I touched on this in another thread but think it deserves its own.
I always hate jumping into a new game and seeing the starter zones dead. It immediately makes one think "ohh man should I invest all this time into a dying game?" I hope Pantheon brings back the starter zone roaming random spawn mobs that are worthy of end game players to be killing. Give them a rare chance to drop something cool. This way when new folks log in they are seeing some action when these spawn. And also fearing for their life as these things will one shot you if they sneak up on you. Being scared back in the day is also what made it so much fun.
Also hope you follow EQ's lead and have end game craftable's needing mats from low level mobs. (WTB Stack of bone chips) That way newcomers could have the chance to farm and get a little coin if they wanted too maybe even making a friend from a repeat buyer. Having the trades happen being face to face would help this socialization.
So do you love to see an active and busy starter zone? Wouldn't it be cool to save the newbies from what ever epic mob was stomping around in the forest killing them all? ha ha
What do you guys think?
Totally agree. The world should be designed as ... a world, and not as "disposable" zones you go through once and are done with. For the newbie starting area zones, simply have a reason for the high level folks to return (to sell, barter, train, path through on the way to somewhere else, rest, etc...).
Keep the world alive. Foster interdependency, and the community will thrive, too.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, however I believe this is exactly what they are aiming for, a world to live in and not quest hubs with no real meaning to them. Hopefully it will be a nice refreshing change from the last 10 years of games.
I agree 100% on keeping old zones relevant however i don't like simple easy gimmee loot to make it happen.
I prefer SYSTEMS in games,create some drop systems that lead to something bigger.
A perfect example is who needs a level 99 weapon when you can upgrade a level 1 with cool glowing auras and stats that befit or are better than a 99 weapon.The difference of course is the 99 weapon OR gear can just be had via some BOSS ,so it is set in stone,however a level 1 or what ever level gear is upgraded over time through ALL the zones ,takes more work and gives a better end result.
Now you cannot achieve that properly if you start scaling down players,that idea is imo a very lazy approach.The way you do it is via sub class design,that way players WANT to go back to old zones to level up other classes on their same player.Another idea missing from most games is an xp lock,so that if you do want to stay in that low zone as a level 5 to get the drops you should have that choice.I mention the xp/level lock because drops should have a set CHALLENGE to attain them,you should not get viable drops as a level 99 player killing level 3 bees.However if you want to change gear and go out as a level 3 Mage and lock your xp because you know the Bees have a drop you want,then your good to go.
Yes it creates a grind,but with a good reason and allows your player to grow as well as gear and weapons and can even involve items.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I agree 100% on keeping old zones relevant however i don't like simple easy gimmee loot to make it happen.
I prefer SYSTEMS in games,create some drop systems that lead to something bigger.
A perfect example is who needs a level 99 weapon when you can upgrade a level 1 with cool glowing auras and stats that befit or are better than a 99 weapon.The difference of course is the 99 weapon OR gear can just be had via some BOSS ,so it is set in stone,however a level 1 or what ever level gear is upgraded over time through ALL the zones ,takes more work and gives a better end result.
Now you cannot achieve that properly if you start scaling down players,that idea is imo a very lazy approach.The way you do it is via sub class design,that way players WANT to go back to old zones to level up other classes on their same player.Another idea missing from most games is an xp lock,so that if you do want to stay in that low zone as a level 5 to get the drops you should have that choice.I mention the xp/level lock because drops should have a set CHALLENGE to attain them,you should not get viable drops as a level 99 player killing level 3 bees.However if you want to change gear and go out as a level 3 Mage and lock your xp because you know the Bees have a drop you want,then your good to go.
Yes it creates a grind,but with a good reason and allows your player to grow as well as gear and weapons and can even involve items.
I'm against all of the aforementioned artificial restrictions. If a player kills something of any level, it should drop whatever its supposed to drop. A player is what they are, and a mob should be what it is. Trivial loot codes and mentoring are complete immersion breakers and have no place in a virtual world, imo.
Originally posted by ReallyNow10
Oh, I'm not saying Smed is not doing this with Pantheon. I was just stating some general points, that the world needs to be ... sort of continuing, always relevant and populated. Nothing kills a game faster than dead noobie zones.
Smed isn't doing anything with Pantheon. ;p I'm guessing you meant Brad.
I'm against all of the aforementioned artificial restrictions. If a player kills something of any level, it should drop whatever its supposed to drop. A player is what they are, and a mob should be what it is. Trivial loot codes and mentoring are complete immersion breakers and have no place in a virtual world, imo.
I don't understand the idea that it is artificial. It seems more artificial that someone so powerful that can easily stomp an NPC leaves it's equipment unscathed. Seem like it would be more immersive if you looted a broken sword of awsomeness that doesn't perform anywhere as well as regular sword of awsomeness one might get if the opponent were more evenly matched.
Just don't make them "beginner" zones, make them new starter zones.
Make 3 or 4 cities more friendly to new players with more things for them to do. But have high level stuff there as well.
This way new players will just be in "a city" as opposed to "a special place tuned only for them".
Thats what EQN is doing. Starting areas will still have content for top tier chars. There are so many ways to make stater zones worth playing again and more MMOs need to do that. I would love to see games move to horizontal progression. Large level gaps IMO are not needed now days.
I'm not sure what you mean by large level gaps.
Lets take WoW as most know it well. Think of a level 100 coming to a newbe area. He hit a wolf 97 levels lower then his char and smokes it for 230k damage and it dies in a blink of an eye. Now lets lower that level gap between starting areas and a top level char. Make it 4 levels. Now a top level char thats level 4 goes to the starter area and attacks a wolf. Its not hard but it takes a few more hits to kill a wolf. The danger level of running though a pack of wolves is still dangerous enough the risk/fun factor is still there. Then add in some level 4 mobs on the map that level 1 chars need to watch out for, maybe a few bosses and you have a fun magic zone. Now you have top level chars and low level chars mixing it up.
IMO we need to stop playing games to level, we need to start playing them for fun. Why create 90% of your content for leveling when a few months down the road 90% of your players are crammed into 10% of your top level zones? IMO if devs can start moving towards horizontal progression that would be even better.
Got it. Sounds like the horizontal leveling the developers were talking about.
To be honest I don't disagree with the concept, but the solution of fewer levels seemed like just one of several ways to accomplish the same exact thing. The problem, as I see it is the difficulty curve for mobs. Lets take EQ for example, if you are level 25, then a mob three levels above you, at level 28, is red, which means you can hardly land spells and you miss it most of the time you try to hit it. If you get a group together and one player is level 30 and another 25 then it is a difficult situation because you either fight stuff near the level 30s level and the 25 is no real help, or you fight stuff near the level 25 and it is too easy and not much experience for the level 30.
One solution is to just make fewer levels and stay in them longer. And that is what it sounds like the developers are thinking about. That way if you have 25 levels that take 2x as long, then you'll have 2x as many players at each level. The thing is, it seems to me like levels are somewhat arbitrary. You could have 25 internal levels, but multiply by 2x so that the UI reports internal level 25 as level 50.
However, another alternative is to just flatten the difficulty curve. If not being able to do much damage to something three levels above you is too restricting, why not just change the formula so now what was 3 levels is now 6. Now the level 25 player only sees level 31 mobs as red. He can group with a level 30 and they can fight stuff much closer to the level of the level 30 player.
What can you hate most that returning to starter zones to do quests ... -.- Events, Events and Events. A good game should have so many different events every week, that makes players go to every single zone again and again and again and again.
Good Stuff: Jumping Event, Exploring Event. Treasure Hunt Event, Boss Event, Secret Zone Event, Mods one hit everyone for no reason event. Super secret mobs event. Secret NPC event. New pop up zone event. Train across the sky event. A huge maze above the entire game where you have to walk on a path and if you fall down you die. Transformation Event. Event of all Events , etc.
EVENTS.
EDIT: Now that i think about it, only reason i played WoW IS because i was on a server where there were tons and tons of events. I never had a single day of non fun because there were so much happenings all the time, and the moderators could do whatever they wanted to the server. I still remember that time where one moderator litteraly was riding illidan and killing everone in Stormwind.
And i never leveled more than lvl 30, because i was enjoying the game so much i did not need to keep hrinding like everyone else. And i finnaly played a game for more than a week!
Some good examples of this has been from EQ as said by the OP along with other posters here. a few examples:
Hillgiants - these were a great mob to kill for coins and they were like level 40 or somthing but they spawns and roamed lvl 20-25 or so area's (Keep you on your toes when level which was nice)
Gnoll Courier in Blackburrow - This lvl 30 or so mob would spawn every hour or so at the start of black burrow (lvl 7-16 or so zone) run his way down to the bottom of black and despawn (basicly a messager from splitpaw higher level gnoll zone to blackburrow) he drops 4 components needed for a quest for the gnoll bashing glub which was very nice dmg to any gnoll mob so you will often have lvl 30 or so people drop by asking for lowbies the last time they saw him spawn so he could get him (Sometime staying in the zone lending a hand to newbies he see while he waits.
Guards - Yes guards u could attack pretty much any NPC in the game although they come with faction gain or loss depending on the faction of the NPC often these guards would have reasonable loot or required an item for a quests from the enemy faction and what not, HK farming guards for fine steel swords to sell anyone Also u wouldnt be able 2 sell in the zone anymore so somtimes u get people selling items worth 5p to a vender for like 4p to a player so they could sell em for them so he could keep farming
Almost every zone had higher lvl mobs that may or may not have been agressive to you than you would think that had some benefit for higher lvl players to kill that coupled with the crafting resources or components for spell coming from low end mobs needed in high end recipes still its added alot of traffic to low end zones. Also with merchant selling items that gets sold to them alot of the time players would just be browsing merchants to see if anyone sold anything worth a value to them that they need for things for examples wolf pelts or somtimes even armor drops that they dont need anymore.
I'm against all of the aforementioned artificial restrictions. If a player kills something of any level, it should drop whatever its supposed to drop. A player is what they are, and a mob should be what it is. Trivial loot codes and mentoring are complete immersion breakers and have no place in a virtual world, imo.
I don't understand the idea that it is artificial. It seems more artificial that someone so powerful that can easily stomp an NPC leaves it's equipment unscathed. Seem like it would be more immersive if you looted a broken sword of awsomeness that doesn't perform anywhere as well as regular sword of awsomeness one might get if the opponent were more evenly matched.
Magically turning a player lower level (mentoring), is artificial. You don't suddenly become younger or less adept at skills you've acquired in the real world.
Magically removing items that someone has when you kill them is artificial. Even if you are more skillful or powerful, you don't have to completely decimate it to defeat it in combat. If you want to create that kind of restriction (EQ had spells and abilities that did that (Assassinate & Disintegrate)), a player should still have the option of using less powerful abilities to preserve the loot without having a hard-coded artificial restriction based purely on level.
Magically turning a player lower level (mentoring), is artificial. You don't suddenly become younger or less adept at skills you've acquired in the real world.
Agreed I don't like mentoring and would never suggest it.
Originally posted by Dullahan
Magically removing items that someone has when you kill them is artificial. Even if you are more skillful or powerful, you don't have to completely decimate it to defeat it in combat. If you want to create that kind of restriction (EQ had spells and abilities that did that (Assassinate & Disintegrate)), a player should still have the option of using less powerful abilities to preserve the loot without having a hard-coded artificial restriction based purely on level.
I wouldn't remove the items. We've had this argument before, and will probably just have to agree to disagree, or mayby I'll just keep at it until I wear you down However, I don't understand why trivial experience code is fundamental to the game, but trivial loot code is an issue since they both serve the same purpose. I just don't buy the argument that a hard coded restriction on experience that won't let you get experience at all from an easy kill is not at all artificial or immersion breaking, but a hard coded restriction that can nerf an item the second time you loot it if the kill was too easy is artificial and immersion breaking. Lets just say I don't really understand what makes some players differentiate experience from items. both are a part of a characters growth and both should require risk, in some form to obtain.
Magically turning a player lower level (mentoring), is artificial. You don't suddenly become younger or less adept at skills you've acquired in the real world.
Agreed I don't like mentoring and would never suggest it.
Originally posted by Dullahan
Magically removing items that someone has when you kill them is artificial. Even if you are more skillful or powerful, you don't have to completely decimate it to defeat it in combat. If you want to create that kind of restriction (EQ had spells and abilities that did that (Assassinate & Disintegrate)), a player should still have the option of using less powerful abilities to preserve the loot without having a hard-coded artificial restriction based purely on level.
I wouldn't remove the items. We've had this argument before, and will probably just have to agree to disagree, or mayby I'll just keep at it until I wear you down However, I don't understand why trivial experience code is fundamental to the game, but trivial loot code is an issue since they both serve the same purpose. I just don't buy the argument that a hard coded restriction on experience that won't let you get experience at all from an easy kill is not at all artificial or immersion breaking, but a hard coded restriction that can nerf an item the second time you loot it if the kill was too easy is artificial and immersion breaking. Lets just say I don't really understand what makes some players differentiate experience from items. both are a part of a characters growth and both should require risk, in some form to obtain.
The answer is because of elements of realism. Think of real life parallels, and the answer is pretty clear, at least to me. Its a matter of proving yourself.
In real life, you train in a martial art, but once you master all the forms you must prove yourself in combat to demonstrate your comprehension and ability to apply your training. You can kick and punch the air all day, but it no longer yields you a new belt. Neither does defeating the unskilled. In sports you can beat low ranked amateur teams all day, but if you do so every day for many years, never losing a match, you are not awarded the Championship trophy. You have to compete with the big boys to "rank up." That simple.
As far as loot goes, if an entity has something, they just have it. Your personal status doesn't change that.
Its not a matter of right or wrong, its just elements of realism and preference. Which ones to choose, which not.
Magically turning a player lower level (mentoring), is artificial. You don't suddenly become younger or less adept at skills you've acquired in the real world.
Agreed I don't like mentoring and would never suggest it.
Originally posted by Dullahan
Magically removing items that someone has when you kill them is artificial. Even if you are more skillful or powerful, you don't have to completely decimate it to defeat it in combat. If you want to create that kind of restriction (EQ had spells and abilities that did that (Assassinate & Disintegrate)), a player should still have the option of using less powerful abilities to preserve the loot without having a hard-coded artificial restriction based purely on level.
I wouldn't remove the items. We've had this argument before, and will probably just have to agree to disagree, or mayby I'll just keep at it until I wear you down However, I don't understand why trivial experience code is fundamental to the game, but trivial loot code is an issue since they both serve the same purpose. I just don't buy the argument that a hard coded restriction on experience that won't let you get experience at all from an easy kill is not at all artificial or immersion breaking, but a hard coded restriction that can nerf an item the second time you loot it if the kill was too easy is artificial and immersion breaking. Lets just say I don't really understand what makes some players differentiate experience from items. both are a part of a characters growth and both should require risk, in some form to obtain.
The answer is because of elements of realism. Think of real life parallels, and the answer is pretty clear, at least to me. Its a matter of proving yourself.
In real life, you train in a martial art, but once you master all the forms you must prove yourself in combat to demonstrate your comprehension and ability to apply your training. You can kick and punch the air all day, but it no longer yields you a new belt. Neither does defeating the unskilled. In sports you can beat low ranked amateur teams all day, but if you do so every day for many years, never losing a match, you are not awarded the Championship trophy. You have to compete with the big boys to "rank up." That simple.
As far as loot goes, if an entity has something, they just have it. Your personal status doesn't change that.
Its not a matter of right or wrong, its just elements of realism and preference. Which ones to choose, which not.
Dullahan, that makes perfect sense and it perfectly logical except for one small detail: there's no realistic way of explaining how you know with perfect knowledge what he is supposed to drop. Even if you see an item on him there's no explanation as to why you would have perfect knowledge that the item you see is the one you want.and not some other item. In fact in the case of rare drops you don't really have an expectation that the item would drop over any given time period.
The reality is what you know or don't know about his pattern of drops is known because of what the game is designed for him to do, which makes the argument somewhat circular. It breaks immersion for you because of your expectation and your expectation is a result of how he is programmed including the lack trivial loot code. If it was widely known that he doesn't always drop the item or that if you were to high a level it would sometimes destroy the item then player expectations would change, and it would become immersion breaking for him to drop the item in a situation where he normally doesn't,
Theres nothing circular about it at all. You are trying to relegate what I'm saying to game mechanics, when they are derived from the way things actually work. Making something work in a unrealistic way will never be accepted as realistic, thus no one will have their immersion broken if those artificial mechanics were removed. Then you try to confuse the matter by talking about mystery regarding loot tables when those things are only a mystery for a very short time.
If you like artificial restrictions thats fine. If powerful abilities on weak mobs were known to destroy a mobs loot, thats cool, and a better and more interesting/realistic solution, but ultimately players will just know to use lower level abilities on lower level mobs (which could actually add more challenge). However, just throwing a hard coded rule in that says, "Nope, not gonna let you have that item, you are too high" is silly to me. To each his own. I can assure you though, trying to convince me otherwise is not going to happen.
Originally posted by ArtificeVenatus Actually, Mentoring is one of the few artificial systems that are good, on the basis of keeping friends together without trivializing content.
Of course it trivializes content. If not because of player strength, simply by their experience.
Name a game where mentoring existed that didn't trivialize content, and please don't say EQ2. In EQ2 it pretty much ruined the entire game for me. I started with a couple of buddies, and we were doing some of the earlier dungeons. We were having a great time trying to be super careful and create strategies to accomplish anything. Then a guy rolled in and mentored down. He basically soloed the entire dungeon while we followed him around. I gained countless levels that night, more than I had in the entire previous week. It was so fast, it made powerleveling in EQ1 seem slow.
Originally posted by ArtificeVenatus Actually, Mentoring is one of the few artificial systems that are good, on the basis of keeping friends together without trivializing content.
Of course it trivializes content. If not because of player strength, simply by their experience.
Name a game where mentoring existed that didn't trivialize content, and please don't say EQ2. In EQ2 it pretty much ruined the entire game for me. I started with a couple of buddies, and we were doing some of the earlier dungeons. We were having a great time trying to be super careful and create strategies to accomplish anything. Then a guy rolled in and mentored down. He basically soloed the entire dungeon while we followed him around. I gained countless levels that night, more than I had in the entire previous week. It was so fast, it made powerleveling in EQ1 seem slow.
This is just my opinion, but I didn't like the concept of mentoring from the start. In a game centered on progression and building your character it just seemed wrong to suddenly be a different level. It also didn't seem like a real solution since it would inevitably lead to you outleveling your friends even more and never really playing as your real level with your friends.
Originally posted by ArtificeVenatus Actually, Mentoring is one of the few artificial systems that are good, on the basis of keeping friends together without trivializing content.
Of course it trivializes content. If not because of player strength, simply by their experience.
Name a game where mentoring existed that didn't trivialize content, and please don't say EQ2. In EQ2 it pretty much ruined the entire game for me. I started with a couple of buddies, and we were doing some of the earlier dungeons. We were having a great time trying to be super careful and create strategies to accomplish anything. Then a guy rolled in and mentored down. He basically soloed the entire dungeon while we followed him around. I gained countless levels that night, more than I had in the entire previous week. It was so fast, it made powerleveling in EQ1 seem slow.
This is just my opinion, but I didn't like the concept of mentoring from the start. In a game centered on progression and building your character it just seemed wrong to suddenly be a different level. It also didn't seem like a real solution since it would inevitably lead to you outleveling your friends even more and never really playing as your real level with your friends.
Okay, lemme rephrase...
1. Mentoring implemented correctly should not trivialize content.
2. The concept of Mentoring makes perfect sense from the perspective of truly teaching someone as a pupil of yours. As a teacher with certain integrity, you are not looking to give your pupil the answers. You are not looking to do the work or solve the problems for that pupil. You would "lower yourself" to being more of a "watcher," instead of a "peer," allowing the pupil to provide the solutions. As a teacher, you would present the problems. Given a properly implemented Mentoring system, the teacher would be able to assist a pupil, but should not be able to just roll through content.
I actually had a small discussion with Montresseur about this subject on Twitch and he assured that there will be reasons for higher levels to return to lower level zones. The more I see/read/hear/discuss the more I am very excited to play Pantheon.
Originally posted by ArtificeVenatus Actually, Mentoring is one of the few artificial systems that are good, on the basis of keeping friends together without trivializing content.
Of course it trivializes content. If not because of player strength, simply by their experience.
Name a game where mentoring existed that didn't trivialize content, and please don't say EQ2. In EQ2 it pretty much ruined the entire game for me. I started with a couple of buddies, and we were doing some of the earlier dungeons. We were having a great time trying to be super careful and create strategies to accomplish anything. Then a guy rolled in and mentored down. He basically soloed the entire dungeon while we followed him around. I gained countless levels that night, more than I had in the entire previous week. It was so fast, it made powerleveling in EQ1 seem slow.
This is just my opinion, but I didn't like the concept of mentoring from the start. In a game centered on progression and building your character it just seemed wrong to suddenly be a different level. It also didn't seem like a real solution since it would inevitably lead to you outleveling your friends even more and never really playing as your real level with your friends.
Okay, lemme rephrase...
1. Mentoring implemented correctly should not trivialize content.
2. The concept of Mentoring makes perfect sense from the perspective of truly teaching someone as a pupil of yours. As a teacher with certain integrity, you are not looking to give your pupil the answers. You are not looking to do the work or solve the problems for that pupil. You would "lower yourself" to being more of a "watcher," instead of a "peer," allowing the pupil to provide the solutions. As a teacher, you would present the problems. Given a properly implemented Mentoring system, the teacher would be able to assist a pupil, but should not be able to just roll through content.
Learning by way of communication is mentoring enough for me. I ask in chat how to do something, they tell me, I go on my way and learn the rest from experience.
I wish there was a reasonable way for high level players to play with low levels simply because my brother was always more hardcore in EQ and out leveled me, but mentoring system have always been a failure to me. Perhaps if one was done correctly, but what is correctly exactly? Like other examples, it's probably not the same for me as it is for you.
Mentoring is touchy subject, and one that is *very* difficulty to implement correctly. We probably don't want it implemented at launch, leaving the system unavailable until later in the games life.
I have thought about mentoring in the past, in the general sense, and considered many different solutions.
Snapshot a character as they level. All future mentoring is based off the stats and abilities available to the character at this point in time
data intensive
no benefit from high level gear or abilities
encourages gearing and developing characters at all levels
Impose stat / mitigation / dps caps while mentored
uses expected average values
highly geared / developed characters at level will be stronger
places no incentive on mentoring player to develop at lower levels
Reduction of stats via algorithm
extraordinary gear obtained at higher level may result in overpowered characters
algorithms need to be adjusted every time there is a gear / level increase
higher level abilities typically remain usable while mentored
I personally would favor the first option, but many will hate it. It would be brutal on characters that advanced rapidly without gearing up and may cause issues later in the games life if mudflation occurs.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
Mentoring is touchy subject, and one that is *very* difficulty to implement correctly. We probably don't want it implemented at launch, leaving the system unavailable until later in the games life.
I have thought about mentoring in the past, in the general sense, and considered many different solutions.
Snapshot a character as they level. All future mentoring is based off the stats and abilities available to the character at this point in time
data intensive
no benefit from high level gear or abilities
encourages gearing and developing characters at all levels
Impose stat / mitigation / dps caps while mentored
uses expected average values
highly geared / developed characters at level will be stronger
places no incentive on mentoring player to develop at lower levels
Reduction of stats via algorithm
extraordinary gear obtained at higher level may result in overpowered characters
algorithms need to be adjusted every time there is a gear / level increase
higher level abilities typically remain usable while mentored
I personally would favor the first option, but many will hate it. It would be brutal on characters that advanced rapidly without gearing up and may cause issues later in the games life if mudflation occurs.
I don't think a snapshot would be necessary. Each level has a limited set of skills/abilities/stats that the character can use anyway. Just make the character THAT level when they're mentoring. (I would rather not have it, but might as well contribute to ideas).
Learning by way of communication is mentoring enough for me. I ask in chat how to do something, they tell me, I go on my way and learn the rest from experience.
I wish there was a reasonable way for high level players to play with low levels simply because my brother was always more hardcore in EQ and out leveled me, but mentoring system have always been a failure to me. Perhaps if one was done correctly, but what is correctly exactly? Like other examples, it's probably not the same for me as it is for you.
"Correctly" would be that the mentoring character would be lowered to the pupil, in such a way, the mentoring character can play their role but basically at the level they are mentoring down to. Perhaps there is a way that the mentoring character can be adjusted, "based on the pupil / based on being tied to the pupil" while mentoring? Gear and skills would be the biggest issue if I had to guess. Mentoring certainly should not allow the character to still be able to roll through encounters at the pupil's level.
Mentoring is touchy subject, and one that is *very* difficulty to implement correctly. We probably don't want it implemented at launch, leaving the system unavailable until later in the games life.
I have thought about mentoring in the past, in the general sense, and considered many different solutions.
Snapshot a character as they level. All future mentoring is based off the stats and abilities available to the character at this point in time
data intensive
no benefit from high level gear or abilities
encourages gearing and developing characters at all levels
Impose stat / mitigation / dps caps while mentored
uses expected average values
highly geared / developed characters at level will be stronger
places no incentive on mentoring player to develop at lower levels
Reduction of stats via algorithm
extraordinary gear obtained at higher level may result in overpowered characters
algorithms need to be adjusted every time there is a gear / level increase
higher level abilities typically remain usable while mentored
I personally would favor the first option, but many will hate it. It would be brutal on characters that advanced rapidly without gearing up and may cause issues later in the games life if mudflation occurs.
I don't think a snapshot would be necessary. Each level has a limited set of skills/abilities/stats that the character can use anyway. Just make the character THAT level when they're mentoring. (I would rather not have it, but might as well contribute to ideas).
I think the point of a snapshot is that you don't get all that gear you obtained at higher levels. To me that just makes sense. If mentoring were done, and I'm not sure with their leveling system if it will be needed, I think I'd prefer to see it done that way, you go back to the abilities and gear you had at that level.
While i understand why mentoring is liked,... i never saw a mentoring system that did not trivialize content, or made sense from a RPG standpoint.
Personally not a fan of mentoring at all. Just tag along your friends and powerlevel them, or help them by splitting spawns... buffing them... whatever. Again, just not a fan of the mentoring idea and would not be unhappy if it never made it into the game. Not a dealbreaker to me tho.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Mentoring is touchy subject, and one that is *very* difficulty to implement correctly. We probably don't want it implemented at launch, leaving the system unavailable until later in the games life.
I have thought about mentoring in the past, in the general sense, and considered many different solutions.
Snapshot a character as they level. All future mentoring is based off the stats and abilities available to the character at this point in time
data intensive
no benefit from high level gear or abilities
encourages gearing and developing characters at all levels
Impose stat / mitigation / dps caps while mentored
uses expected average values
highly geared / developed characters at level will be stronger
places no incentive on mentoring player to develop at lower levels
Reduction of stats via algorithm
extraordinary gear obtained at higher level may result in overpowered characters
algorithms need to be adjusted every time there is a gear / level increase
higher level abilities typically remain usable while mentored
I personally would favor the first option, but many will hate it. It would be brutal on characters that advanced rapidly without gearing up and may cause issues later in the games life if mudflation occurs.
I don't think a snapshot would be necessary. Each level has a limited set of skills/abilities/stats that the character can use anyway. Just make the character THAT level when they're mentoring. (I would rather not have it, but might as well contribute to ideas).
I think the point of a snapshot is that you don't get all that gear you obtained at higher levels. To me that just makes sense. If mentoring were done, and I'm not sure with their leveling system if it will be needed, I think I'd prefer to see it done that way, you go back to the abilities and gear you had at that level.
Who says you don't get to use the gear you obtain at higher levels? Twinking will be a thing in Pantheon.
Comments
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, however I believe this is exactly what they are aiming for, a world to live in and not quest hubs with no real meaning to them. Hopefully it will be a nice refreshing change from the last 10 years of games.
I agree 100% on keeping old zones relevant however i don't like simple easy gimmee loot to make it happen.
I prefer SYSTEMS in games,create some drop systems that lead to something bigger.
A perfect example is who needs a level 99 weapon when you can upgrade a level 1 with cool glowing auras and stats that befit or are better than a 99 weapon.The difference of course is the 99 weapon OR gear can just be had via some BOSS ,so it is set in stone,however a level 1 or what ever level gear is upgraded over time through ALL the zones ,takes more work and gives a better end result.
Now you cannot achieve that properly if you start scaling down players,that idea is imo a very lazy approach.The way you do it is via sub class design,that way players WANT to go back to old zones to level up other classes on their same player.Another idea missing from most games is an xp lock,so that if you do want to stay in that low zone as a level 5 to get the drops you should have that choice.I mention the xp/level lock because drops should have a set CHALLENGE to attain them,you should not get viable drops as a level 99 player killing level 3 bees.However if you want to change gear and go out as a level 3 Mage and lock your xp because you know the Bees have a drop you want,then your good to go.
Yes it creates a grind,but with a good reason and allows your player to grow as well as gear and weapons and can even involve items.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I'm against all of the aforementioned artificial restrictions. If a player kills something of any level, it should drop whatever its supposed to drop. A player is what they are, and a mob should be what it is. Trivial loot codes and mentoring are complete immersion breakers and have no place in a virtual world, imo.
Smed isn't doing anything with Pantheon. ;p I'm guessing you meant Brad.
I don't understand the idea that it is artificial. It seems more artificial that someone so powerful that can easily stomp an NPC leaves it's equipment unscathed. Seem like it would be more immersive if you looted a broken sword of awsomeness that doesn't perform anywhere as well as regular sword of awsomeness one might get if the opponent were more evenly matched.
Got it. Sounds like the horizontal leveling the developers were talking about.
To be honest I don't disagree with the concept, but the solution of fewer levels seemed like just one of several ways to accomplish the same exact thing. The problem, as I see it is the difficulty curve for mobs. Lets take EQ for example, if you are level 25, then a mob three levels above you, at level 28, is red, which means you can hardly land spells and you miss it most of the time you try to hit it. If you get a group together and one player is level 30 and another 25 then it is a difficult situation because you either fight stuff near the level 30s level and the 25 is no real help, or you fight stuff near the level 25 and it is too easy and not much experience for the level 30.
One solution is to just make fewer levels and stay in them longer. And that is what it sounds like the developers are thinking about. That way if you have 25 levels that take 2x as long, then you'll have 2x as many players at each level. The thing is, it seems to me like levels are somewhat arbitrary. You could have 25 internal levels, but multiply by 2x so that the UI reports internal level 25 as level 50.
However, another alternative is to just flatten the difficulty curve. If not being able to do much damage to something three levels above you is too restricting, why not just change the formula so now what was 3 levels is now 6. Now the level 25 player only sees level 31 mobs as red. He can group with a level 30 and they can fight stuff much closer to the level of the level 30 player.
What can you hate most that returning to starter zones to do quests ... -.- Events, Events and Events. A good game should have so many different events every week, that makes players go to every single zone again and again and again and again.
Good Stuff: Jumping Event, Exploring Event. Treasure Hunt Event, Boss Event, Secret Zone Event, Mods one hit everyone for no reason event. Super secret mobs event. Secret NPC event. New pop up zone event. Train across the sky event. A huge maze above the entire game where you have to walk on a path and if you fall down you die. Transformation Event. Event of all Events , etc.
EVENTS.
EDIT: Now that i think about it, only reason i played WoW IS because i was on a server where there were tons and tons of events. I never had a single day of non fun because there were so much happenings all the time, and the moderators could do whatever they wanted to the server. I still remember that time where one moderator litteraly was riding illidan and killing everone in Stormwind.
And i never leveled more than lvl 30, because i was enjoying the game so much i did not need to keep hrinding like everyone else. And i finnaly played a game for more than a week!
Some good examples of this has been from EQ as said by the OP along with other posters here. a few examples:
Hillgiants - these were a great mob to kill for coins and they were like level 40 or somthing but they spawns and roamed lvl 20-25 or so area's (Keep you on your toes when level which was nice)
Gnoll Courier in Blackburrow - This lvl 30 or so mob would spawn every hour or so at the start of black burrow (lvl 7-16 or so zone) run his way down to the bottom of black and despawn (basicly a messager from splitpaw higher level gnoll zone to blackburrow) he drops 4 components needed for a quest for the gnoll bashing glub which was very nice dmg to any gnoll mob so you will often have lvl 30 or so people drop by asking for lowbies the last time they saw him spawn so he could get him (Sometime staying in the zone lending a hand to newbies he see while he waits.
Guards - Yes guards u could attack pretty much any NPC in the game although they come with faction gain or loss depending on the faction of the NPC often these guards would have reasonable loot or required an item for a quests from the enemy faction and what not, HK farming guards for fine steel swords to sell anyone
Also u wouldnt be able 2 sell in the zone anymore so somtimes u get people selling items worth 5p to a vender for like 4p to a player so they could sell em for them so he could keep farming
Almost every zone had higher lvl mobs that may or may not have been agressive to you than you would think that had some benefit for higher lvl players to kill that coupled with the crafting resources or components for spell coming from low end mobs needed in high end recipes still its added alot of traffic to low end zones. Also with merchant selling items that gets sold to them alot of the time players would just be browsing merchants to see if anyone sold anything worth a value to them that they need for things for examples wolf pelts or somtimes even armor drops that they dont need anymore.
Magically turning a player lower level (mentoring), is artificial. You don't suddenly become younger or less adept at skills you've acquired in the real world.
Magically removing items that someone has when you kill them is artificial. Even if you are more skillful or powerful, you don't have to completely decimate it to defeat it in combat. If you want to create that kind of restriction (EQ had spells and abilities that did that (Assassinate & Disintegrate)), a player should still have the option of using less powerful abilities to preserve the loot without having a hard-coded artificial restriction based purely on level.
I wouldn't remove the items. We've had this argument before, and will probably just have to agree to disagree, or mayby I'll just keep at it until I wear you down
However, I don't understand why trivial experience code is fundamental to the game, but trivial loot code is an issue since they both serve the same purpose. I just don't buy the argument that a hard coded restriction on experience that won't let you get experience at all from an easy kill is not at all artificial or immersion breaking, but a hard coded restriction that can nerf an item the second time you loot it if the kill was too easy is artificial and immersion breaking. Lets just say I don't really understand what makes some players differentiate experience from items. both are a part of a characters growth and both should require risk, in some form to obtain.
The answer is because of elements of realism. Think of real life parallels, and the answer is pretty clear, at least to me. Its a matter of proving yourself.
In real life, you train in a martial art, but once you master all the forms you must prove yourself in combat to demonstrate your comprehension and ability to apply your training. You can kick and punch the air all day, but it no longer yields you a new belt. Neither does defeating the unskilled. In sports you can beat low ranked amateur teams all day, but if you do so every day for many years, never losing a match, you are not awarded the Championship trophy. You have to compete with the big boys to "rank up." That simple.
As far as loot goes, if an entity has something, they just have it. Your personal status doesn't change that.
Its not a matter of right or wrong, its just elements of realism and preference. Which ones to choose, which not.
Dullahan, that makes perfect sense and it perfectly logical except for one small detail: there's no realistic way of explaining how you know with perfect knowledge what he is supposed to drop. Even if you see an item on him there's no explanation as to why you would have perfect knowledge that the item you see is the one you want.and not some other item. In fact in the case of rare drops you don't really have an expectation that the item would drop over any given time period.
The reality is what you know or don't know about his pattern of drops is known because of what the game is designed for him to do, which makes the argument somewhat circular. It breaks immersion for you because of your expectation and your expectation is a result of how he is programmed including the lack trivial loot code. If it was widely known that he doesn't always drop the item or that if you were to high a level it would sometimes destroy the item then player expectations would change, and it would become immersion breaking for him to drop the item in a situation where he normally doesn't,
Theres nothing circular about it at all. You are trying to relegate what I'm saying to game mechanics, when they are derived from the way things actually work. Making something work in a unrealistic way will never be accepted as realistic, thus no one will have their immersion broken if those artificial mechanics were removed. Then you try to confuse the matter by talking about mystery regarding loot tables when those things are only a mystery for a very short time.
If you like artificial restrictions thats fine. If powerful abilities on weak mobs were known to destroy a mobs loot, thats cool, and a better and more interesting/realistic solution, but ultimately players will just know to use lower level abilities on lower level mobs (which could actually add more challenge). However, just throwing a hard coded rule in that says, "Nope, not gonna let you have that item, you are too high" is silly to me. To each his own. I can assure you though, trying to convince me otherwise is not going to happen.
Of course it trivializes content. If not because of player strength, simply by their experience.
Name a game where mentoring existed that didn't trivialize content, and please don't say EQ2. In EQ2 it pretty much ruined the entire game for me. I started with a couple of buddies, and we were doing some of the earlier dungeons. We were having a great time trying to be super careful and create strategies to accomplish anything. Then a guy rolled in and mentored down. He basically soloed the entire dungeon while we followed him around. I gained countless levels that night, more than I had in the entire previous week. It was so fast, it made powerleveling in EQ1 seem slow.
This is just my opinion, but I didn't like the concept of mentoring from the start. In a game centered on progression and building your character it just seemed wrong to suddenly be a different level. It also didn't seem like a real solution since it would inevitably lead to you outleveling your friends even more and never really playing as your real level with your friends.
Okay, lemme rephrase...
1. Mentoring implemented correctly should not trivialize content.
2. The concept of Mentoring makes perfect sense from the perspective of truly teaching someone as a pupil of yours. As a teacher with certain integrity, you are not looking to give your pupil the answers. You are not looking to do the work or solve the problems for that pupil. You would "lower yourself" to being more of a "watcher," instead of a "peer," allowing the pupil to provide the solutions. As a teacher, you would present the problems. Given a properly implemented Mentoring system, the teacher would be able to assist a pupil, but should not be able to just roll through content.
Learning by way of communication is mentoring enough for me. I ask in chat how to do something, they tell me, I go on my way and learn the rest from experience.
I wish there was a reasonable way for high level players to play with low levels simply because my brother was always more hardcore in EQ and out leveled me, but mentoring system have always been a failure to me. Perhaps if one was done correctly, but what is correctly exactly? Like other examples, it's probably not the same for me as it is for you.
Mentoring is touchy subject, and one that is *very* difficulty to implement correctly. We probably don't want it implemented at launch, leaving the system unavailable until later in the games life.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
I don't think a snapshot would be necessary. Each level has a limited set of skills/abilities/stats that the character can use anyway. Just make the character THAT level when they're mentoring. (I would rather not have it, but might as well contribute to ideas).
"Correctly" would be that the mentoring character would be lowered to the pupil, in such a way, the mentoring character can play their role but basically at the level they are mentoring down to. Perhaps there is a way that the mentoring character can be adjusted, "based on the pupil / based on being tied to the pupil" while mentoring? Gear and skills would be the biggest issue if I had to guess. Mentoring certainly should not allow the character to still be able to roll through encounters at the pupil's level.
I think the point of a snapshot is that you don't get all that gear you obtained at higher levels. To me that just makes sense. If mentoring were done, and I'm not sure with their leveling system if it will be needed, I think I'd prefer to see it done that way, you go back to the abilities and gear you had at that level.
While i understand why mentoring is liked,... i never saw a mentoring system that did not trivialize content, or made sense from a RPG standpoint.
Personally not a fan of mentoring at all. Just tag along your friends and powerlevel them, or help them by splitting spawns... buffing them... whatever. Again, just not a fan of the mentoring idea and would not be unhappy if it never made it into the game. Not a dealbreaker to me tho.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Who says you don't get to use the gear you obtain at higher levels? Twinking will be a thing in Pantheon.