Has VR established item policy yet?...

Hrimnir · November 2015

Just curious, IMO one of the best things about EQ was that the majority of dungeon items were not bind on equip. I would really hope this is still the case in Pantheon.

Thebeasttt · November 2015

Yeah Vanguard was bad enough as it was but as soon as Sony changed most the items to BoP/BoE the game was pretty much dead to me forever.

Amsai · November 2015

Cant remeber where? But Im certain most items will not be. To keep them free for trading or selling. I think devs said maybe not true for certain quest items.

Hrimnir · November 2015

Which would be fine. I'm not opposed to BoE items, im opposed to all items being BoE. I get if a raid item is BoE, or any quest related item (including reward) is BoE. But pretty much outside of that I don't feel like items should be BoE. I'd rather they just be rare. But part of what was nice about EQ is if you had an item and you wanted to upgrade it, a lot of times you could negotiate a trade + plat, or sell the item first, and use the money towards the new item, etc etc.

Havok2all · November 2015

They stated most items are open for trading. High level items like from raids would be BOE or level restricted to prevent twinking and being super powered. It is still being evaluated and nothing is set in stone.

Dullahan · November 2015

Havok2all said:

They stated most items are open for trading. High level items like from raids would be BOE or level restricted to prevent twinking and being super powered. It is still being evaluated and nothing is set in stone.

Actually, they intend for it to be more open than that.

The only restrictions they mentioned were quest items (epic weapons etc). They never said anything about preventing twinks.

https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/#q27

Havok2all · November 2015

I didn't mean they wanted to stop twinking, in fact they support it. They just don't want lvl 1 toons walking around newbie zones wasting everything the zone with lvl 70 raid items.

Rattenmann · November 2015

I don't mind level restrictions on raid gear,... unless they put it on EVERY damn item.
But i do mind bind on equip or bind on pickup.

Really do. I don't even want quest items to be bound. I never got the point. Just make the items hard to get, problem solved. If guy 1 wants to farm money weeks on end and guy 2 has a guild that is willing to sell raid items for "cheap", well: Let guy 1 buy them. If items are rare enough there is no issue.

If items drop as frequent as in WoW for example that is a 100% differend story. Items where decaying left and right, even on hardmode raidbosses. They would have flooded the servers if they could have been sold.

Just don't drop epics like candy, but let people trade.

Antiquated · November 2015

Twink heaven, here we come again.

I'm always ambivalent about twinks. They're part positive (social interaction, handmedowns) and part negative (abusive extremes, usually in PvP).

Hrimnir · November 2015

Well we don't have to worry about PVP so thats a non issue. I think twinking is an absolute must. Its part of the reward for having invested thousands of hours into the game.

@rattenmann i do mind level restrictions on anything thats not raid gear.

CalmOceans · November 2015

Hrimnir said:

Just curious, IMO one of the best things about EQ was that the majority of dungeon items were not bind on equip.

To be honest, everything that was worth anything was bind on equip. Everything from Vex Thal and PoP, even the flag mobs, was No Drop.

There were some interesting droppable items from Kael in the very beginning of EQ, that were worth a penny, but EQ quickly implemented No Drop for valuable items.

Powerlevel items like Earthshakers were nerved.

It stopped gold seller and ebay sales of weapons. It was a good change, and it happened very early on.

Just checked my older items I still have, all of them are No Drop.

Dullahan · November 2015

Its also popular opinion that EQ prior to Luclin was when the game was the best. Its also debatable whether curbing RMT was worth the price of nerfing the player driven economy.

No trade items are bad in general. There is no reason to prevent players from trading items if you want an MMO to feel more like a virtual world than just a game. Other than the most extreme cases where certain quests and storyline must be personally completed by the player, I don't think anything should be no-drop/no-trade/bind-on-pickup.

CalmOceans · November 2015

Dullahan said:

Its also popular opinion that EQ prior to Luclin was when the game was the best.

It tends to be the opinion of people who have only played up till Luclin. By then, EQ had 2 expansion. There are 20 expansions post Luclin, many much better than the sandbag raids Kunark or Velious offered.

The problem with dropable raid items was that it invited plat farmers and hackers. Making every raid item No Drop, stopped gold sellers from having such a grip on the game.

Phry · November 2015

Dullahan said:

Its also popular opinion that EQ prior to Luclin was when the game was the best. Its also debatable whether curbing RMT was worth the price of nerfing the player driven economy.

No trade items are bad in general. There is no reason to prevent players from trading items if you want an MMO to feel more like a virtual world than just a game. Other than the most extreme cases where certain quests and storyline must be personally completed by the player, I don't think anything should be no-drop/no-trade/bind-on-pickup.

I kind of disagree, i think the 'rare' loot drops should be bind on pickup, mostly because if they aren't then you will get people constantly farming them in order to sell, and here i am talking about spawn camping, where the mobs that drop the best items are permacamped, the only way to prevent this is to have Bind on Pickup items. Its also a feature that helps combat RMT.

Dullahan · November 2015

CalmOceans said:

Dullahan said:

Its also popular opinion that EQ prior to Luclin was when the game was the best.

It tends to be the opinion of people who have only played up till Luclin. By then, EQ had 2 expansion. There are 20 expansions post Luclin, many much better than the sandbag raids Kunark or Velious offered.

The problem with dropable raid items was that it invited plat farmers and hackers. Making every raid item No Drop, stopped gold sellers from having such a grip on the game.

That's silly. If players didn't play beyond Velious, they really couldn't say that things changed for the worse from Luclin on. Nevertheless, that is the consensus. There is no denying that both the aspects of the game that lended to the feel of a virtual world and that made it better for the average (non-raider) player suffered.

I didn't feel like gold sellers "had a grip" on either of the two servers I played on. What did players buying items for real life money have to do with me? I was even friends with one of the more prominent eBayers on the Tarew Marr server, but it never prevented me from playing the game to its fullest. Even he needed other people to farm many of the rare items. That was his choice. Either way someone still had to earn every item, unlike the items generated that p2w games sell to players.

Do I wish people weren't able to sell items for RL money? Sure, but not at the cost of my freedom in the game. Its like enforcing gun laws on normal citizens to "keep them safe." Criminals still end up finding ways to arm themselves and commit crimes, and now everyone else is worse off.

Hackers are irrelevant to the conversation, as they have a negative affect on everything regardless if items are no-trade or not.

Alders · November 2015

Phry said:

Dullahan said:

Its also popular opinion that EQ prior to Luclin was when the game was the best. Its also debatable whether curbing RMT was worth the price of nerfing the player driven economy.

No trade items are bad in general. There is no reason to prevent players from trading items if you want an MMO to feel more like a virtual world than just a game. Other than the most extreme cases where certain quests and storyline must be personally completed by the player, I don't think anything should be no-drop/no-trade/bind-on-pickup.

I kind of disagree, i think the 'rare' loot drops should be bind on pickup, mostly because if they aren't then you will get people constantly farming them in order to sell, and here i am talking about spawn camping, where the mobs that drop the best items are permacamped, the only way to prevent this is to have Bind on Pickup items. Its also a feature that helps combat RMT.

How does BoP prevent RMT?

All it does is add a social layer where players can sell looting rights. Does it sort of complicate the aspect? Sure. It does not prevent it though.

SE decided to make all open world rare loot BoP to curb spawn camping and RMT in FFXI. All it did was force players to actually have to communicate with the farmers instead of buying items in player shops or off the auction house.

Sinist · November 2015

CalmOceans said:

Dullahan said:

Its also popular opinion that EQ prior to Luclin was when the game was the best.

It tends to be the opinion of people who have only played up till Luclin. By then, EQ had 2 expansion. There are 20 expansions post Luclin, many much better than the sandbag raids Kunark or Velious offered.

The problem with dropable raid items was that it invited plat farmers and hackers. Making every raid item No Drop, stopped gold sellers from having such a grip on the game.

Many of us played them past Kunark/Velious and view the PoP and after to be the decline of EQ. PoP was a horrible expansion that catered to mainstream, killed travel and turned the game into a stupid zone key gimmick which allowed guilds to block progress from other guilds and later expansions such as OOW and GOD were nothing but raid expansions that threw the non-raiders under the bus.

This was also around the time that EQ began to lose a large amount of their subscribers because people were tired of the direction that SoE was taking the game.

So yes, there were later expansions and some may have brought some interesting ideas, but Velious/Kunark as well as release EQ is considered the golden era of EQ, for reasons many have explained. It is also the content to which was created by Verant. The later expansions are Smedly and Co, you know... the guy that whined about how making content is dead, that Minecraft games are the future because players cheat with hint sites?

Sinist · November 2015

Alders said:

Phry said:

Dullahan said:

Its also popular opinion that EQ prior to Luclin was when the game was the best. Its also debatable whether curbing RMT was worth the price of nerfing the player driven economy.

No trade items are bad in general. There is no reason to prevent players from trading items if you want an MMO to feel more like a virtual world than just a game. Other than the most extreme cases where certain quests and storyline must be personally completed by the player, I don't think anything should be no-drop/no-trade/bind-on-pickup.

I kind of disagree, i think the 'rare' loot drops should be bind on pickup, mostly because if they aren't then you will get people constantly farming them in order to sell, and here i am talking about spawn camping, where the mobs that drop the best items are permacamped, the only way to prevent this is to have Bind on Pickup items. Its also a feature that helps combat RMT.

How does BoP prevent RMT?

All it does is add a social layer where players can sell looting rights. Does it sort of complicate the aspect? Sure. It does not prevent it though.

SE decided to make all open world rare loot BoP to curb spawn camping and RMT in FFXI. All it did was force players to actually have to communicate with the farmers instead of buying items in player shops or off the auction house.

Exactly, apparently these people don't remember the guilds in EQ who sold "tours" through raid zones and bosses for cash online. In fact, there was a guild on Stormhammer (legends server) that was entirely ran by a single person (he boxed all the accounts) who did this specifically.

Vorthanion · November 2015

CalmOceans said:

Dullahan said:

Its also popular opinion that EQ prior to Luclin was when the game was the best.

It tends to be the opinion of people who have only played up till Luclin. By then, EQ had 2 expansion. There are 20 expansions post Luclin, many much better than the sandbag raids Kunark or Velious offered.

The problem with dropable raid items was that it invited plat farmers and hackers. Making every raid item No Drop, stopped gold sellers from having such a grip on the game.

Prior to Luclin, raiding wasn't the end all, be all that it eventually became. Even back then, raids were niche content. Gold sellers were a detriment to the raider's sense of exclusivity, not the regular gamer.

By the way, this game is suppose to get most of the best loot from group content, so raiding won't have the stranglehold on loot like it has had since the beginning of the genre.

Sinist · November 2015

Vorthanion said:

CalmOceans said:

Dullahan said:

Its also popular opinion that EQ prior to Luclin was when the game was the best.

It tends to be the opinion of people who have only played up till Luclin. By then, EQ had 2 expansion. There are 20 expansions post Luclin, many much better than the sandbag raids Kunark or Velious offered.

The problem with dropable raid items was that it invited plat farmers and hackers. Making every raid item No Drop, stopped gold sellers from having such a grip on the game.

Prior to Luclin, raiding wasn't the end all, be all that it eventually became. Even back then, raids were niche content. Gold sellers were a detriment to the raider's sense of exclusivity, not the regular gamer.

By the way, this game is suppose to get most of the best loot from group content, so raiding won't have the stranglehold on loot like it has had since the beginning of the genre.

Yep, grouping is supposed to be the main focus of the game and as long as they stay true to such, I don't think this will all be a problem. There are going to be those who demand all the attention to be raiding though, games gave done nothing but focus on this for near two decades, so people are going to have the mindset that the only point of playing is to end game raid. Brad and team are going to have to break that mold, focus on group content as EQ originally did an even as WoW did on release. Group play should be the driving force of the game.

As Dullahan said as well, we need to be careful about putting in social engineering rules and regulations, caps and restrictions as this kills peoples ability to enjoy the game and from my experience over the years, it has been those things that have given the most power to the abusers. With every rule, there is a new exploit and new way the abuser can use the rules against others to control the game. I think it is best left to the community and then with GMs stepping in from time to time to resolve as the final arbitrator.

Better reporting tools would help in this process as well, better log gathering tools, screen shot management, etc... all streamlined allowing a player to submit a more detailed report of a given incident. It would go a long way to resolving some player to player conflicts.

Distopia · November 2015

Antiquated said:

Twink heaven, here we come again.

I'm always ambivalent about twinks. They're part positive (social interaction, handmedowns) and part negative (abusive extremes, usually in PvP).

In a PVE environment it really only becomes an issue when the playerbase is top heavy (most are at endgame levels, few joining as new players)... Basically when players start pushing new players away from groups in favor of overpowered twinks.

Sinist · November 2015

Distopia said:

Antiquated said:

Twink heaven, here we come again.

I'm always ambivalent about twinks. They're part positive (social interaction, handmedowns) and part negative (abusive extremes, usually in PvP).

In a PVE environment it really only becomes an issue when the playerbase is top heavy (most are at endgame levels, few joining as new players)... Basically when players start pushing new players away from groups in favor of overpowered twinks.

Twinking is a problem IF gear allows a character to be overpowered. The one thing I liked about early EQ was that gear was strongly tied to the attributes and skill development of a character. You could deck a level 1 with level 50 items and they could do much better, but never to the point of being ridiculously overpowered. You might be able to handle some mobs that would normally "wipe the floor with you", as in.. a few levels above you or those items may allow you to solo when you weren't able to before, but that is about it.

Having decked out gear didn't make you useful to the party if you were not already. Twinking couldn't make a bad player good, it couldn't makeup for a given fight. I kicked many players out of groups because they were twinks who didn't know their head from their arse about the class or their responsibilities in the group. Their gear was not a help, it was crutch for a lazy unskilled player.

So as long as they pay close attention to gear and its power, twinking will be supplementary help, not a primary one.

Amsai · November 2015

Yea. Simple fix is diminishing returns as said above.

Distopia · November 2015

Sinist said:

Distopia said:

Antiquated said:

Twink heaven, here we come again.

I'm always ambivalent about twinks. They're part positive (social interaction, handmedowns) and part negative (abusive extremes, usually in PvP).

In a PVE environment it really only becomes an issue when the playerbase is top heavy (most are at endgame levels, few joining as new players)... Basically when players start pushing new players away from groups in favor of overpowered twinks.

Twinking is a problem IF gear allows a character to be overpowered. The one thing I liked about early EQ was that gear was strongly tied to the attributes and skill development of a character. You could deck a level 1 with level 50 items and they could do much better, but never to the point of being ridiculously overpowered. You might be able to handle some mobs that would normally "wipe the floor with you", as in.. a few levels above you or those items may allow you to solo when you weren't able to before, but that is about it.

Having decked out gear didn't make you useful to the party if you were not already. Twinking couldn't make a bad player good, it couldn't makeup for a given fight. I kicked many players out of groups because they were twinks who didn't know their head from their arse about the class or their responsibilities in the group. Their gear was not a help, it was crutch for a lazy unskilled player.

So as long as they pay close attention to gear and its power, twinking will be supplementary help, not a primary one.

Of course bad design is always bad. I was referring to it's effect on other players in PVE though..

As an aside I've actually never been a fan of gear with stats TBH. I don't mind damage mitigation of course (that's the point of armor). I prefer skill/stat advancement through use, not levels reached or when gear based. It's one of those things we have to live with in most fantasy games though. Anyway if twinking turns out as you suggest, great.

Sinist · November 2015

Amsai said:

Yea. Simple fix is diminishing returns as said above.

Aye, but I prefer for it to be handled on the character by capping skills to the level of the character (class/race) where attributes and bonuses are filtered through them. This way, we don't have tons of gear with all kinds of "Recommended and Required" caps and scaling states, etc... This stuff should be handled behind the curtain so to speak where the player won't know exactly where those diminishing returns are, just how in EQ a player never knew really what level a mob was once they reached a given level of conning ie "This mob will wipe the floor with you".

Amsai · November 2015

That sounds good. I think XI did a mix of some things having no restrictions and others having specific level requirements. Which ultimately had its good points and bad.

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