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

Chakravartin_sl said:

Speaking as the sole person in my Rift groups who ran up to that Foul Cascade dungeon every time while everyone else sat around like fat cunts waiting on the teleport, don't have them.

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I second this notion as well.

I think the key is to let people know where the dungeons are by in game lore/quest, have a decent map system so people can work out a rough route how to get there and just leave people to their own devices, maybe a few portals to cover North,South,East,west sections of the world. But putting teleports every way just makes a world feel small, and makes people lazy.

chat is how you make a community if you add a lfg tool you take out the main reason the vast majority of people use chat for, I chatted more in my 6 years of eq then I ever did in 8 years of WoW, in my last few years in WoW with lfr I hardly ever talked it was boring. My most enjoyable time in wow was vanilla when you guest it no lfg was in game, you chatted to people in guild or global to get shit done.I knew most players on my server, knew every guild, now I could barley tell you names of people in my own guild.

Aradune_sl said:

Ok, so Pantheon is about a huge, interesting open world to explore. We don't want people teleporting all over the place, missing out on content and the grandeur of Terminus.

So far we've said that there will be some opportunities to teleport to some locations as long as you've travelled there before without teleporting. Kind of like the Velious teleports.

We've also said that if you're at the entrance to a dungeon, a group within that dungeon can teleport you to them (likely a spell shared by some classes).

But from a design and philosophical standpoint [...]
So what about an elaborate LFG system? A dungeon finder? Someway to quickly travel to adventure areas where other people have already gathered and are trying to form groups? [...]

So what do you guys think? Where is the balance? What tenet takes priority over the other?

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Please take my advice sincerely and with a few sprinkles of salt. I've been on FoH for years advocating some things you're asking about in your post and lamenting others.

It is mutually exclusive and even a little hypocritical. You can't truly have both: a truly dangerous world and 'accessible' game. To me, there is no such sweet spot between convenience & immersion. Some here and elsewhere will say there is. If you go for this g-spot, what will likely happen is that you'll fail in both respects and alienate both populations, people like in this community vs. casuals you're looking to attract. Because what happens is, you get the travel mechanics of Velious (which I'm semi-ok with) but it turns into the PoK books later down the line.

Anything that involves a pop-up dialog box to access another part of the world breaks immersion and cheapens the world. Point blank. A pop-up box as a LFG finder is the absolute worst. I don't want the functionality of this dialog box: the auto-matching and insta-teleporting that it provides. That's exactly why I backed this KS and what I'm looking to get away from. Because why?

If you have a class-based game, with abilities that are unique to class, part of their usenfulness & uniqueness (good definition for a class identity: usefulness & uniqueness) is manipulating the world in some way, adifferentway than the other classes, not different animation window dressing as in WoW. A LFG dialog box destroys both usefulness & uniqueness. No longer are wizard or druid teleports needed. If you have a very lax death penalty, no longer are cleric resses needed. No longer are necro summons needed.

CLASSES should powerfully manipulate the world in useful & unique ways. These dialog boxes and other conveniences in modern MMOs provide the utility to manipulate the world that the classes should. That's the problem with giving even an inch: any convenience given to players, like a LFG dialog, inherently takes away something a class could provide.

For my game, I would do similar to Velious: some ports to places you've been before, but very few of these and located in dangerous spots. Any teleport spells are class-based spells. There is no LFG dialog box, but a LFG channel that you are placed in once you /lfg yourself. Let the players sort out finding/creating groups amongst themselves: that's part of the massively interactive idea & was part of the appeal of EQ.

I don't think you should put things into this game just for the sake of making things 'hard' or 'timesink' simply because EQ had that mechanic. I do think that what EQ had that this game should incorporate is dependability on classes/players. This isn't a single player game, it shouldn't be treated as one. Teleports fall into this. You're a Crusader, how the hell do you have the capability to port to a dungeon? Make the wizard (or whoever is porting) cast a spell, do the action. Don't make this game a lobby game where everyone sits in town waiting for a group so they can get ported halfway across the world. At least put some effort into it.

Vanguard before rent-able flying mounts had a pretty good balance and mechanics, like healers being able to call in new group members. I'd maybe even extend that to other classes, like wizard or druid, that would have teleports, evacuations, and calling spells.

The rift-stone system wasn't great, but the world was so massive compared to the population that it was necessary. Less port spots, like only very civilized areas (not at every freakin' outpost), would be good.

Make it POSSIBLE to traverse the freakin world. For instance, PoK books in Everquest were shit, even as someone who played two classes that couldn't teleport, because despite getting a lot of use out of them, the world stopped feeling like a world, so then any running through the world suddenly felt awkward and a pain in the ass. Then again, the problem was often that when I DID have to run somewhere, by then, the game seemed design under the assumption I'd just be porting in, having SoW, or using PoK books, and I'd have no chance of surviving half the time if I were hoofing it.

So:

Make a world where there are logical cities/civilization. Make portals between those cities. Make running from those cities to adventure areas possible (interesting and potentially dangerous if you get lost, but possible). The average night for grouping if you didn't do any planning on where you wanted to be previously, would be: you port yourself to the nearest cit. You run to the dungeon entrance. The healer or porter in the group summons you to the group.

The problem with travel in EQ was often that it wasn't just your own enjoyment of the game on the line, but the whole group. They were waiting around for you to bum a port or trusting you'd survive the run. I think having classes that can summon other players into the group content is the biggest factor, because if you have that, others can still play the game while you're running, whether you're a replacement for someone in the group or starting a group.

If that means someone parks a healer/porter in a dungeon to summon people in, so what. At some point they fought down there and leveled a character to just park there, so they've earned that right.

LFG tools should be a UI window to help organize information. It should tell you who is looking for a group or what group is looking for more people, where they'd like to group, where they are in the world, and not much more. Maybe a bio so you can say something funny and people will realize you're not a pill.

If someone wants to camp some items or do some quests in a certain area, they can travel there and try to form groups there. They can be one of the people "already gathered" there. And if you want to be there to join a group, you should have planned to be in that area, or be good at traveling.

Good at traveling: In EQ, a player would get a rep for being good at traveling. Some players could never manage to get to a dungeon without dying or getting lost or rage-quitting or some other BS that kept the group from starting. Other players were good at not delaying a group needlessly. It was a good situation that should persist.

Insta-queueing LFG tools aka dungeon finder don't help people make friends. Letting people instant-port to anywhere doesn't help people make friends. Making it so your group or guild doesn't have to resent you or the game because you have to travel does help people make friends, though. The key is limiting porting to where it's logical, letting it be possible for players to travel successfully (not easy, just possible), and then the call of the hero type spells. Seriously, being able to summon that slow poke into the dungeon is critical.

My question is how there's going to be regional economies if there's even porting between cities. For adventuring, I have no issue with players insta-porting to the nearest civilized area that has a port. But for regional economies? I don't see how it's possible.

Khane_sl said:

Make it even more hilarious by making the default auto accept on the teleport right click. High level wizards running around town casting teleport on everyone in town crafting.

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I'm okay with this. Increase Chaos, Diminish Order.

Dumar_sl said:

Please take my advice sincerely and with a few sprinkles of salt. I've been on FoH for years advocating some things you're asking about in your post and lamenting others.

It is mutually exclusive and even a little hypocritical. You can't truly have both: a truly dangerous world and 'accessible' game. To me, there is no such sweet spot between convenience & immersion. Some here and elsewhere will say there is. If you go for this g-spot, what will likely happen is that you'll fail in both respects and alienate both populations, people like in this community vs. casuals you're looking to attract. Because what happens is, you get the travel mechanics of Velious (which I'm semi-ok with) but it turns into the PoK books later down the line.

Anything that involves a pop-up dialog box to access another part of the world breaks immersion and cheapens the world. Point blank. A pop-up box as a LFG finder is the absolute worst. I don't want the functionality of this dialog box: the auto-matching and insta-teleporting that it provides. That's exactly why I backed this KS and what I'm looking to get away from. Because why?

If you have a class-based game, with abilities that are unique to class, part of their usenfulness & uniqueness (good definition for a class identity: usefulness & uniqueness) is manipulating the world in some way, adifferentway than the other classes, not different animation window dressing as in WoW. A LFG dialog box destroys both usefulness & uniqueness. No longer are wizard or druid teleports needed. If you have a very lax death penalty, no longer are cleric resses needed. No longer are necro summons needed.

CLASSES should powerfully manipulate the world in useful & unique ways. These dialog boxes and other conveniences in modern MMOs provide the utility to manipulate the world that the classes should. That's the problem with giving even an inch: any convenience given to players, like a LFG dialog, inherently takes away something a class could provide.

For my game, I would do similar to Velious: some ports to places you've been before, but very few of these and located in dangerous spots. Any teleport spells are class-based spells. There is no LFG dialog box, but a LFG channel that you are placed in once you /lfg yourself. Let the players sort out finding/creating groups amongst themselves: that's part of the massively interactive idea & was part of the appeal of EQ.

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Didn't LDoN have an LFG mechanic way back when? Everyone seemed to love that. You still had to run to the dungeon though.

Dahkoht_sl said:

For me personally Brad , the world takes precedence over convenience. In most every case.

If you've got to have teleportation in , make it expensive and timed for anything that people can use solo on their own.

Let the wizards and druids (using EQ example) classes have a role that makes other classes depend on them.

LFG to match folks up , but not to teleport them together to the dungeon.

And I'm a 40+ dad with a career saying it's fine with me for it to take a while to travel and get around.I want it to take a while to see everything and level and so on. I want the world with a game inside it , not a game with a pseudo world.

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Agree with this.

Chakravartin_sl said:

Speaking as the sole person in my Rift groups who ran up to that Foul Cascade dungeon every time while everyone else sat around like fat cunts waiting on the teleport, don't have them.

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Hah, exactly.

Being someone who could reliably survive travel in EQ was a bonus to your reputation. Being that in Rift meant you were the go-fer to lazy asswipes who'd probably never even seen the outside of the instance.

popsicledeath_sl said:

My question is how there's going to be regional economies if there's even porting between cities. For adventuring, I have no issue with players insta-porting to the nearest civilized area that has a port. But for regional economies? I don't see how it's possible.

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If you take VG for example.. you could pick just the 3 "capitols" as being the trade centers, with no "ports" to them. You could then implement your other idea to additional towns/cities.

I don't think Pantheon will have enough cities at launch for inter-city ports.. but that comes down to time and funding I suppose.

Here's my opinion. Rivalry is what is missing for most of us in the modern MMO formula. Rivalry is what we need to breathe new life into our gaming experience. Forcing people to run somewhere doesn't create rivalry, it creates tedium. Some tedium is necessary, it gives us as players something to do and can even be fun and rewarding if the end result is worthwhile. Forcing every single person in a group to run to their destination every single time while other people are waiting for them is what I classify as unnecessary tedium. Don't create a system that is mindless and requires no work at all, but don't require unnecessary tedium for the sake of "going old school". WoW's LFD tool is terrible, it's the TV dinner of group assistance tooling. But you don't need to go to the entirely other extreme to fix that issue.

LFG systems never work out, a global chat channel for finding groups would be preferable. The LFG system in Vanguard was hardly ever used, it was only useful for getting a list of people for your level range and then whispering them. I know some people hate global chat channels but I think it's a much better option than letting people teleport to any dungeon they want.

@Khane tedium is necessary. You need lows to appreciate highs. Otherwise you end up chasing the dragon, but never catching her.

tad10_sl said:

@Khane tedium is necessary. You need lows to appreciate highs. Otherwise you end up chasing the dragon, but never catching her.

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Did you read the part where I said "some tedium is necessary"? And then the part where I said "I feel that forcing people to run to their group every single time is unnecessary tedium"?

Now if you care to share your opinions on why you feel I'm wrong I'll continue this conversation. Otherwise it just sounds like you didn't read my post at all.

Khane_sl said:

Here's my opinion. Rivalry is what is missing for most of us in the modern MMO formula. Rivalry is what we need to breathe new life into our gaming experience. Forcing people to run somewhere doesn't create rivalry, it creates tedium.

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The hell. There were plenty of players I knew in EQ that I liked, and trusted in my groups, but they were shit at traveling and if we didn't have a porter to pick their ass up and someone to go with to help hold their hand, they wouldn't make it to the group. They'd not get groups over others if it were going to be a problem. That's enough social interaction, rivalry, competition, etc, for me to be happy, as again it wasn't just tedium, it was a way to separate yourself as someone who wouldn't turn travel into an all-night CR and rage quitting.

Grouping in every dungeon in the game shouldn't be something every player should feel entitled to. If you can't make it to the out of the way dungeons, don't have friends/group/guild willing to help get everyone there, or are too cheap to buy a port, or too lazy to make the run, then I hope they provide some easier solutions in the form of overcrowded shitholes that are easier to get to, like Karnor's compared to Old Seb compared to Howling Stones.

Luxer_sl said:

LFG systems never work out, a global chat channel for finding groups would be preferable. The LFG system in Vanguard was hardly ever used, it was only useful for getting a list of people for your level range and then whispering them. I know some people hate global chat channels but I think it's a much better option than letting people teleport to any dungeon they want.

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So, you bring up a LFG system that helped people figure out who they should send a tell to, as if that interaction is a bad thing. And then suggest global chat is the only option, as letting people teleport to any dungeon is bad.

Ummm, what about that first option you brought up and seemed to pretend didn't exist? A LFG tool that helps sort players so it's easier to find the people you should be talking to about a group.

Aradune_sl said:

So what do you guys think? Where is the balance? What tenet takes priority over the other?

When I said the community would be more involved with Pantheon than any of the other games we've worked on, I meant it. I love doing interviews and chats and videos. I really enjoy answering future players' questions. But this issue is turning out to be a tough one and we could really use your help and feedback.

Thanks in advance!

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My personal preference is that we travel to dungeons each time. Towns and some PoI's should have ports and a continents/islands far from continents can have spire type things (or preferably boats). That said, I understand the issue with people not wanting to have to run every time. If a compromise has to be made, an ability that is activated locally only to each dungeon that doesn't skip content (ie no extra-zone CotH to a specific "camp" unless that is a single class/high cost/in-zone ability).

With some overall thought and planning, I would say that one of the questions that should be asked as the maps are created and all the locations for places are decided is, "how long does it take and in what ways will be players be traveling and from where" for each PoI. I'm sure that's not a new idea, but if it's only a few minutes between major port locations once a player has explored an area entirely then I think no calling into dungeons is not that bad. Now getting them to the group can be an issue but that should part of the difficulty in some dungeons as a design aspect in my opinion.

I hate LFG tools personally, would rather they not exist. I've never been short on people to do things with though so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it.

It's not tedium if you don't pay attention & accidentally die trying to get there (Wuoshi, Sirens).

popsicledeath_sl said:

The hell. There were plenty of players I knew in EQ that I liked, and trusted in my groups, but they were shit at traveling and if we didn't have a porter to pick their ass up and someone to go with to help hold their hand, they wouldn't make it to the group. They'd not get groups over others if it were going to be a problem. That's enough social interaction, rivalry, competition, etc, for me to be happy, as again it wasn't just tedium, it was a way to separate yourself as someone who wouldn't turn travel into an all-night CR and rage quitting.

Grouping in every dungeon in the game shouldn't be something every player should feel entitled to. If you can't make it to the out of the way dungeons, don't have friends/group/guild willing to help get everyone there, or are too cheap to buy a port, or too lazy to make the run, then I hope they provide some easier solutions in the form of overcrowded shitholes that are easier to get to, like Karnor's compared to Old Seb compared to Howling Stones.

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I think you're latching on to one little thing I said and not paying attention to the overall theme I've layed out for my idea of a good system. I'm not lobbying for instant travel no work grouping. I'm lobbying for a happy medium.\

And I disagree with Mkopec that it's all or nothing. I think requiring a certain number of members (a little over half the group) to travel to the dungeon and then being able to summon (maybe with a reagent that doesn't cost an insignificant amount of currency to create or buy) is completely acceptable.