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Questions about the game
danwest58
Member RarePosts: 2,012
Do we know if Pantheon will have Crafting that is very much like SWG where depending on the mats you use depends how could the item is? Or there is not much information out about Pantheon crafting?
Also do we know what the death penalties are?
Also do we know what the death penalties are?
Comments
Personally, I am on board for a meaningful death penalty and I would love to see the crafting system mirror closely to Star Wars Galaxies.
Like Chrysaor said, still no word on exactly what the death penalty will be. I personally hope there will be a need to retrieve our corpse upon dying, even if we don't drop the items we were wearing.
Please have a strong player driven economy with this game. I would be ok if they literally didn't have any armores/weapons for sell at the merchants and only gotten from crafters, but that prolly wont happen, who knows.
Usually its safe to say "make it like EQ" and call it a day, but Pantheon is going to be all about having situational gear. If you are in a place thats extremely cold and you were wearing all of your best cold resistance gear, retrieving your gear could be extremely problematic, if not impossible. If your equipped armor stayed with you, at least then you'd have a chance of getting everything else back.
Its hard to say one way or another without more information.
Why would it have anything to do with Star Wars Galaxies ?!? Pantheon is made as the successor of EverQuest and Vanguard. Compared to that, SWG wasnt even itemfocused; specifically it had permanent item decay. I dont know too much about SWG crafting but I understand there have been options to mass produce, which is unsurprising, considering the permanent item decay issue.
I would assume the death penalty in Pantheon will be quite harsh, just like EQ and VG. They even talked about deleveling, like in Lineage 2. I hope they skip over that because deleveling results in having to reorder your interface AND it interferes with raiding, both "features" I can live without.
Uuuuuuuh ... replace "great" with "simple" and thats what actually was said.
They wanted to start with something rather simple like EQ, then later make it more complex, like VG.
Well, that obviously wont happen. Why does everyone in this thread suddenly assume Pantheon crafting is like SWG ?
I dont have the quote ready but somewhere in this forum there was Brad McQuaid pointing out he wanted both dropped and crafted gear to matter.
One way to deal with the CR issue is to make the corpse recoverable through an alternate means AFTER a certain amount of time, maybe 24-48 hours or so with some hefty penalties, fines. This way, the person will eventually be able to get their corpse and gear back if such a situation exists as you mention, but it will retain the fear and risk of exploring as well as create a need to rely on others.
That is a variation of how I would do it. I really don't think anything but taking away peoples toys will really give that feeling again that we knew in EQ. I seen a ton of systems over they years and only EQs CR with gear left on the body did the trick. Everything else wasn't a threat.
Again, you will definitely still have gear on the body even if it wasn't the gear you had on. I don't think there will be many times after the early levels where you won't be carrying situational armor and weapons. That will be all the motivation necessary for players to return to the scene of the accident.
Personally I would have no problem with such a system. I think that with the level of skill being higher today in general, a game even harder than EQ would be appropriate. I'm just trying to be realistic here.
Hopefully they start with a steeper penalty, and get some feedback from the testers or community.
Agreed, they are best served starting super strict and "slowly" tuning it down if need.
Here is my main point. We have had years of "convenience" systems in games. People are used to easy game play, easy rewards, and little consequence. Anything that changes from that is going to be a shock for them. Many are going to object to even the slightest mechanics that have consequence, even if they liked old EQ. Current games have spoiled players and taught them bad habits. Heck, even I noticed this as I got used to playing WoW and went back to an EQ private server. I was dying so much it was ridiculous because I had become accustomed to all the "convenience" features and was playing stupid without care.
So I think they need to be careful when listening to people because it is habit for many to say something is too harsh, or too much. This is one of those things where what people say they "want" isn't always what they "need".
But you're right, it's much to early to speculate with the discussion on situational gear - I just hope it's not /gear swap macros.
You comment here about not see such systems as corpse runs being appealing to many people is exactly why I am asking this question. This is my first look into Pantheon and if I see Corpse Runs, or Permadeath, or harsh death penalties I will not even bother looking into this game more. You can call me carebear or what ever, I played UO Pre T2A, I played UO T2A and liked T2A more. Yes we had Corpse runs but I lived in my parents basement and had 30+ hours a week to do that shit. Today I have maybe 10 to 15 a week if I am lucky and On average about 6 to 8 hours a week. So if I need to spend time running back to my corpse you could kiss this game good bye and have the same population as MO.
Now I do not have a problem with Item Decay especially like SWG because if I died too many times my item would break and be gone. Good I have no problem with that I will just have stock piles of gear. So yea it will HURT but its not a massive pointless time sink. No People running back to their corpse will only piss them off and they will not play.
Now Having a server where it will be for the most hardcore players. Cool.
As for the Crafting I guess I will keep an eye out for it.
I do like the idea of situational gear. I loved that in SWG and that's why I made great Rocket Launchers. AT-STs? No problem.
If these Crowd Funded MMOs cannot balance out old systems that will never again work in an MMO today with easy welfare content then they will not work. Item Decay is a good idea where its easy to pick up baseline gear but harder\cost more to get top end gear. Just Corpse runs is well how should I say it? Dead on Arrival, because outside .1% of MMO players will even consider a game like that after years of easy. Sorry WOW tried to go back to something harder like requiring CC in dungeons and one shot mechanics in dungeons and it failed because people got use to welfare game play. You will not chance that but you can get older players like myself who will play middle ground system MMO. As long as they are not P2W or F2P.
Having witnessed it in EQ2 ,i liked it a lot at first but then after a couple months i realized how superficial and bad the design idea is.
NOBODY cares about anything other than the best quality,so why bother?It is like asking if you want 200 Fire damage or 150 Fire damage....doh ummm errr is that a trick question?
The best idea i can think of is versatility in crafting ideas instead of those lame often used TIER designs where every 10 levels is the same old different tier.
Example design a sword that cuts through tough plate or tough skin better than another sword that might be better for piercing damage.
People seem to often forget that combat is just simple math numbers,you can paste whatever name idea you want it still comes off as 50 dmg one way or another.So the only way to give a game better realism and creativity is to have various forms of combat and resistances and elemental properties as well..Then support those ideas with celestial ideas like moon phases or weather what god you might support etc etc.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I don't mind the server idea, as long as mainstream ideas don't start dictating design direction. You have to understand there are no games like EQ out there and what ones they tried, weren't really EQ like as much as they were some PvP gimmick trying to market off some half-arsed idea which really didn't get the point of EQ in the first place.
I was playing MMOs as an adult, with a full time job in a technical field and married while I was playing EQ. Many of my fellow guild mates were also like such. We did know a few like you who were young kids living at home still, but that was not the norm in my play.
The point is, time is not the issue here, it is the willingness to play a given style of game. Pantheon isn't being created to market to a mass appeal. It isn't trying to move the sliders out and catch the biggest audience. People like me, who want a challenging game, who have experienced the evolution of MMOs over the years are sick of todays generation of MMOs. Seriously, we hate them, have nothing to do with them, don't even play them anymore because we despise them so much.
By the way? That 1 percent you mention, well... 1 percent of 12 million (WoW at its highest subscription base) is 120k players. That would be more than enough to keep the doors open. Also consider that EQ at its highest subscription rate was around 550k and Brad even mentioned the last numbers he heard of EQ was around 50k. So you get the idea that subs aren't going to be an issue if it is a solid game.
In fact, the only thing this game has going for it is to keep to that old school mentality, to focus on providing the type of play that made games like EQ so great. If they choose to appeal to the wider audience, this game is dead, not because I say so, but because the market has established it as such over and over and over with every game that attempts to appeal to mass market.
So, like I said, if the server thing is possible, it may be a solution for us both, but if the game caters to you, I won't play it. If it caters to me, you say you won't play it. Thing is, the game was never seeking you in the first place. /shrug
From everything that I have read so far, you should expect Pantheon to be a challenging MMO focused on social and group interdependent gameplay. You should expect that the death penalty mechanic will sting, but it will likely not be anywhere near as punishing as a permadeath penalty.
I believe the intent for the game will of course be to try and attract as many gamers as possible, but not at the cost of changing the central thesis for the game's design, which again is being designed to fill a gap that currently exists in the MMO market for a more complex and challenging gaming world.
If you enjoyed how Everquest was in its earlier days, then you will probably have a lot of fun in Pantheon. The official Pantheon forums have a decent amount of interaction with the developer team. I would encourage you to visit those forums and make your thoughts known, as a lot of the mechanics for the game are still being openly debated.
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2025: 48 years on the Net.
If Pantheon has the numbers to support it post-release (or in beta) then that's one thing, but I'd rather not agree to that as a solution prior to launch. And, if I played on a hardcore server, I wouldn't want rewards coded into the server like increased drop rates - pretty much defeats the purpose. The "reward" should be innate to the player that your accomplishing a greater challenge.
While I agree that MMOs have been in the pot for many years, (Since WOTLK) however I do not agree that the game has to bring back Corpse runs. I played UO back in 1998, It was great having no life and being able to do that. However I have evolved into a grown man with a family and bills to pay. Corpse runs will not get people like me who do miss the old days of MMOS however do not miss stupid mechanics like corpse runs. Now Gear Decay where my gear breaks, I am all for. WHY? Because bring gear like I had i n SWG or even having to sit and wait for a Doctor to heal my stats I have no problem with death penalties that hurt. There is a difference between being stupid and having a well balanced penalty. SWG is a great example.
Again I am not trying to start a fight, I am just saying too harsh of a penalty is not going to work any will keep people away before this game start.
@Dawnwest58 There is going to be a death penalty somewhere between EQ and VG. They have said that from the beginning. While we don't know all of the details yet, we do have a ballpark estimation. Pantheon absolutely will not be for everyone, and Brad and team are pretty staunch in sticking to their guns on some of these more "old school" mechanics.
I for one like the system the way Dullaham describes it. You drop you coin and bags and will need to recover them at some point. I would not mind them adding a 12 hour, lose the chance for an exp rez, corpse summon system for a cost either. Since we're all old folks with kids now they understand we don't have an additional 2-3 hours late at night to try and recover corpses if something goes wrong. Adding a system to summon all of our stuff from the night before (12 hours later) due to wiping, with a high cost and loss of exp, still gives people the leeway to push themselves a little into more challenging content, but will sting pretty bad if/when things go south. That or you can log in the next day/night and do a corpse run to where you were since you would have all your worn gear.
I think it would make sense to lose a fairly extreme amount of exp loss on death, and allow to recover a portion of it if you recover your corpse manually. If you get a rez (along with or in place of you recovering you corpse manually) you can have a percentage of the total exp loss returned to you (10%-96%). If you summon the corpse 12 hours later, not only will you not be able to get a rez for a large return of the exp, but you lose the full extreme amount from not recovering your corpse manually. It would help keep people from going balls out at the end of every night and then, if they wipe, just recovering a large portion of their exp from a summon plus high rez the next night when they log in.
These guys seem pretty sharp to me, I think they will find a good balance.
You either build your game from the ground up with deep crafting in mind or it becomes yet another tacked on system without any meaning.
From what I read, I believe the current thinking for Pantheon crafting will be that drops will not be competing with crafted items. As an example, perhaps armor will drop from mobs and perhaps potions would be made by crafters. I do not believe that anything is yet set in stone and the examples I gave could be just the opposite with perhaps armor being crafted and potions dropping from mobs.
So excuse me if I don't accept the "I have a life and am real busy with responsibilities" excuse because it is an excuse, not a legitimate reason. You see, one thing us adults learn is how to manage our time well. I can say this, if I couldn't make the time to play a game like EQ, I wouldn't play a game like EQ. Maybe think on that rather than thinking the game should be changed to fit you? Especially since there are tons of games out there that are perfect for your "grown up man" life?
I don't. Long as they get enough funding for the full dev cycle, filling up different server types will not be hard.
When I post this (on Pantheon forums), people keep talking about reducing the challenge. That is not what I said. What I said is having normal servers, and then harder servers. I can tell you right now, if we had our way and everything was as hard as we'd like it, Pantheon's playerbase would shrivel.
Different rulesets worked great with EQ. I think it would be just like hard mode on any other games, with a slight increase in the reward, many players would feel compelled to play there.