Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO

Draegan_sl said:

I'm all about customization and making myself either different or finding the new flavor of the month before it's the flavor of the month. You don't need to have multiclassing to do this, and I like the idea of a game giving players hard roles to have and accept.

Thoughts on the trend of games limiting the amount of spells/abilities that you can use at any given time? Like GW2 or what Wildstar is doing where you essentially assembly a series of abilities to bring with you to combat. I highly prefer a system where you don't get ability bloat where you have to manage a host of 15+ abilities at any given time all on separate cooldowns.

Though I wouldn't be against bring back the SojournMUD system where you mem spells into circle slots again. That was a fun mechanic.

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I would vote for core combat spells at some # don't need 30, core buffs, core utility ( invis, FD, ports, levitate, feather fall, trapfinding ) making sure that all utility is there to help a group navigate a dungeon in some unique way.

Dahkoht_sl said:

I'd say there really need to be closed forums for folks who have donated at least something - that would immediately weed out a lot of the trolls/idiots who don't want a game like this to begin with.

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All you do with this is create an echo chamber. If you truly want an interesting conversation about game features, you need people who disagree vehemently so you always have perspective. This thread does that real well I think.

Would anyone here volunteer to help me: 1. Collect all the ideas on this thread so far and 2. potentially collate them into a place... i have an idea of how to do this and get feedback from a larger audience, or a focused audience as well. Send me a PM we can divide and conquer.

shabushabu_sl said:

I would vote for core combat spells at some # don't need 30, core buffs, core utility ( invis, FD, ports, levitate, feather fall, trapfinding ) making sure that all utility is there to help a group navigate a dungeon in some unique way.

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There are plenty of ways to do things easily enough. Flag abilities as combat and non combat and set aside UI space for both. Utility based spells can be placed in an unlimited space while combat spells are limited to some fashion. I love deck building mechanics and the strategy of prepping for fights. Keeps the UI bloat down as well for the most part.

Draegan_sl said:

All you do with this is create an echo chamber. If you truly want an interesting conversation about game features, you need people who disagree vehemently so you always have perspective. This thread does that real well I think.

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Agreed. I fully intend to donate to the kickstarter, but the chances of the official forums being a better place for discussion than rerolled are pretty minimal, despite the measures you are taking.

Which, I think, is why he is participating here.

Quaid_sl said:

Agreed. I fully intend to donate to the kickstarter, but the chances of the official forums being a better place for discussion than rerolled are pretty minimal, despite the measures you are taking.

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Not sure if the conversation would be better, but it does create a central place thus helps building momentum. (Of course, I could be wrong about that)

Jimbolini_sl said:

They are doing ALOT of things right (At least website, communication and money raising wise)

I like the idea of listening to the investors first (the people that spend money this early in a game are the ones that will tend to stick with it 10 years)
Split forums for general public and investors is a good idea.
Up to date cash totals and goals.
GM or Dev updates every week or so are fantastic way to keep momentum.

IMO at this point peeps want to see how serious your website, concept art, ideas and plans are. (Half done website now? How can I expect a full game later)

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Going to jump on the back of this. If you give me Dev updates with video of where you're at, and make it easier to follow, I'll continue to make contributions. I think tracking donations over time beyond the initial Kickstart date is an incredibly good idea. I'll be able (and likely willing) to contribute a larger amount over time than I would ever be able to do in one 30-45 day window.

Quaid_sl said:

Soooo.... Is anyone thinking what I'm thinking? We somehow pool our money and buy a guild tier reward?

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Yah, see that's a tough angle. On one hand, allowing pooling of pledges/donations for organized groups for specific rewards / benefits is a good way to both increase the donations and get an idea of what tools and benefits those groups want. On the other hand, once real currency gets tangled in guild politics things can turn very, very ugly.

Draegan_sl said:

Thoughts on the trend of games limiting the amount of spells/abilities that you can use at any given time? Like GW2 or what Wildstar is doing where you essentially assembly a series of abilities to bring with you to combat. I highly prefer a system where you don't get ability bloat where you have to manage a host of 15+ abilities at any given time all on separate cooldowns..

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This please. Seriously, fuck not having enough hot keys even when I'm using an esdf config AND every modifier. I'd love to hear thoughts on the direction you're going with this. Personally, I love the style of only being able to slot so many abilities, or having a very limited number of abilities--but maybe making those abilities do different things in different situations. Again, like drawing on TCG--where cards are not only used on their own, but also in combos and depending on what other cards are out. It can create a lot of variables from a small number of inputs. So the emphasis on using abilities is not spam, but rather how you use and exploit their strengths (IE Strategic, I'm going to whore that word out, a lot).

This goes with the multi-classing aspect, too. One of the things, for example, that League of Legends does pretty well is allowing for changes over time in the power of champions depending on other champions--so a champion that's underpowered one day, might become very strong if the meta changes and the champion he counters gets used more. It's hard(er) to do this in a PvE game, because you run the risk of the dreaded "bane weapon" syndrome. But if certain spells act different depending on who else is in the group, or what they are using or even what type of mobs your against or what spells they are using? It allows for you to make a lot of abilities, but still keep classes focused on one "archetype" and a very small subset of abilities at any one time--which also rewards experimentation (

For example--This dungeon has X, Y, Z special features, my group has A, B,C classes--So I have a few specific nuke spells that might be more effective in this type of group, than otherwise. Off the top of my head, say you're a wizard in a mostly melee group without support for mana regen ect. So you swap to more effecient spells and luckily you have a drop spell that does something special when melee hits the mob, so you slot that in too (And if you want to get real complex you can add in a lot more variables). I love games that really emphasize the strategic like that--I understand not everyone does, but I always thought in EQ it was a sign of a great player when they knew what spells they could and could not use depending on the group comp.

Easier said than done, I know--but it would be exciting if there were more strategic elements put back into these games and not simply a focus on how classes act within the tactical realms of just the fights.

If you've been in any early closed beta ever, it's the same thing.

Edit: Generic "you", not specifically Tuco.

Draegan_sl said:

All you do with this is create an echo chamber. If you truly want an interesting conversation about game features, you need people who disagree vehemently so you always have perspective. This thread does that real well I think.

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I think you'll get plenty of criticism from people who donate. More so as they are invested.

Plus feedback from the people, ya know, paying for the game should be more important. That should be the core audience that it's being designed for right? The problem with open forums is you can have the Ut-TESO problem of people with a vested interest in shitting on the game just creating new accounts for no other purpose than to attack some designer or developer.

Shab, sounds like you are the man for Pantheon Junkies, mate.

We talked about getting back to a smaller Ability UI a lot in the EQN thread. I think that's another one to put in the majority agreement colum. Someone posted an EQ2 UI with like 200 abilities on it lol fuck that.

I'm curious if classes will have all those unique abilities that ultimately led to different style grouping.. Kite groups, AE groups, etc...

shabushabu_sl said:

Would anyone here volunteer to help me: 1. Collect all the ideas on this thread so far and 2. potentially collate them into a place... i have an idea of how to do this and get feedback from a larger audience, or a focused audience as well. Send me a PM we can divide and conquer.

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There is one already:Vanguard - Registration

In the darkfall re-release closed beta everyone agreed it sucked and was retarded. But everyone still had the same opinion and it was an ecochamber so I guess your point still holds. That negativity did make them revamp a large part of the skill progression tho and it turned into one of the better level-less progression systems i have played in imo. Rest of the game was mostly dogshit but that part was good.

Mostly I think that devs dont really listen much to players no matter where they post.

They listen when players are saying what they want to hear. So one dev will say in a meeting "this feature I hate, well I see on the forums that other people hate it" and then the other (senior) devs will say "too bad, fuck you." It's not like it's a democracy.

Official forums are always moderated to hell in back. You're going to get nothing but "it's beta", or "can i have your stuff" if you don't agree with everything in the game. You can already see people in this thread laying the foundation to dismiss any opinion that doesn't follow theirs by claiming they are haters etc. I'll always trust this forum for an honest opinion then official forums and people starting every post with Brad!

Here is something I am interested in, and I don't know if this was asked/answered yet because this thread is moving too fast for me to keep up but.

Brad, what is the plan for when you are dropped into this new world? Will it be trial by fire with very little hand holding right out of the gate? Will the difficulty be readily apparent right at level 1 like it was in EQ or will you ease the player into the group-centric experience you want this game to have? As a new player it's very important to me (and I think a lot of other people) that we don't get frustrated right off the bat. EQ didn't have any competition so way back when I was forced to learn the hard way if I wanted to play an MMO. Now there are 30 other MMOs I can go play if I feel like I am banging my head against the wall.

Even in a group focused game I think it's important that the early levels (first 10-15 depending on leveling curve) can be soloed without having intricate knowledge of the content if so desired (I'm not talking faceroll easy, I'm talking if you use your abilities correctly you can do it with middle of the road type downtime). I think this lets a new player familiarize themselves with their own class better than having to jump into a group right away. It also gives a player a sense of what the class they are playing is capable of. After that I'm all for a game that becomes very hard to solo with high amounts of downtime that focuses more on grouping and socializing but the first few levels of a game are what hook me and I'm curious what the plan is for that.

This thread could really turn it around for Pantheon.