Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling
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Genjiro
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Speaking of that pull, which sort of highlights why I liked feign death--only a handful of monks I knew had the skills to pull that room, most of those mobs were casters which you had to break line of sight and know roamer pathing as well too. When you saw a good monk who could use the skill well, you knew it, and it wasn"t an I-Win button where mobs just split like the Red Sea when you pushed it. The king room was doable without it, just extremely difficult and you needed very good gear and players.Twobit Whore said:
Anyways, here"s an example that comes to mind. When we first started doing King Tormax back in the day, we didn"t really know how hard it was. He had been killed once by Afterlife, and only then with pre-nerf Donals breastplates. Before the Frozen Jesus was born, we had attempted him several times and gotten our asses handed to us thoroughly. Tigole had me try and split those giants with Tormax, and it was a real fucking bitch, nearly impossible in the standard way. Keep in mind, we were massively undergeared for this encounter at the time, still in mismatch quest armors from Halls of Testing.
Anyways, itcouldbe done, and only a couple other monks in the game even knew how (we had never even considered pulling them to the WL zone and just zerging down one and zoning out btw). This is one of the reasons why I liked EQ, out-of-the-box thinking. There was a giant in the pit below the bridge to Tormax, the wolfmaster--and remember mobs in EQ were social and would buff each other, right? Anyways, by pulling (with dmf) Tormax into the pit, you could get that wolfmaster to buff one of either Tormax and/or his guards with sow, reset them, and voila, next time you had a split pull (he still kicked our ass even with a solo pull). This was time consuming, a giant pain in the ass, but, it let us get some shots in while we were really under-prepared gearwise to do so--creativity paid off for us. In the end, we killed him with the Frozen Jesus which also turned out to also be a pain in the ass, but, a week or two later with a few upgrades we just tanked-and-spanked him and his boys all at the same time which turned out to be much easier and raids there went 10x faster. There was a tradeoff in time spent splitting shit up, and myself, and my raid preferred the way to do it as fast as possible--but if a monk pull made something possible a little sooner than what it would normally be, we understood that and it was worth it.
I"m not saying I advocated making raid pulling require monks, some content was fine (just like the examples I used from WoW and class specific skills), but I don"t like that idea for the majority of content. Let it be an ability where a good player who knows what they"re doing can showcase personal skill, and don"t tie their hands behind their backs with artificial limitations. It was available and not required for *most* content, unless people were just bad and needed it as a crutch--fire giants, juggs, etc you absolutely did not need it but it helped. Lots of people who whined about the holy trinity of EQ said that was also required too, and they were also just bad/horrible players-- it was like a mulligan to makeup for their general incompetence. We could have just geared up enough to tank-and-spank like usual, but it was a lot more fun coming up with new ways of doing shit, especially considering we raided with considerably less people than other top guilds back then. The sad part is that today so many would consider that an exploit, and doing content in any way that deviates from how the developers intend is just ridiculous to those who like their missionary position of boring raiding. Anyways, I liked feign death the same way I like rogue design from WoW. Easy to use, difficult to master. You always knew when you were in the presence of a true standout rogue in WoW (imo the only class in WoW that has this to a large degree), there was enough deviation where skill made an obvious difference. Sadly this is the shit thats missing in games like EQ2, any moron can spam buttons and rarely are the choices meaningful or have implications past pushing them as fast as you can.
Keep in mind too,I"m agreeing with you, I don"t like it when things are 100% required for everything, and some abilites (like stunlock, banish, mez, fd, shackle etc etc) for specfic raid content is fine. I don"t like the idea of there being a sole class for pulling, I do like it that there were classes that made pulling easier, but not required for group content--thats the distinction maybe you guys don"t see (like draegan making a stupid fucking assumption that I am a monk and therefore advocate fd 100% of the time or some other nonsense such as a specific pulling class). In reality, what would probably surprise you rabid EQ haters as far as what I like--I like the fact that WoW forces different classes to not stand in the shadows on some raids and makes them accountable--too much of EQ raiding simply required standout pullers and healers mostly--making more people accountable and not just filler is a good thing (and something I like more about WoW). So many of you fuckers are just so absolute in your condemnation of everything from EQ (and not just EQ, but mostly its a WoW jerkoff fest on top of that), I don"t take you seriously at all since I just don"t think you are even trying to be objective. I personally would prefer a game more like a true hybrid of WoW and EQ, to be quite honest, and think there is lots of good to take from both games. Shocking huh?
Hey, something else we can agree on. I just don"t think some of the things from EQ should make the evolution that you obviously do. Anytime the majority of your group/raid feels useless for a large chunk of time, imo, it"s bad game design. That goes for FD pulling and wipe recovery. It was zero fun to sit at ZI for an hour while rogues found hundreds of ways to use consent as a swear word.Genjiro said:
Isn"t Darkfall supposed to be one of those games where there are no classes, traits, etc? Just skills you can allocate? I haven"t heard much about it recently and dunno if its still in development, but remember it was supposed to be this massive, non-instanced, FFA world where you only ever play 1 character.
Wonder what happened to it. Thought it was supposed to be out by now.
Wonder what happened to it. Thought it was supposed to be out by now.
Genjiro, there is also the non-trivial issue that while FD pulling was a blast for monks, it SUCKED ASS for everyone else to wait for the monk to take 15 minutes and split the mobs to the raid. Remember the Javelin pulls on the triplet in NToV? As a monk learning those pulls was incredibly fun, as everyone else in the raid sitting around holding your dick was boring as hell. OR even worst, the pulls in VP.
Hell, my favorite times in EQ was when I would four box cleric/bard/mage/warrior and kill all the Msha"s in Qvic + 3 or 4 rare mob ph"ers without touching any of the trash just using fading memories + CoH.
Hell, my favorite times in EQ was when I would four box cleric/bard/mage/warrior and kill all the Msha"s in Qvic + 3 or 4 rare mob ph"ers without touching any of the trash just using fading memories + CoH.
Its still being developed and it"s been in development for a long time. Look it up on wikipediaspronk said:
I was a Bard for PoP->DoN and it was the most fun and interesting class in any MMOG by far. EQ classes like Bard and Enchanter had a decent learning curve where player skill and even manual dexterity were integral.
The difference between shitty Enchanter/Monk/Bard pullers and good ones were night and day. Remember those Enchanters that would single-handedly lock down entire Karnors and Sebilis trains? Yet others you barely trusted to mez a mob or two? Of course, the down-side to EQ was that 3-4 classes had a big skill curve yet the rest could be botted.
As Genjiro and others mentioned, classes and grouping mechanics in most MMOGs since EQ seem more focused on railroading and limiting player choice. Basically, "there is only 1 way to do this encounter, anything else could be an exploit".
Anyway, it would be great to see a game where all classes had as relatively large a player skill curve as EQ Bards.
The difference between shitty Enchanter/Monk/Bard pullers and good ones were night and day. Remember those Enchanters that would single-handedly lock down entire Karnors and Sebilis trains? Yet others you barely trusted to mez a mob or two? Of course, the down-side to EQ was that 3-4 classes had a big skill curve yet the rest could be botted.
As Genjiro and others mentioned, classes and grouping mechanics in most MMOGs since EQ seem more focused on railroading and limiting player choice. Basically, "there is only 1 way to do this encounter, anything else could be an exploit".
Anyway, it would be great to see a game where all classes had as relatively large a player skill curve as EQ Bards.
AlacteneFroofy-D said:
Arazanos
What are those two names? They are the enchanter and bard that I trusted to lock down anything when I (monk) got lazy or fucked up. I could single pull anything, but with these guys we could actually just run into rooms. I definitely miss that feeling in WoW were you are actually different from other players because you"re better then them. I guess the only example I could think of that is even somewhat a parallel is a good warrior who can lock down 4-5 instead of 1-2. You actually see this kind of stuff in Guild Wars. There are downright awful players, and some who can do amazing feats.
With WoW there are two problems, Class balance is downright abysmal (somewhat required by PVP, but not excused). But the second and more prevalent problem is the dungeon design is very straight forward. Encounters are all preset in number, pulling is simplistic. CC is straight forward and not adaptive (i.e. lock down this one, sap is gonna break in 30 sec be ready to grab) instead of the chaos bad pulls could give in EQ or respawns.
I see, so 255 is multiplayer but 260 is MASSIVELY multiplayer? Glad we got that exact definition straightened out after all this time...Agraza said:
If memory serves me, The Realm had over 3k concurrent users on its one server.
Impressive discussion to say the least. I have a billion thoughts on it since I was one of those FD pulling monks in EQ. I know I took alot of pride in being good at what I did, and knew when I saw others playing the class that I did it better than most. It took practice and skill and the right group to make it work, but there was an absolute sense of accomplishment.
In the end I think that"s what you are after as designers and players, make players feel like who they are and what they are is different, and the better you are the the more obvious it becomes. In a world where everyone"s a hero, regardless of their skills or abilities in game or in real life, you have a world where heroic is commonplace.
Huge challenge imo.
In the end I think that"s what you are after as designers and players, make players feel like who they are and what they are is different, and the better you are the the more obvious it becomes. In a world where everyone"s a hero, regardless of their skills or abilities in game or in real life, you have a world where heroic is commonplace.
Huge challenge imo.
While balancing ease of entry with rewarding, skill-based play is a tricky endeavor, it"s certainly not impossible. Taking a game like WoW and introducing mechanics reminiscent of some of EQ"s specialized skills (FD pulls, Mezzing, a slew of Necro spells, etc.) can screw things up completely, but when you are making a game from scratch and keep those considerations in mind it takes planning and foresight to make it work.
I remember sitting at camps for hours upon hours in EQ, just waiting on the monk to pull or getting in fights where all I did was play mana battery, but there were also times where I could split spawns, do some pinch CC/healing, all while dealing damage and kiting mobs around a teeny room; I felt like a god. I have yet to find myself in that situation again inanygame, where my knowledge and skill played a dominating factor in how well I played.
However, while I enjoyed that kind of play, I understand the overwhelming majority of people are looking for a simpler experience, where the game is played to enjoy the game, not pushing your ability and character to the limit. Financially speaking it"s prudent to focus on making sure the casual folk have everything they need and do your "best" for the more die-hard MMO veterans.
If you"re trying to set the bar obscenely high and makethegame, though, it"s going to take a bit more blood and sweat and look afterallthe players" needs.
I remember sitting at camps for hours upon hours in EQ, just waiting on the monk to pull or getting in fights where all I did was play mana battery, but there were also times where I could split spawns, do some pinch CC/healing, all while dealing damage and kiting mobs around a teeny room; I felt like a god. I have yet to find myself in that situation again inanygame, where my knowledge and skill played a dominating factor in how well I played.
However, while I enjoyed that kind of play, I understand the overwhelming majority of people are looking for a simpler experience, where the game is played to enjoy the game, not pushing your ability and character to the limit. Financially speaking it"s prudent to focus on making sure the casual folk have everything they need and do your "best" for the more die-hard MMO veterans.
If you"re trying to set the bar obscenely high and makethegame, though, it"s going to take a bit more blood and sweat and look afterallthe players" needs.
James
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Yeah we rarely ever used FD pulling. We tried it once on the FGs right before Nagafen, and found out that it was too slow to be worthwhile, so we just had badass tanks and enchanters lined up. The King room in Chardok you could get all the mobs except for the King as a warrior by shooting the closest mob to him. It was about an 8 pull? Something like that, 6 on either side and the 2 that guard him, iirc, so it wasn"t exactly hard for a couple of good enchanters to lock down in short order.
Monks. Pfft.
Monks. Pfft.
Zehnpai
Molten Core Raider
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You"ll always be able to tell better players then worse ones. There is no magical design strategy involved. Whether it"s the guy who flashbangs his own team in Counter-Strike or the bard who couldn"t manage to twist songs...bad players are obvious.Ngruk said:
It"s all just a matter of how forgiving you are.
It"s not so much a matter of how good players look in comparison tobadplayers, but how good playersdistinguish themselvesfrom themajorityof players. FD pulling in EQ was something every monk had to learn, but the players that excelled with the class could do some crazy pulling/splitting with the tools they were given.Zehn - Vhex said:
That"s how a game should be: most players indulge in what"s given, great players can take things to another level, and ALL players can enjoy the game as a whole.
High end wow is ridiculously unforgiving in terms of playskill. I played in a very high end guild in EverQuest and most of the players I used to play alongside couldn"t handle anything at the SSC level, just because of how fast paced WoW is compared to EQ and how much faster the reaction times have to be.Cadrid said:
If you"re the ogre shadowknight I"m thinking of, weren"t you in Blood of Ro ?. Bull shit BoR couldn"t handle SSC, there were easily enough skilled people in the guild to field 25 top raiders required for playing WoW. WoW is honestly not that difficult, at all. Threat cycles for tanks are mind numbingly repetitive. DPS cycles are simplistic for rogues and enhancement shamans requiring no adaptation. Paladins...spam holy light, etc. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, like feign death pulling, or necromancers soloing Valon Zek.Gnome Eater said: