State of the Game - Dev Stream July 2020

Wellspring

In case you missed it, here's the link to yesterday's monthly development stream, where they discussed the state of the game, PA5, and more.

Next week, they will announce the date of PA5 "shakeout".

achesoma

I like Joppa's explanation of stats in Pantheon and how it pertains to the death penalty. Essentially, every single stat point in Pantheon matters and it would be nearly impossible to retrieve your corpse naked, even with a full group of naked corpse runners. Joppa made it sound like corpse retrieval will be very challenging even with equipped gear. My impression is that mob density will be high and evasion tactics(eg-rogue corpse drag) will be very challenging. He specifically mentions rogue will take a very skilled player to drag corpse while stealthed due to stealth mechanics. Also, we don't know details of bind points such as distance and prevalence. 

They were asked about de-leveling and they refused to answer. So it might be something they're considering.

Crafters can repair durability loss on gear! I was glad to hear this. And he mentioned it won't be as simple as handing out repair kits. He didn't go into further detail than that.

Nanfoodle

TY Watching it now =-)

Mendel

Lots of lack of details, but lots of talking heads.  About what I've come to expect from VR.

Sovrath

remsleep said:

There are only 2 states of the game

1. Development
2. Completed

My position remains the same - let me know when 2 happens - until then /snooze

as @mendel noted above - until 2 happens - it's a lot of talking heads

I think, as a crowd funded game, they are incentivized to talk about the game.

if the don't talk about it they get people screaming and crying that they are keeping people in the dark. If they do talk about it they get people unhappy because they didn't cover what they wanted to hear.

Mendel

Sovrath said:

remsleep said:

There are only 2 states of the game

1. Development
2. Completed

My position remains the same - let me know when 2 happens - until then /snooze

as @mendel noted above - until 2 happens - it's a lot of talking heads

I think, as a crowd funded game, they are incentivized to talk about the game.

if the don't talk about it they get people screaming and crying that they are keeping people in the dark. If they do talk about it they get people unhappy because they didn't cover what they wanted to hear.

You also don't sell snake oil without a salesman.  That's all that's happening; talk. They are talking to convince people to give them money.

The more I see of crowdfunded efforts, the more I think that these are just third-rate salesmen posing as developers.

Wellspring

achesoma said:

I like Joppa's explanation of stats in Pantheon and how it pertains to the death penalty. Essentially, every single stat point in Pantheon matters and it would be nearly impossible to retrieve your corpse naked, even with a full group of naked corpse runners. Joppa made it sound like corpse retrieval will be very challenging even with equipped gear. My impression is that mob density will be high and evasion tactics(eg-rogue corpse drag) will be very challenging. He specifically mentions rogue will take a very skilled player to drag corpse while stealthed due to stealth mechanics. Also, we don't know details of bind points such as distance and prevalence. 

They were asked about de-leveling and they refused to answer. So it might be something they're considering.

Crafters can repair durability loss on gear! I was glad to hear this. And he mentioned it won't be as simple as handing out repair kits. He didn't go into further detail than that.

I liked his explanation as well. Their argument against naked corpse runs makes sense.

Also, a non-answer on de-leveling is better than simply a "no". It gives me confidence that they'll at least make the exp loss aspect of the death penalty just as meaningful at max level as it is at lower levels, even if it happens to be something other than de-leveling.

Although, my vote is for de-leveling. Keep it simple!

Nanfoodle

Pre-Alpha 5 news

1. Pre-Alpha 5 date will be announced next week. 
2. 2 classes will be available, Dire Load and Shaman
3. Climbing will be available and more polished and endurance system added to climbing
4. New ability system added and rdy to be tested and mastery system
5. Perception system added for testing
6. Streaming of the game may come late in Pre-Alpha 5 as they work things out, by permission
7. More story added
8. Some dungeons have been updated
9. Duration of play will be longer then past Alphas but set amount of time is not decided yet
10. Fog, water effects and lighting has been reworked, still working progress (showed some screens raw)

Things they are working on now

1. Adding skill sets to NPC, skill timing, functionality and skill co-oping. 
2. Player Characters Animations, this is continus 
3. Raid Bosses and progression that comes with that, environment system playing into that, make sure people are afraid and having fun 
4. Adding more NPC's, flushing out the world as the world is large.

Other facts mentioned

1. Questing and Story is non-linear - open world zone design 
2. New Website coming soon. Forums will not be updated yet but coming
3. Quest Sharing, some quests yes, if it has pre-requisites no, unless they are met. 
4. Silent Plains zone, will be going in depth on that sometime 
5. Racial Actives: They want to revel it when its fully flushed out. Working progress. They are coming
6. Crafters will be able to repair damage gear. How will be discussed later. Will be really cool system not just repair kits.   

Death Mechanics 

1. What was stated earlier stands
2. They want the game to feel hard, death penalty is part of that
3. No naked corpse run because they are making a different game, corpse dragging by a rogue will be much harder with their stealth system. Balance is needed  
4. Some classes can bind anywhere, other classes will have location they can bind to, more info coming on that.
5. Exp loss will be a % of what current level you are working on, not total exp gained
6. Fighting back to your corpse is what they want as part of the game play
7. This was set this way because of the game they designed. It fits into the system they have in play and building
8. De-leveling may or may not be a thing, said they leaving that for us to figure out when we play

Current Patch Notes worth mentioning

1. Die Lord and Shaman skills and mastery all updated
2. Chat window options
3. Updated ability bar and inventory UI, mostly "Quality of Life" things we would expect
4. New 2 Hand animations added. 
5. Casting animations
6. Updated character creator
7. Audio systems updated

Nanfoodle

remsleep said:

There are only 2 states of the game

1. Development
2. Completed

My position remains the same - let me know when 2 happens - until then /snooze

as @mendel noted above - until 2 happens - it's a lot of talking heads

This is no different then a Studio updating their investors. Its a different time and nothing to get upset about. 

delete5230

Ashes of Creation they show stuff, Pantheon they talk about it.

Not sure I believe them !!!!

Nanfoodle

delete5230 said:

Ashes of Creation they show stuff, Pantheon they talk about it.

Not sure I believe them !!!!

I have seen more game play videos from Patheon and systems and how they work then Ashes. I am backing both games and following both very closely. 

Sovrath

Mendel said:

Sovrath said:

remsleep said:

There are only 2 states of the game

1. Development
2. Completed

My position remains the same - let me know when 2 happens - until then /snooze

as @mendel noted above - until 2 happens - it's a lot of talking heads

I think, as a crowd funded game, they are incentivized to talk about the game.

if the don't talk about it they get people screaming and crying that they are keeping people in the dark. If they do talk about it they get people unhappy because they didn't cover what they wanted to hear.

You also don't sell snake oil without a salesman.  That's all that's happening; talk. They are talking to convince people to give them money.

The more I see of crowdfunded efforts, the more I think that these are just third-rate salesmen posing as developers.

I think there are better ways to convince people to give them money but "of course" they want people to give them money. They have a crowdfunded game. It's all about people giving them money.

The other video they posted on the new area was more "a pitch for money" as it showed a a new area and game play.

cheyane

Wellspring said:

achesoma said:

I like Joppa's explanation of stats in Pantheon and how it pertains to the death penalty. Essentially, every single stat point in Pantheon matters and it would be nearly impossible to retrieve your corpse naked, even with a full group of naked corpse runners. Joppa made it sound like corpse retrieval will be very challenging even with equipped gear. My impression is that mob density will be high and evasion tactics(eg-rogue corpse drag) will be very challenging. He specifically mentions rogue will take a very skilled player to drag corpse while stealthed due to stealth mechanics. Also, we don't know details of bind points such as distance and prevalence. 

They were asked about de-leveling and they refused to answer. So it might be something they're considering.

Crafters can repair durability loss on gear! I was glad to hear this. And he mentioned it won't be as simple as handing out repair kits. He didn't go into further detail than that.

I liked his explanation as well. Their argument against naked corpse runs makes sense.

Also, a non-answer on de-leveling is better than simply a "no". It gives me confidence that they'll at least make the exp loss aspect of the death penalty just as meaningful at max level as it is at lower levels, even if it happens to be something other than de-leveling.

Although, my vote is for de-leveling. Keep it simple!

Well that makes corpse retrieval very interesting.

Nanfoodle

cheyane said:

Wellspring said:

achesoma said:

I like Joppa's explanation of stats in Pantheon and how it pertains to the death penalty. Essentially, every single stat point in Pantheon matters and it would be nearly impossible to retrieve your corpse naked, even with a full group of naked corpse runners. Joppa made it sound like corpse retrieval will be very challenging even with equipped gear. My impression is that mob density will be high and evasion tactics(eg-rogue corpse drag) will be very challenging. He specifically mentions rogue will take a very skilled player to drag corpse while stealthed due to stealth mechanics. Also, we don't know details of bind points such as distance and prevalence. 

They were asked about de-leveling and they refused to answer. So it might be something they're considering.

Crafters can repair durability loss on gear! I was glad to hear this. And he mentioned it won't be as simple as handing out repair kits. He didn't go into further detail than that.

I liked his explanation as well. Their argument against naked corpse runs makes sense.

Also, a non-answer on de-leveling is better than simply a "no". It gives me confidence that they'll at least make the exp loss aspect of the death penalty just as meaningful at max level as it is at lower levels, even if it happens to be something other than de-leveling.

Although, my vote is for de-leveling. Keep it simple!

Well that makes corpse retrieval very interesting.

If corpse retrieval is part of the game and is part of the games systems, it makes sense that they didnt just copy EQ1 or Vanguards death penalty system. I think its good news that this is how they are designing their game. With thought of how systems work with the game they are building. Thats smart development. 

achesoma

delete5230 said:

Ashes of Creation they show stuff, Pantheon they talk about it.

Not sure I believe them !!!!

This is objectively false. Just go to YouTube and search Pantheon MMO. There's plenty of gameplay footage to see over the past 3 years. Just Cohhcarnage alone has 12 videos of gameplay and most are over an hour long.

Nanfoodle

achesoma said:

delete5230 said:

Ashes of Creation they show stuff, Pantheon they talk about it.

Not sure I believe them !!!!

This is objectively false. Just go to YouTube and search Pantheon MMO. There's plenty of gameplay footage to see over the past 3 years. Just Cohhcarnage alone has 12 videos of gameplay and most are over an hour long.

With these videos, you can also goto Pantheons website and look up the skills for all classes, so the skill they use in the video have context. Cant do that with Ashes. 

Nanfoodle

Mendel said:

Sovrath said:

remsleep said:

There are only 2 states of the game

1. Development
2. Completed

My position remains the same - let me know when 2 happens - until then /snooze

as @mendel noted above - until 2 happens - it's a lot of talking heads

I think, as a crowd funded game, they are incentivized to talk about the game.

if the don't talk about it they get people screaming and crying that they are keeping people in the dark. If they do talk about it they get people unhappy because they didn't cover what they wanted to hear.

You also don't sell snake oil without a salesman.  That's all that's happening; talk. They are talking to convince people to give them money.

The more I see of crowdfunded efforts, the more I think that these are just third-rate salesmen posing as developers.

I expect more from you, you know they are real developers making a real game. 

achesoma

The main Pantheon website is a bit convoluted but is getting an overhaul soon.

Here is nice fan site to keep up to date on Pantheon info.

https://www.pantheon.plus/

There is also a wiki too.  https://pantheonriseofthefallen.gamepedia.com/Pantheon:_Rise_of_the_Fallen_Wiki

YouTube has some great content creators dedicated to delivering Pantheon info.

Pantheon Plus- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQopM5NlTIwq_yLvdq_2XlA

Bazgrim- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDj665Kgxxs15eMo73L6ZMA

Nathan Napalm- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNCisbXYFiXVKdoAY7jN3vw

Amathe

I like the every stat point counts approach.

Not many games have that. In most games, at the beginning one strength point makes a big difference. But later, when you have hundreds of strength points, it hardly matters at all.

I just wonder how they will do it?

Vrika

Amathe said:

I like the every stat point counts approach.

Not many games have that. In most games, at the beginning one strength point makes a big difference. But later, when you have hundreds of strength points, it hardly matters at all.

I just wonder how they will do it?

If they really want to do it, they just have to do exponential calculation.

For example if they wanted each point of strength to increase damage by 3%, the formula would be:
  damage = base_damage * 1.03 ^ strength

Systems like that aren't usually done because exponential calculations also easily creates insane power differences: In my example a character with 100 more strength would do 19 times more damage, a character with 200 more strength would do 369 times more damage, and a character with 300 more strength would already do more than 7 000 times more damage.

Mendel

Amathe said:

I like the every stat point counts approach.

Not many games have that. In most games, at the beginning one strength point makes a big difference. But later, when you have hundreds of strength points, it hardly matters at all.

I just wonder how they will do it?

Having relatively static values for the core statistics, and limited (and minimal) increases via gear.  Your barbarian brute is strong because of his muscles, not because of the fashionable loincloth he's wearing.  Just one way to approach it.  It involves developer discipline, something that got way out of hand with EQ1 over the years.

This approach is similar to how EQ1 started.  A +2 Int ring or a +2 Str bracer were prized things.  So, it wouldn't astonish me if they did that.

Mendel

Nanfoodle said:

Mendel said:

Sovrath said:

remsleep said:

There are only 2 states of the game

1. Development
2. Completed

My position remains the same - let me know when 2 happens - until then /snooze

as @mendel noted above - until 2 happens - it's a lot of talking heads

I think, as a crowd funded game, they are incentivized to talk about the game.

if the don't talk about it they get people screaming and crying that they are keeping people in the dark. If they do talk about it they get people unhappy because they didn't cover what they wanted to hear.

You also don't sell snake oil without a salesman.  That's all that's happening; talk. They are talking to convince people to give them money.

The more I see of crowdfunded efforts, the more I think that these are just third-rate salesmen posing as developers.

I expect more from you, you know they are real developers making a real game. 

They may be qualified professionals, but too many developers on entirely too many projects act differently.  My statement was more general, not just about Pantheon/VR.

When Brad was involved with Pantheon, you saw a lot more definitive 'this is how it will work' answers, and far fewer 'that still undetermined'.  Brad's untimely death seemed to take anything definitive out of VR's plans, and it shows.

Theocritus

Climbing? Perception? Sounds like they are undertaking too many things and just need to work on the basics and get the game out first.

Sovrath

Theocritus said:

Climbing? Perception? Sounds like they are undertaking too many things and just need to work on the basics and get the game out first.

Perception was part of the game since "since."

achesoma

Theocritus said:

Climbing? Perception? Sounds like they are undertaking too many things and just need to work on the basics and get the game out first.

Perception and climbing are part of the basics. 

Vrika

Vrika said:

Amathe said:

I like the every stat point counts approach.

Not many games have that. In most games, at the beginning one strength point makes a big difference. But later, when you have hundreds of strength points, it hardly matters at all.

I just wonder how they will do it?

If they really want to do it, they just have to do exponential calculation.

For example if they wanted each point of strength to increase damage by 3%, the formula would be:
  damage = base_damage * 1.03 ^ strength

Systems like that aren't usually done because exponential calculations also easily creates insane power differences: In my example a character with 100 more strength would do 19 times more damage, a character with 200 more strength would do 369 times more damage, and a character with 300 more strength would already do more than 7 000 times more damage.

A correction to my previous formula:

I think the exponential growth would have to be made so that your character gets exponentially more powerful at everything every time he gains a stat point in anything.

For example the damage formula could be:

   damage = base damage * 1.01 ^ total_stat_points * (1 + strength / 100)

This because otherwise the system would result in builds where you place everything to single stat to get as large exponential bonus as possible.