I find it more important that they figure out what kinds of boss
encounters they wish to make and base amount of people in the raids to
make said encounter interesting. The problem when you have a huge number
of people in the raid is that their function mostly becomes bloat that
cause bosses and spawns to have lots more health without making a
difference for the mechanics of the fight.
With Pantheon having
more roles you should be capable of making more interesting fights that
require fewer people. I don't see a reason why Pantheon raids would
require more than 30 players.
Very well said.
Vanguard had 18 and 24 man raids. IIRC in the end every raid was 24 man.
I read somewhere (but I've forgotten where) that they're aiming for 32 man raids for Pantheon. That strongly implies the group size will be 8 (so a Pantheon raid force would be 4 groups a 8 people).
Hmm, I didn't see that mentioned, I did hear it loosely mentioned that 24 man would be around the size.
I see no benefit of an 8 person party. I see lots of problems with getting groups together, content designed for 8 man which would pretty much kill any chance of clever solo/duo emergent play as it would take a minimum of 3-4 to attempt even the trash, not to mention you would have to probably have a solid group balance to even attempt it. I don't see 8 man groups being anything but overkill to be honest.
Most of the fun I remember in EQ was that a few of very skilled people could sneak in and pull off some interesting feats in the dungeons. I remember camping some spawns with a couple of friends, exploring some interesting areas of dungeons with just a few people, etc...
With large group sizes, it kills the small group possibilities of skilled play due to the need to properly challenge the larger group. That is, 2-3 people doing as we once did in EQ would be very unlikely due that design.
Ok, then how exactly would you limit the number of raid forces that are able to kill your raidboss ?
I am confused. How does an enrage timer achieve this? The entire point of that enrage timer is to make sure the boss is killed before a certain time and it begins to become un-killable. It is a DPS check, not a player limiting technique.
DPS check fights are spam fests, lazy design used by developers who are streamlining itemization to be one dimensional focus (ie focus on DPS stats) .
That would only work if the gear difference between raided gear and
non-raided gear would be quite steep, which wasnt the case in Vanguard.
Maybe, it really depends on how you design your fights. Besides, why do you need to gate by raid fights? As you said, there will not be a major difference between raid and group gear, so... why should there be gating between raid and group content? You can gate progression irregardless of raid/group.
Having played it for many years,i witnessed maybe not perfect but the best design i have ever played.
I/ll talk vanilla because it was the best.
The game used like every game a rating system,even match +1 + 2++ and of course -1 -2 and too easy.
the maximum if i remember right was 260 xp maybe was 280 or 240,doesn't matter.You start with a solo player to get that max,for each player you add the xp drops but you can bring it back up to max if you also bring the encounter up.
So for example 6 player group killing an EM would yield around 100-120 xp,keep adding levels and you raise the xp for the group.Then to encourage grouping,you got bonus xp for killing each encounter in a certain time up to 5 bonus then it kept at the 5 bonus until you did not kill in the allotted time.So you might get 90 seconds to kill the first,75 for the second,50,40,30 seconds to keep the CHAIN going.
This system allowed the players to determine how and what they fought,not the game and that is the way it should be,unlike questing games where every player follows the exact same path,exact same xp,it's like a bunch of zombies playing follow the leader.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
As to mob encounters in FFXI,it started out where outside interference was possible but got changed.The simple of it was an outside group could mass heal the tank to steal hate from the group.Also other tactics were used like once stealing hate drag it through tons of aggro to kill everyone off then have some players on standby ready to steal hate again.Or simply dragging it away long enough until the first group lost hate control. Other lame tactics were to chain a whole pile of mobs onto the group fighting the Boss NM then D/c and have that group aggro all the new mobs and likely die.
I liked the system of being able to help others,i see nothing wrong with that,you would also gain hate if you were not careful even though you were not in the group.There is just a fine line to be watched when designing the game.One example was Protect buffs would last differently depending how high the tier of buff was,so if you were only level 10 and some passerby wanted to give you a Protect 5 it wouldn't last long enough to be worthwhile.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
As I said before, as in fact I said already in the OP - I see the benefit that in a Pentinity (5 party roles instead of just 3 in Trinity), a 6 man group is extremely limiting in respect to group building options.
Basically you have almost no space left for variance. Fill 5 roles, one optional guy.
In fact thinking about this, Vanguard had 6 people and a Trinity, and I always felt that 2 tanks - 2 healers - 2 damage dealers worked best. For starters, one could have any player crash and the party could still go on. Loss of the single tank or single healer otherwise stops parties quite brutally.
To have the same in Pantheon, one would even need a 10 man group.
I say don't fix what isn't broken, I never heard anyone say a negative thing about group sizes or raid sizes in EQ except that it was possible to zerg, even however unlikely it was for you to coordinate one back then.
We have come up with dozens of mechanics and ways on these very forums in which to discourage players from zerging without actually setting hard caps, because hard caps are what ruin games.
As I said before, as in fact I said already in the OP - I see the benefit that in a Pentinity (5 party roles instead of just 3 in Trinity), a 6 man group is extremely limiting in respect to group building options.
Basically you have almost no space left for variance. Fill 5 roles, one optional guy.
In fact thinking about this, Vanguard had 6 people and a Trinity, and I always felt that 2 tanks - 2 healers - 2 damage dealers worked best. For starters, one could have any player crash and the party could still go on. Loss of the single tank or single healer otherwise stops parties quite brutally.
To have the same in Pantheon, one would even need a 10 man group.
Ok, lets consider this a moment. When you design the content, you have to consider group size and the ideal makeup as your base to work from. You then make that content challenging for that group makeup. Players through various emerging game play can learn to adapt to that challenge with less than ideal party designs and makeup. Instead of using a tank, casters may use rooting techniques, slows, fears, etc... or if you don't have traditional primary roles, you may be able to work different approaches between the classes to achieve the same result.
This has been tested and has worked quite well in many games, specifically EQ. Also, your trinity design is the mainstream adaption. DPS was never a part of the original trinity, CC was as most classes could DPS to an extent, but it was the utility that gave them usefulness in a role. It was Tank/Heals/CC as controlling the crowd was an integral element of play in EQ due to how long fights lasted and how hard mobs hit. Often pulling more than one mob resulted party wipe.
So, the core balanced party will have 1 main tank, 1 melee support primary or hybrid, 1 main healer, 1 caster support primary or hybrid , 1 CC, 1 puller. Then you design the content to push that group to the point where it always feels like it needs one more of something at any given time. Most parties were a variation of that using interesting adaptions based on need (ie some classes were better suited for different type of tanking, healing, etc...). There is the old saying "necessity breeds innovation" and this is key in your party design. You never want to give the player all the tools, you want them to feel like they are slightly lacking as this is what creates the anxiety of need to adapt a given tool to a given situation.
Your party design is for the absolutely perfect party, not only is it designed for the best balance, but also with redundancies. Now think about the content you will have to develop to challenge it? You will need to have encounters that push a 2 tank, 2 healer, 1 cc, 1 puller, 2 dps party. So, you will have to push that party to its limits, which means you need to stress not only your CC, but push CC class so hard that the second tank continually needs to pick up additions, you will also have to stress your healers and with the slots for extra DPS, you will need to push fights to stress them as well.
So, consider how many could enter a dungeon that was designed for such? Because you have redundancies built into your party design (and content), you will increase the problem you initially hoped to avoid. So instead of players not having a tank and working out some possible solution, they have to worry about not having two tanks, and then two healers, dps, and the utility roles. Basically, not only do the "less than ideal" parties have to deal with lacking a given class, but lacking the redundancies as well. This greatly reduces the chance of smaller party sizes, or any form of less than ideal emerging game play of accomplishment.
An 8 person part is starting to get into many raid size and you run into major problems with having to fill in that many slots. Games like WoW went to the 5 party size for various reasons, but one was because it was believed that smaller was better and easier to get together. With that, I remember getting 10 man raids organized in Strath/Scholomance back in early WoW and it was still a bit of a process. The idea is not to make basic grouping in the game feel like a constant raid and I think 8 mans will really push the content to that level of "feel" and style in its content, taking away the concept of a small group dungeon play.
I think 6 mans fill the correct balance for all forms of play that will emerge from such and still give players the ability to actually form a group. Keep in mind that Pantheon is not likely to have a massive sub base, consider how hard it is to get groups going in smaller populations (you played vanguard) and think about having to fill 2 extra slots on top of designing a redundant group design in order to handle content. I just don't think it will turn out well to be honest.
First time you even stated one should have two tanks and two healers in a six man group.
In a game thats designed for a pentinity (5 party roles: tank-healer-melee-mage-cc) in which, with a six man group, 5 of the spots are already taken, so AT LEAST 7 man groups would be necessary in order to have two healers and two tanks.
And I pointed that out before, too !
Its like in the beginning of Vanguard. Everyone told me to sit down to get faster mana regeneration even if that wouldnt do anything at all in Vanguard. Groups kept asking for a Cleric in general chat when Shaman, Disciple and Blood Mage could heal just as well.
Pantheon is NOT EQ and Pantheon is NOT VG. The rules have changed. The game is different. We have to adapt to that.
First time you even stated one should have two tanks and two healers in a six man group.
In a game thats designed for a pentinity (5 party roles: tank-healer-melee-mage-cc) in which, with a six man group, 5 of the spots are already taken, so AT LEAST 7 man groups would be necessary in order to have two healers and two tanks.
And I pointed that out before, too !
Its like in the beginning of Vanguard. Everyone told me to sit down to get faster mana regeneration even if that wouldnt do anything at all in Vanguard. Groups kept asking for a Cleric in general chat when Shaman, Disciple and Blood Mage could heal just as well.
Pantheon is NOT EQ and Pantheon is NOT VG. The rules have changed. The game is different. We have to adapt to that.
Not entirely, you are thinking basic healing tanking. I was thinking more situational aspects. I didn't mean to imply direct redundant roles.
Let me explain.
The main tank is the one where all is focused to take down a given mob. The second tank is more of a backup, a ghetto CC is you get adds. In many ways they are a support role. Often you would have a warrior tanking, and a paladin or SK off tanking or doing DPS/utility support. They are melee support not exactly tanks as they have more use than just that.
Same with the second healer, they are support not really a direct healer. They could be a druid, a shaman, etc... who both have numerous other abilities that can buff, CC, DPS, etc...
We could easily do this. Tank/Healer/CC (fill in three any other) and you have the basis for group play because most classes in EQ for instances had numerous utilities. If you had a monk, you could single pull, so you could get by without a hard CC class (enchanter). If you had no monk, you could use a necro/mage and off tank or ghetto CC with roots for the additional adds.
The point is, the second tank and second healer are just support roles, I did not mean to imply main roles. If you design a group for main roles, that is two actual tanks (not the support tank as I mentioned) and two actual healers, then it will create the problems I mentioned.
As for this not being EQ or VG, obviously but lets get this settled right here and now.
This game is a spiritual successor to them. That means it is trying to achieve the same feeling and style of play we enjoyed in those games. It is not to make a brand new game that does everything different. We have been there, done that for near two decades and if you haven't noticed, it isn't working.
I don't want a game that is EQ and VG in name only and a bunch of new experimental designs. I want what was advertised, a game that is based on EQ/VG taking the best of what they provided and then using knowledge from today's games to tailor that previously successful model.
So, you dismissing with "its not EQ/VG" isn't helping your argument because the entire point of this game is founded on it being related to them. So no, the rules have not changed, they are the same, but new adaptions are being considered and enhanced based experience with games over the years.
Now, as I said, an 8 man group size is getting into small raid territory. One thing I can tell you from playing a lot of the games out there is that even with a pull of friends, finding a consistent group all the time can be challenging. Increasing the group size is going to increase the problems there and it will cause issues with the emergent small mini-group play I mentioned.
Taking much of anything from VG would be a mistake. VG is in the video game hall of shame for a reason, even most EQ Classic fans hated it. And even in it's prime it was a ghost town. Lets stop pretending like VG was some amazing game because only the vocal minority believe so. Hell even the one VG emulator is getting virtually zero support because, guess what, no one really cares if the game gets revived.
Other then some of the class design, the only thing VG can show us is what NOT to do.
Taking much of anything from VG would be a mistake. VG is in the video game hall of shame for a reason, even most EQ Classic fans hated it. And even in it's prime it was a ghost town. Lets stop pretending like VG was some amazing game because only the vocal minority believe so. Hell even the one VG emulator is getting virtually zero support because, guess what, no one really cares if the game gets revived.
Other then some of the class design, the only thing VG can show us is what NOT to do.
VG had some very interesting class mechanics (Death Knight flank attack design), great crafting system, an interesting diplomacy system all with their own gear and levels.
Did you play it at all or is your knowledge of it in passing?
I played it a bit at release and the bugs greatly reduced my time in it so I was not very knowledgeable about it and had negative views of it. Then, years later, I came back (before it was made FTP) and tried it out. I was quite impressed with many of the features and in fact, it blew all the mainstream garbage games out of the water. Unfortunately, it lacked players and my attention was divided at the time so I was unable to put much effort into it before it turned FTP and then eventually was cancelled.
It had its faults, but to claim it was garbage and should be dismissed? Nah, that is just talking crap.
One of the main things i miss about EQ and hate about modern mmos (and hate is probably not a strong enough word here) is the that EQ didn't have "enrage" timers. Enrage timers are stupid. They are the height of stupid. If someone figures out a way to take down a mob (within the rules of the game of course), they should be able to. If someone wants to take 12 people to try to kill a mob that was designed for 24, they should be able to.
Ah i remember the days of FFXI not having enrage timers. Since servers were all mixed with US, EU, Japan, and Oceanic communities, guilds would actually hold world spawns for hours and hours until the time of death better coincided with their primetime. Holding bosses for up to 8 hours was not unheard of.
For an international MMO, i saw the value of implementing enrage timers. It sure as hell helped my guild actually get to see some of these bosses that we otherwise would have never seen. The Japanese and European guilds were way more hardcore than any US guilds and probably still are to this day.
Basically, i see the value if the playerbase stops playing nice and forces it, but i'd rather not have it if at all possible. As usual, it's on the players to stop trying to game the system to their advantage. I don't see that ever happening.
I think maybe you misunderstood enrage timers. Enrage timers are when you engage the boss, and you have to kill it within X number of minutes or it goes into god mode and starts wtf pwning everyone. Its a stupid mechanic which WOW used liberally and i hate it, with a passion.
With all do respect he does understand what they are. He was just explaining why they would be in a game using FFXI as an example. You see, before enrage was put on NM's in XI people would get hate on them and hold them and kill them at the time they wanted to change their spawn time to. Sometimes up to 12 hours.
Fair enough, but as sinist said above, its just lazy game design. There are much easier ways to combat that then putting an "enrage" timer. An easy way to combat that type of thing is either
A. Not to have mobs get locked to whoever has hate. For example in EQ nobody could "hold" a mob because another group could quite easily walk in and kill it if the mob wasn't being killed, in 3 years of raiding in EQ i never once saw that happen, not even once.
B. Have a reverse enrage, i.e. if not enough damage has been done to the mob, lets say, 10% of its health in the first 5 minutes or something like that, then it "enrages".
C. As EQ did (and sinist mentioned above) raid mobs can spawn in say 12 or 24 hour window. So even if you kill it at 8:05pm on a saturday, it might spawn at 4am the following sunday, or 11:31 am that same saturday, etc.
I didn't play a huge amount of XI, but how did they hold a mob for 10 hours? In every game i've ever raided in (which is a hellofa lot) if you engage a raid mob, you better get to gettin or it would fuck you up. Honestly it just sounds like they had badly designed encounters if you could aggro a mob and then dick around for 10 hours without it killing everyone in the zone.
(btw its "due respect", yes im pedantic lol) Also, since this is text, i mean none of the above to be insulting or disrespectful, etc.
"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."
In fact thinking about this, Vanguard had 6 people and a Trinity, and I always felt that 2 tanks - 2 healers - 2 damage dealers worked best. For starters, one could have any player crash and the party could still go on. Loss of the single tank or single healer otherwise stops parties quite brutally.
To have the same in Pantheon, one would even need a 10 man group.
In my opinion, if the optimal 6-man group is 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 2 DPS, something is wrong with the design. (1) People want to play DPS in much higher numbers than tanks and healers. Aiming for only 1/3 DPS pretty much ignores the player-base of these games. (2) Requiring 2 healers means the mobs are likely doing too much damage and either requires a spam-fest of healing or two complete mana bars for encounters. (3) Two tanks implies that you cannot CC to one mob at a time, or even few enough mobs for the tank to hold agro on most.
The exception is, of course, the one you mentioned where the group can continue if one player has to drop out.
Based on the information I have heard from Pantheon, my version of an ideal 6-man group would be: (1) Tank, (2) Healer, (3) CC, (4-6) DPS. Going up to 8, I would prefer the best group to just add another 2 DPS, perhaps requiring two or three of them to also provide auxiliary capabilities in tank/heal/CC.
The ability of classes to fill multiple roles does change things. I.e., 2 tank is fine if the game allows some sort of dual-speccing, so he is actually DPSing and off-tanking in a pinch till one has to leave. But then, that is really 1 tank and 1 DPS, where characters can fill multiple different roles.
I prefer auxiliary roles, not secondary. For example, if a CC can juggle CC on 6 mobs, then allowing a DPS to CC, root, or kite one is just an auxiliary role, not a true secondary role.
In my opinion, if the optimal 6-man group is 2 tanks, 2
healers, and 2 DPS, something is wrong with the design. (1) People want
to play DPS in much higher numbers than tanks and healers.
Well the group config the designers went for was probably 1 tank, 2 healers, 1 bard, 2 dps. But as I said, having two tanks and anyone can crash without disrupting the group, also adds are not much of a problem with two tanks either.
And actually there never was a shortage of healers in Vanguard. Tanks have been very popular, too, albeit only Paladin and Dread Knight - Warrior, not so much. Thats because all these classes have been very fun to play and have been, among other things, great solists. The solist kings of Vanguard have been Necromancer (great dps, petclass, fake death), Disciple (manaless healing, good defenses and damage too) and Dread Knight (only in good gear, though, but for example DK is the only class that ever managed to solo a raidboss in Vanguard). Warrior however was the worst class for soloing.
Ill answer for Driven. The reason why they could hold it that long was 3 fold. 1. International servers. So plenty of peolple on all the time and many international guilds. 2. The enrage timer only kicked in after a certain amount of damage for some mobs (design flaw). 3. On other mobs with just a pure enrage timer a couple of skilled and well geared kiters could just do it forever seemingly (1 bard, and 1 Redmage).(ballance issue/needed resist build up on bard and reds super CC.)
Taking much of anything from VG would be a mistake. VG is in the video game hall of shame for a reason, even most EQ Classic fans hated it. And even in it's prime it was a ghost town. Lets stop pretending like VG was some amazing game because only the vocal minority believe so. Hell even the one VG emulator is getting virtually zero support because, guess what, no one really cares if the game gets revived.
Other then some of the class design, the only thing VG can show us is what NOT to do.
I don't think that's a fair assessment.
Vanguard failed purely because it launched early with game breaking bugs and performance issues, as well as a great deal of missing content.
Other than those issues, Vanguard was EQ with a different combat system. They did add a ton of quest progression over time (which was a mistake), but otherwise the basic premise of the game was more in line with EQ than even EQ2. The world was full of content and various forms of gameplay, and it was totally up to the player to decide what direction to go and what to do.
Also, Vanguard had several hundred thousand players when it launched, even though most knew it was in a really bad way. It would have likely surpassed a playerbase of 1M+ had they launched in a better state.
It would have likely surpassed a playerbase of 1M+ had they launched in a better state.
IIRC it started with around 400,000 copies sold.
Of which, as Brad said in his blog (which is long gone now) many only logged in once and hardly moved from the starting point - obviously because their hardware couldnt handle the graphic requirements.
If the game would have been in an OK state (less bugs, more highlevel content, less severe hardware requirements), I would assume that about 100k players longtime wouldnt be a too optimistic guess, maybe 200k or 300k.
A million or more ? I dont know. That would require word of mouth.
But WoW was out and strong back then. Do I think Vanguard would have been the better game ? Sure.
But the better product does NOT always win. Linux is better than Windows since decades - and completely free. But still Windows is completely dominant.
And WoW, unlike Vanguard, has pretty good PvP to offer, too.
My vote is 6 for groups and 54 for raids. Just like Everquest.
Getting 6 people to your camp and such is already a decent challenge logistically. 54 person raids help prevent smaller groups from obtaining raid loot, which helps to preserve the concept of guilds.
It would have likely surpassed a playerbase of 1M+ had they launched in a better state.
IIRC it started with around 400,000 copies sold.
Of which, as Brad said in his blog (which is long gone now) many only logged in once and hardly moved from the starting point - obviously because their hardware couldnt handle the graphic requirements.
If the game would have been in an OK state (less bugs, more highlevel content, less severe hardware requirements), I would assume that about 100k players longtime wouldnt be a too optimistic guess, maybe 200k or 300k.
A million or more ? I dont know. That would require word of mouth.
But WoW was out and strong back then. Do I think Vanguard would have been the better game ? Sure.
But the better product does NOT always win. Linux is better than Windows since decades - and completely free. But still Windows is completely dominant.
And WoW, unlike Vanguard, has pretty good PvP to offer, too.
I don't think 1M is really that many people if you are starting at 200-300k and what you offer is good. I believe the fanbase early on was very niche, and also much smaller than what it could have been if the game was in a better state. I feel a game like Pantheon is capable of the same numbers, if not more in 2017 (people on the internet have doubled since Vanguard launched, tripled since WoW). Nevertheless, thats some theorycrafting.
Also, no version of Linux has been better than windows since ever in the mind of any rational person. Not even close.
Taking much of anything from VG would be a mistake. VG is in the video game hall of shame for a reason, even most EQ Classic fans hated it. And even in it's prime it was a ghost town. Lets stop pretending like VG was some amazing game because only the vocal minority believe so. Hell even the one VG emulator is getting virtually zero support because, guess what, no one really cares if the game gets revived.
Other then some of the class design, the only thing VG can show us is what NOT to do.
VG had some very interesting class mechanics (Death Knight flank attack design), great crafting system, an interesting diplomacy system all with their own gear and levels.
Did you play it at all or is your knowledge of it in passing?
I played it a bit at release and the bugs greatly reduced my time in it so I was not very knowledgeable about it and had negative views of it. Then, years later, I came back (before it was made FTP) and tried it out. I was quite impressed with many of the features and in fact, it blew all the mainstream garbage games out of the water. Unfortunately, it lacked players and my attention was divided at the time so I was unable to put much effort into it before it turned FTP and then eventually was cancelled.
It had its faults, but to claim it was garbage and should be dismissed? Nah, that is just talking crap.
Typical fanboi, defending a game you barely even played.....
From laggy button spamming combat, to ridiculous system reqs for mediocre graphics, absurdly delayed animations, extremely boring item stats that all looked the same, mostly linked dungeon mobs no matter how well you pulled, half the world completely devoid of any content, everyone could easily solo to 50(especially healers??), half the classes were worse version of others, endless WoW quest spam, etc.
Even the games creator didn't support VG, bailing right at launch. VG didn't blow anything out of the water, unless exploding it's own employees out of the parking lot counts.
Typical fanboi, defending a game you barely even played.....
From laggy button spamming combat, to ridiculous system reqs for mediocre graphics, absurdly delayed animations, extremely boring item stats that all looked the same, mostly linked dungeon mobs no matter how well you pulled, half the world completely devoid of any content, everyone could easily solo to 50(especially healers??), half the classes were worse version of others, endless WoW quest spam, etc.
Even the games creator didn't support VG, bailing right at launch. VG didn't blow anything out of the water, unless exploding it's own employees out of the parking lot counts.
While some of those are valid complaints, the class system in Vanguard was unparalleled and considered the greatest feature of the game by most. The rest of that stuff is some pretty big exaggerations aside from the spammy nature of combat (it was pretty horrible).
Not to senselessly argue this, or belabor the issue, but lets not attribute all the changes made to SOE's Vanguard to the original Vanguard. The game at the start, bugs aside, was quite fantastic.
Typical fanboi, defending a game you barely even played.....
From laggy button spamming combat, to ridiculous system reqs for mediocre graphics, absurdly delayed animations, extremely boring item stats that all looked the same, mostly linked dungeon mobs no matter how well you pulled, half the world completely devoid of any content, everyone could easily solo to 50(especially healers??), half the classes were worse version of others, endless WoW quest spam, etc.
Even the games creator didn't support VG, bailing right at launch. VG didn't blow anything out of the water, unless exploding it's own employees out of the parking lot counts.
While some of those are valid complaints, the class system in Vanguard was unparalleled and considered the greatest feature of the game by most. The rest of that stuff is some pretty big exaggerations aside from the spammy nature of combat (it was pretty horrible).
Not to senselessly argue this, or belabor the issue, but lets not attribute all the changes made to SOE's Vanguard to the original Vanguard. The game at the start, bugs aside, was quite fantastic.
Nice try, most of my complaints are original VG release issues. Ridiculous system reqs for mediocre graphics? VG at launch. Delayed animations? A problem from launch to closing. Extremely boring items and stats? The problem was the WORST at launch. Most dungeon mobs linked? Also came at launch. Half the world empty? Was the worst at launch. Everyone could solo to 50, you guessed it, at launch. Half the classes were pointless at launch also, especially every dps except Sorcerer and Ranger.
I hate to sound overly repetitive but it's the only way to cut through all the VG BS you hear on these forums. The game was a ghost town for a reason. Players will ignore bugs for the sake of a great game. VG was not a great game. Time to accept it or prove otherwise, in vain that is.
Typical fanboi, defending a game you barely even played.....
From laggy button spamming combat, to ridiculous system reqs for mediocre graphics, absurdly delayed animations, extremely boring item stats that all looked the same, mostly linked dungeon mobs no matter how well you pulled, half the world completely devoid of any content, everyone could easily solo to 50(especially healers??), half the classes were worse version of others, endless WoW quest spam, etc.
Even the games creator didn't support VG, bailing right at launch. VG didn't blow anything out of the water, unless exploding it's own employees out of the parking lot counts.
While some of those are valid complaints, the class system in Vanguard was unparalleled and considered the greatest feature of the game by most. The rest of that stuff is some pretty big exaggerations aside from the spammy nature of combat (it was pretty horrible).
Not to senselessly argue this, or belabor the issue, but lets not attribute all the changes made to SOE's Vanguard to the original Vanguard. The game at the start, bugs aside, was quite fantastic.
Nice try, most of my complaints are original VG release issues. Ridiculous system reqs for mediocre graphics? VG at launch. Delayed animations? A problem from launch to closing. Extremely boring items and stats? The problem was the WORST at launch. Most dungeon mobs linked? Also came at launch. Half the world empty? Was the worst at launch. Everyone could solo to 50, you guessed it, at launch. Half the classes were pointless at launch also, especially every dps except Sorcerer and Ranger.
I hate to sound overly repetitive but it's the only way to cut through all the VG BS you hear on these forums. The game was a ghost town for a reason. Players will ignore bugs for the sake of a great game. VG was not a great game. Time to accept it or prove otherwise, in vain that is.
I tend to agree with you on a lot of these aspects, but I reacted a bit differently maybe back then when I pre-ordered the limited edition and finally got started late in the beta. I saw an amazing game with amazing potential, even with all of those things you said being absolutely true at launch. If Vanguard launched 6 months to a year later like it really needed, and all of those problems were fixed? It would have had the potential to be extremely successful.
I do not remember if mobs were "linked" on launch, or if everyone could solo to 50 because I never made it past level 10, however I do agree that those are very bad things.
The class system and world were honestly the only 2 things I can safely say Vanguard did 100% right.
6 is the perfect group size. This allows for support and CC roles, provided the game properly implements them. I really despise the 5 and most recently 4 man group sizes.
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I see no benefit of an 8 person party. I see lots of problems with getting groups together, content designed for 8 man which would pretty much kill any chance of clever solo/duo emergent play as it would take a minimum of 3-4 to attempt even the trash, not to mention you would have to probably have a solid group balance to even attempt it. I don't see 8 man groups being anything but overkill to be honest.
Most of the fun I remember in EQ was that a few of very skilled people could sneak in and pull off some interesting feats in the dungeons. I remember camping some spawns with a couple of friends, exploring some interesting areas of dungeons with just a few people, etc...
With large group sizes, it kills the small group possibilities of skilled play due to the need to properly challenge the larger group. That is, 2-3 people doing as we once did in EQ would be very unlikely due that design.
DPS check fights are spam fests, lazy design used by developers who are streamlining itemization to be one dimensional focus (ie focus on DPS stats) .
Maybe, it really depends on how you design your fights. Besides, why do you need to gate by raid fights? As you said, there will not be a major difference between raid and group gear, so... why should there be gating between raid and group content? You can gate progression irregardless of raid/group.
Having played it for many years,i witnessed maybe not perfect but the best design i have ever played.
I/ll talk vanilla because it was the best.
The game used like every game a rating system,even match +1 + 2++ and of course -1 -2 and too easy.
the maximum if i remember right was 260 xp maybe was 280 or 240,doesn't matter.You start with a solo player to get that max,for each player you add the xp drops but you can bring it back up to max if you also bring the encounter up.
So for example 6 player group killing an EM would yield around 100-120 xp,keep adding levels and you raise the xp for the group.Then to encourage grouping,you got bonus xp for killing each encounter in a certain time up to 5 bonus then it kept at the 5 bonus until you did not kill in the allotted time.So you might get 90 seconds to kill the first,75 for the second,50,40,30 seconds to keep the CHAIN going.
This system allowed the players to determine how and what they fought,not the game and that is the way it should be,unlike questing games where every player follows the exact same path,exact same xp,it's like a bunch of zombies playing follow the leader.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Other lame tactics were to chain a whole pile of mobs onto the group fighting the Boss NM then D/c and have that group aggro all the new mobs and likely die.
I liked the system of being able to help others,i see nothing wrong with that,you would also gain hate if you were not careful even though you were not in the group.There is just a fine line to be watched when designing the game.One example was Protect buffs would last differently depending how high the tier of buff was,so if you were only level 10 and some passerby wanted to give you a Protect 5 it wouldn't last long enough to be worthwhile.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Basically you have almost no space left for variance. Fill 5 roles, one optional guy.
In fact thinking about this, Vanguard had 6 people and a Trinity, and I always felt that 2 tanks - 2 healers - 2 damage dealers worked best. For starters, one could have any player crash and the party could still go on. Loss of the single tank or single healer otherwise stops parties quite brutally.
To have the same in Pantheon, one would even need a 10 man group.
We have come up with dozens of mechanics and ways on these very forums in which to discourage players from zerging without actually setting hard caps, because hard caps are what ruin games.
Just don't fix what isn't, and wasn't broken.
This has been tested and has worked quite well in many games, specifically EQ. Also, your trinity design is the mainstream adaption. DPS was never a part of the original trinity, CC was as most classes could DPS to an extent, but it was the utility that gave them usefulness in a role. It was Tank/Heals/CC as controlling the crowd was an integral element of play in EQ due to how long fights lasted and how hard mobs hit. Often pulling more than one mob resulted party wipe.
So, the core balanced party will have 1 main tank, 1 melee support primary or hybrid, 1 main healer, 1 caster support primary or hybrid , 1 CC, 1 puller. Then you design the content to push that group to the point where it always feels like it needs one more of something at any given time. Most parties were a variation of that using interesting adaptions based on need (ie some classes were better suited for different type of tanking, healing, etc...). There is the old saying "necessity breeds innovation" and this is key in your party design. You never want to give the player all the tools, you want them to feel like they are slightly lacking as this is what creates the anxiety of need to adapt a given tool to a given situation.
Your party design is for the absolutely perfect party, not only is it designed for the best balance, but also with redundancies. Now think about the content you will have to develop to challenge it? You will need to have encounters that push a 2 tank, 2 healer, 1 cc, 1 puller, 2 dps party. So, you will have to push that party to its limits, which means you need to stress not only your CC, but push CC class so hard that the second tank continually needs to pick up additions, you will also have to stress your healers and with the slots for extra DPS, you will need to push fights to stress them as well.
So, consider how many could enter a dungeon that was designed for such? Because you have redundancies built into your party design (and content), you will increase the problem you initially hoped to avoid. So instead of players not having a tank and working out some possible solution, they have to worry about not having two tanks, and then two healers, dps, and the utility roles. Basically, not only do the "less than ideal" parties have to deal with lacking a given class, but lacking the redundancies as well. This greatly reduces the chance of smaller party sizes, or any form of less than ideal emerging game play of accomplishment.
An 8 person part is starting to get into many raid size and you run into major problems with having to fill in that many slots. Games like WoW went to the 5 party size for various reasons, but one was because it was believed that smaller was better and easier to get together. With that, I remember getting 10 man raids organized in Strath/Scholomance back in early WoW and it was still a bit of a process. The idea is not to make basic grouping in the game feel like a constant raid and I think 8 mans will really push the content to that level of "feel" and style in its content, taking away the concept of a small group dungeon play.
I think 6 mans fill the correct balance for all forms of play that will emerge from such and still give players the ability to actually form a group. Keep in mind that Pantheon is not likely to have a massive sub base, consider how hard it is to get groups going in smaller populations (you played vanguard) and think about having to fill 2 extra slots on top of designing a redundant group design in order to handle content. I just don't think it will turn out well to be honest.
Again.
First time you even stated one should have two tanks and two healers in a six man group.
In a game thats designed for a pentinity (5 party roles: tank-healer-melee-mage-cc) in which, with a six man group, 5 of the spots are already taken, so AT LEAST 7 man groups would be necessary in order to have two healers and two tanks.
And I pointed that out before, too !
Its like in the beginning of Vanguard. Everyone told me to sit down to get faster mana regeneration even if that wouldnt do anything at all in Vanguard. Groups kept asking for a Cleric in general chat when Shaman, Disciple and Blood Mage could heal just as well.
Pantheon is NOT EQ and Pantheon is NOT VG. The rules have changed. The game is different. We have to adapt to that.
Let me explain.
The main tank is the one where all is focused to take down a given mob. The second tank is more of a backup, a ghetto CC is you get adds. In many ways they are a support role. Often you would have a warrior tanking, and a paladin or SK off tanking or doing DPS/utility support. They are melee support not exactly tanks as they have more use than just that.
Same with the second healer, they are support not really a direct healer. They could be a druid, a shaman, etc... who both have numerous other abilities that can buff, CC, DPS, etc...
We could easily do this. Tank/Healer/CC (fill in three any other) and you have the basis for group play because most classes in EQ for instances had numerous utilities. If you had a monk, you could single pull, so you could get by without a hard CC class (enchanter). If you had no monk, you could use a necro/mage and off tank or ghetto CC with roots for the additional adds.
The point is, the second tank and second healer are just support roles, I did not mean to imply main roles. If you design a group for main roles, that is two actual tanks (not the support tank as I mentioned) and two actual healers, then it will create the problems I mentioned.
As for this not being EQ or VG, obviously but lets get this settled right here and now.
This game is a spiritual successor to them. That means it is trying to achieve the same feeling and style of play we enjoyed in those games. It is not to make a brand new game that does everything different. We have been there, done that for near two decades and if you haven't noticed, it isn't working.
I don't want a game that is EQ and VG in name only and a bunch of new experimental designs. I want what was advertised, a game that is based on EQ/VG taking the best of what they provided and then using knowledge from today's games to tailor that previously successful model.
So, you dismissing with "its not EQ/VG" isn't helping your argument because the entire point of this game is founded on it being related to them. So no, the rules have not changed, they are the same, but new adaptions are being considered and enhanced based experience with games over the years.
Now, as I said, an 8 man group size is getting into small raid territory. One thing I can tell you from playing a lot of the games out there is that even with a pull of friends, finding a consistent group all the time can be challenging. Increasing the group size is going to increase the problems there and it will cause issues with the emergent small mini-group play I mentioned.
Other then some of the class design, the only thing VG can show us is what NOT to do.
Did you play it at all or is your knowledge of it in passing?
I played it a bit at release and the bugs greatly reduced my time in it so I was not very knowledgeable about it and had negative views of it. Then, years later, I came back (before it was made FTP) and tried it out. I was quite impressed with many of the features and in fact, it blew all the mainstream garbage games out of the water. Unfortunately, it lacked players and my attention was divided at the time so I was unable to put much effort into it before it turned FTP and then eventually was cancelled.
It had its faults, but to claim it was garbage and should be dismissed? Nah, that is just talking crap.
A. Not to have mobs get locked to whoever has hate. For example in EQ nobody could "hold" a mob because another group could quite easily walk in and kill it if the mob wasn't being killed, in 3 years of raiding in EQ i never once saw that happen, not even once.
B. Have a reverse enrage, i.e. if not enough damage has been done to the mob, lets say, 10% of its health in the first 5 minutes or something like that, then it "enrages".
C. As EQ did (and sinist mentioned above) raid mobs can spawn in say 12 or 24 hour window. So even if you kill it at 8:05pm on a saturday, it might spawn at 4am the following sunday, or 11:31 am that same saturday, etc.
I didn't play a huge amount of XI, but how did they hold a mob for 10 hours? In every game i've ever raided in (which is a hellofa lot) if you engage a raid mob, you better get to gettin or it would fuck you up. Honestly it just sounds like they had badly designed encounters if you could aggro a mob and then dick around for 10 hours without it killing everyone in the zone.
(btw its "due respect", yes im pedantic lol) Also, since this is text, i mean none of the above to be insulting or disrespectful, etc.
"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
In my opinion, if the optimal 6-man group is 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 2 DPS, something is wrong with the design. (1) People want to play DPS in much higher numbers than tanks and healers. Aiming for only 1/3 DPS pretty much ignores the player-base of these games. (2) Requiring 2 healers means the mobs are likely doing too much damage and either requires a spam-fest of healing or two complete mana bars for encounters. (3) Two tanks implies that you cannot CC to one mob at a time, or even few enough mobs for the tank to hold agro on most.
The exception is, of course, the one you mentioned where the group can continue if one player has to drop out.
Based on the information I have heard from Pantheon, my version of an ideal 6-man group would be: (1) Tank, (2) Healer, (3) CC, (4-6) DPS. Going up to 8, I would prefer the best group to just add another 2 DPS, perhaps requiring two or three of them to also provide auxiliary capabilities in tank/heal/CC.
The ability of classes to fill multiple roles does change things. I.e., 2 tank is fine if the game allows some sort of dual-speccing, so he is actually DPSing and off-tanking in a pinch till one has to leave. But then, that is really 1 tank and 1 DPS, where characters can fill multiple different roles.
I prefer auxiliary roles, not secondary. For example, if a CC can juggle CC on 6 mobs, then allowing a DPS to CC, root, or kite one is just an auxiliary role, not a true secondary role.
If you dont like that, this game isnt for you.
And actually there never was a shortage of healers in Vanguard. Tanks have been very popular, too, albeit only Paladin and Dread Knight - Warrior, not so much. Thats because all these classes have been very fun to play and have been, among other things, great solists. The solist kings of Vanguard have been Necromancer (great dps, petclass, fake death), Disciple (manaless healing, good defenses and damage too) and Dread Knight (only in good gear, though, but for example DK is the only class that ever managed to solo a raidboss in Vanguard). Warrior however was the worst class for soloing.
Vanguard failed purely because it launched early with game breaking bugs and performance issues, as well as a great deal of missing content.
Other than those issues, Vanguard was EQ with a different combat system. They did add a ton of quest progression over time (which was a mistake), but otherwise the basic premise of the game was more in line with EQ than even EQ2. The world was full of content and various forms of gameplay, and it was totally up to the player to decide what direction to go and what to do.
Also, Vanguard had several hundred thousand players when it launched, even though most knew it was in a really bad way. It would have likely surpassed a playerbase of 1M+ had they launched in a better state.
Of which, as Brad said in his blog (which is long gone now) many only logged in once and hardly moved from the starting point - obviously because their hardware couldnt handle the graphic requirements.
If the game would have been in an OK state (less bugs, more highlevel content, less severe hardware requirements), I would assume that about 100k players longtime wouldnt be a too optimistic guess, maybe 200k or 300k.
A million or more ? I dont know. That would require word of mouth.
But WoW was out and strong back then. Do I think Vanguard would have been the better game ? Sure.
But the better product does NOT always win. Linux is better than Windows since decades - and completely free. But still Windows is completely dominant.
And WoW, unlike Vanguard, has pretty good PvP to offer, too.
Getting 6 people to your camp and such is already a decent challenge logistically. 54 person raids help prevent smaller groups from obtaining raid loot, which helps to preserve the concept of guilds.
Also, no version of Linux has been better than windows since ever in the mind of any rational person. Not even close.
From laggy button spamming combat, to ridiculous system reqs for mediocre graphics, absurdly delayed animations, extremely boring item stats that all looked the same, mostly linked dungeon mobs no matter how well you pulled, half the world completely devoid of any content, everyone could easily solo to 50(especially healers??), half the classes were worse version of others, endless WoW quest spam, etc.
Even the games creator didn't support VG, bailing right at launch. VG didn't blow anything out of the water, unless exploding it's own employees out of the parking lot counts.
Not to senselessly argue this, or belabor the issue, but lets not attribute all the changes made to SOE's Vanguard to the original Vanguard. The game at the start, bugs aside, was quite fantastic.
I hate to sound overly repetitive but it's the only way to cut through all the VG BS you hear on these forums. The game was a ghost town for a reason. Players will ignore bugs for the sake of a great game. VG was not a great game. Time to accept it or prove otherwise, in vain that is.
I do not remember if mobs were "linked" on launch, or if everyone could solo to 50 because I never made it past level 10, however I do agree that those are very bad things.
The class system and world were honestly the only 2 things I can safely say Vanguard did 100% right.