Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

Quaid said:

No. They added a corpse retrieval NPC to cities that you can activate after a period of time elapses for a fee. It's not possible for your corpse to rot.

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Wow, ok, I'm out. This sounds like a casual bitchboy, drooling zoomer game. Where's the hardcore?!

Nirgon said:

Risk vs reward is so sorely missing from these modern MMOs. It's one of the major hallmarks of a good one when they balance it well. Going into Seb and howling stones with a key or going into fear/hate, knowing the risk in real classic EQ was a totally different and exciting experience. Good posts on the interactions and lifelong friendships that stemmed from such systems. I enjoyed the read about that Fungul guy and all that... wishing to see something like that exist again.

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I get the sentiment, the sense of danger and discovery in those old zones felt incredible at the time. But a lot of what people remember as "risk vs reward" was really inconvenience vs patience. The tension came less from meaningful stakes and more from logistics: time sinks, corpse runs, and arbitrary gating that punished the wrong things. But none of it was the result of deep systems. They were the result of lack of systems.

Those late-night Fear raids, or saving someone's corpse in Sebilis wasn't designed. It was emergent, born from a lack of modern systems and the sheer novelty of being online together. That kind of social alchemy was lightning in a bottle and it can't just be recreated by reintroducing tedium and calling it "risk."

Modern games can and should have risk and consequence, but the design has to be intentional. That's why Souls games are pretty much the blueprint in the "modern" gaming era for games that have real stakes, but they balance that risk with clarity, learning, and iteration, not by forcing you to spend 40 minutes running back to your body. That's the difference between challenge and friction for friction's sake.

And yeah, even Souls games have their own bits of "friction for friction’s sake." The difference is that the rest of their design is so tight that it fades into the background. With M&M, friction is the design. There's no rhythm, no lesson, just a checklist of outdated pain points dressed up as "old-school charm."

“Sure, it’s tedious, but hey, remember when we were fifteen and this was all new, just like Everquest!?”. At this point I think more of you are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome than nostalgia.

Nirgon said:

Yeah, that part is a legit complaint at least.

I read some of the discord getting shitted up over at M&M, the beloved Inquisitor class discussion no less. Is nothing sacred?

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Literally covered cc like this for a whole wyrmsbane clear

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I haven't gotten very high level on my INQ yet but at least from what I can tell according to their spell list, they do actually have the same amount of CC capacity as an Enchanter, but without the buff suite. I do think they might need a bit more to keep up with SK/Fighter but their control suite does look very robust.

Quaid said:

No. They added a corpse retrieval NPC to cities that you can activate after a period of time elapses for a fee. It's not possible for your corpse to rot.

The only real death penalty is the potential destruction of your play session. Corpse retrieval NPCs in game basically guarantees 50% of your group logs out on every wipe and just waits until tomorrow to get their body the easy way. Unless of course, it takes like a week for the corpse to be available for summoning, but that would be absurd for a whole other set of reasons.

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So, uh... about that "absurd" case... guess how long Nick said it takes a corpse to decay in that same stream where he showed off the NPC that can retrieve them?

Kriptini said:

I haven't gotten very high level on my INQ yet but at least from what I can tell according to their spell list, they do actually have the same amount of CC capacity as an Enchanter, but without the buff suite. I do think they might need a bit more to keep up with SK/Fighter but their control suite does look very robust.



So, uh... about that "absurd" case... guess how long Nick said it takes a corpse to decay in that same stream where he showed off the NPC that can retrieve them?

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running inquis and air elemental pet was op, had no problems ever

Kriptini said:

So, uh... about that "absurd" case... guess how long Nick said it takes a corpse to decay in that same stream where he showed off the NPC that can retrieve them?

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Oh for fucks sake.

That whole exchange that Nirgon bizarrely dug up from last year was me asking for another ability for Inquisitor that I could use in every situation. Their kit is shockingly bland if you're XPing single pulls in a trio, since only 30-40% of MOBs are casters. You have extremely little to do against 60-70% of encounters. It was so boring I felt like peeling my face skin off. I suggested a simple melee strike ability that did something simple but useful to all MOB types. Maybe a stacking elemental resist debuff, who knows. The fanboys immediately attacked, triggered that I didn't find their precious as perfect as they did.

Inquisitor remains the least played class, basically tied for dead last with Archer, a class that isn't even fully implemented.

Quaid said:

Oh for fucks sake.

That whole exchange that Nirgon bizarrely dug up from last year was me asking for another ability for Inquisitor that I could use in every situation. Their kit is shockingly bland if you're XPing single pulls in a trio, since only 30-40% of MOBs are casters. You have extremely little to do against 60-70% of encounters. It was so boring I felt like peeling my face skin off. I suggested a simple melee strike ability that did something simple but useful to all MOB types. Maybe a stacking elemental resist debuff, who knows. The fanboys immediately attacked, triggered that I didn't find their precious as perfect as they did.

Inquisitor remains the least played class, basically tied for dead last with Archer, a class that isn't even fully implemented.

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The reaction from the fan club is always the same: pure pearl-clutching panic at the mere suggestion that their pet game might have rough edges. Like you said, the Inquisitor isn't "underappreciated," it's flat out just unfinished. Dead last in play rates, tied with a class that barely even exists kind of proves the point. But sure, it's not bad design, we're just playing it wrong, amirite?!

At this rate, they could remove half the buttons from the class and the loyalists would still call it "minimalist design philosophy."

Quaid said:

Oh for fucks sake.

That whole exchange that Nirgon bizarrely dug up from last year was me asking for another ability for Inquisitor that I could use in every situation. Their kit is shockingly bland if you're XPing single pulls in a trio, since only 30-40% of MOBs are casters. You have extremely little to do against 60-70% of encounters. It was so boring I felt like peeling my face skin off. I suggested a simple melee strike ability that did something simple but useful to all MOB types. Maybe a stacking elemental resist debuff, who knows. The fanboys immediately attacked, triggered that I didn't find their precious as perfect as they did.

Inquisitor remains the least played class, basically tied for dead last with Archer, a class that isn't even fully implemented.

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I think their single target strike semi-recently gained the ability to dispel, right? That should be useful in some additional situations, considering caster mobs will actively buff any other mobs they come across. Still, I wouldn't say no to an additional Inq skill.

Kriptini said:

I think their single target strike semi-recently gained the ability to dispel, right? That should be useful in some additional situations, considering caster mobs will actively buff any other mobs they come across. Still, I wouldn't say no to an additional Inq skill.

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When you’re not in a CC situation, you basically have 5 active combat skills usable against non-caster mobs:

-Taunt
-Kick
-A (very weak) melee strike with a dispel component
-A (very weak) low range ranged nuke with a cha/wis/int/mana debuff component
-15sec charm on a Lay of Hands style cooldown.

These are the combat tools one would reasonably use in any situation that is a single pull without caster mobs. Maybe even a multi pull when you have a dedicated CC class in group. Then of course there are a series of out of combat buff options, but that’s not all that relevant to the combat experience. It’s shockingly bland, and unacceptable in my opinion.

Against casters there’s a ton of fun tools, maybe even a couple too many. But again, that’s 30-40% of encounters. Even if they create areas where 60-70% of encounters are caster MOBs, all you do then is create a 'Clerics only' issue, but this time for a tank.

I find the overwhelming resistance to a single melee strike ability being added… bizarre.