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

Merlin_sl said:

Ok you nailed it with that post. That was spot on. When I did join a top end guild we had the same issues. Our raid leaders/officers all had to two-box clerics because, 1. People were starting to leave the game and, 2. No one wanted to play a cleric just to be number 7 in a cheal rotation. I think Brad is addressing this because the VG classes were pretty fucking good and avoided the "one class required" syndrome.

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I think VG classes will probably be more of an inspiration than the EQ ones for this reason. Having 40 some people on to raid but not enough clerics was brutal. I think that role should be there for those that want it but I don't want them to decide if I'm raiding or not. Ideally, I want to look at what I have in numbers(classes) and be able to make a workable strategy regardless of what those classes are. Obviously if there are no healer types on it's different but you get the point. I think VG solved a lot of that. No reason to go away from the model

gogojira_sl said:

More lore tweets:

Slumbering within the void are the champions of lore.

Edit: What Convo said.

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beat ya sucka! ha

I'd like to add another note towards the VG classes.. That was a really good class system so I'm more excited to see what the classes will be like in Pantheon than anything else.. I think we will have that unique feel but also not be held back for lack of a certain role.

I just don't want them worrying at all about solo balance. I'm fine with 3 different types of healers (purely defensive , purely offensive , hybrid )and any of the three being able to fill the needed healer role , same with tanks and so on, but if a CC class figures out a way to solo more efficiently than any healer or tank type class , so be it. Leave it the hell alone , don't nerf it , take it out of the game , nor think you have to buff every other class with a similar mechanic.

I'm not saying don't make it where every class can solo somewhat , but if it looks like the necro with the pet and fear and dots is going to be better than the warrior at then just leave it the hell alone. Mechanics that continually strive for extreme balance in every aspect on all classes are far worse than the actual problem.

Lithose_sl said:

Sorry, I probably wasn't clear at first. But yeah, it's not that I totally disagree with you--EQ was "balanced", just not balanced between classes. The whole game was balanced (Probably mistakenly lol) to allow for imbalances--which made the game feel more balanced!

To use an obtuse RL scenario. It's like soldiers in an army. Navy Seals are imbalanced vs grunts, but a lot of factors make that inconsequential, because in most wars, you just want more of both anyway. So there are scenarios where some person can have an advantage but the thrust of that advantage is blunted by the setting.

And if a game is really designed well, you can actually exploit the above. I hope, like you, Brad's game is designed like that--where they embrace the unique properties of the class, and rather homogenize/diminish them, instead exploit and extol them.

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few problems here.
1. not balanced between classes works more in a pve game, then pvp.
like witchelves in warhammer. instantly murder like 3 classes even in a team fight. can 1v1 everyone else. but bright mages of course aoe fight gods. Bright mages being op didnt make playing an archmage any more fun, when you instantly imploded in every fight to an invisible w-elf.

2. everyone wants to be a jedi. oh, Jedi are balanced because they are rare, etc. yeah, that worked out real well for SWG. And exactly how fun was it being a grunt in a game with Jedi running around?

I get what you are trying to say. but, I think it needs to be clear how quickly that can go wrong.

BTW where do we get the Pantheon IRC channel going so we can all bitch at each other and do it in true old school form ?

Merlin_sl said:

You keep repeating this over and over and over again. WTF are you talking about? Unless your a top end, Fires of Heaven.ROI, AL type member with the best gear in the game, those single pulls were tough as fuck. When we didn't have a chanty in group it was either snare/rot the mob, or have someone kite it around. Very few mid/low level groups were able to handle multiple mobs in say, KC, Seb, etc...those guys hit like trucks! And I remember Kael raids. Without a monk to FD pull, splitting the Protectors of Zek etc...was nearly impossible. All FD pulling did was able the groups/raids to pull content the group/raid could handle. I have no idea in what instances this "trivialized the content". What game were you playing? I guess if you were a member of Afterlife or some shit then yea, that shit came easy, but in lower/mid level guilds, FD pulling/splitting was critical and in no way unbalanced.

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Is it that content was so hard FD splitting became necessary, or that content was designed around killing groups of mobs early on, then FD splitting was found out, MUCH easier, and developers felt they had to balance the game around the assumptions groups would look for ways to solo-kill mobs?

If you were doing content you could use snare as CC, or kite the mob around, then you weren't in dungeons were you also often didn't have room to FD split mobs. In these scenarios, it was often all about learning how to tackle groups of mobs. Though, granted, while I was in higher-end guilds we weren't exactly cutting edge, but we did usually challenge ourselves with tougher content (so while many people were still camping Karnor's entrance, pretty early on we were delving deep into Seb and HS).

FD splitting became the topic of discussion because tad is very defensive, but as I've also stated, it's not the FD, but the results that is the issue. It was just as much a broken mechanic that one of the enchanters I'd group with would solo-pull Seb all day long, or that bards could do it (and more reliably later one), etc. It becomes a broken mechanic, because again, as we both seem to agree, content is then designed around the assumption you have someone there to split the mobs into solo pulls.

Once a game is being designed around the assumption of solo pulls, why not just have dungeons with mobs that are solo pulls for anyone pulling? As you state, it would still be sufficiently challenging for most guilds/groups, but without the downtime of everyone else waiting for the one player out pulling to finally solo pull a mob. Unless you're saying the fun and challenge was had by the everyone else waiting? Or unless you're saying the challenge of the one person who is playing the game and having fun is worth all the others who are waiting for them?

Convo_sl said:

I think VG classes will probably be more of an inspiration than the EQ ones for this reason. Having 40 some people on to raid but not enough clerics was brutal. I think that role should be there for those that want it but I don't want them to decide if I'm raiding or not. Ideally, I want to look at what I have in numbers(classes) and be able to make a workable strategy regardless of what those classes are. Obviously if there are no healer types on it's different but you get the point. I think VG solved a lot of that. No reason to go away from the model

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/agree Vanguard really did a good job with classes.. many gems in there for sure especially healers.

Caliane_sl said:

few problems here.
1. not balanced between classes works more in a pve game, then pvp.
like witchelves in warhammer. instantly murder like 3 classes even in a team fight. can 1v1 everyone else. but bright mages of course aoe fight gods. Bright mages being op didnt make playing an archmage any more fun, when you instantly imploded in every fight to an invisible w-elf.

2. everyone wants to be a jedi. oh, Jedi are balanced because they are rare, etc. yeah, that worked out real well for SWG. And exactly how fun was it being a grunt in a game with Jedi running around?

I get what you are trying to say. but, I think it needs to be clear how quickly that can go wrong.

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That was the last post in a long line , I brought up the point because I wanted to be clear how quickly it can go wrong. Balance should always be a concern, it just shouldn't be restricted to HP=Zero. Games should try to explore balance in a broader sense, or at least, broader in terms of how combat is actually affected. They shouldn't be afraid to make a class useful outside of raw numbers. But yeah, that can fail, which is why I mentioned rangers, heh.

Also, imbalance can work well in PvP. I'm not sure it can work in static class PvP, and it doesn't work if it's a ridiculous and stupid imbalance. But everything really should come with that "if" statement--it depends on how you set your game up. DoTA/LoL, as the video says, is a good example of evolving imbalance working. And in a game like EQN, where classes are "liquid", I think that kind of evolving imbalance could be very effective. But sure, things can screw up, no system is perfect--which again is the point, we can't look at EQ and assume balance is perfect, it wasn't. All systems break, all have bad aspects, and we need to be honest about that in order to see why it worked and what can be done better.

Caliane_sl said:

few problems here.
1. not balanced between classes works more in a pve game, then pvp.
like witchelves in warhammer. instantly murder like 3 classes even in a team fight. can 1v1 everyone else. but bright mages of course aoe fight gods. Bright mages being op didnt make playing an archmage any more fun, when you instantly imploded in every fight to an invisible w-elf.

2. everyone wants to be a jedi. oh, Jedi are balanced because they are rare, etc. yeah, that worked out real well for SWG. And exactly how fun was it being a grunt in a game with Jedi running around?

I get what you are trying to say. but, I think it needs to be clear how quickly that can go wrong.

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Dunno, SWG went downhill pretty fast when they moved to NGE and everyone could be a jedi.

pharmakos_sl said:

i don't mind a class-tree system (not the best example but the most immediate example i can think of is EQ2), but being able to swap around WoW-style kinda cheapens it.

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Please, god, no skill/class skill trees. These are in every single MMO and single player game and they are way overdone and worn out. Do something else. Invent something.


On that note, EQ had "specs" to a certain extent for the caster classes due to the 8 spell slot limit. If a druid joined the group, and there was a cleric, he would mem up his dps spells and what not (unless you wanted to keep whipping out that spell book to switch out spells every few minutes, no thanks) and he would essentially be a DPS class. Necros would have difference spells up for "fear kite spec" or "undead charm spec" ect. Not all classes could do this, but druids, shaman, necros and a few others would. No, they werent true specs but they accomplished the same thing.

Just as an aside , as someone who enjoys world PVP tons , my hopes for a PVP for this game is a very long stretch goal and if it's made , then it's zek'ish put up a PVP server with no major class changes and have at it (teams/factions/ffa whatever). Even as a PVP'r I've been so starved for good PVE game like EQ/VG I'm fine with not even thinking about PVP for this one if it comes to that.

But my views of PVP class balance probably cloud my PVE class balance ones some as I'm a bit on the extreme side on the PVP balance idea. I hate it, and think there should be zero solo class pvp balance. It should always be based around group/open world danger , and if a healer gets raped 999 our of 1000 times in PVP if soloing and an assassin jumps them , so be it. It's an assassin , finding a solo victim , let the tears flow. Most likely in a group situation a group without a healer vs a group with one probably gets raped the same because the healer makes the group that much more powerful , and so on. I just despise worrying about ultimate solo class balance even in open world PVP games , so the idea of worrying about it in PVE only seems even more ridiculous to me.

You have to exploit the unique properties of a class in the game world for a player to feel connected to their character. I made a post in the EQ:N thread long ago about why the trinity works, and it does work. Most of the arguments and designs about removing it provide no better solution instead of it. The trinity exploits the uniqueness of each class perfectly:

What it boils down to, the bottom of the design wabbit-hole, if you will, is a system of transferal of numbers. The trinity transfers numbers between roles: a tank, healer, dps and the mob. Add in support roles on top of that foundation, such as buffers, debuffers, cc, and you have a system where every class compliments each other, and these relationships depend on each other to overcome content in the game, and it should be MOST content in the game - the system of transferring numbers amongst one another to win.

A role in this relationship is exactly what brings about the uniqueness and attachment to a character. It's why you felt attached in EverQuest and not in WoW. In WoW, they kept this number transfer system, but allowed any class to assume any role they wanted in it. A druid could be healer, tank, or dps. A paladin the same. When you can assume ANY role, you feel like you assume every role because your role can change day to day, and there's no consistency in what you're doing. While one could argue that this provides a player with options and a more varied experience, the result isn't what's expected. The result is that your character, yourclass, is no different than any other character, other class in how they affect the game world - and in the final analysis, because youcanperform any role, you will likely beexpected to, even if you never wanted to. If I picked a paladin thinking its a tank and never wanted to MT heal, for example, that role might be thrust upon me by my guild. Which leads into yet more consequences of this design down the road that we can see in WoW. If every class can perform every role, we now have to design items for all of them, and the players have to collect these multiple sets of items. So what are you, druid? The answer is, I'm not really sure: I've got 4 sets of gear. Everything? Nothing?

More options is a good thing, butin the contextof how that specific class is designed to affect and interact the game world. If I rolled a chanter, I would never expect to heal later in the game. Do not homogenize every class in order for each of them to fulfill every role, and the only difference between them is the window dressing. Players see through that, even subconsciously. You keep the trinity number transfer intact, but in doing so, you destroy the concept of a role in that system because everyone can perform every role, so there's no uniqueness in fulfilling them.Exploit the uniqueness of each class in their relationships to one anotherfor the class system to be a success.

So no Tigole, you don't just bring the player, not the class. If you do that, the player doesn't care and feels no attachement about the class, about the character, that he's playing.

You bring both.

Lithose_sl said:

That was the last post in a long line , I brought up the point because I wanted to be clear how quickly it can go wrong. Balance should always be a concern, it just shouldn't be restricted to HP=Zero. Games should try to explore balance in a broader sense, or at least, broader in terms of how combat is actually affected. They shouldn't be afraid to make a class useful outside of raw numbers. But yeah, that can fail, which is why I mentioned rangers, heh.

Also, imbalance can work well in PvP. I'm not sure it can work in static class PvP, and it doesn't work if it's a ridiculous and stupid imbalance. But everything really should come with that "if" statement--it depends on how you set your game up. DoTA/LoL, as the video says, is a good example of evolving imbalance working. And in a game like EQN, where classes are "liquid", I think that kind of evolving imbalance could be very effective. But sure, things can screw up, no system is perfect--which again is the point, we can't look at EQ and assume balance is perfect, it wasn't. All systems break, all have bad aspects, and we need to be honest about that in order to see why it worked and what can be done better.

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LoL and MTG are relatively easy to perfectly imbalance compared to a standard diku mmo because they are dealing with limited abilities per avatar/card and they both still screw up.

Thus my RPS comment. The only balance possible is RPS. That you make some classes better as compared to other classes in one area of the game (raid, solo, group, environment, crafting) and worse in others. The real problem arises in that raiding has always had the best loot and you can't make every class better for raiding.

So you must do one or more the following:

Spread the good loot around: 50% best is raid dropped, 20% best is group dropped, 20% best is crafted,10% best is solo quest or solo mob dropped (vg did this, sorta)

or

Large raiding sizes with specific class bop loot. So guilds bring along their friends instead of letting it rot. (eqish)

Edit: @Dumar the unique role only works well with less total classes. Where you have one tank, one healer, one dps, one buffer, etc. Since we live in a world where one guy wants to be a warrior and another a paladin a third an sk we need to distinguish those three tanks - such as making warriors the best raid tanks, paladins the best group tanks and SK the best soloing tanks. An SK can tank for a group and a warrior should have solo ability but not as efficiently or effectively as the primary tank for the that adventuring space.

Seriously the next fucker that claims classes in VG were nicely balanced is now officially challenged to play a warrior up to lvl 55.
All the way getting laughed at by all the still playing masochists (yeah both of them) only to find out its the early EQ war - mnk dilemma all over again but with war -pal/dk.

Similar issues with clerics, although not that glaring, for full potential they were wanted to go melee mode while your bloodmage pal just laid back and out-damaged and -healed them on almost every mob easily. Still they were viable healers though.

Yeah VG warriors are pretty screwed.

tad10_sl said:

Edit: @Dumar the unique role only works well with less total classes. Where you have one tank, one healer, one dps, one buffer, etc. Since we live in a world where one guy wants tone a warrior and another a paladins we need to distinguish those two tanks - such as making warriors the best raid tanks, paladins the best group tanks and SK the best soloing tanks. An SK can tank for a group and a warrior should have solo ability but not as efficiently or effectively as the primary tank for the that adventuring space.

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Yes, that's where the creativity and talent of the design team shows itself. The more classes you have, the more of a challenge it is to find each a role in which the player can feel they contribute and identify with. There's no real solution to that except: be good at what you do. I was an SK from classic to Velious, and I felt they did a pretty good job. It was niche and somewhat mashed together in raid setting (OT/puller mostly, sometimes MT if agro required), but combine that with a great ability to solo as well as the lore behind the class (almost universally hated everywhere), and the class was certainly felt as unique and provided unique benefits.