Another thing from EQ I don't want to see

Mendel · February 2017

One of the biggest things I recall from the early days of EQ1 involved the philosophy of designing zones. For those that don't remember, zones were roughly divided into those with good loot (including gear) and those with good experience. This pulled players in an extra couple of directions. Do we go here for a chance at loot, or do we go there and try to gain a level or two? The 'loot heavy' zones were nothing special, maybe a special weapon like the Runed Totem Staff, and 7g instead of 1g per mob. That took an awful long time for players to make any money in an evening.

The 'experience-heavy' zones were far more generous, and always crowded. High Pass Keep was home to the orcs in the tunnels, and indoors was all about the small goblin camp. Both were exceptional experience. It wouldn't have been unusual for characters to gain 2-5 levels in an evening, depending on how much competition was in-zone at the time. Some spots for high experience are still in game, like the undead gnoll reavers hill in East Karana, and are still superior experience for the level 13-18 crowd.

Another issue was the existence of camps where both the experience and loot were superior. Bandit sashes in West Karana was an excellent source of experience -- there were lots of bandits and they gave good experience. They also dropped the Bandit sashes which could be turned in for bronze weapons, which sold for 1-3 platinum apiece (a fortune when similar mobs were dropping a few silver pieces). These hot spots were popular camps, and tended to draw a disproportionate portion of the population.

A balanced design philosophy eventually took over and experience and loot were balanced. The paltry loot was bumped considerably, where it is now possible to easily earn 10-20 platinum in any of the starting zones while on the ride from 1st to 5th level.

This is one aspect of the early games that not many people remember, and I hope doesn't reappear in Pantheon. This design philosophy was left on the side of the road when the game evolved.

Dullahan · February 2017

It should be simple risk versus reward to determine experience. The more dangerous a zone is, the better loot and/or experience it should yield. Basically, any area you can do with 1 or 2 people should be poor experience. The best exp should come from grouping, and the more challenging group content.

Dullahan · February 2017

Torval said:

I hope we won't see single purpose zone or mob design. I doubt that will happen, but you never know.

Single purpose as in designed for just experience or just items?

I hope items and exp are sprinkled through all zones, and for the most part, they're all dangerous and call for a full group. It was kind of sad in EQ how some zones were mostly avoided because they had casters in them. Look at Befallen and Dalnir. Zones like that would have been more relevant had they decent loot tables.

Dullahan · February 2017

DMKano said:

Dullahan said:

It should be simple risk versus reward to determine experience. The more dangerous a zone is, the better loot and/or experience it should yield. Basically, any area you can do with 1 or 2 people should be poor experience. The best exp should come from grouping, and the more challenging group content.

Except in terms of actual challenge its usually a lot easier in a full group than 2 people or even solo.

Ive been playing with the same core of players since 1999, so we just crush group content due to just knowing eachothers playstyle so well and extreme familiarity with mmorpgs.

So full group content is usually more faceroll in terms of challenge

That makes, quite literally, no sense. Group content is innately harder simply because it requires a group. The challenge at that point is not in combat mechanics, but by virtue of the quantity or strength of mobs, it demands more players.

So a solo player who was killing mobs of the same level outside of a dungeon goes in, he gets wrecked in an area designed with a full group in mind... because it's harder.

Yes, it is "easier" to do such content with a group, but that doesn't make that content easier than other content that you can do solo. It should be an assumed design that players approach massively multiplayer game content with a group.

EvorasX · February 2017

Two things to consider:

1. The VR team are very familiar with the 'design flaws' evident in EQ (yes, even as a staunch supporter of EQ, I know that there were issues). These were mainly caused by urgency to release or flying into the unknown! It seems probable that the VR team will have a good idea of what balance will be needed to ensure some zones are not crowded at the expsense of others. This, I am sure, will be the focus of some of the Alpha and Beta testing.

2. Group content is likely neither designed for group sizes of 1-2, nor for 6 players. With a maximum of 6 in a group and, using a quaternity for class roles, it seems sensible to tune content (initially at least) for 4+. This might be 4-5 for 'challenging' and '5-6' for 'very challenging'. With mobs having their AI driven by 'mob outlook' (eg 'cowardly' will flee and try to get help at 50% hp, not 20%) this should make camping (even by an experienced full group of 6) non-trivial, regardless of how well they know their characters skills/spells.

Long live the challenge .... and woe betides them pesky AFK wizzies!

Aelious · February 2017

Mendel said:

One of the biggest things I recall from the early days of EQ1 involved the philosophy of designing zones. For those that don't remember, zones were roughly divided into those with good loot (including gear) and those with good experience. This pulled players in an extra couple of directions. Do we go here for a chance at loot, or do we go there and try to gain a level or two? The 'loot heavy' zones were nothing special, maybe a special weapon like the Runed Totem Staff, and 7g instead of 1g per mob. That took an awful long time for players to make any money in an evening.

The 'experience-heavy' zones were far more generous, and always crowded. High Pass Keep was home to the orcs in the tunnels, and indoors was all about the small goblin camp. Both were exceptional experience. It wouldn't have been unusual for characters to gain 2-5 levels in an evening, depending on how much competition was in-zone at the time. Some spots for high experience are still in game, like the undead gnoll reavers hill in East Karana, and are still superior experience for the level 13-18 crowd.

Another issue was the existence of camps where both the experience and loot were superior. Bandit sashes in West Karana was an excellent source of experience -- there were lots of bandits and they gave good experience. They also dropped the Bandit sashes which could be turned in for bronze weapons, which sold for 1-3 platinum apiece (a fortune when similar mobs were dropping a few silver pieces). These hot spots were popular camps, and tended to draw a disproportionate portion of the population.

A balanced design philosophy eventually took over and experience and loot were balanced. The paltry loot was bumped considerably, where it is now possible to easily earn 10-20 platinum in any of the starting zones while on the ride from 1st to 5th level.

This is one aspect of the early games that not many people remember, and I hope doesn't reappear in Pantheon. This design philosophy was left on the side of the road when the game evolved.

Pantheon is kind of a pushback to the "evolution" of the genre in the sense of consolidation and factory stamp "golden path" production. The lack of focus required on what to do next because the game tells it to you has gotten bland and mind-numbing. The great thing about EQ, IMO, was that even just for XP you had multiple places to go no matter if you were soloing, duoing or grouping. Sometimes you had to make a decision on where else to go if a camp you want is already taken. Add to that having specific items of interest from specific areas just gave you more to do and more choices to make.

You may see these as hindrances but I see them as boons because the more varied activities you have available at any one time the better. That's one of the things that keep players in your game long term.

Dullahan · February 2017

Torval said:

Dullahan said:

DMKano said:

Dullahan said:

It should be simple risk versus reward to determine experience. The more dangerous a zone is, the better loot and/or experience it should yield. Basically, any area you can do with 1 or 2 people should be poor experience. The best exp should come from grouping, and the more challenging group content.

Except in terms of actual challenge its usually a lot easier in a full group than 2 people or even solo.

Ive been playing with the same core of players since 1999, so we just crush group content due to just knowing eachothers playstyle so well and extreme familiarity with mmorpgs.

So full group content is usually more faceroll in terms of challenge

That makes, quite literally, no sense. Group content is innately harder simply because it requires a group. The challenge at that point is not in combat mechanics, but by virtue of the quantity or strength of mobs, it demands more players.

So a solo player who was killing mobs of the same level outside of a dungeon goes in, he gets wrecked in an area designed with a full group in mind... because it's harder.

Yes, it is "easier" to do such content with a group, but that doesn't make that content easier than other content that you can do solo. It should be an assumed design that players approach massively multiplayer game content with a group.

Wow, just no. That is not how challenge and difficulty works. If this game is only "challenging" due to numbers and ratios of them, then it's screwed from the get go.

Challenge is all about combat mechanics. That's why many people understand that contrived "group" "solo" "small group" large group" "raid" content is inherently flawed with regards to challenge.

I seriously doubt VR will shot themselves in the foot by making group content about numbers.

No, challenge in an MMORPG should be about numbers also. That is how it used to work when mmos were worth playing for longer than 6 weeks.

I did specify that I was addressing the cooperative aspect of challenge though, and did not say there should be no mechanical challenge. Of course there should be. What I was pointing to is the fact that content designed for groups is naturally harder by virtue of the fact that part of the requirements for defeating it is determined by your ability to group with other people. That should definitely be a thing.

In EQ, a single player fighting outside against your run of the mill level 40s mob was easy. Killing a similar mob in a dungeon was considerably harder solely because of the proximity to other mobs. You see how environment, encounters and quantity of mobs make it more challenging to succeed? That's almost entirely a numbers check, before we even begin considering mechanics.

Numbers or cooperative play should always be an important factor and part of the risk calculation when determining the reward. Or we could just keep having massively single player online games where players succeed based on personal skill in solo content, and the rewards rival or undermine group achievements. That doesn't seem to be working so well though.

Kyleran · February 2017

Dullahan said:

Torval said:

Dullahan said:

DMKano said:

Dullahan said:

It should be simple risk versus reward to determine experience. The more dangerous a zone is, the better loot and/or experience it should yield. Basically, any area you can do with 1 or 2 people should be poor experience. The best exp should come from grouping, and the more challenging group content.

Except in terms of actual challenge its usually a lot easier in a full group than 2 people or even solo.

Ive been playing with the same core of players since 1999, so we just crush group content due to just knowing eachothers playstyle so well and extreme familiarity with mmorpgs.

So full group content is usually more faceroll in terms of challenge

That makes, quite literally, no sense. Group content is innately harder simply because it requires a group. The challenge at that point is not in combat mechanics, but by virtue of the quantity or strength of mobs, it demands more players.

So a solo player who was killing mobs of the same level outside of a dungeon goes in, he gets wrecked in an area designed with a full group in mind... because it's harder.

Yes, it is "easier" to do such content with a group, but that doesn't make that content easier than other content that you can do solo. It should be an assumed design that players approach massively multiplayer game content with a group.

Wow, just no. That is not how challenge and difficulty works. If this game is only "challenging" due to numbers and ratios of them, then it's screwed from the get go.

Challenge is all about combat mechanics. That's why many people understand that contrived "group" "solo" "small group" large group" "raid" content is inherently flawed with regards to challenge.

I seriously doubt VR will shot themselves in the foot by making group content about numbers.

No, challenge in an MMORPG should be about numbers also. That is how it used to work when mmos were worth playing for longer than 6 weeks.

I did specify that I was addressing the cooperative aspect of challenge though, and did not say there should be no mechanical challenge. Of course there should be. What I was pointing to is the fact that content designed for groups is naturally harder by virtue of the fact that part of the requirements for defeating it is determined by your ability to group with other people. That should definitely be a thing.

In EQ, a single player fighting outside against your run of the mill level 40s mob was easy. Killing a similar mob in a dungeon was considerably harder solely because of the proximity to other mobs. You see how environment, encounters and quantity of mobs make it more challenging to succeed? That's almost entirely a numbers check, before we even begin considering mechanics.

Numbers or cooperative play should always be an important factor and part of the risk calculation when determining the reward. Or we could just keep having massively single player online games where players succeed based on personal skill in solo content, and the rewards rival or undermine group achievements. That doesn't seem to be working so well though.

Torval neither wants to cooperatively play in a group nor play a MMO for more than 6 weeks at a time.

Your arguments falls on deaf ears.

Distopia · February 2017

Kyleran said:

No, challenge in an MMORPG should be about numbers also. That is how it used to work when mmos were worth playing for longer than 6 weeks.

I did specify that I was addressing the cooperative aspect of challenge though, and did not say there should be no mechanical challenge. Of course there should be. What I was pointing to is the fact that content designed for groups is naturally harder by virtue of the fact that part of the requirements for defeating it is determined by your ability to group with other people. That should definitely be a thing.

In EQ, a single player fighting outside against your run of the mill level 40s mob was easy. Killing a similar mob in a dungeon was considerably harder solely because of the proximity to other mobs. You see how environment, encounters and quantity of mobs make it more challenging to succeed? That's almost entirely a numbers check, before we even begin considering mechanics.

Numbers or cooperative play should always be an important factor and part of the risk calculation when determining the reward. Or we could just keep having massively single player online games where players succeed based on personal skill in solo content, and the rewards rival or undermine group achievements. That doesn't seem to be working so well though.

Torval neither wants to cooperatively play in a group nor play a MMO for more than 6 weeks at a time.

Your arguments falls on deaf ears.

It's not falling on deaf ears it's mistaking scaling with challenge, they're two different things. Three people facing a target that's scaled for three people, is the same as one person fighting a mob scaled for one. Challenge comes from a perspective of strategy as well as unpredictability.

Just because something takes an hour to beat down doesn't mean it was a challenging encounter. This has been the case for most PVE. rarely has something presented a strategic as well as unpredictable challenge, especially for those who have played more than one MMORPGs. You're more likely to find that in PVP.

Theocritus · February 2017

It doesnt work because everyone is in a race to end game in every game...in EQ1 at first, many of us liked exploring the world and trying to find loot upgrades....Really it wasnt a mad rush to end game at first.

Dullahan · March 2017

Torval said:

Wait what? You're speaking for me now? Oh, Is that your weak attempt to rattle me? I hope you have something better than that, like something of substance to add to the conversation.

Harder to accomplish and challenge in combat aren't the same thing. It's not challenging for the solo player that PC mitigation and damage output doesn't compare to the mob.

In a PvP battle a level 5 player isn't challenged by a level 50 player.

Using damage numbers and health to define challenge means that the only thing needed is more people. In modern and old school raid mechanics using dps checks is the lowest common denominator as a challenge.

Challenge is defined by the need for tactics and strategy in a possible scenario. If the scenario is impossible there is no challenge to it and the outcome is predictable.

We weren't talking about numbers of mobs or environment before. We were talking about increasing the health and damage of a single mob.

Well, you responded to my post as if strategy was the only form of challenge (it isn't). There are many factors that contribute to challenge. Semantics aside, if a mob is higher level than you, it is more challenging for you to kill. Even if that difference is purely higher dps and hp of the mob. That alone would force you to find a way to conserve resources, or go more defensive or higher offensive to burst the mob down. All of those add to challenge, even if that challenge doesn't require doing calculus on the fly.

If a mob is situated next to other mobs, it is more challenging to defeat, because you have to find a way to CC the adds. If it's behind a bunch of content that you have to clear first, it challenges you socially to find other people.

Not all challenges in an MMORPG should be of a strategic or tactical nature.

Albatroes · March 2017

Personally, I would love to see the return of dynamic mob spawns (lottery pops), only that they are maybe not raid level but definitely require a couple of groups of equal level to down. It would add that sense of danger so you had to be care to keep on doing exp otherwise it would link when you did pulls, plus have a change to get people together to down it. Normally things like these have a few hours on cool down before the window is open again, so maybe shorten the window to make it more approachable. Mainly just want something to spice things up. I remember back in the day just grinding in Ragnarok Online and getting one of those humanoid class ghosts sometimes spawning so I couldn't approach the area around it for grinding due to it being too hard. Maybe also have those summoning things that sometimes drop from mobs that can pop a raid level monster for different approaches to loot and creating more controlled events for those than have random schedules.

Also, anyone's thoughts on looting? I honestly am becoming more drawn to the individualized looting method as opposed to the whole loot pool system. Maybe make it so that its still tradeable to people that were there killing similar to how wow currently has been doing it since WoD. I don't miss ninja looting, that's for sure...

Mylan12 · March 2017

Torval said:

Kyleran said:

Dullahan said:

Torval said:

Dullahan said:

DMKano said:

Dullahan said:

It should be simple risk versus reward to determine experience. The more dangerous a zone is, the better loot and/or experience it should yield. Basically, any area you can do with 1 or 2 people should be poor experience. The best exp should come from grouping, and the more challenging group content.

Except in terms of actual challenge its usually a lot easier in a full group than 2 people or even solo.

Ive been playing with the same core of players since 1999, so we just crush group content due to just knowing eachothers playstyle so well and extreme familiarity with mmorpgs.

So full group content is usually more faceroll in terms of challenge

That makes, quite literally, no sense. Group content is innately harder simply because it requires a group. The challenge at that point is not in combat mechanics, but by virtue of the quantity or strength of mobs, it demands more players.

So a solo player who was killing mobs of the same level outside of a dungeon goes in, he gets wrecked in an area designed with a full group in mind... because it's harder.

Yes, it is "easier" to do such content with a group, but that doesn't make that content easier than other content that you can do solo. It should be an assumed design that players approach massively multiplayer game content with a group.

Wow, just no. That is not how challenge and difficulty works. If this game is only "challenging" due to numbers and ratios of them, then it's screwed from the get go.

Challenge is all about combat mechanics. That's why many people understand that contrived "group" "solo" "small group" large group" "raid" content is inherently flawed with regards to challenge.

I seriously doubt VR will shot themselves in the foot by making group content about numbers.

No, challenge in an MMORPG should be about numbers also. That is how it used to work when mmos were worth playing for longer than 6 weeks.

I did specify that I was addressing the cooperative aspect of challenge though, and did not say there should be no mechanical challenge. Of course there should be. What I was pointing to is the fact that content designed for groups is naturally harder by virtue of the fact that part of the requirements for defeating it is determined by your ability to group with other people. That should definitely be a thing.

In EQ, a single player fighting outside against your run of the mill level 40s mob was easy. Killing a similar mob in a dungeon was considerably harder solely because of the proximity to other mobs. You see how environment, encounters and quantity of mobs make it more challenging to succeed? That's almost entirely a numbers check, before we even begin considering mechanics.

Numbers or cooperative play should always be an important factor and part of the risk calculation when determining the reward. Or we could just keep having massively single player online games where players succeed based on personal skill in solo content, and the rewards rival or undermine group achievements. That doesn't seem to be working so well though.

Torval neither wants to cooperatively play in a group nor play a MMO for more than 6 weeks at a time.

Your arguments falls on deaf ears.

Wait what? You're speaking for me now? Oh, Is that your weak attempt to rattle me? I hope you have something better than that, like something of substance to add to the conversation.

Harder to accomplish and challenge in combat aren't the same thing. It's not challenging for the solo player that PC mitigation and damage output doesn't compare to the mob.

In a PvP battle a level 5 player isn't challenged by a level 50 player.

Using damage numbers and health to define challenge means that the only thing needed is more people. In modern and old school raid mechanics using dps checks is the lowest common denominator as a challenge.

Challenge is defined by the need for tactics and strategy in a possible scenario. If the scenario is impossible there is no challenge to it and the outcome is predictable.

We weren't talking about numbers of mobs or environment before. We were talking about increasing the health and damage of a single mob.

I hope they have a way to prevent the zerging mobs. In early EQ this was prevented to some degree by the areas not being able to handle large masses of people without massive lag.
Lots of things make a fight challenging- adds, the environment, the abilities of the mob(s), yes the health of the mob(s) and so on.
One thing I have always hated in such encounters is when they have a "trick" to do it. Until you figure out the "trick" the fight is next to impossible but once you do it is trivial. I guess it is a challenge for the first group to do it but once word gets out the challenge is gone.
I think the fights for a particular big mob should vary. Maybe have a large set of skills and encounter events that "can" happen but have them not be the same each time and not in the same order each time. This way you have to be prepared for anything and it may help make the big fights not become as routine and boring as they tend to do after a while.

Aelious · March 2017

Most titles have no more than 10% of the content be both scaled and consist of special mechanics so I agree more of it would be good. I would like to see an MMO where all mobs had abilities/behaviors tailored to them. In the genres current form, If given the choice of:

A. 10% scaled with mechanics, or
B. 10% scaled with mechanics and 40%+ additional content that is just scaled for group play.

I'll take option B because I like group play and if done a certain way scaling does lead to more of a challenge. My example of this working in a current game it would be Aion. The group play content, outside of dungeons, is such that pathers and respawns could get you killed quick if CC wasn't on their game and even then could get overwhelmed. Without a CC was still doable but you hoped to have a Chanter with offheals and/or DPS that knew to focus one mob at a time.

Challenge can be accomplished with more than just scaling but I've yet to see it accomplished without it.

3jakeh3 · March 2017

@jimcouch65

Kyleran · March 2017

Torval said:

Kyleran said:

Dullahan said:

Torval said:

Dullahan said:

DMKano said:

Dullahan said:

It should be simple risk versus reward to determine experience. The more dangerous a zone is, the better loot and/or experience it should yield. Basically, any area you can do with 1 or 2 people should be poor experience. The best exp should come from grouping, and the more challenging group content.

Except in terms of actual challenge its usually a lot easier in a full group than 2 people or even solo.

Ive been playing with the same core of players since 1999, so we just crush group content due to just knowing eachothers playstyle so well and extreme familiarity with mmorpgs.

So full group content is usually more faceroll in terms of challenge

That makes, quite literally, no sense. Group content is innately harder simply because it requires a group. The challenge at that point is not in combat mechanics, but by virtue of the quantity or strength of mobs, it demands more players.

So a solo player who was killing mobs of the same level outside of a dungeon goes in, he gets wrecked in an area designed with a full group in mind... because it's harder.

Yes, it is "easier" to do such content with a group, but that doesn't make that content easier than other content that you can do solo. It should be an assumed design that players approach massively multiplayer game content with a group.

Wow, just no. That is not how challenge and difficulty works. If this game is only "challenging" due to numbers and ratios of them, then it's screwed from the get go.

Challenge is all about combat mechanics. That's why many people understand that contrived "group" "solo" "small group" large group" "raid" content is inherently flawed with regards to challenge.

I seriously doubt VR will shot themselves in the foot by making group content about numbers.

No, challenge in an MMORPG should be about numbers also. That is how it used to work when mmos were worth playing for longer than 6 weeks.

I did specify that I was addressing the cooperative aspect of challenge though, and did not say there should be no mechanical challenge. Of course there should be. What I was pointing to is the fact that content designed for groups is naturally harder by virtue of the fact that part of the requirements for defeating it is determined by your ability to group with other people. That should definitely be a thing.

In EQ, a single player fighting outside against your run of the mill level 40s mob was easy. Killing a similar mob in a dungeon was considerably harder solely because of the proximity to other mobs. You see how environment, encounters and quantity of mobs make it more challenging to succeed? That's almost entirely a numbers check, before we even begin considering mechanics.

Numbers or cooperative play should always be an important factor and part of the risk calculation when determining the reward. Or we could just keep having massively single player online games where players succeed based on personal skill in solo content, and the rewards rival or undermine group achievements. That doesn't seem to be working so well though.

Torval neither wants to cooperatively play in a group nor play a MMO for more than 6 weeks at a time.

Your arguments falls on deaf ears.

Wait what? You're speaking for me now? Oh, Is that your weak attempt to rattle me? I hope you have something better than that, like something of substance to add to the conversation.

Harder to accomplish and challenge in combat aren't the same thing. It's not challenging for the solo player that PC mitigation and damage output doesn't compare to the mob.

In a PvP battle a level 5 player isn't challenged by a level 50 player.

Using damage numbers and health to define challenge means that the only thing needed is more people. In modern and old school raid mechanics using dps checks is the lowest common denominator as a challenge.

Challenge is defined by the need for tactics and strategy in a possible scenario. If the scenario is impossible there is no challenge to it and the outcome is predictable.

We weren't talking about numbers of mobs or environment before. We were talking about increasing the health and damage of a single mob.

Actually I was making observations on your gaming preferences based on recent statements by you in these forums.

He was trying to convince you about grouping and playing long term, neither of which you favor.

As to the question of challenge from higher DPS of course one solution is to zerg it down, but on some games the diminishing return on rewards makes it undesireable.

In DAOC my Mentalist can attack a low level green or blue mob and burn it down easily, but for very low reward.

Yellow con is more challeging, have to kite them for one cycle, but they normally go down unless the resist RNG demon comes into play.

Orange cons are dicey, higher resist rates and HPs require several kite runs and every now and then go south, but they provide the maximum experience the cap will allow.

Reds, well I won't do them solo, resist rates are too high, you end up burning too much mana which you have to sit off to regen and due to exp cap, usually not worth it.

Every class is different in DAOC, Bards can't beat a blue solo at times, while pet classes such as chanters and necros can solo some low purples in the right scenario. (which they normally only do when powerleveling someone) But they don't kite, pets tank and they melee or blast mob down.

So I see a lot of combat variance and possibility just from increasing the damage and DPS on a mob.

As for randomness, if you had seen my guildmates and I struggle with a standard Bard lvl 50 Epic quest last night you'd understand how unpredictable the PVE from a 15 year old game could be. We wiped hard for over 2 hours, they were still at it when I logged at midnight.

Was descibed by some in ZAM back in 2003 as "too easy" Guess we just suck.

Katilla · March 2017

sometimes when I'm bored I come to this site to watch the treads turn from a meaningful discussion into a personal flame war. It pretty much happens with all of them.

kruler · March 2017

Katilla said:

sometimes when I'm bored I come to this site to watch the treads turn from a meaningful discussion into a personal flame war. It pretty much happens with all of them.

Well it all starts as PVE(forum), then it levels a bit, gains insight through debate, then hits information cap, then goes full loot PvP forum with all the intelligence of a LVL one decaying skeleton.

Arguing over a 18 year old game that was trying to find its way in a new market, and comparing it with a game not even released and what partial information given is subject to change due to pre alpha nature.......Or "Pisssing in the wind" as my Dad used to say when I was young and arguing a point that was both pointless and ill informed.

kruler · March 2017

DMKano said:

Dullahan said:

DMKano said:

Dullahan said:

It should be simple risk versus reward to determine experience. The more dangerous a zone is, the better loot and/or experience it should yield. Basically, any area you can do with 1 or 2 people should be poor experience. The best exp should come from grouping, and the more challenging group content.

Except in terms of actual challenge its usually a lot easier in a full group than 2 people or even solo.

Ive been playing with the same core of players since 1999, so we just crush group content due to just knowing eachothers playstyle so well and extreme familiarity with mmorpgs.

So full group content is usually more faceroll in terms of challenge

That makes, quite literally, no sense. Group content is innately harder simply because it requires a group. The challenge at that point is not in combat mechanics, but by virtue of the quantity or strength of mobs, it demands more players.

So a solo player who was killing mobs of the same level outside of a dungeon goes in, he gets wrecked in an area designed with a full group in mind... because it's harder.

Yes, it is "easier" to do such content with a group, but that doesn't make that content easier than other content that you can do solo. It should be an assumed design that players approach massively multiplayer game content with a group.

I am talking about challenge - a full well balanced group of skilled players in EQ1 was zero challenge - as even if there were mistakes or resists (like someone breaking CC or moving into aggro path of a roamer etc...) the group would compensate easily. There was very little challenge there.

Now a solo player or even duo, had much smaller tolerance for mistakes so even non-group content was often more challenging.

Your example of a solo player going solo into a dungeon makes is something a solo player does once and never again. EQ1 players learned very quickly what was off limits to undergeared solo players.

So difficulty is not always challenge - because group play is inherently safer and less challenging, yes I am talking about a skilled group not a group that is doing dumb shit like wizard tanking - thus making challenge due to bad players

I found playing Solo allot more challenging than raids that quite frankly bored the crap out of me, as I loved the challenge as a necro getting in and taking out harder targets but one small mistake cost you allot, (older EQ) newer eq1 Necro is a tank in its own right (sadly). Kinda kills the class defining vibe.

So agreeing with DMkano.

Zuljan · March 2017

Torval said:

Dullahan said:

DMKano said:

Dullahan said:

It should be simple risk versus reward to determine experience. The more dangerous a zone is, the better loot and/or experience it should yield. Basically, any area you can do with 1 or 2 people should be poor experience. The best exp should come from grouping, and the more challenging group content.

Except in terms of actual challenge its usually a lot easier in a full group than 2 people or even solo.

Ive been playing with the same core of players since 1999, so we just crush group content due to just knowing eachothers playstyle so well and extreme familiarity with mmorpgs.

So full group content is usually more faceroll in terms of challenge

That makes, quite literally, no sense. Group content is innately harder simply because it requires a group. The challenge at that point is not in combat mechanics, but by virtue of the quantity or strength of mobs, it demands more players.

So a solo player who was killing mobs of the same level outside of a dungeon goes in, he gets wrecked in an area designed with a full group in mind... because it's harder.

Yes, it is "easier" to do such content with a group, but that doesn't make that content easier than other content that you can do solo. It should be an assumed design that players approach massively multiplayer game content with a group.

Wow, just no. That is not how challenge and difficulty works. If this game is only "challenging" due to numbers and ratios of them, then it's screwed from the get go.

Challenge is all about combat mechanics. That's why many people understand that contrived "group" "solo" "small group" large group" "raid" content is inherently flawed with regards to challenge.

I seriously doubt VR will shot themselves in the foot by making group content about numbers.

You're both right honestly. Challenge isn't just about numbers - that's obviously true - but it's also true that in greater numbers requires greater challenge in the sense that instead of requiring just 1 or 2 people to react to mob abilities, kite, take adds, etc, you are required to have all 6 people or in EQ raids 72 people execute this same sequence. This would inherently also require a larger room, which then requires more positioning, more opportunities for mistakes, and other variables.

Mylan12 · March 2017

Zuljan said:

Torval said:

Dullahan said:

DMKano said:

Dullahan said:

It should be simple risk versus reward to determine experience. The more dangerous a zone is, the better loot and/or experience it should yield. Basically, any area you can do with 1 or 2 people should be poor experience. The best exp should come from grouping, and the more challenging group content.

Except in terms of actual challenge its usually a lot easier in a full group than 2 people or even solo.

Ive been playing with the same core of players since 1999, so we just crush group content due to just knowing eachothers playstyle so well and extreme familiarity with mmorpgs.

So full group content is usually more faceroll in terms of challenge

That makes, quite literally, no sense. Group content is innately harder simply because it requires a group. The challenge at that point is not in combat mechanics, but by virtue of the quantity or strength of mobs, it demands more players.

So a solo player who was killing mobs of the same level outside of a dungeon goes in, he gets wrecked in an area designed with a full group in mind... because it's harder.

Yes, it is "easier" to do such content with a group, but that doesn't make that content easier than other content that you can do solo. It should be an assumed design that players approach massively multiplayer game content with a group.

Wow, just no. That is not how challenge and difficulty works. If this game is only "challenging" due to numbers and ratios of them, then it's screwed from the get go.

Challenge is all about combat mechanics. That's why many people understand that contrived "group" "solo" "small group" large group" "raid" content is inherently flawed with regards to challenge.

I seriously doubt VR will shot themselves in the foot by making group content about numbers.

You're both right honestly. Challenge isn't just about numbers - that's obviously true - but it's also true that in greater numbers requires greater challenge in the sense that instead of requiring just 1 or 2 people to react to mob abilities, kite, take adds, etc, you are required to have all 6 people or in EQ raids 72 people execute this same sequence. This would inherently also require a larger room, which then requires more positioning, more opportunities for mistakes, and other variables.

Wow I am glad I left EQ before the time of 72 people raids. I hope Pantheon keeps raids down in the 18 to maybe 24 people range. I also hope they have single group content that is real difficult to the point that it takes a well polished and experience group to be successful.

Zuljan · March 2017

Torval said:

Zuljan said:

Torval said:

Dullahan said:

DMKano said:

Dullahan said:

It should be simple risk versus reward to determine experience. The more dangerous a zone is, the better loot and/or experience it should yield. Basically, any area you can do with 1 or 2 people should be poor experience. The best exp should come from grouping, and the more challenging group content.

Except in terms of actual challenge its usually a lot easier in a full group than 2 people or even solo.

Ive been playing with the same core of players since 1999, so we just crush group content due to just knowing eachothers playstyle so well and extreme familiarity with mmorpgs.

So full group content is usually more faceroll in terms of challenge

That makes, quite literally, no sense. Group content is innately harder simply because it requires a group. The challenge at that point is not in combat mechanics, but by virtue of the quantity or strength of mobs, it demands more players.

So a solo player who was killing mobs of the same level outside of a dungeon goes in, he gets wrecked in an area designed with a full group in mind... because it's harder.

Yes, it is "easier" to do such content with a group, but that doesn't make that content easier than other content that you can do solo. It should be an assumed design that players approach massively multiplayer game content with a group.

Wow, just no. That is not how challenge and difficulty works. If this game is only "challenging" due to numbers and ratios of them, then it's screwed from the get go.

Challenge is all about combat mechanics. That's why many people understand that contrived "group" "solo" "small group" large group" "raid" content is inherently flawed with regards to challenge.

I seriously doubt VR will shot themselves in the foot by making group content about numbers.

You're both right honestly. Challenge isn't just about numbers - that's obviously true - but it's also true that in greater numbers requires greater challenge in the sense that instead of requiring just 1 or 2 people to react to mob abilities, kite, take adds, etc, you are required to have all 6 people or in EQ raids 72 people execute this same sequence. This would inherently also require a larger room, which then requires more positioning, more opportunities for mistakes, and other variables.

With more people you have more variables, but also the more people the more specialized they become and less responsible for a variety of activities. So they can do that one thing really well and their biggest challenge is making sure they execute that within their window of opportunity. The more people there are generally the more people you can have go down without a wipe as well.

Fewer people have fewer more consistent variation, but have to be responsible to carry out a wider range of tasks. I talk about Rift's Master Mode dungeons a lot. Those were like 5 person raid level instances. They had complex mechanics and each character had to do their primary role plus be able to carry out extra tasks. A single character death in a battle usually meant wipe and try again unless someone had instant battle rez's available - not every class/soul combo is stacked with those.

That general thumbrule is true in EQ2, WoW, and LotRO.

Yeah we are getting into a grey area that is sort of subjective, but it just comes down to math/statistics, making raiding more versatile/rewarding and I say difficult but difficult is subjective (you can make a fight hard by just making it a gear check or making the mob hit hard or whatever, or require synchronization of many more moving parts in a well-designed raid that would not require people to go idle as you say). Less people (single group) mean less options, smaller N for sample size, and ultimately this leads to volatility instead of a nice bell curve (this is why raids give miraculous 1% wipes or on the contrary downing Boss with only 1 person out of 42 or 72 standing). In group settings like this it basically plays as such: that "one thing" goes wrong or one person dies and you know automatically it is a wipe. It's a volatile feeling that will have you stopping after like 2/3 wipes. Raiding brings a variety of other feelings/dimension to encounters that group settings cannot, mathematically (in current designs).

Zuljan · March 2017

Mylan12 said:

Zuljan said:

Torval said:

Dullahan said:

DMKano said:

Dullahan said:

It should be simple risk versus reward to determine experience. The more dangerous a zone is, the better loot and/or experience it should yield. Basically, any area you can do with 1 or 2 people should be poor experience. The best exp should come from grouping, and the more challenging group content.

Except in terms of actual challenge its usually a lot easier in a full group than 2 people or even solo.

Ive been playing with the same core of players since 1999, so we just crush group content due to just knowing eachothers playstyle so well and extreme familiarity with mmorpgs.

So full group content is usually more faceroll in terms of challenge

That makes, quite literally, no sense. Group content is innately harder simply because it requires a group. The challenge at that point is not in combat mechanics, but by virtue of the quantity or strength of mobs, it demands more players.

So a solo player who was killing mobs of the same level outside of a dungeon goes in, he gets wrecked in an area designed with a full group in mind... because it's harder.

Yes, it is "easier" to do such content with a group, but that doesn't make that content easier than other content that you can do solo. It should be an assumed design that players approach massively multiplayer game content with a group.

Wow, just no. That is not how challenge and difficulty works. If this game is only "challenging" due to numbers and ratios of them, then it's screwed from the get go.

Challenge is all about combat mechanics. That's why many people understand that contrived "group" "solo" "small group" large group" "raid" content is inherently flawed with regards to challenge.

I seriously doubt VR will shot themselves in the foot by making group content about numbers.

You're both right honestly. Challenge isn't just about numbers - that's obviously true - but it's also true that in greater numbers requires greater challenge in the sense that instead of requiring just 1 or 2 people to react to mob abilities, kite, take adds, etc, you are required to have all 6 people or in EQ raids 72 people execute this same sequence. This would inherently also require a larger room, which then requires more positioning, more opportunities for mistakes, and other variables.

Wow I am glad I left EQ before the time of 72 people raids. I hope Pantheon keeps raids down in the 18 to maybe 24 people range. I also hope they have single group content that is real difficult to the point that it takes a well polished and experience group to be successful.

heh heh, I agree 72 is unnecessary these days. I'm hoping for 48 man raids. I was in a top 5 world guild in EQ up until WoW (guild was leveling WoW during the day and still raiding 5 days a week in WoW). I bring this up because after Potime (difficult 72 man raid), it was Omen muramite proving grounds or the expansion right after/before that had single group trials that we couldn't even complete (we were fully Time/Quarm geared thousands of AAs etc) for a long time because of the execution required. They were onto WoW mechanics years ago, so I'm confident/hopeful there will be some awesome, newly designed group content with mechanics we haven't seen, but who knows.

Kyleran · March 2017

Reading back to the OP I see this entire conversation has gone off into the weeds, so time to withdraw.

Regarding the OP, I think making zones interesting across all levels and activities should be the focus of most MMOs. Hopefully this is a lesson long since learned by the Pantheon team.

Never played EQ but in reading about it in these forums it seemed to have some peculiar mechanics which the team at Mythic managed to avoid.

Krimzin · March 2017

At the end of the day, I trust the developers. What a player wants is very different on the player you ask. Ive been following the game since the beginning. There has been absolutely nothing that makes me question their ability or the "vision" behind the game. I am simply sitting back patiently and waiting. Each bit of information only adds to reason for believing in the game.

EstherOpal · March 2017

soloing zones is common for leveling a character, though i dont think it should be non existent. some people like the excitement of grinding through a zone alone, or alone and coming across a group that can help if needed, i think the zones should scale depending on your group size, or certain areas can only be done with 2 or more players bringing you back to having to find a group EVENTUALLY. i dont think the game should be focused around grouping, even though its a huge part of what makes an mmo fun, you must think of everyone and not just hardcore players or people that were hardcore EQ1 players.

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Another thing from EQ I don't want to see

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Another thing from EQ I don't want to see

Comments

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV