abilities as mentioned, combined with max or close to max dps makes rogues a no brainer to fill the dps slots.
I don't really think the rogue has a better DPS overtime than other melee for now. They all have a ressource with no downtime, and I having 3 smoke and mirrors seems lackluster. One rogue, sure, maybe two, but three ? As long as they don't outperform the others, why ?
I'd stay with a monk for pull / FD / offtank duties like mensionned earlier for at least one slot.
Naunet said:Or what I like to call So Crazy It Just Might Work...
Group 5 - who needs dps or healers, cycle cooldowns go go tanks!
Group 6 - None Of Us Will Die But Nothing Else Will Either Probably
Group 7 - 5 dps and 1 healer (otherwise known as: Healer's Worst Nightmare)
Group 8 - support 4 days (maybe we can seduce the mob to death)
Group 9 - You're A Tank And I'm A Healer Who Needs Other People Let's 2-man Everything!
Lol ...Whoa whoa!