Broken mechanic as a main feature.

delete5230

Again I'll be the elephant in the room with an un solvable issue that has no answer.  By elephant in the room meaning no one want's to talk about a game breaking problem in an otherwise lovable game. 

EXTREMELY SLOW COMBAT

Every video made shows fighting a single target lasting approximately three minuets.  A group of targets over ten minuets.  In typing this it doesn't sound bad, but in game time (real time) it's extremely slow. 

At first glance the cause is noble !!!.... It gives the players an opportunity to use all their resources.  It makes players strategically use their given abilities and talents BUT it doesn't fit the frame work for an mmorpg. 

Most important:

Three extreme problems associated with this: 

1  Groups will never get anything accomplished.  At times, It could take boring to a new level.

2 How do you keep groups together for so long.  

3 Must be instanced and will not work for congested open world.

 

Developers put themselves in an awful bind.  They thought of their main feature before thinking it through.  As development presses forward, the problem becomes more apparent.   

It's unsolvable.  Only solution, speed combat 50%.... re-design. 

Disclaimer....... I DO WANT THIS GAME TO WORK !!! 

mbrodie

The whole premise of the game is built around slow tactical combat... like the mmorpgs of old....

I think you may have missed the point here.

delete5230

mbrodie said:

The whole premise of the game is built around slow tactical combat... like the mmorpgs of old....

I think you may have missed the point here.

I get it, I love it...... But extreme slow breaks the game.

Please read "problems associated with this".

Wizardry

1 groups will and have got stuff done.
2 Keyword is "static"
3 Has and will work in open world

More on point 3....This is why static zones are a terrible and LAZY way to design your game.This means every single group/player will be in the exact same zone at the exact same level.There should be varied levels within a zone,it should look like a real world and not some connect the dots computer code.Of course every mmorpg still does tend to connect levels to zones,just some better at it than others.

Yet again i can point to ffxi,you just need a good developer that knows what they are doing when making an mmorpg.

You already touched on why slow is the best possible design.First of all the obvious,if too fast your just trivializing the enemy and game ,the way ARPG's do,basically a blind man can play fast combat.
Slow combat allows for action and reaction instead of just spam killing,it allows players to think and use their skills and resources efficiently.

I hate to beat a dead horse down but having also played the Wow clones,it was painful for me,i felt like my character was handcuffed in combat.By that i mean ,i could have just hit auto compete and the result would be the same everytime.When you play FFXI there is a LOT of room for versatility,you can fight in many different ways.

There is of course the exact same problem in EVERY game and that are some elite bosses have only one way to play them and that is sad to witness in games.

TEKK3N

You are getting boring now.
Why don’t you find some other game to hate/love?
Pantheon is obviously not the game for you.

You are just crapping on the main selling point.
The slow combat is exactly the way It was advertised, and it’s the main reason I follow this game.

I really hope VR don’t listen to people like you, which is why we have all those WoW clones in the first place.

Sovrath

Intentional doesn't mean broken.

GladDog

Anybody here play the original Tribes?  Someone figured out that if you beat on the spacebar downhill, you could get going at incredible speeds.  They called it skiing.  It was not intentional, it was a bug.  But it made the game so much fun, that they left it in, and even improved it for Tribes 2.

Don't look at any intentional or unintentional feature as a 'bug' or 'broken' until you try it.

Tanist

This game has a lot of mainstream features that are creeping in and you are complaining about the only thing that is holding to traditional endurance based game play? In fact, IMO, the combat is too fast.

If you want pew pew pew BOOM, AOE AOE AOE, MORE DOT>>> MORE DOTS!!!!

Go play the numerous MMOs out there that are nothing more than console action arcade games. Have fun!

Seriously, combat speed is your gripe? Ok Mainstreamer.

xpsync

Slow, strategic, tactful, toe curling, think on your feet combat? As a hidden bonus the game won't be polluted with qq players screaming "Waaaa... its too hard".

Hell Yeah; Where do i sign!!!

Amathe

Another big issue (and surprisingly no one but me is talking about this) is that it's a fantasy role playing game. I would like for them to make it Science Fiction instead. And also, instead of the game being the spiritual successor to Everquest, I was thinking it should be the spiritual successor to Sonic the Hedgehog. 

Theocritus

Many of us are former EQ players and this game reminds us somewhat of that experience, but this game is just flat out boring. I doubt most want to go through this again. It just looks painful to play.

cheyane

I seriously doubt you get what Pantheon is trying to do and definitely don't understand which demographic the game is targeting. May be you are not a reader, well one can infer that from the quality of your writing but you might benefit from spending more time reading up on the game. For that matter you might benefit in general by reading more   

Having said that I can clearly see from the direction your recent topics and diatribes on this game have been that you have become completely disillusioned with what you thought this game was. Perhaps it is time to let go and not hang on like an obsessive ex girlfriend in a Korean drama plotting daily threads. It's getting a little bit desperate and seriously not a good look at all.

Tanist

xpsync said:

Slow, strategic, tactful, toe curling, think on your feet combat? As a hidden bonus the game won't be polluted with qq players screaming "Waaaa... its too hard".

Hell Yeah; Where do i sign!!!

One of the things that concerned me early on in the development of this game is when they had a poll on how long a fight should take. When I looked at the options, they were all far too fast, nothing like EQ.

Now I know... people say "this isn't EQ", I understand that... but mechanics are important and in EQ (earlier rather than later), fights took a while, longer than what Pantheon has today, and longer than what they "questioned" on in their poll.

The results of the poll bothered me back then. The majority thought "WoW" like combat speeds were appropriate. Now I don't blame people for thinking along these lines, how long it takes to kill a mob isn't something most people over the years kept track of. What bothered me was that modern WoW (WoW was always way faster than EQ, but release WoW was much slower than WoW as it progressed over the years) had imprinted a standard among the players, even the ones who experienced EQ. The responses were evident of a gamer population that had become accustomed to fast arcade action style combat.

I think the combat currently is too fast, it should be around 2-3 times longer than it is now (at minimum) to achieve the endurance based strategic flow of play. This among MANY other subtle issues of play are why I am losing faith in this game to produce anything other than a mainstream game with marketed "old school" concepts. Heck, even their constant objection to the term "old school" and continued distancing themselves from any relation to EQ suggests to me they are already in the process of selling out.

TEKK3N

Theocritus said:

Many of us are former EQ players and this game reminds us somewhat of that experience, but this game is just flat out boring. I doubt most want to go through this again. It just looks painful to play.

Sure, many don't want to do it again, while others would like to.

Plus there will be new players that never played old school MMORPG and might enjoy slow games like Pantheon.

Of course is going to be a minority of gamers, but considering how big is the gaming market nowadays, even a small chunk of it would make a big niche.

xpsync

It's the same as when we were able to first test drive classic and launch day too for that matter.

The sheer volume of peeps that simply don't get it at all, they took "clued out" to all new unprecedented levels.

Chat, after chat, after chat, of why is combat so slow?

Because it's strategic, tactful, "think" on your feet combat.

I just want to hit a button and win and throw my credit card at the game.

“Nothing to see here ... move along... move along. This game is not for you.”

NO, i want it to be all about me, i want push button easy.

There are a chit load of games out there for you then.

NO, i want the new shiny hype to be all about me, me, me... and my credit card ofc.

There was so much hype for classic and people got caught up in it and had no idea what the whole community love was really about, lmao!

Mendel

I don't know that the slow combat is a 'broken mechanic'.  I'm not overly fond of the long duration grind that EQ1 combat was, either.  I look at Pantheon's (and other game's) slow combat as a deliberate choice.  A choice that may blow up in their face, depending on how modern audiences accept/adapt to it.  Maybe think of the slowness as 'an opportunity squandered'.

Another thing (since I'm in a mood this morning).  EQ combat was never Strategic, it was Tactical.  Strategy answers the question of 'What should I do', Tactics addresses 'How do I do it'.  Pushing buttons to activate abilities/spells/attacks or react to opponents is most definitely Tactical.

ChildoftheShadows

You’re like the new kid on the block trying really hard to fit in with the old schoolers, but you don’t, not even a little bit. So you try jumping in the bandwagon for an old school game and complain about everything that makes it old school because you actually have no idea what you’re talking about. 

Move on to a different game. This one is not built for you. 

Morgenes83

I also think the combat is a bit too slow.
It doesnt have to be BDO style killing masses of monsters in seconds, but it could be double as fast and still be tactical enough.

ChildoftheShadows

Morgenes83 said:

I also think the combat is a bit too slow.
It doesnt have to be BDO style killing masses of monsters in seconds, but it could be double as fast and still be tactical enough.

And it should have open world full loot pvp toO. 

xpsync

Tanist said:

 they are already in the process of selling out.

Which would not surprise me in the least, credit card players are more lucrative. Oh how wonderful, another wow clone, like we've not been down this road a million times before.

It's why i gave up having anything on the radar, it's like we (well me) never learn, believe their promises and either they fold or radically change their stance, or just endlessly keep collecting crowd funding.

What have we had to look forward too for the last DECADE plus, and still have not come to pass ffs.

New World - Radically Changed

Torchlight Frontiers - Beyond Radically Changed

Star Citizen - i'm just waiting for the Netflix special on this one

Camelot Unchained - i dunno but homing in on decade right?

Pantheon - I dunno, but not sounding good from what you have to say

Meh i could probably go on and on, but "what mmorpg genre?" pretty much sums it up.

I'm a gamer and have pretty much gone back to just gaming again, like back when i first got into all this; EQ2 and SWG was all i played, never went to the forums and chit, wasn't something i bothered with, i literally thought people with game related problems went to the forums, later on only discover how right i was in that yes forums are home to people with problems.

So instead of bitching endlessly, and hoping, or waiting (for what right) i'm back to pure gaming again, and honestly it's the way to go. So much better! Enjoying the shit out of gaming again, the game and your guild (like minded real gamers, mmopg gamers that is). Literally your enjoyment level shoots through the stratosphere, not hearing/reading every haters 2 f'ing cent BS on every little stupid f'ing thing, influencing you when you don't even know they have, you might think it doesn't have an impact but yea it does, it's subtle but it has, haters gonna hate right.

Also got so tired of games coming out and end up like these ones;

ESO - The largest starting zone game operating today, that's right folks the entire game is a starter zone, push button win just like your credit card likes.. err i mean you like it.

Let's not forget the spectacular SWTOR - The super wow clone with Voice! OMG!!! Your character was just jumped by 27 mobs, two raid bosses and every Elite on planet and OMG its time for dinner? No worries you can go eat dinner, watch a movie, heck even get a great nights sleep and when you awake you'll still have about 98% of your health remaining. The game is literally a dumpster fire but it's voiced so it's credit card friendly promise.

EQ2... well is probably the saddest of all; a legendary mmorpg turned in to a steaming pile of "we've no idea what we are anymore"

So i went back to SWG and as a replacement for EQ2; Classic in its place.

Which is hilarious as i've been an on again off again wow player since i checked it out on launch day (i'll admit that) and went screaming back to EQ2 within a month. Yet since then i've also been their largest hater at the same time. Wow destroyed exceptional mmorpg's such as SWG, EQ2, WORLDS!!! ffs people, so i've always harbored a hate for wow as... lets be real, it killed the mmorpg genre permanently, no way to sugar coat that fast fact.

Even vanilla as compared to EQ2 at that time, wow was a freaking joke to mmorpg players, leveling was so fast, ect, yet today people find (classic/vanilla) hard af, but i find it an acceptable EQ2 replacement, and Legends (cu/nge) a good replacement for SWG...

so yea i guess i've mellowed a little over the years hehe