I would like a combat system that is deep enough that there is no one set of keypress progression that is always right. If the skills order can be multibinded or macroed to always do the same set over and over to be the most efficient then it sucks. You should always be deciding which skill to use next, not automating it.
I prefer combat that is slow, and more of an endurance play (or macro game) over that of key press maintenance. That is what I liked about the early MMOs and their design. Mobs took a long time to kill as the difficulty was not in being quick on the keys (though interrupts to stop a gate cast or stun a runner was important), rather it was the management of your resources and encounters.
It was not uncommon to have fights last 30-45+ mins due to missing an interrupt on an NPC healing, a mob gating back to their spawn point and bringing help, or runner grabbing others near your location. You had issues with spawn times (since killing things took a while, there was the concern that if you took too much time you would get stuck with another round of mobs).
All of that going on created problems with resource management and party movement (in fact, just being able to make it to a deep area of some dungeons was considered a feat of skill). If you got too many things in camp, casters would run out of mana and the group would wipe forcing a corpse recovery and resulting in starting over again (or at least being set back to a previous area).
Most modern games focus on immediate fast combat with extremely action oriented play. WoW initially was about the slow combat and dungeon crawl on release, but then later became a fast paced action game about the skill of reflexes in an encounter. What used to be similar to EQ in play with numerous mobs that had to be carefully pulled, CC'd, and progressed through ended up being all about gathering a massive group and killing them in one fast action. The long game was removed and replaced with the short game (though I heard they did play around with that in later expansions, adding CC as a need again).
So I guess the point is that you can have more simplistic systems of play where the depth and decision processes become more about how to approach the content rather than how fast or complex you hit buttons in play.
Granted this is all a "style and taste of play" issue, but I hope they go back to the more simplistic model of EQ as the fast paced button progression play I find a bit tiring and I think it at times may conflict with the macro game I am describing. I mean, hitting an occasional cycle of a skill in EQ felt spammy enough when you were fighting a boss for hours, I couldn't imagine doing a complex rotation and function for 3 or more hours to take down a single boss. I can enjoy action type games, but that is a bit too much in my opinion.
I would like a combat system that is deep enough that there is no one set of keypress progression that is always right. If the skills order can be multibinded or macroed to always do the same set over and over to be the most efficient then it sucks. You should always be deciding which skill to use next, not automating it.
I agree with this. Gaming is about making decisions. If the player is just following a formula or pattern, there's not much to be said for the system behind it. If Pantheon is 100% auto-attack (which I do not expect), it will not be very robust. To me, that is a significant step backwards from EQ1. (Only some classes in EQ1 were 100% auto-attack, not all, and not in all situations).
I'd love to see all forms of combat available to all classes, but I kinda doubt that is going to make the cut. Why can't Enchanters kick? Snakes do.
That is why I think a lot of the convenience systems have taken away management in play over the years (OOC fast healing/mana recovery, ease of travel, recovery, and many other subtle systems from encumbrance to differences in spells such as invis and invis to undead, etc...) which provided layers in play that made the game more than a simple arcade style hack and slash that many games today have become.
I don't expect Pantheon to be EQ again, and from the videos, it certainly seems they aren't going that route, but I really hope they keep the "less is more" approach to it. I prefer more of a thinking game rather than a "whack a mole" one and I have to admit, watching some of the combat vids makes me cringe at times with the over head buff/debuff icons.
I would prefer skills that are used when needed, not used as a process of a cycle. While there were some melee skills in EQ that you just mindlessly cycled, many were subtle in use and you didn't spam them or they were less effective (ie spamming taunt). So it would be nice to have situational tools a class uses at given times and the skill in their application is figuring out when, where and how best to apply them. I think that would be far more rewarding (at least in my view) than mastering a complex rotation timing or the like.
Naw, I'd rather they design it for players willing to spend a bit more on their rigs, and not cater to the lowest common denominator.
The masses are never going to flock to this game, but those really interested will more than likely make the effort to make sure their PCs can handle it.
Sorry to disappoint, but if I have to upgrade three computers, I won't be playing.
Right now Rift is about the upper limit on what my computers can handle. If Pantheon takes much more than that, It won't happen for me.
Is it really reasonable to expect an old computer to play games launched "today"?
So if Rift launched in 2011, that's 7 years ago. Pantheon will launch in 2 years?
So running a game on 9 year old equipment is asking a lot. Even if it isn't trying to be Black Desert quality graphics.
My computers are not old, they just are not "gaming" rigs. They are ~$500 laptops from Best Buy.
Last time I purchased computers, I looked at what I use them for and the requirements to do so. Nearly all of my computer gaming is EQ1, EQ2, Rifts, GW2, etc. All of those titles run perfectly well on my family's computers. The newest is ~6 months old, the oldest ~4 years.
Upgrading all three of them to play one game would run me between $2400 - $3000. There is no way I can justify that.
I'd say you are close, bur ditch the idea of laptops. Unless you spend what I do on them, $3K+ far better to self build 3 desk top boxes for a grand each.
Might sound like a lot of money but that means saving about $2.75 per day in a jar for the next 3 years.
Which is quite likely how long it will take for this game to fully launch.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
A niche game like the old MMOs where they tried forcing people to group.
I'm expecting an amazing MMO, but the vast majority of MMO players will give up quick (like Vanguard Saga of Heroes, and no VG wasn't cause of launch cause people tried it over the years of multiple campaigns to revive it even when it was "fixed").
Once most players hate grouping 100% of the time, finding players to group with will be become very hard unless you are already at end game or have friends/family leveling with you. For most people however...finding low levels to group with will be easy, but mid-game (like VG) finding groups will be very hard past the initial launch numbers
If they make it to endgame (post-launch of course when vast amounts of people quit (true with every MMO), there'll be a core group of players to group with...but depending how the game is designed, it can be a very "in" crowd and they may not want you in groups. Like in WoW, after the initial CURRENT raid is released...you can't do the current raid if you didn't already do the raid, because people only group with people if they are overly above the item level or already did the raid before. This means you can't ever do the raid, because you weren't one of the "first" to do the raid when it was released.
They will succeed if they expect to be a niche MMO like the old times, and don't expect WoW numbers. The game will far more likely succeed if they start with few servers, instead of opening dozens like they did for Vanguard. Most players say they want a challenging MMO, but like Wildstar saw with their 1% raids...thats a very small group of MMOers.
Its why WoW saw such success. WoW very casual, solo friendly=success if the developer is looking to entice huge amounts of players.
I myself am excited for Pantheon, but I know the vast majority of MMO players are really casual, prefer soloing (hence why every MMO has people asking "whats best solo class?" "how much solo content is there?).
So I expect a niche MMO that most players might try but won't stick with
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
Actually...I think I already posted in this thread rofl. But I dont want to look through all the pages to check. Think I said pretty much same thing...oh well lol
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
A niche game like the old MMOs where they tried forcing people to group.
I'm expecting an amazing MMO, but the vast majority of MMO players will give up quick (like Vanguard Saga of Heroes, and no VG wasn't cause of launch cause people tried it over the years of multiple campaigns to revive it even when it was "fixed").
Once most players hate grouping 100% of the time, finding players to group with will be become very hard unless you are already at end game or have friends/family leveling with you. For most people however...finding low levels to group with will be easy, but mid-game (like VG) finding groups will be very hard past the initial launch numbers
If they make it to endgame (post-launch of course when vast amounts of people quit (true with every MMO), there'll be a core group of players to group with...but depending how the game is designed, it can be a very "in" crowd and they may not want you in groups. Like in WoW, after the initial CURRENT raid is released...you can't do the current raid if you didn't already do the raid, because people only group with people if they are overly above the item level or already did the raid before. This means you can't ever do the raid, because you weren't one of the "first" to do the raid when it was released.
They will succeed if they expect to be a niche MMO like the old times, and don't expect WoW numbers. The game will far more likely succeed if they start with few servers, instead of opening dozens like they did for Vanguard. Most players say they want a challenging MMO, but like Wildstar saw with their 1% raids...thats a very small group of MMOers.
Its why WoW saw such success. WoW very casual, solo friendly=success if the developer is looking to entice huge amounts of players.
I myself am excited for Pantheon, but I know the vast majority of MMO players are really casual, prefer soloing (hence why every MMO has people asking "whats best solo class?" "how much solo content is there?).
So I expect a niche MMO that most players might try but won't stick with
A few things about Vanguard. -Bad launch -Bad coding -Population dropped -Game was sold to SOE then fixed to where it was playable, despite the still bad coding. -Poor advertisement -mmorpg's only get one chance anyway. -Free-to-play final nail
But The large world was also designed to have a "full population" in all zones ALL THE TIME !
How so ?......The open world quest system ! Hubs in zones had full group quest only. This worked well for dungeons, but if you were adventuring alone, just try to explain your intentions in chat was impossible. This could only work if you had a party with you at all times. The low population wouldn't allow for random groups. Guilds were not large enough to have 5 like minded players between say 28-31 to do such quest.
Even if Vanguard were successful, sustainability to keep populations in all zones would have been impossible. Only very LARGE, very active professional guilds would be able to accomplish mid level group quest.
Important: Large population, all zone levels, all the time, and forever !
I played Vanilla World of Warcraft during it's most active times, on the most populated server....AND STILL trying to achieve full groups of 5 at mid level ALL THE TIME would have been impossible, unless I had "that unique Guild" !
You have to understand with many thousands of players trying to play successful, very few will have "that unique guild" !!!
Pantheon better have one-hell-of-a-social-system. Because thousands if not millions better all have "that unique Guild" !!!
I myself am excited for Pantheon, but I know the vast majority of MMO players are really casual, prefer soloing (hence why every MMO has people asking "whats best solo class?" "how much solo content is there?).
Consider that the bulk of MMO players today are the crowd that came later to the MMO market and it is that group to which the market currently attends to. Before them, there was a smaller core market to which found games like EQ and similar older gen MMOs appealing.
Pantheon is attempting to cater to that crowd and hopes that in the process there are some younger generations who might find that original design style of game to be appealing.
The point is, Pantheon isn't being designed to attend to the mainstream market and isn't basing its success on achieving the same levels of market numbers that a mainstream MMO requires. It can actually be successful on a very small core base of players.
A niche game like the old MMOs where they tried forcing people to group.
I'm expecting an amazing MMO, but the vast majority of MMO players will give up quick (like Vanguard Saga of Heroes, and no VG wasn't cause of launch cause people tried it over the years of multiple campaigns to revive it even when it was "fixed").
Once most players hate grouping 100% of the time, finding players to group with will be become very hard unless you are already at end game or have friends/family leveling with you. For most people however...finding low levels to group with will be easy, but mid-game (like VG) finding groups will be very hard past the initial launch numbers
If they make it to endgame (post-launch of course when vast amounts of people quit (true with every MMO), there'll be a core group of players to group with...but depending how the game is designed, it can be a very "in" crowd and they may not want you in groups. Like in WoW, after the initial CURRENT raid is released...you can't do the current raid if you didn't already do the raid, because people only group with people if they are overly above the item level or already did the raid before. This means you can't ever do the raid, because you weren't one of the "first" to do the raid when it was released.
They will succeed if they expect to be a niche MMO like the old times, and don't expect WoW numbers. The game will far more likely succeed if they start with few servers, instead of opening dozens like they did for Vanguard. Most players say they want a challenging MMO, but like Wildstar saw with their 1% raids...thats a very small group of MMOers.
Its why WoW saw such success. WoW very casual, solo friendly=success if the developer is looking to entice huge amounts of players.
I myself am excited for Pantheon, but I know the vast majority of MMO players are really casual, prefer soloing (hence why every MMO has people asking "whats best solo class?" "how much solo content is there?).
So I expect a niche MMO that most players might try but won't stick with
A few things about Vanguard. -Bad launch -Bad coding -Population dropped -Game was sold to SOE then fixed to where it was playable, despite the still bad coding. -Poor advertisement -mmorpg's only get one chance anyway. -Free-to-play final nail
But The large world was also designed to have a "full population" in all zones ALL THE TIME !
How so ?......The open world quest system ! Hubs in zones had full group quest only. This worked well for dungeons, but if you were adventuring alone, just try to explain your intentions in chat was impossible. This could only work if you had a party with you at all times. The low population wouldn't allow for random groups. Guilds were not large enough to have 5 like minded players between say 28-31 to do such quest.
Even if Vanguard were successful, sustainability to keep populations in all zones would have been impossible. Only very LARGE, very active professional guilds would be able to accomplish mid level group quest.
Important: Large population, all zone levels, all the time, and forever !
I played Vanilla World of Warcraft during it's most active times, on the most populated server....AND STILL trying to achieve full groups of 5 at mid level ALL THE TIME would have been impossible, unless I had "that unique Guild" !
You have to understand with many thousands of players trying to play successful, very few will have "that unique guild" !!!
Pantheon better have one-hell-of-a-social-system. Because thousands if not millions better all have "that unique Guild" !!!
I think your ideas about full zones all the time might be rather spot on. Pantheon is looking to be friendly towards regular groups at regular play times. I probably have some of the least regular play times these days. It was never uncommon for me (and a bazaar mule or two) to be online when I played EQ in a large (casual raiding) guild. That doesn't leave much opportunity for regular groups, I was always more likely to need the PUG in order to progress.
There will be a need for a very good social system in Pantheon. We haven't seen any examples of how a LFG system is going to work. The class design appears to be favoring the old 'only a class X will do' attitude, meaning that 1/6th of all players really should be class X. That is very likely to cause the 'I can never find a group' problem to rear its ugly head. There needs to a major push towards functional equivalence between classes performing the same role in a group.
I really hope that Pantheon will include some basic tools to show server populations by time zones, both current and last 2 days. That would help alleviate issues associated with time zones and number of players.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I'm anxious to see how much interest is left in old school, group based play...We have been solo MMO mode for so long, I just am not sure people will go back to doing this all over again.
I'm anxious to see how much interest is left in old school, group based play...We have been solo MMO mode for so long, I just am not sure people will go back to doing this all over again.
Thing is, the game has to be made as old school in the first place. The real test is if VR can hold their initial vision through the alphas and betas. Reading the pantheon forums over the years, the posts advocating and defending old school design have diminished greatly over time. I would say most posts over there tend to lean more to mainstream design concepts these days. Granted it could simply be that the old school supporters have moved on to the higher tier forums, but I do get nervous reading the discussions.
Comments
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
It was not uncommon to have fights last 30-45+ mins due to missing an interrupt on an NPC healing, a mob gating back to their spawn point and bringing help, or runner grabbing others near your location. You had issues with spawn times (since killing things took a while, there was the concern that if you took too much time you would get stuck with another round of mobs).
All of that going on created problems with resource management and party movement (in fact, just being able to make it to a deep area of some dungeons was considered a feat of skill). If you got too many things in camp, casters would run out of mana and the group would wipe forcing a corpse recovery and resulting in starting over again (or at least being set back to a previous area).
Most modern games focus on immediate fast combat with extremely action oriented play. WoW initially was about the slow combat and dungeon crawl on release, but then later became a fast paced action game about the skill of reflexes in an encounter. What used to be similar to EQ in play with numerous mobs that had to be carefully pulled, CC'd, and progressed through ended up being all about gathering a massive group and killing them in one fast action. The long game was removed and replaced with the short game (though I heard they did play around with that in later expansions, adding CC as a need again).
So I guess the point is that you can have more simplistic systems of play where the depth and decision processes become more about how to approach the content rather than how fast or complex you hit buttons in play.
Granted this is all a "style and taste of play" issue, but I hope they go back to the more simplistic model of EQ as the fast paced button progression play I find a bit tiring and I think it at times may conflict with the macro game I am describing. I mean, hitting an occasional cycle of a skill in EQ felt spammy enough when you were fighting a boss for hours, I couldn't imagine doing a complex rotation and function for 3 or more hours to take down a single boss. I can enjoy action type games, but that is a bit too much in my opinion.
I don't expect Pantheon to be EQ again, and from the videos, it certainly seems they aren't going that route, but I really hope they keep the "less is more" approach to it. I prefer more of a thinking game rather than a "whack a mole" one and I have to admit, watching some of the combat vids makes me cringe at times with the over head buff/debuff icons.
I would prefer skills that are used when needed, not used as a process of a cycle. While there were some melee skills in EQ that you just mindlessly cycled, many were subtle in use and you didn't spam them or they were less effective (ie spamming taunt). So it would be nice to have situational tools a class uses at given times and the skill in their application is figuring out when, where and how best to apply them. I think that would be far more rewarding (at least in my view) than mastering a complex rotation timing or the like.
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
Might sound like a lot of money but that means saving about $2.75 per day in a jar for the next 3 years.
Which is quite likely how long it will take for this game to fully launch.
But hey, still probably will release before SC.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I'm expecting an amazing MMO, but the vast majority of MMO players will give up quick (like Vanguard Saga of Heroes, and no VG wasn't cause of launch cause people tried it over the years of multiple campaigns to revive it even when it was "fixed").
Once most players hate grouping 100% of the time, finding players to group with will be become very hard unless you are already at end game or have friends/family leveling with you. For most people however...finding low levels to group with will be easy, but mid-game (like VG) finding groups will be very hard past the initial launch numbers
If they make it to endgame (post-launch of course when vast amounts of people quit (true with every MMO), there'll be a core group of players to group with...but depending how the game is designed, it can be a very "in" crowd and they may not want you in groups. Like in WoW, after the initial CURRENT raid is released...you can't do the current raid if you didn't already do the raid, because people only group with people if they are overly above the item level or already did the raid before. This means you can't ever do the raid, because you weren't one of the "first" to do the raid when it was released.
They will succeed if they expect to be a niche MMO like the old times, and don't expect WoW numbers. The game will far more likely succeed if they start with few servers, instead of opening dozens like they did for Vanguard. Most players say they want a challenging MMO, but like Wildstar saw with their 1% raids...thats a very small group of MMOers.
Its why WoW saw such success. WoW very casual, solo friendly=success if the developer is looking to entice huge amounts of players.
I myself am excited for Pantheon, but I know the vast majority of MMO players are really casual, prefer soloing (hence why every MMO has people asking "whats best solo class?" "how much solo content is there?).
So I expect a niche MMO that most players might try but won't stick with
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
-Bad launch
-Bad coding
-Population dropped
-Game was sold to SOE then fixed to where it was playable, despite the still bad coding.
-Poor advertisement
-mmorpg's only get one chance anyway.
-Free-to-play final nail
But The large world was also designed to have a "full population" in all zones ALL THE TIME !
How so ?......The open world quest system !
Hubs in zones had full group quest only. This worked well for dungeons, but if you were adventuring alone, just try to explain your intentions in chat was impossible. This could only work if you had a party with you at all times. The low population wouldn't allow for random groups. Guilds were not large enough to have 5 like minded players between say 28-31 to do such quest.
Even if Vanguard were successful, sustainability to keep populations in all zones would have been impossible. Only very LARGE, very active professional guilds would be able to accomplish mid level group quest.
Important:
Large population, all zone levels, all the time, and forever !
I played Vanilla World of Warcraft during it's most active times, on the most populated server....AND STILL trying to achieve full groups of 5 at mid level ALL THE TIME would have been impossible, unless I had "that unique Guild" !
You have to understand with many thousands of players trying to play successful, very few will have "that unique guild" !!!
Pantheon better have one-hell-of-a-social-system. Because thousands if not millions better all have "that unique Guild" !!!
Pantheon is attempting to cater to that crowd and hopes that in the process there are some younger generations who might find that original design style of game to be appealing.
The point is, Pantheon isn't being designed to attend to the mainstream market and isn't basing its success on achieving the same levels of market numbers that a mainstream MMO requires. It can actually be successful on a very small core base of players.
There will be a need for a very good social system in Pantheon. We haven't seen any examples of how a LFG system is going to work. The class design appears to be favoring the old 'only a class X will do' attitude, meaning that 1/6th of all players really should be class X. That is very likely to cause the 'I can never find a group' problem to rear its ugly head. There needs to a major push towards functional equivalence between classes performing the same role in a group.
I really hope that Pantheon will include some basic tools to show server populations by time zones, both current and last 2 days. That would help alleviate issues associated with time zones and number of players.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.