Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
PvP Experience is a big minus - I don't understand the design goals there
kelvar
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
PvP in these types of games is niche. It's not Fortnite or Call of Duty. When you look at very successful MMOs the PvP has very tight controls on them, generally speaking, and those that don't typically have a significantly lower share of the market/subscriber base and so forth.
It may well be that Intrepid is ok with that as that's more of a business decision, but since it's so baked in and fundamental at this point, it would be difficult to about face. I think of Wildstar's old school raiding (huge mistake/alienating of community), and EQ2s "you must have a full group to do any kind of meaningful content" prior to launch, also a huge mistake a rolled back. It will be interesting to see how this goes.
That all aside, given that PvP is very much here to stay and a core feature of the game, here are a couple of misgivings from someone who is a complete lowbie with very little game time.
I struggle to understand, on any level, the fun factor of getting continuously looted at the ripe old age of level 4,5,6 a mere few hours into the game. After the quest sends me off into the middle of nowhere with my old swayback, I found myself slowly gathering bits of glint, and other odds and ends. There wasn't really anywhere to sell it, the main city was a long, long ways off. After about 5 hours of game time I ended up with just about what I started with - close to nothing. I watched as players looted my dead body, I returned to my dead body to find it gone, and I watch as other players hovered, waiting for the mobs to finally get me, so they can loot me. Not really amazing for community building!
My question is, who is this fun for? You can say cry more newb or git gud or whatever and that's fine, but when the design sessions are occurring, is there fervent agreement, and inspiration when we talk about the newb who's just barely learning to game getting his pittance of loot snagged for the 10th time as a great design decision? This feeds back to my comment above - who is your player base? Who enjoys that? I mean, surely the looters, but when they push out the casuals... well, you have your niche market share.
If that's what you want, then ok it just needs to be understood. If not, then why is it like this?
Here's where design/dev/tiny "community" testing of PvP fails on a fundamental level. When you're having your caravan run and oh no there's some players going to try and take us out - it's a blast! But... you're playing with you peers, your co-workers, your boss and your subordinates. They are people you know and have a relationship with. That DOES sound like fun! But that is not the reality of your player base
To truly test your systems you need the trolls. The people who don't care about the consequence (if they are at all meaningful which, at the moment, they don't seem to be). The people whose game fun/experience comes from ruining yours. The people who are anonymous tea-baggers who shout cry more newb and will camp you and/or generally exploit the system as much as possible to grief you. That's who you need testing, not your friends or people you pay, but those people.
If your systems can withstand that and remain enjoyable, congratulations you figured it out! If not, expect a small niche player base and a level of success associated with that. Again, perhaps that's your goal - I'm sure Pantheon of the Fallen isn't trying to be the next WoW and that's ok.
Now pardon me while I offer my newb corpse and the pittance of loot it holds to the leets out there that actually know what they're doing!
It may well be that Intrepid is ok with that as that's more of a business decision, but since it's so baked in and fundamental at this point, it would be difficult to about face. I think of Wildstar's old school raiding (huge mistake/alienating of community), and EQ2s "you must have a full group to do any kind of meaningful content" prior to launch, also a huge mistake a rolled back. It will be interesting to see how this goes.
That all aside, given that PvP is very much here to stay and a core feature of the game, here are a couple of misgivings from someone who is a complete lowbie with very little game time.
I struggle to understand, on any level, the fun factor of getting continuously looted at the ripe old age of level 4,5,6 a mere few hours into the game. After the quest sends me off into the middle of nowhere with my old swayback, I found myself slowly gathering bits of glint, and other odds and ends. There wasn't really anywhere to sell it, the main city was a long, long ways off. After about 5 hours of game time I ended up with just about what I started with - close to nothing. I watched as players looted my dead body, I returned to my dead body to find it gone, and I watch as other players hovered, waiting for the mobs to finally get me, so they can loot me. Not really amazing for community building!
My question is, who is this fun for? You can say cry more newb or git gud or whatever and that's fine, but when the design sessions are occurring, is there fervent agreement, and inspiration when we talk about the newb who's just barely learning to game getting his pittance of loot snagged for the 10th time as a great design decision? This feeds back to my comment above - who is your player base? Who enjoys that? I mean, surely the looters, but when they push out the casuals... well, you have your niche market share.
If that's what you want, then ok it just needs to be understood. If not, then why is it like this?
Here's where design/dev/tiny "community" testing of PvP fails on a fundamental level. When you're having your caravan run and oh no there's some players going to try and take us out - it's a blast! But... you're playing with you peers, your co-workers, your boss and your subordinates. They are people you know and have a relationship with. That DOES sound like fun! But that is not the reality of your player base
To truly test your systems you need the trolls. The people who don't care about the consequence (if they are at all meaningful which, at the moment, they don't seem to be). The people whose game fun/experience comes from ruining yours. The people who are anonymous tea-baggers who shout cry more newb and will camp you and/or generally exploit the system as much as possible to grief you. That's who you need testing, not your friends or people you pay, but those people.
If your systems can withstand that and remain enjoyable, congratulations you figured it out! If not, expect a small niche player base and a level of success associated with that. Again, perhaps that's your goal - I'm sure Pantheon of the Fallen isn't trying to be the next WoW and that's ok.
Now pardon me while I offer my newb corpse and the pittance of loot it holds to the leets out there that actually know what they're doing!
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Comments
My suggestion, pull less mobs and be selective with what you pull. It is not a race, do not run into an area you are unfamiliar with pulling mobs that will kill you. If you die to a gremlin, avoid them after you respawn. If you are doing goblins and cannot handle a shaman, pull only the creepers. If you can handle 2 of a specific mob and die with 3, take more time with pulls so you are not aggroing more than 2.
If other players are sitting around waiting for you to die, it means you are doing something wrong because they know you are going to die so you should too and escape the immediate situation you are in and probably leave the area if you cannot pull less mobs or easier mobs.
Death is meant to be punishing in this game and Steven has stated that this is intentional as he wants players to feel failure. You mention you are dying a lot and also implied that running your glint back to town is inconvenient if you are some distance away. What you are describing is a part of Steven's core 'risk vs reward' philosophy. You don't want to be inconvenienced with finding a vendor (they exists outside of nodes as well) so you gamble with keeping the glint on you and losing it when you die and this is your choice.
Even though I am not suffering all the deaths you mentioned when I am leveling characters, during early leveling I think glint is important for upgrading weapon and gear so I do make a point to run back to the nearest town or vendor to turn it into currency so it cannot be dropped upon death and I definitely suggest you start doing the same.
Caravans, I cannot speak on this as other than defending one, I have not messed with them. I do know that like with any game, if there are more attackers than defenders, the odds will not be in your favor. People are complaining about a number of issues with caravans such as healers that do not flag that are not a part of the caravan that cannot be killed without going red and the suggestion that attackers need more risk but I will let someone that knows more about caravans speak to this point.
At some point, it seems the development vision changed. Gameplay is not just challenging but punishing. The PvE and Economy elements all seem to exist in furtherance of PvP, which seems to have dominated the design goals ... both directly and indirectly via open corpse looting. Instead of a PvE sandbox, it feels more like the devs want to focus on a cutthroat PvP world in the vein of EVE Online and pre-Trammel UO. They're enamored with the idea of political intrigue and macro-guild drama, but in doing so, exactly as the original poster suggests, they will result in a very niche crowd. I don't remember any of those vibes from the kickstarter ... and for someone who has no interest in PvP whatsoever, it seems like the current state of the game looks to me and says, "This game is not for you. Look elsewhere."