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Pantheon early expectations

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  • DarkswormDarksworm Member RarePosts: 1,081
    I keep seeing someone say that an XP penalty is just a way to increase the "grind."  The use of the word "grind" in that argument shows me exactly how that person feels towards leveling.  It is just a grind to to the max level.  If that is the way a person views MMO's, I don't want that person's opinions counting for anything in the making of this game.

    In Vanguard there was an XP penalty.  It was small.  I thought, even at the beginning, too small.  That being said, I only considered about 5 hours of my total game play as a grind.  Normally, I would log on and be excited for whatever it was that I was going to do.  Find a group for a dungeon I like, or a dungeon I haven't seen, or some overland areas that had rewards I wanted, or encounters I'd like to try.  If the game provides a situation where going from 1 to the max level is fun and rewarding, while also presenting risks and danger, I wouldn't call that a grind.

    Anyone that views leveling as a grind in all situations is not the type of person I want giving game design advice.  The leveling game for Vanguard was great, so great in fact, that I leveled twice to the max level, and once to about level 30, in the first couple months.  If you view leveling as grinding before you've even seen what the game plans to include as leveling content, then no argument for XP penalties will make sense.  When you view leveling as a major part of the adventure, there's no reason that losing XP is anything more than a penalty for making a mistake. 

    If the leveling experience is as good (hopefully better) than Vanguard; ie. lots of small group/large group areas, unique awards, rare spawns, extremely difficult to accomplish quests, there is no reason to call it "grinding" and making the adventure long via XP penalties for death is hardly something to complain about.

    The problem with leveling grind is that the luster of new eventually will go away with a "new game" and the repetition of the leveling process will make itself fully known.

    That's the main issue.  For the first month or so it may be fine to run around clicking monsters and skills just to level up, for hours... and hours... and hours.  And they get set back 30 minutes per death or whatever.

    But when it takes 5-6 months to level up to max level, you end up burning out a lot of players.

    Yes, socializing with other players can placebo some of that away, but it still burns people out these days.

    Some of us have already leveled to 60-90 in EQ starting back in pre-Velious days, to 98+ in games like Lineage II, etc.

    At this point, we get burned out easily by grindy games.

    Yes, it's a grind.  I'm not sure why you people are so averse to calling a spade a spade.  The term has developed a negative connotation over the years as a reflection of how the general player base feels towards it, which is why grindy games tend to get abandoned by most players who try them.

    People like their time investment to be respected.  They don't want to dump 3-6 months into a video game "just to level up."  Sorry, it's not 1999 anymore.  We don't have some fantasy of "living" in a virtual world.  That's for kids.
  • NanfoodleNanfoodle Member LegendaryPosts: 10,610
    Darksworm said:
    I keep seeing someone say that an XP penalty is just a way to increase the "grind."  The use of the word "grind" in that argument shows me exactly how that person feels towards leveling.  It is just a grind to to the max level.  If that is the way a person views MMO's, I don't want that person's opinions counting for anything in the making of this game.

    In Vanguard there was an XP penalty.  It was small.  I thought, even at the beginning, too small.  That being said, I only considered about 5 hours of my total game play as a grind.  Normally, I would log on and be excited for whatever it was that I was going to do.  Find a group for a dungeon I like, or a dungeon I haven't seen, or some overland areas that had rewards I wanted, or encounters I'd like to try.  If the game provides a situation where going from 1 to the max level is fun and rewarding, while also presenting risks and danger, I wouldn't call that a grind.

    Anyone that views leveling as a grind in all situations is not the type of person I want giving game design advice.  The leveling game for Vanguard was great, so great in fact, that I leveled twice to the max level, and once to about level 30, in the first couple months.  If you view leveling as grinding before you've even seen what the game plans to include as leveling content, then no argument for XP penalties will make sense.  When you view leveling as a major part of the adventure, there's no reason that losing XP is anything more than a penalty for making a mistake. 

    If the leveling experience is as good (hopefully better) than Vanguard; ie. lots of small group/large group areas, unique awards, rare spawns, extremely difficult to accomplish quests, there is no reason to call it "grinding" and making the adventure long via XP penalties for death is hardly something to complain about.

    The problem with leveling grind is that the luster of new eventually will go away with a "new game" and the repetition of the leveling process will make itself fully known.

    That's the main issue.  For the first month or so it may be fine to run around clicking monsters and skills just to level up, for hours... and hours... and hours.  And they get set back 30 minutes per death or whatever.

    But when it takes 5-6 months to level up to max level, you end up burning out a lot of players.

    Yes, socializing with other players can placebo some of that away, but it still burns people out these days.

    Some of us have already leveled to 60-90 in EQ starting back in pre-Velious days, to 98+ in games like Lineage II, etc.

    At this point, we get burned out easily by grindy games.

    Yes, it's a grind.  I'm not sure why you people are so averse to calling a spade a spade.  The term has developed a negative connotation over the years as a reflection of how the general player base feels towards it, which is why grindy games tend to get abandoned by most players who try them.

    People like their time investment to be respected.  They don't want to dump 3-6 months into a video game "just to level up."  Sorry, it's not 1999 anymore.  We don't have some fantasy of "living" in a virtual world.  That's for kids.
    Other problem is higher level up you have tools to get by the real pain of exp loss on deaths. Reses that give back some or all the exp. Guilds to support you that have learned how to play. Where death is not something that happens often. Necros to summon your corpse. Druids and Wizzies to TP you back to where you need to go. So corpse runs are not as much of a pain. So the real exp loss is the low level players learning the game. The people it will chase off, not small. Its better to be removed, or the tools that make death not as bad be given to low level players. IMO risk can be added smarter ways, exp loss is an outdated system that adds very little to the game. 
  • FourplayFourplay Member UncommonPosts: 216
    edited March 2016
    Nanfoodle said:
    Rallyd said:
    Nanfoodle said:
    Dullahan said:
    Lokero said:

    Why are people okay with clerics being able to rez back all your lost exp. instantly, but not okay with people being able to cure a debuff?

    Why are curable debuffs so bad?  I mean you'd still have to find someone to cure it and then run back to wherever.  It seems to me that'd be worse than just having a cleric instantly port you back to your body.  I don't see any real difference between the two?  I haven't seen anyone shouting out against resurrection, which pretty much removes the death penalty entirely in EQ and instantly teleports you back to your death spot.
    If a debuff was truly on par with experience loss from a death, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I just think getting a cleric to your corpse is much more problematic than simply seeking out a player that can dispel a debuff. As Raiden spoke of multiple times, it all comes down to time. Time spent can make an item feel valuable or, in the case of time lost, add tension to combat. There is not much else you can do design-wise to create those feelings. There are other ways to address the time factor, but I just don't see a change in death penalty as necessary if they are essentially doing the same thing.
    I am truly thinking of the game and the good of it. I want to see as many people as needed to play this game to keep content rolling. The big problem with exp loss is low levels you have so few tools to deal with it that most of the negative effects really only land on new people to the game leveling for the first time. By the time you get to endgame you dont care any more. You have people you can rely on to get fast exp to recover. Reses from friends and guildies. Ports to get you back to your corpse and Necros to summon your corpse. 

    So dinging people learning the game now days wont have the effect it did 17 years ago where the only real quality option was EQ1. EXP loss does only one thing. Makes people think twice about taking risks. Adds a fear element. Does it do anything else for the new gamer? Does it add depth to their class? Does it bring people together? Does it bring interdependence?  Do it add to the economy? A debuff system on death, if done so its impacting can bring these things and this is just one way to add risk. Other layers can be added. So you can have risk of death thats impacting and add more than just a grind. 
    Debuff on death, so you mean I just have to afk for 5 minutes and take a piss while my debuff wears off, then I can continue?  Sounds like a real tough death penalty to me... cough not.

    I can see where you're going with your theory, and while you may be correct that there MAY be some system that is better for punishing players time-wise than exp loss, you haven't suggested a good way yet, and neither has anyone else, until then, exp loss stays.
    No Im not. Im talking aboyt a debuff that stacks with each death. -1% HP -1% stats. You could set a maximum number of debuff or make it unlimited. That would be the devs law on that. Next to remove the debuff you would need to seek out a Shaman or Druid if the debuff you got was from a physical death (melee damage) and they could remove it. If you died by magic you would need to seek out an enchanter or wizard to have it removed. This would spread things out so it would be unlikely you would have everything you need in your team to remove the debuffs. But over standard DPS this would make these classes desired. They could also make money (tips) going to popular exp spots to removes these debuff. You could also have a quest given in town that would remove these debuff by doing a quest. 

    This would keep the fear of death intact and at the same time add the depth of needing other classes. Adding to the economy and best of all, removing the exp grind. The point is, just slapping an exp loss on death is old and worn out mechanic. Can something new be added to the game that gives that same feeling of risk of death that can add more depth as well? It got the job done. We are in the same place today, yes the wagon wheel works it adds fear of death but the steel belted tire does so much more than going around and around. 
    The purpose of any penalty for dying is loss of time, whether it's curing a debuff, gear degradation,corpse walking, or earning xp back. Everyone has their opinion on what they prefer or what they consider grind. An mmo is meant to take time lots of your time by nature. If no penalties existed then players would not respect time or appreciate the extreme moment before death. Same thing in real life. Most people do not appreciate the moment upon moment in their lives until the end is closing in.

    The thing I love most in my rpgs is combat. So let's take a look at possible penalties that put me at my place I love most.

    Debuff: A player in party or in a distant area has to come cure you. Gameplay is present for the curing person but the person dead has no interaction but typing for cure. Since you are not dead, that could be an annoyance or grind to a curing person on the other side of the world. For me this is a grind to because I can't do anything but lay in wait.

    Gear degradation: Gear wears or breaks. This one would piss me off if gear could break permanent if I spent months chasing a piece. Slight degradation would lead to me having to fix my own gear or visit a repair vendor or ask another player to repair it. Some of those add gameplay dependency on others or npcs but they don't put me straight into the place I love most. They send myself or others running around to fix gear. The vibe of this feels like doing fed-ex quest or busy work or a grind to me.

    Corpse walking: Requires me to run back to my dead body. If you could fight while in ghost mode, that would have some combat to it. But it still would have the vibe of I am running back and forth to my body each death. That would be a grind to me because my intent at that moment is to do combat but it is a side note to walking to my corpse.

    Gw2 down system: This is pretty cool except that it decreases party dynamics because anyone can rez you. At least it gets me back to what I love most pretty quickly. You can fight in downed state too.

    Xp loss: My favorite way of it being done was vanilla XI minus the delevel. You could die and be rezzed instantly with a reraise buff or a healer rezzing you but would receive a weakness debuff which grew more drastic with quick multiple deaths. I could resume combat immediately or wait for my hp to top off or weakness to wear. I would lose xp and have to regain it, doing combat usually so right in the place I loved most. If I was to want something different it would be increased xp bonus for killing stuff for an hour or two after dying the last time.

    All are a form of grind. I just my prefer my time to be doing what I love most which is killing stuff while exploring the world and interesting mechanics.


  • FourplayFourplay Member UncommonPosts: 216
    Darksworm said:
    I keep seeing someone say that an XP penalty is just a way to increase the "grind."  The use of the word "grind" in that argument shows me exactly how that person feels towards leveling.  It is just a grind to to the max level.  If that is the way a person views MMO's, I don't want that person's opinions counting for anything in the making of this game.

    In Vanguard there was an XP penalty.  It was small.  I thought, even at the beginning, too small.  That being said, I only considered about 5 hours of my total game play as a grind.  Normally, I would log on and be excited for whatever it was that I was going to do.  Find a group for a dungeon I like, or a dungeon I haven't seen, or some overland areas that had rewards I wanted, or encounters I'd like to try.  If the game provides a situation where going from 1 to the max level is fun and rewarding, while also presenting risks and danger, I wouldn't call that a grind.

    Anyone that views leveling as a grind in all situations is not the type of person I want giving game design advice.  The leveling game for Vanguard was great, so great in fact, that I leveled twice to the max level, and once to about level 30, in the first couple months.  If you view leveling as grinding before you've even seen what the game plans to include as leveling content, then no argument for XP penalties will make sense.  When you view leveling as a major part of the adventure, there's no reason that losing XP is anything more than a penalty for making a mistake. 

    If the leveling experience is as good (hopefully better) than Vanguard; ie. lots of small group/large group areas, unique awards, rare spawns, extremely difficult to accomplish quests, there is no reason to call it "grinding" and making the adventure long via XP penalties for death is hardly something to complain about.

    The problem with leveling grind is that the luster of new eventually will go away with a "new game" and the repetition of the leveling process will make itself fully known.

    That's the main issue.  For the first month or so it may be fine to run around clicking monsters and skills just to level up, for hours... and hours... and hours.  And they get set back 30 minutes per death or whatever.

    But when it takes 5-6 months to level up to max level, you end up burning out a lot of players.

    Yes, socializing with other players can placebo some of that away, but it still burns people out these days.

    Some of us have already leveled to 60-90 in EQ starting back in pre-Velious days, to 98+ in games like Lineage II, etc.

    At this point, we get burned out easily by grindy games.

    Yes, it's a grind.  I'm not sure why you people are so averse to calling a spade a spade.  The term has developed a negative connotation over the years as a reflection of how the general player base feels towards it, which is why grindy games tend to get abandoned by most players who try them.

    People like their time investment to be respected.  They don't want to dump 3-6 months into a video game "just to level up."  Sorry, it's not 1999 anymore.  We don't have some fantasy of "living" in a virtual world.  That's for kids.
    Global experience bars are a way of increasing the grind not an xp penalty itself.

    The problem with why a majority of people consider leveling a grind is because the goodies are locked way later in the game. Even combat starts out slower in the beginning.

    When different modes of gameplay are restricted due to a rudimentary bar that governs all content regardless of circumstance it becomes an obstacle.
  • mrbungle419mrbungle419 Member UncommonPosts: 47
    Darksworm said:
    The problem with leveling grind is that the luster of new eventually will go away with a "new game" and the repetition of the leveling process will make itself fully known.

    That's the main issue.  For the first month or so it may be fine to run around clicking monsters and skills just to level up, for hours... and hours... and hours.  And they get set back 30 minutes per death or whatever.

    But when it takes 5-6 months to level up to max level, you end up burning out a lot of players.

    Yes, socializing with other players can placebo some of that away, but it still burns people out these days.

    Some of us have already leveled to 60-90 in EQ starting back in pre-Velious days, to 98+ in games like Lineage II, etc.

    At this point, we get burned out easily by grindy games.

    Yes, it's a grind.  I'm not sure why you people are so averse to calling a spade a spade.  The term has developed a negative connotation over the years as a reflection of how the general player base feels towards it, which is why grindy games tend to get abandoned by most players who try them.

    People like their time investment to be respected.  They don't want to dump 3-6 months into a video game "just to level up."  Sorry, it's not 1999 anymore.  We don't have some fantasy of "living" in a virtual world.  That's for kids.
    I honestly just don't think you and I want the same thing out of a game and that is fine.  What I saw of the original vision of Vanguard, and what I see from this game, and what I hope will come to be, are completely different than what you are describing.

    I'm expecting a world with actual adventure.  Where mobs will scare you, where you find yourself in over your head, where you find some silly named mob in the middle of nowhere and it excites you.  Where the content of the leveling is robust in the sense that there is plenty to do for whatever level you are at.  VG had this for quite a few levels.  Content on 3 different contents, different types of reward systems in each type of dungeon area, quests that had countless continuations in an effort to make a truly epic reward.  Those quests that made you feel like you truly had accomplished the lore that they described.  You found the hidden objects, you solved the riddle, you shed the blood of so many enemies, this is what I saw in vanguard to a point.  It could have been even more epic in that regard, and from what I have seen on this game, they intend for it to be that way.

    I don't care if it's 1999 anymore or not.  This game is clearly being directed at one audience, the type of audience that actually wants to feel lost in the game world.  An audience, I hope, that is looking towards the challenge of  making it to max level (if they ever do), and instead hoping to find their content needs filled from level 1 until the end. 

    I don't know what kind of game you are describing.  A game where all the content is at the level cap?  Why even have levels?  That would remove what you are calling a grind.  That is not what I want out of a game.  I wouldn't have any problem at all if this game took 6 months to hit the level cap, if this game only allowed 1 character per server, if they had high death penalties, so long as it provides a lot of interesting content, a breathing world, and a way for players to keep groups together for as long as possible without breaking the content (something that happened in VG).

    I don't consider a game that has group based content and goals for character development at every level a grindy game.  I  never considered VG a grindy game, in fact, after about 6 months from release they increased leveling in many ways and it hurt the game.  Players were able to out level all those interesting quests, the rewards were obsolete many times by the time they were earned.  VG was close to getting it right in the way of content early on.  Slow leveling, lots of places to explore, small group (2-4 players) and medium group (6 players) content for everyone.  There was plenty to do for any level even with the slow leveling.  In your mind that is a grind, in my mind it is not. 

    I also played Lineage 2.  That game was a grind.  Most the time I was in a 2 person group just repeat killing trash to level.   I never had to do that in VG.  I doubt that is the plan for Pantheon.

  • DullahanDullahan Member EpicPosts: 4,536
    edited April 2016
    ^concur with above poster.

    I don't just want end game. I want an enjoyable game that I have a reason to continue playing every day. Whether that is at level 1, level 19, level 47, or level 82. I want something where my achievements at any level are meaningful, take time, involve risk (of said time) and require a good cooperative effort (the best experiences are those shared with others). That shouldn't be limited to what you experience at the end, but everything up to and including it, both small scale and large scale endeavors.
    Post edited by Dullahan on


  • RallydRallyd Member UncommonPosts: 95
    I don't know about some of your definitions of grind, but my definition is when I stop having fun, and can't find ways to have fun while progressing anymore.  I never once felt this was the case in Everquest, except when I was trying to solo level 40+ on my warrior during Velious.. but then I could have been more social and found groups instead, Everquest was never designed to be soloed.

    Killing mobs for 10 hours straight does not constitute grinding to me, unless I'm not having fun, and the only way that is likely to be the case, is if I'm doing it alone, or if I've been doing that same location for days and I have no alternative locales.
  • AmatheAmathe Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
    Everquest had raiding. It had group play. It had solo play. It had both hard core raiders and casuals. It had crafters, role players and pvpers. 

    Yet ever since Everquest, people have been saying that if you have one of these things you somehow can't have the others, or that the others will be diminished. 

    The guy that already proved that's not true is making this game. Sure, Pantheon will focus more on some things than it does on others. But there is going to be a bigger tent than some people realize. It's not a zero sum game. 

    EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests

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