I did solo content in Asheron's Call all the time even thought the content I was doing was not meant for it. I liked the challenge. I was always tweaking my Survivability
That is what I did in EQ and VG as well and that is how we will handle it in Pantheon, we are not creating solo content for anyone as it is a group game but we look forward to seeing how our community tests their skills and solo's some of the more friendly content, you won't, however, see anyone soloing dungeons or group content, at some point people will need to make friends, join a guild etc.
I did solo content in Asheron's Call all the time even thought the content I was doing was not meant for it. I liked the challenge. I was always tweaking my Survivability
That is what I did in EQ and VG as well and that is how we will handle it in Pantheon, we are not creating solo content for anyone as it is a group game but we look forward to seeing how our community tests their skills and solo's some of the more friendly content, you won't, however, see anyone soloing dungeons or group content, at some point people will need to make friends, join a guild etc.
This is the type of commitment to a vision I love seeing. Play how you want, we wont stop you but just get, this is a team based game.
Also you will notice that team were doing this content and doing fine but off in the distance there was a duo doing the same content. My guess they were higher level then the team. So where solo content is not the focus of the game. Teaming does not always mean "Perfect Balanced" team.
What would be the point of grouping if you can just overcon the encounters a little and solo/duo it? If a pair can go do the content like that what I predict is you'll see couples that go "solo" content and rarely if ever group up.
My opinion is that there is a big difference between a full team and one that isn't. A full team doesn't have to be perfectly balance to challenge content, but that is vastly different from 2 people a few levels higher doing the same thing.
Duo is not soloing. Im just saying if you are worried you cant find a perfect balance team and all you have online is a Shaman and a Wizard, you will be able to find something to do. Instead of killing Black and Yellow cons, go chain some blues and have fun. I find people walk away when they cant get the perfect team. In EQ1 I used to do this all the time. Join anyone and start playing and when a tank showed up invite, then a healer shows up you invite. People will join because its better then standing around. Next thing you know you do have a team and go do harder content. People see the group type game play and panic saying "I hate waiting around trying to find a good group" That mind set makes me laugh. Go play with what you got.
Agreed that having class flexibility choices will be good. EQ and EQ2 suffer from class bias when forming high end content.
You referenced a couple people duoing and that's what I thought your reference to balanced groups was about.
Solo isn't the same as duo but it's not that much different when you're talking about content design and challenge. Typically content that works for duo also mostly works solo and vice versa. The same isn't true for full group content where you need a full party size and a group of 2 can't do it.
So when you said 2 people were in the background doing content I thought, well what's the point of going through effort of assembling a group when a duo can waltz in and do the same stuff. Hopefully it will be a bit more complex than that.
I used to LoL at people that insisted on having the "Perfect" group in EQI.
If I spent too long LFG, because mages were not optimal DPS and my wife's shaman was not the optimal healer, I would just grab four other mages to accompany my wife and I and we would go destroy some content.
Often passing by the very groups that were refusing to take us because we were less than optimal as we cleared the content.
Heck, there was raid content in EQ1 that was easier with 5 mages and a shaman than with a traditional 3-4 group raid.
Ironically enough, mage Epic 2.0 had encounters that were trivial with a full group of mages, but would mess a 3-4 group raid up.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
I did solo content in Asheron's Call all the time even thought the content I was doing was not meant for it. I liked the challenge. I was always tweaking my Survivability
That is what I did in EQ and VG as well and that is how we will handle it in Pantheon, we are not creating solo content for anyone as it is a group game but we look forward to seeing how our community tests their skills and solo's some of the more friendly content, you won't, however, see anyone soloing dungeons or group content, at some point people will need to make friends, join a guild etc.
This is exactly what I am looking for.
There is a huge difference between designing content to be soloed and deliberately blocking content from being soloed.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
I did solo content in Asheron's Call all the time even thought the content I was doing was not meant for it. I liked the challenge. I was always tweaking my Survivability
That is what I did in EQ and VG as well and that is how we will handle it in Pantheon, we are not creating solo content for anyone as it is a group game but we look forward to seeing how our community tests their skills and solo's some of the more friendly content, you won't, however, see anyone soloing dungeons or group content, at some point people will need to make friends, join a guild etc.
Great, I think it would satisfy many if the content was some what like Vanguard. It's like you can fight the spiders around the outskirts of town, you can make it up that hill for harvesting crafting material's, you can find some soloable quest here and there..... This would please a lot of people....
Lots of people seem under the impression, "don't even thing about this game if your not in a group all the time".
I did solo content in Asheron's Call all the time even thought the content I was doing was not meant for it. I liked the challenge. I was always tweaking my Survivability
That is what I did in EQ and VG as well and that is how we will handle it in Pantheon, we are not creating solo content for anyone as it is a group game but we look forward to seeing how our community tests their skills and solo's some of the more friendly content, you won't, however, see anyone soloing dungeons or group content, at some point people will need to make friends, join a guild etc.
Your FAQ should be updated to reflect that a little better, as it's wording now could be read by some as there will be content designed for solo play.
"Yes. While most content will be designed for groups, there will typically also be content that is soloable. Some classes may solo better than other classes."
Which would be setting those folks up for disappointment when that content hits them like a ton of bricks ...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I think solo content already ruined too many MMO's when you can simply solo everything and then group play is the secondary / end-game thing.
There's already so much of that, idk why more focus on it...
I thought it was one of the greater benefits of SWG outside of it's social dynamics. There was always something to do, be there people around to group with or not.
That said, I've always been the type who liked to solo in higher leveled areas than myself, so I look forward to trying to do that in pantheon. I only really like to group for dungeons and pvp. Leveling I prefer to do on my own at my own pace. Most of the time level appropriate content is boring.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I have either hinted at or stated that yes i want at least the ability to solo but only a very minimal option and still being less efficient than grouping. The problem area is WHAT type of grouping content?I am NOT in for any kind of end game crap,like NONE. I simply want a role playing experience,is that too much to ask for in a ...ahem ...role playing game?
I am not looking for another FFXi,contrary to what some people THINK,i only ever mention ideas because so far and imo they are ideas that are better than anything i have yet seen in the mmorpg industry.That does not mean outright copy those ideas but follow the same guidelines because grouping in FFXi just worked and worked very well,yet the game also had soloing,so yeah covers ALL bases.
Point being,if you are going to create a real MMO feel and a roll playing game combined,you will NOT achieve it being like ANY other game.
All of those OTHER games gave us some nice "initial" ideas but i never accept anything as never being able to improve it.It is time to move on and IMPROVE on the best ideas that support a rpg and a MMO.
I look and cover ALL BASES when i look at each area,example combat or class design or even crafting.I do not accept SIMPLE systems,like kill mob ok your good to go end of story or trigger quest,complete quest,get reward,rinse and repeat. Bottom line is that QUALITY game design is a massive undertaking,i want REAL triple A gaming and not what marketing sites has been telling us,i will think for myself,thank you very much.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Also you will notice that team were doing this content and doing fine but off in the distance there was a duo doing the same content. My guess they were higher level then the team. So where solo content is not the focus of the game. Teaming does not always mean "Perfect Balanced" team.
What would be the point of grouping if you can just overcon the encounters a little and solo/duo it? If a pair can go do the content like that what I predict is you'll see couples that go "solo" content and rarely if ever group up.
My opinion is that there is a big difference between a full team and one that isn't. A full team doesn't have to be perfectly balance to challenge content, but that is vastly different from 2 people a few levels higher doing the same thing.
Duo is not soloing. Im just saying if you are worried you cant find a perfect balance team and all you have online is a Shaman and a Wizard, you will be able to find something to do. Instead of killing Black and Yellow cons, go chain some blues and have fun. I find people walk away when they cant get the perfect team. In EQ1 I used to do this all the time. Join anyone and start playing and when a tank showed up invite, then a healer shows up you invite. People will join because its better then standing around. Next thing you know you do have a team and go do harder content. People see the group type game play and panic saying "I hate waiting around trying to find a good group" That mind set makes me laugh. Go play with what you got.
How long will it be before that 2 character group is run by a single individual (boxing)? I'm sure there will be individual players trying to work as a boxed group almost from day 1. How is that social and can we get that player some medical help? If global chat is considered being social, then we need to re-categorize games like Total Annihilation and Command & Conquer.
Without macro support (will be something you will get a ban for) Boxing will be a very small thing. At most, like the devs said, you will see maybe one person running 2 accounts and they wont be doing it as well as someone playing one account. Thanks for bringing that up as its really easy to grasp.
Just because it's easy to grasp doesn't mean that there won't be a good number of people trying to solo, maybe even successfully. Those boxing (or trying to box) aren't going to have time to be social if you also believe the developer's statement that it will be difficult. The developers are talking out of both sides of their mouth on many issues; this may be one. Boxing won't be illegal, banned or prohibited, just 'difficult'.
I haven't seen a stream from the cleric's perspective, is there one?
Solo away then I dont get your point. Want to goto a corner of a zone and box, be your own duo. Go ahead. The impact to the game will mean next to nothing. Sure they won't ban it. Why would they? You want to pay two subs to solo a teamed based MMO. Go ahead as no one will care. Boxers that run a teams worth of clients that own an area just won't happen in Pantheon. So again your talking about things that have no meaning.
The problem with boxing is not a player playing a couple characters but the fact that it almost always leads to CHEATING,auto scripts and not 1 player playing 2 but maybe 5 characters through single key presses.
What it also does is allow certain parts of a game to be exploited,farmed and just leads to a whole slew of cheating ideas to even ruining the games marketplace to introducing RMT botting.
If i just sound confusing,what i am saying is i don't care what anyone does as long as it is 100% LEGIT,the EXACT same game everyone else is playing and NOT some outside scripting "LUA" or ANY kind of add-ons,i despise add-ons 100%.If the community wants something then suggest it to the developer,do not start some scripting site or mega addons via Curse.net etc etc.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The problem with boxing is not a player playing a couple characters but the fact that it almost always leads to CHEATING,auto scripts and not 1 player playing 2 but maybe 5 characters through single key presses.
When you're right, you're right.
And considering the fact that we know that 99.9% of boxers use key-broadcasting software and macros, I find it hard to believe that developers are more naive than we are about it and approve boxing in general while pretending there aren't a whole host of TOS violations for all practical purposes inherent in the practice.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
The problem with boxing is not a player playing a couple characters but the fact that it almost always leads to CHEATING,auto scripts and not 1 player playing 2 but maybe 5 characters through single key presses.
When you're right, you're right.
And considering the fact that we know that 99.9% of boxers use key-broadcasting software and macros, I find it hard to believe that developers are more naive than we are about it and approve boxing in general while pretending there aren't a whole host of TOS violations for all practical purposes inherent in the practice.
When you have 99.9% of your hardcore players using hardware and software macros what's the real difference?
Are they? Seems to me it's one hell of a lot easier to be "hardcore" without macros than to multibox 5 characters without them.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Yeah, it's easier to do a single character manually. You can do it without addons too. But hardcore players use both. My point being more than boxers use macros. Lots of people use them. It hardly seems fair to single out boxers.
It occurs to me that I really have no idea what hardcore means to you since you seem pretty definite that "hardcore players use both." To me hardcore is just the opposite end of the spectrum from casual. I.e. someone who plays a particular game a lot and is competent at it.
So no, they don't use both although some might (just like some casuals also might, although in their case someone probably needs to set it up for them.)
Multiboxing several characters however is physically virtually impossible to do without macros and key broadcast software. As a group they are easy to single out simply because the group wouldn't even exists without the bot-like addons.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I think solo content already ruined too many MMO's when you can simply solo everything and then group play is the secondary / end-game thing.
There's already so much of that, idk why more focus on it...
Why? I think the quote from the live stream makes the why pretty clear: "If you login and your friends arent online you can always find something to do solo" Solo content is for the times you cant get a group going. If people were honest they would see that is not uncommon. If it wasnt an issue they wouldnt have said it.
And as to your fear of it being totally soloable - it doesnt have to be like that and they said it wont be like that. So put your fears aside.
Yeah, it's easier to do a single character manually. You can do it without addons too. But hardcore players use both. My point being more than boxers use macros. Lots of people use them. It hardly seems fair to single out boxers.
People using macros and caught by their systems that sniff that out. By watching key stokes and how they differ. Will get a ban and its one you cant get overturned if your defense is you were using a gaming keyboard. Kilsins words on the official forums.
I am all for having some solo content but no this game should not have a good portion of solo content. They are making a game that is focused on group play over solo play. That is the point of this game. They are trying to make a game that doesn't cater to the solo experience. Sure there should be some things to do when you don't feel like grouping but you shouldn't expect to be able to do much in reality. Maybe go out gathering, etc....but no questing ect...should be for soloing.
If you want to solo, try World of Warcraft. Pantheon is looking to go back to the roots of EQ, but with better graphics and gameplay. And grouping was a major draw as it should be.
If you want to solo, try World of Warcraft. Pantheon is looking to go back to the roots of EQ, but with better graphics and gameplay. And grouping was a major draw as it should be.
Even EQ allowed for soloing, though certain classes were certainly better at it than others.
I just hope that Pantheon allows for emergent play, like EQ. Where players develop unintended uses for class abilities that the developers adopt and add onto, rather than deliberately nerfing everything. E.g. kiting, root rotting, FD pulling, etc.
I don't want to be forced into a single style of gameplay be deliberate mechanical changes. I want a system like EQ where many different styles of play are possible, even it not all of them were originally intended.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
Oh look another "You must have solo content to succeed" thread.
Yes, you're right to a degree but also wrong; those people (convenience based solo'ers aka the majority) have been catered for pretty much the last decade. We (our game-style) have waited patiently for this type of game for years. The problem is.. it conflicts with the games ideology/vision.. so no matter how hard you scream, moan, shout and well you're intentions are.. they shouldn't listen. Why? Because that isn't what Pantheons meant to be about. Games are a vision; too many visions and it starts to conflict and ruin the game.
The markets saturated with these types of games both ONLINE and OFFLINE. There are plenty out there. There are also artistic and creative reasons why they shouldn't either.. (which I won't get into in this thread aka Standisation).
I'm glad Visionary Realms is doing it.. and doing it right. You don't need to have solo content (to that extent) if you're niche and that's what this game is.
Sure there should be some things to do when you don't feel like grouping but you shouldn't expect to be able to do much in reality. Maybe go out gathering, etc....but no questing ect...should be for soloing.
Gathering is your idea of content in a loot driven game? Good luck with that...
IF there's no real character progression available for solo play, there's no solo play. The whole point in solo play is to be able to accomplish something with your character alone. Not just picking up plants or visiting a vendor.
I can see limiting those options, but doing away with them totally isn't a sound business strategy IMO. As that means you can only accomplish something with Pugs(uhg) or with friends, meaning you might as well log out if your friends aren't on. Especially if there is loss in death which puts pugs out of the question. I'm certainly not gonna pug with people I have no idea how they play, when their mistakes could cost me XP, lvls or items.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Yeah, it's easier to do a single character manually. You can do it without addons too. But hardcore players use both. My point being more than boxers use macros. Lots of people use them. It hardly seems fair to single out boxers.
People using macros and caught by their systems that sniff that out. By watching key stokes and how they differ. Will get a ban and its one you cant get overturned if your defense is you were using a gaming keyboard. Kilsins words on the official forums.
Good info I missed Nan. That actually may be a deal breaker for me. I like to macro common tasks to my mouse and keyboard. It's one of the few advantages of PC gaming.
Being able to macro common tasks is important to me like mounting, etc. I sometimes like to put some skills or combos on my mouse.
Normal macros wont get you banned. We were discussing boxxing and macros that send commands to multiple characters.
Comments
This is the type of commitment to a vision I love seeing. Play how you want, we wont stop you but just get, this is a team based game.
I used to LoL at people that insisted on having the "Perfect" group in EQI.
If I spent too long LFG, because mages were not optimal DPS and my wife's shaman was not the optimal healer, I would just grab four other mages to accompany my wife and I and we would go destroy some content.
Often passing by the very groups that were refusing to take us because we were less than optimal as we cleared the content.
Heck, there was raid content in EQ1 that was easier with 5 mages and a shaman than with a traditional 3-4 group raid.
Ironically enough, mage Epic 2.0 had encounters that were trivial with a full group of mages, but would mess a 3-4 group raid up.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
This is exactly what I am looking for.
There is a huge difference between designing content to be soloed and deliberately blocking content from being soloed.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Great, I think it would satisfy many if the content was some what like Vanguard. It's like you can fight the spiders around the outskirts of town, you can make it up that hill for harvesting crafting material's, you can find some soloable quest here and there..... This would please a lot of people....
Lots of people seem under the impression, "don't even thing about this game if your not in a group all the time".
Your FAQ should be updated to reflect that a little better, as it's wording now could be read by some as there will be content designed for solo play.
"Yes. While most content will be designed for groups, there will typically also be content that is soloable. Some classes may solo better than other classes."
Which would be setting those folks up for disappointment when that content hits them like a ton of bricks
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There's already so much of that, idk why more focus on it...
I thought it was one of the greater benefits of SWG outside of it's social dynamics. There was always something to do, be there people around to group with or not.
That said, I've always been the type who liked to solo in higher leveled areas than myself, so I look forward to trying to do that in pantheon. I only really like to group for dungeons and pvp. Leveling I prefer to do on my own at my own pace. Most of the time level appropriate content is boring.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The problem area is WHAT type of grouping content?I am NOT in for any kind of end game crap,like NONE.
I simply want a role playing experience,is that too much to ask for in a ...ahem ...role playing game?
I am not looking for another FFXi,contrary to what some people THINK,i only ever mention ideas because so far and imo they are ideas that are better than anything i have yet seen in the mmorpg industry.That does not mean outright copy those ideas but follow the same guidelines because grouping in FFXi just worked and worked very well,yet the game also had soloing,so yeah covers ALL bases.
Point being,if you are going to create a real MMO feel and a roll playing game combined,you will NOT achieve it being like ANY other game.
All of those OTHER games gave us some nice "initial" ideas but i never accept anything as never being able to improve it.It is time to move on and IMPROVE on the best ideas that support a rpg and a MMO.
I look and cover ALL BASES when i look at each area,example combat or class design or even crafting.I do not accept SIMPLE systems,like kill mob ok your good to go end of story or trigger quest,complete quest,get reward,rinse and repeat.
Bottom line is that QUALITY game design is a massive undertaking,i want REAL triple A gaming and not what marketing sites has been telling us,i will think for myself,thank you very much.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The problem with boxing is not a player playing a couple characters but the fact that it almost always leads to CHEATING,auto scripts and not 1 player playing 2 but maybe 5 characters through single key presses.
What it also does is allow certain parts of a game to be exploited,farmed and just leads to a whole slew of cheating ideas to even ruining the games marketplace to introducing RMT botting.
If i just sound confusing,what i am saying is i don't care what anyone does as long as it is 100% LEGIT,the EXACT same game everyone else is playing and NOT some outside scripting "LUA" or ANY kind of add-ons,i despise add-ons 100%.If the community wants something then suggest it to the developer,do not start some scripting site or mega addons via Curse.net etc etc.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
When you're right, you're right.
And considering the fact that we know that 99.9% of boxers use key-broadcasting software and macros, I find it hard to believe that developers are more naive than we are about it and approve boxing in general while pretending there aren't a whole host of TOS violations for all practical purposes inherent in the practice.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Are they? Seems to me it's one hell of a lot easier to be "hardcore" without macros than to multibox 5 characters without them.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
It occurs to me that I really have no idea what hardcore means to you since you seem pretty definite that "hardcore players use both." To me hardcore is just the opposite end of the spectrum from casual. I.e. someone who plays a particular game a lot and is competent at it.
So no, they don't use both although some might (just like some casuals also might, although in their case someone probably needs to set it up for them.)
Multiboxing several characters however is physically virtually impossible to do without macros and key broadcast software. As a group they are easy to single out simply because the group wouldn't even exists without the bot-like addons.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I think the quote from the live stream makes the why pretty clear:
"If you login and your friends arent online you can always find something to do solo"
Solo content is for the times you cant get a group going. If people were honest they would see that is not uncommon. If it wasnt an issue they wouldnt have said it.
And as to your fear of it being totally soloable - it doesnt have to be like that and they said it wont be like that. So put your fears aside.
People using macros and caught by their systems that sniff that out. By watching key stokes and how they differ. Will get a ban and its one you cant get overturned if your defense is you were using a gaming keyboard. Kilsins words on the official forums.
Pantheon is looking to go back to the roots of EQ, but with better graphics and gameplay.
And grouping was a major draw as it should be.
"My Fantasy is having two men at once...
One Cooking and One Cleaning!"
---------------------------
"A good man can make you feel sexy,
strong and able to take on the whole world...
oh sorry...that's wine...wine does that..."
Even EQ allowed for soloing, though certain classes were certainly better at it than others.
I just hope that Pantheon allows for emergent play, like EQ. Where players develop unintended uses for class abilities that the developers adopt and add onto, rather than deliberately nerfing everything. E.g. kiting, root rotting, FD pulling, etc.
I don't want to be forced into a single style of gameplay be deliberate mechanical changes. I want a system like EQ where many different styles of play are possible, even it not all of them were originally intended.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Oh look another "You must have solo content to succeed" thread.
Yes, you're right to a degree but also wrong; those people (convenience based solo'ers aka the majority) have been catered for pretty much the last decade. We (our game-style) have waited patiently for this type of game for years. The problem is.. it conflicts with the games ideology/vision.. so no matter how hard you scream, moan, shout and well you're intentions are.. they shouldn't listen. Why? Because that isn't what Pantheons meant to be about. Games are a vision; too many visions and it starts to conflict and ruin the game.
The markets saturated with these types of games both ONLINE and OFFLINE. There are plenty out there. There are also artistic and creative reasons why they shouldn't either.. (which I won't get into in this thread aka Standisation).
I'm glad Visionary Realms is doing it.. and doing it right. You don't need to have solo content (to that extent) if you're niche and that's what this game is.
IF there's no real character progression available for solo play, there's no solo play. The whole point in solo play is to be able to accomplish something with your character alone. Not just picking up plants or visiting a vendor.
I can see limiting those options, but doing away with them totally isn't a sound business strategy IMO. As that means you can only accomplish something with Pugs(uhg) or with friends, meaning you might as well log out if your friends aren't on. Especially if there is loss in death which puts pugs out of the question. I'm certainly not gonna pug with people I have no idea how they play, when their mistakes could cost me XP, lvls or items.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
We were discussing boxxing and macros that send commands to multiple characters.