I'll give a personal example of this. On Mithaniel Marr, and acquaintance of mine named Greycloud, was a barb warrior for Afterlife, a major top end guild. This guy was geared to the teeth. He came to help me camp something for my epic in Castle Mistmoore, and ended up getting killed trying to run to zone line because he ended up getting like half the castle aggro'd on him.
It's because he was a warrior - no FD, no invis, no ways of escaping anything basically and no way of dealing with lots of mobs - pretty much the WORST class when it comes to getting swarmed.
If he was a necro, monk, SK, Chanter etc... it would have been no problem
No matter how geared - warriors were TERRIBLE in situations like you described.
Well, certainly escape spells like FD, Evac, Succor, gate, etc... were useful, but most classes would be toast if they got too much agro and couldn't get off a spell. Remember how casters could be interrupted very easily? I watched a high level wizard once trying to port out of Sol A after he was running through checking things and when he tried to leave, he had way too many on him and they kept interrupting his casts and even low level mobs could hit pretty darn hard on a cloth class.
I think that is one thing I really liked about EQ. Cloth casters were truly fragile and could be one rounded by many types of group based mobs. People used to complain about necros solo camping the Frenzy in LGuk, but it took serious skill for the class to do, especially when some of those mobs could single round kill them.
I think a lot of people are going to be surprised when they start playing a caster again in Pantheon (well, if VR hopefully is making them squishy like they should be) as the whole mainstream casters ignoring damage while they DPS is going to end in a lot of frustration for those players. They might actually have to learn how to play a caster class.
I'll give a personal example of this. On Mithaniel Marr, and acquaintance of mine named Greycloud, was a barb warrior for Afterlife, a major top end guild. This guy was geared to the teeth. He came to help me camp something for my epic in Castle Mistmoore, and ended up getting killed trying to run to zone line because he ended up getting like half the castle aggro'd on him.
It's because he was a warrior - no FD, no invis, no ways of escaping anything basically and no way of dealing with lots of mobs - pretty much the WORST class when it comes to getting swarmed.
If he was a necro, monk, SK, Chanter etc... it would have been no problem
No matter how geared - warriors were TERRIBLE in situations like you described.
You're absolutely correct as to the warrior aspects, what i dont think you're accounting for, and the point of my post, is this was a geared to the teeth level 60, in a zone that was basically lev 15-25 ish. In any other MMO someone that far above the level range of the mobs could run through that zone with absolute impunity. Hell, a level 60 could run through a level 40 zone in most mmos with absolute impunity.
One of the best things about EQ was there weren't hard level locks implemented into the game. Technically speaking is 250 level 20's wanted to band together and try to kill a level 50 mob, they would have a chance to do it. In a game like WoW for example, once you were 5 levels below or more a mob, you COULD NOT hit it, period. And vice versa, if a mob was 5 levels below you, you could stand around all day and never die from it.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
I'll give a personal example of this. On Mithaniel Marr, and acquaintance of mine named Greycloud, was a barb warrior for Afterlife, a major top end guild. This guy was geared to the teeth. He came to help me camp something for my epic in Castle Mistmoore, and ended up getting killed trying to run to zone line because he ended up getting like half the castle aggro'd on him.
It's because he was a warrior - no FD, no invis, no ways of escaping anything basically and no way of dealing with lots of mobs - pretty much the WORST class when it comes to getting swarmed.
If he was a necro, monk, SK, Chanter etc... it would have been no problem
No matter how geared - warriors were TERRIBLE in situations like you described.
You're absolutely correct as to the warrior aspects, what i dont think you're accounting for, and the point of my post, is this was a geared to the teeth level 60, in a zone that was basically lev 15-25 ish. In any other MMO someone that far above the level range of the mobs could run through that zone with absolute impunity. Hell, a level 60 could run through a level 40 zone in most mmos with absolute impunity.
One of the best things about EQ was there weren't hard level locks implemented into the game. Technically speaking is 250 level 20's wanted to band together and try to kill a level 50 mob, they would have a chance to do it. In a game like WoW for example, once you were 5 levels below or more a mob, you COULD NOT hit it, period. And vice versa, if a mob was 5 levels below you, you could stand around all day and never die from it.
I know what you're saying, and EQ did keep things challenging even when you got higher levels. However, even in EQ all spells were resisted on mobs 5 or so levels above you and beyond that point, you missed a lot unless you had really high str and atk. Point being, as I've said in the past, I don't think those hard caps should be a thing. Level has to mean something, but your stats should be more weighted in determining your damage than just your level (skill level). At the end of the day, a lower level will already have a natural struggle against higher level opponents by virtue of the fact that your health and damage are considerably lower than their's.
I'll give a personal example of this. On Mithaniel Marr, and acquaintance of mine named Greycloud, was a barb warrior for Afterlife, a major top end guild. This guy was geared to the teeth. He came to help me camp something for my epic in Castle Mistmoore, and ended up getting killed trying to run to zone line because he ended up getting like half the castle aggro'd on him.
It's because he was a warrior - no FD, no invis, no ways of escaping anything basically and no way of dealing with lots of mobs - pretty much the WORST class when it comes to getting swarmed.
If he was a necro, monk, SK, Chanter etc... it would have been no problem
No matter how geared - warriors were TERRIBLE in situations like you described.
You could still be screwed if you were any other class.
Example is I played a monk and I would sometimes run through zones looking for specific mobs for twinking or friends. I could feign death to my hearts content to get the train of green crap mobs off me but all it took was for 2 mobs to be casting spells with a second difference between them and it would completely ruin your day lol.
Did vanguard have trivial loot code? I thought they added that in later?
Not sure, I do know there is a very large discrepancy between release VG and later VG which is why you can often have fans of VG who greatly differ in design directions.
God, i hope not. All these unnatural restrictions of modern mmos ruin the genre.
While I don't dismiss the issues some bring up when allowing high level players to farm items from low level mobs, I agree that such an implementation has no place in this type of game. It really kills the enjoyment of being able to go back and obtain an item that you never got the chance to see drop.
Its also good for the game economy. If you decide to show up as a level 50 in a level 30 dungeon to camp items, provided nobody else is there, who does it hurt? I regularly spent a lot of time in permafrost camping items to sell at wee hours of the morning because of my work schedule, and rarely saw any level appropriate groups show up wanting to do that content.
The problems arose when you had a level 50 monopolizing the entire dungeon while a level appropriate group was attempting to work through the same content.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
God, i hope not. All these unnatural restrictions of modern mmos ruin the genre.
While I don't dismiss the issues some bring up when allowing high level players to farm items from low level mobs, I agree that such an implementation has no place in this type of game. It really kills the enjoyment of being able to go back and obtain an item that you never got the chance to see drop.
Its also good for the game economy. If you decide to show up as a level 50 in a level 30 dungeon to camp items, provided nobody else is there, who does it hurt? I regularly spent a lot of time in permafrost camping items to sell at wee hours of the morning because of my work schedule, and rarely saw any level appropriate groups show up wanting to do that content.
The problems arose when you had a level 50 monopolizing the entire dungeon while a level appropriate group was attempting to work through the same content.
That is what forums and black lists are for. Not too many people are interested in being a dick when many complaints on the forums can essentially make them unable to get a group or a guild. Social shunning works wonders in these situations.
If I want to farm a rare item for my low level atl then i should damn well be able to do that. Sounds like the op needs to stick with today's mmo that enforce those dumb restrictions.
If I want to farm a rare item for my low level atl then i should damn well be able to do that. Sounds like the op needs to stick with today's mmo that enforce those dumb restrictions.
People should be able to do as you speak, but the OPs concerns are also justified. That is, if someone wants to be an ass as a level 50 perma camping all the spawns in a level 15 dungeon while a group of level 15's are trying to do a single camp in it, they can, but then they will also have to deal with the consequences of their behavior resulting in level 50's thinking that ass isn't worthy of grouping or raiding with them.
Guess that level 50 better get used to soloing or spend a lot of time on that alt, which.. by the way I hope they allow players to see the "accounts" of the player so those "asses" can't hide behind anonymity in the game easily.
I mean, if people want to be an ass, by all means... be an ass, but they shouldn't be able to be a cowardly ass, they should have to own up to it.
If I want to farm a rare item for my low level atl then i should damn well be able to do that. Sounds like the op needs to stick with today's mmo that enforce those dumb restrictions.
IMHO it's really not quite that simple.
1. High level players in lower level areas can be disruptive; indeed, if they want, they can camp and control an area, keeping the players meant for that content away.
2. Why didn't you get the item when you were around the right level?
3. Why don't you trade or buy it if you missed getting it?
4. Why don't you roll an alt and get the item with that character?
5. Are you really entitled to go acquire any item any time you choose?
Having been not only on the dev side of MMOs, but also the customer service/facing side of launched MMOs, I can assure you that bottom feeding is problematic. One or a few higher levels can ruin the play experience of many lower level players. When that happens, the temptation is to remove the few who are ruining it for the many.
I used to be a fan of straight up TLC code... if you were too high level, the item wouldn't drop. Simple and effective solution, but also draconian and unpopular with many.
I do want Pantheon to be a game where even if you are higher level, you can't just waltz into a lower level zone -- 12 level 10s *are* going to kill a level 30.
Then there is reputation -- if you get known as a bottom feeder and for being disruptive, your reputation should be affected negatively within the player community.
One poster mentioned showing the character's name *and* and account, so if a jerk re-rolls, you still know it's that same guy. But the problem there is that many new to MMOs do act like asses with their first character, but then learn how important community and cooperation is, so they re-roll and become a great player. Showing their account name or something would take away that important 'second chance'.
So this is a great thread and we're talking about a real problem, especially for a game like Pantheon in which most items will be tradable. Like I said, I'm no longer a fan of hard TLC rules, but then I've not seen an alternative approach to dealing with this issue that truly covers all or even most of the bases. The best is that lower level NPCs, if there are enough of them, should still kill a higher level player. As noted, that stops higher levels from just walking around lower level zones with impunity. But it wouldn't stop them from fighting more carefully to an area and then holding that area.
It's tempting to just say 'well, this isn't an area that needs to be addressed with game mechanics, it's a customer service issue'. But customer service is really expensive and the ratio of GMs to players is never enough. Nor do I think it can necessarily be solved completely by the players, by the community.
Anyway, this is still an open issue and we've not made an official decision as to how all we're going to handle it. I appreciate the discussion. Please do think of the situation by putting yourself in the other guy's shoes. Sure, in a single player game, go back and one-man a whole dungeon when you're high enough level.... but Pantheon isn't a single player game, it's a highly social cooperative MMO. That means what you do affects others.
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-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
At the end of the day, some players will always find a way to be disruptive if that is their intention. Placing mechanics in the game to try to remove or reduce those opportunities is somewhat futile. It only ends up taking away the player freedom that should exist in a virtual world (or the real world for that matter).
There are two major things that should be considered to stop that behavior. First, assuring that content in general yields progressively more money and valuable items (risk vs reward). That means a player should not be wasting their time going to a lower level area for an item they could easily afford farming higher level content. If an item is so valuable that higher levels want to come in an solo the camp for money, chances are the camp needs to be buffed or the item needs to be moved to a harder locale. The other option is offering a better higher level alternative.
In the end, if they are really there to grief, they will do so whether they get an item out of it or not.
The best thing you can do is strongly encourage players to be cordial and cooperative by creating a game where players absolutely need each other. Not just for groups, but for trade, travel raids and all the other forms of interdepence that existed in oldschool games. In EQ, I almost never had those griefing scenarios that have become so commonplace in games because it meant ostracizing yourself. Once you make a bad name for yourself, players stop grouping with you, stop trading with you, and not only you, but also your guild and those who associate with you. If players really have that power, people will naturally exercise caution when interacting with other players.
It also needs to be said that, if a higher level player simply wants to farm something in a lower level dungeon and they were there first, tough apples. As long as its the exception and not the norm, sometimes you have to wait your turn in a virtual world with contested content.
The last thing you can do is change the spawn dynamics of some mobs that are more highly sought after. In EQ, many mobs that dropped a special item spawned in various locations, sometimes all throughout a dungeon. If you make it so a player can't lock down every spawn of a particular mob, all of a sudden people feel OK about a higher level monopolizing a wing of the dungeon.
That means a player should not be wasting their time going to a lower
level area for an item they could easily afford farming higher level
content. If an item is so valuable that higher levels want to come in an
solo the camp for money, chances are the camp needs to be buffed or the
item needs to be moved to a harder locale.
Part of this though is also a result of the "alting" game and becomes more pronounced the easier and more common alting is. I think if you make alting practical, as in a player can "reasonably" spend time to level up other characters, this will become a major problem. If you look at games like WoW, low level gear on the AH became... pointless for the level appropriate player. If you were a new player to WoW, the AH was off limits for the most part because everything was priced far out of bounds of playing the game at that level leaving the player with the only solution of "playing the AH game".
WoW had instances though, think about this with contested content and easy alting? It will become a gold sellers paradise to perma-camp all of the low dungeons to force people to pay to progress (a prospect unfortunately all too many would have little objections to considering the acceptance in games today).
My point is that level speed and the viability of alts is what will help reduce this as if people can't alt easily because it takes so long to level a character, the market for selling low level gear won't be as consistent and profitable. I am not saying there shoujldn't be alts and twinks, but it shouldn't be a gimmick as it is in most games these days where a player power levels their character up in a day or so. It should take months to get the alt up, just as it takes the main.
That means a player should not be wasting their time going to a lower
level area for an item they could easily afford farming higher level
content. If an item is so valuable that higher levels want to come in an
solo the camp for money, chances are the camp needs to be buffed or the
item needs to be moved to a harder locale.
Part of this though is also a result of the "alting" game and becomes more pronounced the easier and more common alting is. I think if you make alting practical, as in a player can "reasonably" spend time to level up other characters, this will become a major problem. If you look at games like WoW, low level gear on the AH became... pointless for the level appropriate player. If you were a new player to WoW, the AH was off limits for the most part because everything was priced far out of bounds of playing the game at that level leaving the player with the only solution of "playing the AH game".
WoW had instances though, think about this with contested content and easy alting? It will become a gold sellers paradise to perma-camp all of the low dungeons to force people to pay to progress (a prospect unfortunately all too many would have little objections to considering the acceptance in games today).
My point is that level speed and the viability of alts is what will help reduce this as if people can't alt easily because it takes so long to level a character, the market for selling low level gear won't be as consistent and profitable. I am not saying there shoujldn't be alts and twinks, but it shouldn't be a gimmick as it is in most games these days where a player power levels their character up in a day or so. It should take months to get the alt up, just as it takes the main.
I read this 3 times, and it still doesn't make sense to me.
Why would a gold seller focus on selling items for alts when he could farm higher level content for far more valuable items. That just isn't logical. Players will, of course, farm what they can farm alone, but I just don't see a level 50 farming level 20 dungeons when he could effectively solo a named area in a level 30-40 dungeon.
This isn't to say that there shouldn't be those items that are found in lower level areas that were very powerful for one reason or another even at max level. A lot of resist gear in early EQ was found in dungeons all the way back to Crushbone (dwarven ringmail tunic), but that didn't make those items so valuable that level 50s sat there and camped Emperor Crush all day.
Its just a given that good items will be contested, whether its by players on the level of said items or above. There will always be those who complain about this. The people who can't deal with not having everything given to them when they want it and who complain about not having enough time to play a game like that will never like dealing with contested content and will always be vocal about it. There are ways to mitigate those problems though, as I mentioned above. It won't fix everything, but neither will having trivial loot code. Its just a better alternative in my opinion, and meshes better with the Pantheon's intended design.
I'll give a personal example of this. On Mithaniel Marr, and acquaintance of mine named Greycloud, was a barb warrior for Afterlife, a major top end guild. This guy was geared to the teeth. He came to help me camp something for my epic in Castle Mistmoore, and ended up getting killed trying to run to zone line because he ended up getting like half the castle aggro'd on him.
It's because he was a warrior - no FD, no invis, no ways of escaping anything basically and no way of dealing with lots of mobs - pretty much the WORST class when it comes to getting swarmed.
If he was a necro, monk, SK, Chanter etc... it would have been no problem
No matter how geared - warriors were TERRIBLE in situations like you described.
I read this 3 times, and it still doesn't make sense to me.
Why would a gold seller focus on selling items for alts when he could farm higher level content for far more valuable items. That just isn't logical. Players will, of course, farm what they can farm alone, but I just don't see a level 50 farming level 20 dungeons when he could effectively solo a named area in a level 30-40 dungeon.
Alting is a very popular focus in mainstream (even more so in PvP focused content). Selling extremely rare and sought after items at low levels became good money. You can get a max level character to pay ridiculous amounts of gold/plat to fund an alt that a new player could not afford with basic game play money aqusition. In fact, in EQ, twinking became a high dollar expense as players paid premium dollars (ie in RMT) to buy low to mid level gear to speed up progression of a character (this was very popular when Kunark was released in twinking monks due to their very skill dependent progression from release).
This
isn't to say that there shouldn't be those items that are found in lower
level areas that were very powerful for one reason or another even at
max level. A lot of resist gear in early EQ was found in dungeons all
the way back to Crushbone (dwarven ringmail tunic), but that didn't make
those items so valuable that level 50s sat there and camped Emperor
Crush all day.
Even back in the "day" so to speak, gold selling, item buying through such sales was apparent. It was not popular because such would get you major social objection, but there were many who did it even in early EQ. EQ leveling took a while, and some had fits about having to do such content (or reasoned they shouldn't have to do it on a second run) and so they bought high end items, bought gold, and either themselves or through gold companies camped items needed for such.
Early, it wasn't as noticable, as those types of players were not the core of MMO gamers, but mainstreamers, they are the core, have no qualms on "justifying" any form of cheating in game. This will result in numerous companies/players camping spawns for the sake of monetary gain in sales of new/alting players attempting to fast track through old content.
Its just a given that good items will be
contested, whether its by players on the level of said items or above.
There will always be those who complain about this. The people who can't
deal with not having everything given to them when they want it and who
complain about not having enough time to play a game like that will
never like dealing with contested content and will always be vocal about
it. There are ways to mitigate those problems though, as I mentioned
above. It won't fix everything, but neither will having trivial loot
code. Its just a better alternative in my opinion, and meshes better
with the Pantheon's intended design.
Me personally? I could care less about all the social and mainstream bullshit. When you see me have a problem is when I go to camp a spot and some idiot gold seller/AH gimmick seller is perma camping areas because they can make bank on manipulating the player trade market.
Thing is, all of this goes away when we get rid of "player markets", but hey... everyone thinks it is amazing, but I personally... I think they love it because they can cheat the shit out of required progression using various trade gimmicks in the game. I know this because I have done it in every game I have played. I seriously hate "free player trade" as it is the cancer to a quality gaming system. My opinion, not a popular one, but then should I expect an anti-crack position to be popular in a den of crack addicts? /shrug
Getting rid of free player trading does 'fix' farming, but it also takes away so much from the game too. I'm really not looking for 'quick fixes' that often do more harm than good. It's like Instancing -- yes Instancing 'fixes' some issues, like too much contested content, etc., but it also does much more harm than good.
So it's safe to assume Pantheon's items will be mostly tradable (except for quest items and such). And it's safe to say the vast majority of zones will NOT be instanced.
Useful brainstorming and theory crafting at this point would take the above and then try to figure out how to address bottom feeding, farming, etc. within those confines.
thanks
--
-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
Getting rid of free player trading does 'fix' farming, but it also takes away so much from the game too. I'm really not looking for 'quick fixes' that often do more harm than good. It's like Instancing -- yes Instancing 'fixes' some issues, like too much contested content, etc., but it also does much more harm than good.
So it's safe to assume Pantheon's items will be mostly tradable (except for quest items and such). And it's safe to say the vast majority of zones will NOT be instanced.
Useful brainstorming and theory crafting at this point would take the above and then try to figure out how to address bottom feeding, farming, etc. within those confines.
thanks
Just make sure you don't "fix" things that don't need fixing. Some "issues" are so small and do so little harm. Spending dev time on that is wasted and usually just leads to a fix that screws over way more people then the original "issue".
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
I think you for sure ought to be able to get drops from quest mobs that are needed for quest turn ins. Some people like to be able to say they did all the quests. But no need to farm +1 hammers. Though you would think there's not a lot of coin in +1 hammers?
There also may be no need for a pro golfer to play miniature golf but he might just want to.
Just make sure you don't "fix" things that don't need fixing. Some "issues" are so small and do so little harm. Spending dev time on that is wasted and usually just leads to a fix that screws over way more people then the original "issue".
Very true. I've seen lots of development hours and tons of customer service efforts put towards minor issues. We'll definitely try to be smart about those things and devote resources to where we can get the most bang for our (your?) buck.
Farmers are interesting. In once sense, if you do really have people in 3rd world countries being paid to farm items in your game to sell for RL money it tells you you have a successful game.... that people would spend RL money for in-game items/currency is an indication that there is a serious demand and value there... something that only happens in a successful game.
But then if zones are becoming filled with these farmers to the point they are interfering with legit players, it *can* become an issue. And because these are not regular 'griefers' that can be dealt with by the community (e.g. they don't care if they are ostracized), sometimes the developer has to do something. Checks and logs can be implemented that let customer service know about excessive farmers, flag their accounts, etc. That's fairly easy to do. But whether devoting armies of GMs to weed out farmers is truly worth it is a matter of debate.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
Part of the solution is strictly controlling class solo power. In EQ a lv 60 rogue could barely solo a lv 40 area but a 60 shaman could solo every non raid mob in the game. That is an absurd disparity.
"Solo classes" in Pantheon should equate to barely being able to level on your own, not soloing dungeons meant for a party of six. The EQ solo classes were far too good at soloing, that's where alot of the item farming problems came from.
Part of the solution is strictly controlling class solo power. In EQ a lv 60 rogue could barely solo a lv 40 area but a 60 shaman could solo every non raid mob in the game. That is an absurd disparity.
"Solo classes" in Pantheon should equate to barely being able to level on your own, not soloing dungeons meant for a party of six. The EQ solo classes were far too good at soloing, that's where alot of the item farming problems came from.
Perfect example of screwing over players with a "fix" that hurts them more then it hurts the "reason".
Farmers don't solo, not even if solo is viable. Farmers have every means of playing full groups either via boxing, botting or simply working together.
Tuning down solopower to a point of "not fun" just to fight something that may or may not be an issue at all simply ruins the game upfront. Don't do that. Don't use cannons to shot at birds. Don't drop a nuke to fight some sheep.
And don't screw over legit players to fight something that only the vocal minority even cares about.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Getting rid of free player trading does 'fix' farming, but it also takes away so much from the game too. I'm really not looking for 'quick fixes' that often do more harm than good. It's like Instancing -- yes Instancing 'fixes' some issues, like too much contested content, etc., but it also does much more harm than good.
So it's safe to assume Pantheon's items will be mostly tradable (except for quest items and such). And it's safe to say the vast majority of zones will NOT be instanced.
Useful brainstorming and theory crafting at this point would take the above and then try to figure out how to address bottom feeding, farming, etc. within those confines.
thanks
Just spit balling here... going through my process I normally go through.
Well, the thing is that you are going to have to control one side of the equation here to control the outcome. Something has to give. That however does not mean that your solution has to go against the core concept you are trying to achieve.
Requirements:
You want free trade through your player economies. You want gear to be freely traded without restrictions.
Problem:
The problems are campers, people camping contested content permanently, making the content consistently unavailable to mos (due to the benefit of trading gear in the player market for value return).
Desired behavior:
People regardless of level can camp the items, but do not camp excessively there by not interfering with the intended expectation of play for level appropriate players in the process.
What do we know that will stop this activity regardless of its measure? That is, the solutions that disregard your above requirements.We can:
1. TLC code that won't drop the gear, spawn the mob, etc... after a certain level. 2. Control player to player pricing. 3. Think of others...
Now, how can we apply those while still achieving the desired behavior?
You don't want people to sit and camp excessively, you want them to be able to go back and camp an item they want, but you don't want them to turn it into a gimmick that destroys the game and you don't want any solution to harm intended game play to cater to the solution.
Ultimately we want gear tradable, so players can have freedom of choice when selling an item. How about temp solutions? Something that acts like the draconian measure, but is not indefinite? A time based flag for instance. We know that TLC gets in the way of things, but it is a very effective solution for dealing with the abuse.
Possible solution:
How about looting code that is time based flagging system.
Here is what I am thinking. Lets set up a scenario:
Player A wants to camp an item (solo or in a group, doesn't matter). Player goes to a named camp. While camping, the named pops and drops an item (Rare A). Player A loots the item. That item now sets a loot flag for the player (and the loot, more on that later) that is on a timer for item Rare A. This flag will not allow the player to see (maybe? there might be some reasons to not allow people to know it dropped, I can't think of it now, but my spidy senses are tugging at me as to there being a reason I can't think of at the moment) or manipulate the item Rare A for a period of 7 days. That player can still continue to kill the rare mob and if that rare mob drops something else (Rare B, Uncommon A), they will also be able to take that as well causing the flag to set for those items as well.
Now, when the player has farmed all items off the named, they will no longer see anything else drop or be unable to loot it. Now, the flag on the loot is to get around people just trading it to a runner and continuing to farm. That is, the moment you trade the item to another person, it flags the same flag the person had set on them when they looted the item. This flag is a token of sorts, containing the item id, a time stamp, etc... (most hidden for system purposes) so you can carry the count down over to the player who was handed the item.
What this does is disallow continuous farming of the same item over and over for sale. The reason I say a 7 day timer, because you want it to be lasting, so that they just don't gimmick it for the limited time with shifts, the go right back to farming another for sale. This puts a long enough timer on the player and item to where even if they choose to repeat farm an area, there is enough time between where they are going to reach a point where they will be out of commission for a week or so.
By putting it on all players regardless of level, this also kills the ability to do it with a level appropriate player as well. So there is really no work around and anyone who gets the item is going to get the flag, so the items from that camp specifically require people to wait for the cool down of 7 days.
This is one way to approach it, but I have to say these things always have unintended consequences. They usually end up slapping an honest player and personally, I despise any sort of "restriction" that goes on game play because of another system which in my opinion is less important to game play (allowing players control over the economic system).
Another possible solutions, one I would prefer would be to use similar temporary flagging tactics in your trade system. I can't think of anything off the top of my head right now, but it is something to ponder on. Point is, time based restriction systems can help you achieve your ultimate goal (allowing fully traded gear to anyone), but limit the abuses that one can apply with it.
Regardless, whatever you choose, it is going to step on people toes. I honestly don't see how you can have everyone open and free of choice without some counter consequence to balance it. This is why I hate player economies, they are so fake and lack any real form of reality that curbs a lot of behaviors that are beneficial in an imaginary world.
Comments
I think that is one thing I really liked about EQ. Cloth casters were truly fragile and could be one rounded by many types of group based mobs. People used to complain about necros solo camping the Frenzy in LGuk, but it took serious skill for the class to do, especially when some of those mobs could single round kill them.
I think a lot of people are going to be surprised when they start playing a caster again in Pantheon (well, if VR hopefully is making them squishy like they should be) as the whole mainstream casters ignoring damage while they DPS is going to end in a lot of frustration for those players. They might actually have to learn how to play a caster class.
One of the best things about EQ was there weren't hard level locks implemented into the game. Technically speaking is 250 level 20's wanted to band together and try to kill a level 50 mob, they would have a chance to do it. In a game like WoW for example, once you were 5 levels below or more a mob, you COULD NOT hit it, period. And vice versa, if a mob was 5 levels below you, you could stand around all day and never die from it.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
You could still be screwed if you were any other class.
Example is I played a monk and I would sometimes run through zones looking for specific mobs for twinking or friends. I could feign death to my hearts content to get the train of green crap mobs off me but all it took was for 2 mobs to be casting spells with a second difference between them and it would completely ruin your day lol.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
That is what forums and black lists are for. Not too many people are interested in being a dick when many complaints on the forums can essentially make them unable to get a group or a guild. Social shunning works wonders in these situations.
Guess that level 50 better get used to soloing or spend a lot of time on that alt, which.. by the way I hope they allow players to see the "accounts" of the player so those "asses" can't hide behind anonymity in the game easily.
I mean, if people want to be an ass, by all means... be an ass, but they shouldn't be able to be a cowardly ass, they should have to own up to it.
1. High level players in lower level areas can be disruptive; indeed, if they want, they can camp and control an area, keeping the players meant for that content away.
2. Why didn't you get the item when you were around the right level?
3. Why don't you trade or buy it if you missed getting it?
4. Why don't you roll an alt and get the item with that character?
5. Are you really entitled to go acquire any item any time you choose?
Having been not only on the dev side of MMOs, but also the customer service/facing side of launched MMOs, I can assure you that bottom feeding is problematic. One or a few higher levels can ruin the play experience of many lower level players. When that happens, the temptation is to remove the few who are ruining it for the many.
I used to be a fan of straight up TLC code... if you were too high level, the item wouldn't drop. Simple and effective solution, but also draconian and unpopular with many.
I do want Pantheon to be a game where even if you are higher level, you can't just waltz into a lower level zone -- 12 level 10s *are* going to kill a level 30.
Then there is reputation -- if you get known as a bottom feeder and for being disruptive, your reputation should be affected negatively within the player community.
One poster mentioned showing the character's name *and* and account, so if a jerk re-rolls, you still know it's that same guy. But the problem there is that many new to MMOs do act like asses with their first character, but then learn how important community and cooperation is, so they re-roll and become a great player. Showing their account name or something would take away that important 'second chance'.
So this is a great thread and we're talking about a real problem, especially for a game like Pantheon in which most items will be tradable. Like I said, I'm no longer a fan of hard TLC rules, but then I've not seen an alternative approach to dealing with this issue that truly covers all or even most of the bases. The best is that lower level NPCs, if there are enough of them, should still kill a higher level player. As noted, that stops higher levels from just walking around lower level zones with impunity. But it wouldn't stop them from fighting more carefully to an area and then holding that area.
It's tempting to just say 'well, this isn't an area that needs to be addressed with game mechanics, it's a customer service issue'. But customer service is really expensive and the ratio of GMs to players is never enough. Nor do I think it can necessarily be solved completely by the players, by the community.
Anyway, this is still an open issue and we've not made an official decision as to how all we're going to handle it. I appreciate the discussion. Please do think of the situation by putting yourself in the other guy's shoes. Sure, in a single player game, go back and one-man a whole dungeon when you're high enough level.... but Pantheon isn't a single player game, it's a highly social cooperative MMO. That means what you do affects others.
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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There are two major things that should be considered to stop that behavior. First, assuring that content in general yields progressively more money and valuable items (risk vs reward). That means a player should not be wasting their time going to a lower level area for an item they could easily afford farming higher level content. If an item is so valuable that higher levels want to come in an solo the camp for money, chances are the camp needs to be buffed or the item needs to be moved to a harder locale. The other option is offering a better higher level alternative.
In the end, if they are really there to grief, they will do so whether they get an item out of it or not.
The best thing you can do is strongly encourage players to be cordial and cooperative by creating a game where players absolutely need each other. Not just for groups, but for trade, travel raids and all the other forms of interdepence that existed in oldschool games. In EQ, I almost never had those griefing scenarios that have become so commonplace in games because it meant ostracizing yourself. Once you make a bad name for yourself, players stop grouping with you, stop trading with you, and not only you, but also your guild and those who associate with you. If players really have that power, people will naturally exercise caution when interacting with other players.
It also needs to be said that, if a higher level player simply wants to farm something in a lower level dungeon and they were there first, tough apples. As long as its the exception and not the norm, sometimes you have to wait your turn in a virtual world with contested content.
The last thing you can do is change the spawn dynamics of some mobs that are more highly sought after. In EQ, many mobs that dropped a special item spawned in various locations, sometimes all throughout a dungeon. If you make it so a player can't lock down every spawn of a particular mob, all of a sudden people feel OK about a higher level monopolizing a wing of the dungeon.
Part of this though is also a result of the "alting" game and becomes more pronounced the easier and more common alting is. I think if you make alting practical, as in a player can "reasonably" spend time to level up other characters, this will become a major problem. If you look at games like WoW, low level gear on the AH became... pointless for the level appropriate player. If you were a new player to WoW, the AH was off limits for the most part because everything was priced far out of bounds of playing the game at that level leaving the player with the only solution of "playing the AH game".
WoW had instances though, think about this with contested content and easy alting? It will become a gold sellers paradise to perma-camp all of the low dungeons to force people to pay to progress (a prospect unfortunately all too many would have little objections to considering the acceptance in games today).
My point is that level speed and the viability of alts is what will help reduce this as if people can't alt easily because it takes so long to level a character, the market for selling low level gear won't be as consistent and profitable. I am not saying there shoujldn't be alts and twinks, but it shouldn't be a gimmick as it is in most games these days where a player power levels their character up in a day or so. It should take months to get the alt up, just as it takes the main.
Why would a gold seller focus on selling items for alts when he could farm higher level content for far more valuable items. That just isn't logical. Players will, of course, farm what they can farm alone, but I just don't see a level 50 farming level 20 dungeons when he could effectively solo a named area in a level 30-40 dungeon.
This isn't to say that there shouldn't be those items that are found in lower level areas that were very powerful for one reason or another even at max level. A lot of resist gear in early EQ was found in dungeons all the way back to Crushbone (dwarven ringmail tunic), but that didn't make those items so valuable that level 50s sat there and camped Emperor Crush all day.
Its just a given that good items will be contested, whether its by players on the level of said items or above. There will always be those who complain about this. The people who can't deal with not having everything given to them when they want it and who complain about not having enough time to play a game like that will never like dealing with contested content and will always be vocal about it. There are ways to mitigate those problems though, as I mentioned above. It won't fix everything, but neither will having trivial loot code. Its just a better alternative in my opinion, and meshes better with the Pantheon's intended design.
Not saying that's the best fix... but it did seem to clear up nearly every issue that TLC was supposed to fix.
Even back in the "day" so to speak, gold selling, item buying through such sales was apparent. It was not popular because such would get you major social objection, but there were many who did it even in early EQ. EQ leveling took a while, and some had fits about having to do such content (or reasoned they shouldn't have to do it on a second run) and so they bought high end items, bought gold, and either themselves or through gold companies camped items needed for such.
Early, it wasn't as noticable, as those types of players were not the core of MMO gamers, but mainstreamers, they are the core, have no qualms on "justifying" any form of cheating in game. This will result in numerous companies/players camping spawns for the sake of monetary gain in sales of new/alting players attempting to fast track through old content.
Me personally? I could care less about all the social and mainstream bullshit. When you see me have a problem is when I go to camp a spot and some idiot gold seller/AH gimmick seller is perma camping areas because they can make bank on manipulating the player trade market.
Thing is, all of this goes away when we get rid of "player markets", but hey... everyone thinks it is amazing, but I personally... I think they love it because they can cheat the shit out of required progression using various trade gimmicks in the game. I know this because I have done it in every game I have played. I seriously hate "free player trade" as it is the cancer to a quality gaming system. My opinion, not a popular one, but then should I expect an anti-crack position to be popular in a den of crack addicts? /shrug
So it's safe to assume Pantheon's items will be mostly tradable (except for quest items and such). And it's safe to say the vast majority of zones will NOT be instanced.
Useful brainstorming and theory crafting at this point would take the above and then try to figure out how to address bottom feeding, farming, etc. within those confines.
thanks
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
There also may be no need for a pro golfer to play miniature golf but he might just want to.
Farmers are interesting. In once sense, if you do really have people in 3rd world countries being paid to farm items in your game to sell for RL money it tells you you have a successful game.... that people would spend RL money for in-game items/currency is an indication that there is a serious demand and value there... something that only happens in a successful game.
But then if zones are becoming filled with these farmers to the point they are interfering with legit players, it *can* become an issue. And because these are not regular 'griefers' that can be dealt with by the community (e.g. they don't care if they are ostracized), sometimes the developer has to do something. Checks and logs can be implemented that let customer service know about excessive farmers, flag their accounts, etc. That's fairly easy to do. But whether devoting armies of GMs to weed out farmers is truly worth it is a matter of debate.
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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"Solo classes" in Pantheon should equate to barely being able to level on your own, not soloing dungeons meant for a party of six. The EQ solo classes were far too good at soloing, that's where alot of the item farming problems came from.
Perfect example of screwing over players with a "fix" that hurts them more then it hurts the "reason".
Farmers don't solo, not even if solo is viable. Farmers have every means of playing full groups either via boxing, botting or simply working together.
Tuning down solopower to a point of "not fun" just to fight something that may or may not be an issue at all simply ruins the game upfront. Don't do that. Don't use cannons to shot at birds. Don't drop a nuke to fight some sheep.
And don't screw over legit players to fight something that only the vocal minority even cares about.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Well, the thing is that you are going to have to control one side of the equation here to control the outcome. Something has to give. That however does not mean that your solution has to go against the core concept you are trying to achieve.
Requirements:
You want free trade through your player economies. You want gear to be freely traded without restrictions.
Problem:
The problems are campers, people camping contested content permanently, making the content consistently unavailable to mos (due to the benefit of trading gear in the player market for value return).
Desired behavior:
People regardless of level can camp the items, but do not camp excessively there by not interfering with the intended expectation of play for level appropriate players in the process.
What do we know that will stop this activity regardless of its measure? That is, the solutions that disregard your above requirements.We can:
1. TLC code that won't drop the gear, spawn the mob, etc... after a certain level.
2. Control player to player pricing.
3. Think of others...
Now, how can we apply those while still achieving the desired behavior?
You don't want people to sit and camp excessively, you want them to be able to go back and camp an item they want, but you don't want them to turn it into a gimmick that destroys the game and you don't want any solution to harm intended game play to cater to the solution.
Ultimately we want gear tradable, so players can have freedom of choice when selling an item. How about temp solutions? Something that acts like the draconian measure, but is not indefinite? A time based flag for instance. We know that TLC gets in the way of things, but it is a very effective solution for dealing with the abuse.
Possible solution:
How about looting code that is time based flagging system.
Here is what I am thinking. Lets set up a scenario:
Player A wants to camp an item (solo or in a group, doesn't matter). Player goes to a named camp. While camping, the named pops and drops an item (Rare A). Player A loots the item. That item now sets a loot flag for the player (and the loot, more on that later) that is on a timer for item Rare A. This flag will not allow the player to see (maybe? there might be some reasons to not allow people to know it dropped, I can't think of it now, but my spidy senses are tugging at me as to there being a reason I can't think of at the moment) or manipulate the item Rare A for a period of 7 days. That player can still continue to kill the rare mob and if that rare mob drops something else (Rare B, Uncommon A), they will also be able to take that as well causing the flag to set for those items as well.
Now, when the player has farmed all items off the named, they will no longer see anything else drop or be unable to loot it. Now, the flag on the loot is to get around people just trading it to a runner and continuing to farm. That is, the moment you trade the item to another person, it flags the same flag the person had set on them when they looted the item. This flag is a token of sorts, containing the item id, a time stamp, etc... (most hidden for system purposes) so you can carry the count down over to the player who was handed the item.
What this does is disallow continuous farming of the same item over and over for sale. The reason I say a 7 day timer, because you want it to be lasting, so that they just don't gimmick it for the limited time with shifts, the go right back to farming another for sale. This puts a long enough timer on the player and item to where even if they choose to repeat farm an area, there is enough time between where they are going to reach a point where they will be out of commission for a week or so.
By putting it on all players regardless of level, this also kills the ability to do it with a level appropriate player as well. So there is really no work around and anyone who gets the item is going to get the flag, so the items from that camp specifically require people to wait for the cool down of 7 days.
This is one way to approach it, but I have to say these things always have unintended consequences. They usually end up slapping an honest player and personally, I despise any sort of "restriction" that goes on game play because of another system which in my opinion is less important to game play (allowing players control over the economic system).
Another possible solutions, one I would prefer would be to use similar temporary flagging tactics in your trade system. I can't think of anything off the top of my head right now, but it is something to ponder on. Point is, time based restriction systems can help you achieve your ultimate goal (allowing fully traded gear to anyone), but limit the abuses that one can apply with it.
Regardless, whatever you choose, it is going to step on people toes. I honestly don't see how you can have everyone open and free of choice without some counter consequence to balance it. This is why I hate player economies, they are so fake and lack any real form of reality that curbs a lot of behaviors that are beneficial in an imaginary world.