What VG can learn from WOW [Archive]

elikal

02-04-2007, 11:35 AM

Quite a flame catcher, don't you think? *g* Well, I dont care. I observe and tell what I see. Just let me say, WOW is far from being my ideal game. It has far too less lasting value, the comic art isnt my thing and people tend to solo in WOW far too much. Usually, when people compare anything with WOW, they say it is easier. Now, what is that easyness exactly, everyone is talking about, I wondered. I had played WOW mostly when I had much work and little spare time. Now, kinda frustrated with VG but not yet ready to give it up entirely either, I started to play both paralell to see for myself.

The first thing I noted how greatly the UI really is a WOW copy, down to the visual effect when gaining new level. Anyways, thats not what I care. A few things I observed are these:

1) Compared to WOW (or EQ2, or CoH, or DAoC as well), VG is very unforgiving towards minor mistakes. If you accidentally step a BIT too far and aggro just a mob too much you are most likely dead. You can see for yourself that grouping has many possible sources of making a minor mistake. A tank not turning around quickly enough, a healer, mashing the wrong button and taking 3 secs too long to heal, you know the stuff. Now while people should learn by error and failure, what I realized is, how totally unforgiving VG really is. It's a bit like training under Sith. Sith do not fail (because making a mistake under a Sith means your death). Such is VG. Now (besides the well known self-proclaimed Elite) we are humans who make failure. It is natural. I dont say a game should tolerate all failures, but my gripe with VG, as I realize now in thorough observation and comparing it to all other MMOs I have played in the last 5 years is, it forgives no mistake. Maybe on the open space, yes, but go into any castle or dungeon and one mistake quite often results in wipe. That is my gripe Number one.

2) You can not escape mobs. Or hardly can. I realized in EQ2 or WOW, you can outrun a mob. Partially because in VG the mobs follow you over half the map, partially because wandering mobs wander much further, causing you most likely to run into another mob while trying to escape, and also because your normal run is far too slow to escape any mob. In WOW as in EQ2 (as in many other MMOs) you have a good chance to run away even without sprint. So if something repops into you or you overlook that tiger behind the tree, you are quite more likely dead in VG than in any other game.

3) You need long term sessions to game some nifty small items. It is what I call the "small feel good factor" which WOW has and VG falls still short. All really big accomplishments take in WOW just as much time as in VG. In that terms there is no difference in time or difficulty. But I can play WOW 1-2 hours and get a new shoulder pads or sword. Some small things, some small quest solved. It's no biggie, nothing of great power, just those 5 points more armor the new pants have, or 1 point more damage the new sword does, something along that lines. I get some small carrot for being the brave donkey. I can play VG 4-6 hours and get 10 copper and 2 spider legs. Thats what I already hated in EQ2 before they overworked their loot and reward system. I could play an entire weekend and get only a zombie brain and worthless loot I only could sell for 10 copper. It is NOT the way to the big riches, because in that area WOW is exactly as difficult as VG (or EQ2). Its that small things. Something to give you the feeling those 2 hours werent for a spider leg and 10 copper.

In terms of overall difficulty WOW isnt much easier than VG. Fighting mobs or going into a dungeon is only a few inches easier, but they are those inches that matter. I really was unsure, since I had played WOW such a long time ago, if it really WAS that easy. It isnt. Trust me. It is only nuances easier. Nuances which matter. You need to know what you do just as in VG, but you dont die for every minor mistake. You have a chance to run and return another time. In VG, you cant. If you fall into a trap, you're dead. End of the story and make the long CR. And really, it is not the hardship of the CR which bothers me, its the time it steals, going back ALL the way to that huge dungeon your quest leads into. Added the big aggro radius, the far wandering mobs, the long way mobs follow, the slighly lowered XP, the lack of good and funny little loot... it adds. VG doesnt need a deep or big change to appeal a real lot of people. But those small differences may make or break it. So its a bad EQ2 deja vu. Zombie brains and spider legs and trash to sell for copper. Any decend loot and reward is only gained by long time lasting quests and long hardships. That is what makes VG still hardcore.

Jacosta

02-04-2007, 11:49 AM

What you can learn from life and Vanguard. Grow a pair and deal with how Vanguard is.

Dashel

02-04-2007, 11:53 AM

Quite a flame catcher, don't you think? *g*

Yes. Couldnt we just mail you a box of attention or something? =p

Well, I dont care. I observe and tell what I see. Just le me say, WOW is far from being my ideal game. It has far too less lasting value, the comic art isnt my thing and people tend to solo in WOW far too much. Usually, when people compare anything with WOW, they say it is easier. Now, what is that easyness exactly, everyone is talking about, I wondered. I had played WOW mostly when I had much work and little spare time. Now, kinda frustrated with VG but not yet ready to give it up entirely either, I started to play both paralell to see for myself.

You always seem to mention WoW isnt your ideal game while petitioning for this game to be more like it. Not a flame, just observing.

The first thing I noted how greatly the UI really is a WOW copy, down to the visual effect when gaining new level. Anyways, thats not what I care. A few things I observed are these:

1) Compared to WOW (or EQ2, or CoH, or DAoC as well), VG is very unforgiving towards minor mistakes. If you accidentally step a BIT too far and aggro just a mob too much you are most likely dead. You can see for yourself that grouping has many possible sources of making a minor mistake. A tank not turning around quickly enough, a healer, mashing the wrong button and taking 3 secs too long to heal, you know the stuff. Now while people should learn by error and failure, what I realized is, how totally unforgiving VG really is. It's a bit like training under Sith. Sith do not fail (because making a mistake under a Sith means your death). Such is VG. Now (besides the well know self-proclaimed Elite) we are humans who make failure. It is natural. I dont say a game should tolerate all failures, but my gripe with VG, as I realize now in thorough observation and comparing it to all other MMOs I have played in the last 5 years is, it forgives no mistake. Maybe on the open space, yes, but go into any castle or dungeon and one mistake quite often results in wipe. That is my gripe Number one.

Here you seem to be saying the game is more difficult. You dont want to come out and say it's more difficult because of the summary you give at the bottom, but that's essentially what you're saying here. It's less forgiving, i.e. harder. You also overstate how harsh it is. You can screw up, just not often and if it's a close thing... then yes a screw up can wipe you. As it should be.

2) You can not escape mobs. Or hardly can. I realized in EQ2 or WOW, you can outrun a mob. Partially because in VG the mobs follow you over half the map, partially because wandering mobs wander much further, causing you most likely to run into another mob while trying to escape, and also because your normal run is far too slow to escape any mob. In WOW as in EQ2 (as in many other MMOs) you have a good chance to run away even without sprint. So if something repops into you or you overlook that tiger behind the tree, you are quite more likely dead in VG than in any other game.

I agree with you here, but I dont think it's run speed, it's the mobs are too densely packed and evenly distributed so you cant run around a group of them. Very very very frustrating, I agree. And I play a class with FD.

EDIT: and is there ANY mob who wont stun you? Repeatedly? Any reason a grey mob wants to mess with me and can still stun me? So annoying especially in a game where performance is at a premium and mobs pop in at very close range. FIX THIS.

3) You need long term sessions to game some nifty small items. It is what I call the "small feel good factor" which WOW has and VG falls still short. All really big accomplishments take in WOW just as long as in VG. In that terms there is no difference in time or difficulty. But I can play WOW 1-2 hours and get a new shoulder pads or sword. Some small things, some some quest solved. It's no biggie, nothing of great power, just those 5 points more armor the new pants have, or 1 point more damage the new sword does, something along that lines. I get some small carrot for being the brave donkey. I can play VG 4-6 hours and get 10 copper and 2 spider legs. It what I already hated in EQ2 before they overworked their loot and reward system. I could play an entire weekend and get only a zombie brain and worthless loot I only could less for 10 copper. It is NOT the way to the big riches, because in that area WOW is exactly as difficult as VG (or EQ2). Its that small things. Something to give you the feeling those 2 hours werent for a spider leg and 10 copper.

Disagree, you can quest for very nice items in a very short amount of time. Seems like you're asking for more loot to drop off common trash mobs. bad idea. Was raining loot in beta for a while, and totally devalued it. Yawn, another nice drop. Maybe drop rate could be kicked up a little bit, but not too much. 2 hours you should not expect an upgrade off trash mobs, but you could do 2 or 3 quests in that time for items and some xp or coin.

In terms of overall difficulty WOW isnt much easier than VG. Fighting mobs or going into a dungeon is only a few inches easier, but they are those inches that matter. I really was unsure, since I had played WOW such a long time ago, if it really WAS that easy. It isnt. Trust me. It is only nuances easier. Nuances which matter. You need to know what you do just as in VG, but you dont die for every minor mistake. You have a chance to run and return another time. In VG, you cant. If you fall into a trap, you're dead. End of the story and make the long CR. And really, it is not the hardship of the CR which bothers me, its the time it steals. Added the big aggro radius, the far wandering mobs, the long span mobs follow, the slighly lowered XP, the lack of good and funny little loot... it adds. VG doesnt need a deep or big change to appeal a real lot of people. But those small differences may make or break it. So its a bad EQ2 deja vu. Zombie brains and spider legs and trash to sell for copper. Any decend loot and reward is only gained by long time lasting quests and long hardships. That is what makes VG still hardcore.

Now here you refute everything you said previously. Define "easier". If a game gives more rewards and is less forgiving of mistakes, that in my mind means it is easier.

Neocentric

02-04-2007, 11:56 AM

Quite a flame catcher, don't you think? *g* Well, I dont care. I observe and tell what I see. Just le me say, WOW is far from being my ideal game. It has far too less lasting value, the comic art isnt my thing and people tend to solo in WOW far too much. Usually, when people compare anything with WOW, they say it is easier. Now, what is that easyness exactly, everyone is talking about, I wondered. I had played WOW mostly when I had much work and little spare time. Now, kinda frustrated with VG but not yet ready to give it up entirely either, I started to play both paralell to see for myself.

The first thing I noted how greatly the UI really is a WOW copy, down to the visual effect when gaining new level. Anyways, thats not what I care. A few things I observed are these:

1) Compared to WOW (or EQ2, or CoH, or DAoC as well), VG is very unforgiving towards minor mistakes. If you accidentally step a BIT too far and aggro just a mob too much you are most likely dead. You can see for yourself that grouping has many possible sources of making a minor mistake. A tank not turning around quickly enough, a healer, mashing the wrong button and taking 3 secs too long to heal, you know the stuff. Now while people should learn by error and failure, what I realized is, how totally unforgiving VG really is. It's a bit like training under Sith. Sith do not fail (because making a mistake under a Sith means your death). Such is VG. Now (besides the well know self-proclaimed Elite) we are humans who make failure. It is natural. I dont say a game should tolerate all failures, but my gripe with VG, as I realize now in thorough observation and comparing it to all other MMOs I have played in the last 5 years is, it forgives no mistake. Maybe on the open space, yes, but go into any castle or dungeon and one mistake quite often results in wipe. That is my gripe Number one.

This is what seperates VG from the WoW easyness. Because it is less forgiving you are forced to play like a living thinking human rather then a mindless robot. Granted some things turn out to be the same thing over and over again but you still must think about where you set foot as it may cost you your virtual life.

2) You can not escape mobs. Or hardly can. I realized in EQ2 or WOW, you can outrun a mob. Partially because in VG the mobs follow you over half the map, partially because wandering mobs wander much further, causing you most likely to run into another mob while trying to escape, and also because your normal run is far too slow to escape any mob. In WOW as in EQ2 (as in many other MMOs) you have a good chance to run away even without sprint. So if something repops into you or you overlook that tiger behind the tree, you are quite more likely dead in VG than in any other game.

MOB's are very escapable. If you have a root, try that. If you have a speed buff then outrunning one isn't so hard. I escape MOB's everyday. You just have to know what of your class you can use to benefit in the escape. Almost every class has some type of slow ability. Also, it isn't half of the map. More like 1/100th of the map. The world is much larger then you think so you are not running as far as you think when running away from a MOB.

3) You need long term sessions to game some nifty small items. It is what I call the "small feel good factor" which WOW has and VG falls still short. All really big accomplishments take in WOW just as long as in VG. In that terms there is no difference in time or difficulty. But I can play WOW 1-2 hours and get a new shoulder pads or sword. Some small things, some some quest solved. It's no biggie, nothing of great power, just those 5 points more armor the new pants have, or 1 point more damage the new sword does, something along that lines. I get some small carrot for being the brave donkey. I can play VG 4-6 hours and get 10 copper and 2 spider legs. It what I already hated in EQ2 before they overworked their loot and reward system. I could play an entire weekend and get only a zombie brain and worthless loot I only could less for 10 copper. It is NOT the way to the big riches, because in that area WOW is exactly as difficult as VG (or EQ2). Its that small things. Something to give you the feeling those 2 hours werent for a spider leg and 10 copper.

This is where the "VG is not for those who want a big reward for little work" thing comes into play. VG requires dedication to get something good. You can spend 45 minutes online and expect to get much of anywhere in the game. I usually get new armor at least once everyday (auction house, guild mates, farming) that are better then what I already have. Many quests out there give you armor or weapons as a reward for completing them. This is where exploring the world of Vanguard comes into play. They don't hold your hand and tell you to go to this location for more quests your level. You must find the next place for your level. Granted, in time there will be guides on where you should go and what quests give you what, but right now you must get out and explore more.

In terms of overall difficulty WOW isnt much easier than VG. Fighting mobs or going into a dungeon is only a few inches easier, but they are those inches that matter. I really was unsure, since I had played WOW such a long time ago, if it really WAS that easy. It isnt. Trust me. It is only nuances easier. Nuances which matter. You need to know what you do just as in VG, but you dont die for every minor mistake. You have a chance to run and return another time. In VG, you cant. If you fall into a trap, you're dead. End of the story and make the long CR. And really, it is not the hardship of the CR which bothers me, its the time it steals. Added the big aggro radius, the far wandering mobs, the long span mobs follow, the slighly lowered XP, the lack of good and funny little loot... it adds. VG doesnt need a deep or big change to appeal a real lot of people. But those small differences may make or break it. So its a bad EQ2 deja vu. Zombie brains and spider legs and trash to sell for copper. Any decend loot and reward is only gained by long time lasting quests and long hardships. That is what makes VG still hardcore.

All in all, WoW is much much easier then VG is. WoW requires less time in the game to get rewards, more robot then human tactics to get around, less worrying about taking care of your character as the penalties are not that great, and WoW just overall requires less effort to get anywhere. Like I said many times before, WoW is a game for those with a short attention span (aside from a few of the end level dungeons as they can take a few hours due to them being large).

Vanguard isn't going to appeal to the WoW type fans because, lets be honest here, there are VG/DAoC/EQ1&2/UO fans and then there are WoW fans. Not saying those who play WoW haven't played those games nor enjoyed them...just saying that the WoW type of gameplay is different then those games mentioned. Either way I hope you do find something you enjoy about the game.

Faite

02-04-2007, 12:00 PM

Hi again Elikil.....I am responding mainly because I guess I figure if you did not like VG in some way you would not keep trying so hard to find its flaws or how it falls short. You must like it a bit to keep coming back :)

Now to respond from another WOW Players point of view (3 60ths, Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, left before the newest hash of Raid instances, I also have LOTS of lil 20 to 30 alts)

I have an active WOW account and to make me even more objective have friends who work in Blizzards billing and CS and one who is a manager.
So I am if anything predjudiced towards WOW.

Quite a flame catcher, don't you think? *g* Well, I dont care. I observe and tell what I see. Just le me say, WOW is far from being my ideal game. It has far too less lasting value, the comic art isnt my thing and people tend to solo in WOW far too much. Usually, when people compare anything with WOW, they say it is easier. Now, what is that easyness exactly, everyone is talking about, I wondered. I had played WOW mostly when I had much work and little spare time. Now, kinda frustrated with VG but not yet ready to give it up entirely either, I started to play both paralell to see for myself.

The first thing I noted how greatly the UI really is a WOW copy, down to the visual effect when gaining new level. Anyways, thats not what I care. A few things I observed are these:

1) Compared to WOW (or EQ2, or CoH, or DAoC as well), VG is very unforgiving towards minor mistakes. If you accidentally step a BIT too far and aggro just a mob too much you are most likely dead. You can see for yourself that grouping has many possible sources of making a minor mistake. A tank not turning around quickly enough, a healer, mashing the wrong button and taking 3 secs too long to heal, you know the stuff. Now while people should learn by error and failure, what I realized is, how totally unforgiving VG really is. It's a bit like training under Sith. Sith do not fail (because making a mistake under a Sith means your death). Such is VG. Now (besides the well know self-proclaimed Elite) we are humans who make failure. It is natural. I dont say a game should tolerate all failures, but my gripe with VG, as I realize now in thorough observation and comparing it to all other MMOs I have played in the last 5 years is, it forgives no mistake. Maybe on the open space, yes, but go into any castle or dungeon and one mistake quite often results in wipe. That is my gripe Number one.

I like that VG is harder in this sense. I like that if I make a wrong step I pay for it because coming from the old text mud world I learned a long time ago that risk=FUN!! For instance in Dragonrealms they had festivals and you had to take your coin from the bank and run quite a ways to the festival. You know what was the MOST fun of that run? The player run thieves who would pick your pockets on the way and sometimes get a large chunk of your hard earned festival money. We came up with groups, with other ways to avoid it, basically you better run and you better run fast to that festival. You learn to adapt and part of the fun is in the danger of the world. A completely safe world is no different than a trip to Disneyland where the rides are oh so fun but very predictable that only 1 in a million might get hurt. People are going to have to learn a bit more about their class in this game and adapt , I for one hope it does not get easier, but I am not an elitist, I'm just into that feeling of fun, running like a crazy person with something on my tail and finally either escaping or getting eaten alive.

2) You can not escape mobs. Or hardly can. I realized in EQ2 or WOW, you can outrun a mob. Partially because in VG the mobs follow you over half the map, partially because wandering mobs wander much further, causing you most likely to run into another mob while trying to escape, and also because your normal run is far too slow to escape any mob. In WOW as in EQ2 (as in many other MMOs) you have a good chance to run away even without sprint. So if something repops into you or you overlook that tiger behind the tree, you are quite more likely dead in VG than in any other game.

Another thing I find fun, maybe Im an oddball is that the monsters in this game do not allow you to just run through them unscathed. I like that they snare me and beat the liviing snot out of me if I am dumb enough to run through them. Now if I am on the road I agree it should be a bit safer but I still want an element of danger even on the road. We all know one of the most fun runs in WOW is the run from Menethil Harbor through Wetlands and to Ironforge, there are some big nasties on that run that aggro from the road, and that is FUN.

3) You need long term sessions to game some nifty small items. It is what I call the "small feel good factor" which WOW has and VG falls still short. All really big accomplishments take in WOW just as long as in VG. In that terms there is no difference in time or difficulty. But I can play WOW 1-2 hours and get a new shoulder pads or sword. Some small things, some some quest solved. It's no biggie, nothing of great power, just those 5 points more armor the new pants have, or 1 point more damage the new sword does, something along that lines. I get some small carrot for being the brave donkey. I can play VG 4-6 hours and get 10 copper and 2 spider legs. It what I already hated in EQ2 before they overworked their loot and reward system. I could play an entire weekend and get only a zombie brain and worthless loot I only could less for 10 copper. It is NOT the way to the big riches, because in that area WOW is exactly as difficult as VG (or EQ2). Its that small things. Something to give you the feeling those 2 hours werent for a spider leg and 10 copper.

I don't know what level or area you have tried but this is not true for the half elf area. It is full of good quest prizes even at low levels and I found a bunch of stat items in the Wood elf area yesterday as well....

In terms of overall difficulty WOW isnt much easier than VG. Fighting mobs or going into a dungeon is only a few inches easier, but they are those inches that matter. I really was unsure, since I had played WOW such a long time ago, if it really WAS that easy. It isnt. Trust me. It is only nuances easier. Nuances which matter. You need to know what you do just as in VG, but you dont die for every minor mistake. You have a chance to run and return another time. In VG, you cant. If you fall into a trap, you're dead. End of the story and make the long CR. And really, it is not the hardship of the CR which bothers me, its the time it steals. Added the big aggro radius, the far wandering mobs, the long span mobs follow, the slighly lowered XP, the lack of good and funny little loot... it adds. VG doesnt need a deep or big change to appeal a real lot of people. But those small differences may make or break it. So its a bad EQ2 deja vu. Zombie brains and spider legs and trash to sell for copper. Any decend loot and reward is only gained by long time lasting quests and long hardships. That is what makes VG still hardcore.

I don't agree yet again, but can't compare end game of course. Just by the beginning though it is much harder and monsters are harder, for me anyway. I had to learn my shaman quite well where in WOW i could just run and shoot things with my hunter from the get go (or priest or druid etc, though druid is a bit tricky due to some quests for forms etc)

In closing, I think you have good intent in there somewhere, and you want to make your point heard as you like VG but it is somehow not living up to your needs probably due to the fact that it requires more time and effort, and that is not an insult. Some of us, including me have busy real lives (lately I have a hurt shoulder so Im around a lot) and we dont' have time for this. But honestly, I'd rather level super slow and have the game last and have it be a challenge I can look back on as something I conquered. I think both games offer that just in different ways. There is no way Onyxia was easy back when she was first put in the game. I know our guild spent many frustrating hours conquering her , figuring out the strats for her etc. Part of WOWs problem is all the spoilers out there though, noone bothers to do it for themselves anymore in the name of being FIRST to finish something they use all the spoilers they can. But I think both games have hard encounters and WOW has some pretty awesome stuff. I am just bored with it and don't know why :)

Chae668

02-04-2007, 12:01 PM

can i have your stuff?

Selathe

02-04-2007, 12:31 PM

I can play VG 4-6 hours and get 10 copper and 2 spider legs. Thats what I already hated in EQ2 before they overworked their loot and reward system. I could play an entire weekend and get only a zombie brain and worthless loot I only could sell for 10 copper. It is NOT the way to the big riches, because in that area WOW is exactly as difficult as VG (or EQ2). Its that small things. Something to give you the feeling those 2 hours werent for a spider leg and 10 copper.

You aren't the first person to complain of this, and I find it very strange. Unless loot value greatly decreases after the mid-teens, I can't see having trouble making enough money to buy new gear (if I don't find it first), buy a horse, keep my stuff in good repair... and that's just with the loot from adventuring. If you're a crafter, you know that work orders are quite profitable (my roommate already has over 1 gold!)

Corven

02-04-2007, 12:39 PM

There's a guy in my guild that keeps hammering this same line over and over again.

All I have to say is; many of the things you feel that Vanguard could "learn" from WoW are things that many of us have come to Vanguard to get away from.

Last I heard, it was pretty easy to subscribe to WoW if that's the game you want to play. I recommend that you go back there. :)

Now, none of this is saying that Vanguard can't take some ideas from WoW. Not at all. But most people who seem to be saying "here's a few things that Vanguard should make more like WoW" are either seizing on things that are very core differentiations between the two games that should never be modified; or "a few things" turns into a complete revamp of the game.

WoW is on top right now, and its success is undeniable; that however does not mean that every game should strive to be as much like WoW as possible.

For the longest time after leaving WoW, I thought I was simply done with the MMORPG genre, when in fact I was simply done with that game. Vanguard has reawakened that interest in me, but the closer that it gets to being WoW 2.0, the less interested I will personally be in it.

And while I may not be in the majority in that regard, I'm certainly in a large and very vocal minority. :)

Eldahir

02-04-2007, 12:56 PM

Loampounder

02-04-2007, 12:59 PM

elikal, over the past few days, I have noticed a trend. Why do you insist on Vanguard becoming WoW?

Vanguard is less forgiving, which makes it more interesting. I can escape mobs because it's a combination of using your skills and knowing when to run. I gets some good items in short sessions, but Vanguard is definetly less monty-haul-ish and will have a better economy for it; your idea that all you get for two hours is a " spider leg and 10 copper" is laughable. All of your arguements are trite and only proves that Vanguard is not WoW.

Repeating, why do you want to turn Vanguard into WoW?

Isobel

02-04-2007, 01:16 PM

I thought you were gonna cease the whining and go back to WoW elikal, at least you said so in another thread. Or are you now playing WoW but still whining here for the sake of whining and trying to water Vg down to the pile of crap WoW is? ;)

1. Vg is bit more unforgiving which is a good thing. But too unforgiving? Hardly. As a healer I screw up all the time and I haven't seen anyone dying because of it yet. It's always been patchable with other heals, just takes more mana.

2. Sprint could maybe be faster but monsters following you through half map? I've never seen them go more than 200 meters after me. Maybe you smell different or something.

3. I really hate to be blunt but if you play 4-6 hours and only get 10 coppers and couple spider legs then you really suck :(. Seriously. What comes to gear, its easy to get upgrades from quests, there's plenty of blue item rewards. Just got to Skawlrfsomething island in Qalia this evening and the place is PACKED with quests giving good item rewards. And otherwise mobs have dropped blue items very nicely too.

So as usual, disagree with most of what you say. How's that WoW install coming anyway? Leaving soon? :p

Lol

I think that none of us is really overly skilled at our characters yet. With the changes implimented before launch even those of us who played beta are dealing with a new game. Mistakes and catastrophic wipes are par for the course. Having said that, the mistakes aren't the fault of the game by any means. If i make a mistake it's my fault, not the fault of the game.

I really don't understand the complaints about sprint. I've used it. It works. It shouldn't be a get out of jail free card. With all the powers of various classes that can stun, root, snare, mez, and/or reduce aggro, and a free horse at low level sprint is a perfectly workable ability.

Ziegfried Trueblade

02-04-2007, 01:22 PM

Ohhhh man its people like the OP that made this game watered down. This is why I am playing EVE online. Which rocks, by the way.

vevielle

02-04-2007, 01:26 PM

I just really hope that MMO's are not forever plagued by the populatiry of WOW. there's no doubt it was successful because it was a good game.... but it was way too user friendly, and simple (hence it's success among people brand new to the mmorpg world)

im hoping vanguard stays complicated so that it takes some intelligence to play.... not just hitting buttons.

rabb1t

02-04-2007, 01:51 PM

3) You need long term sessions to game some nifty small items.

I think you mean to say ‘you need long game sessions, period’. I’ve been saying this since August on the beta boards – Vanguard completely fails to reach their “core gamer” audience in every way once a character gets past about level 10. There is simply no way anyone can achieve anything in the 1-2 hour play session they claim their “core gamer” audience plays.

The only way I could see that being remotely possible is if they have a solid guild and are guarenteed a group within about 5 minutes of their coming online.

It is what I call the "small feel good factor" which WOW has and VG falls still short. All really big accomplishments take in WOW just as much time as in VG.

No, not really. In WoW you can take a gryphon and be almost anywhere in a matter of minutes. That means that through the majority of your play session you are LFG and then in the dungeon. If we ignore LFG time, then the big difference is travel time. Travel time in VG is extremely high at times and it can take a group 15 minutes to gather and get where they are going. This can easily eat up upwards to ½ hour of a gamers time by the teen levels, and as such, again the “core gamer” is left with very little time to actually play.

Again, I mentioned this back around August. If you have a 15 min LFG time, 15 min travel time (each way), for a 1 hour play session that leaves 15 minutes for the encounter. With WoW, if you remove almost all of the travel time you’d have 15 min LFG, 5 min travel (each way) which leaves 35 min for the encounter. Double the time in VG. Which means, in actuality, you are actually doing more fighting and spending more time in dungeons in WoW.

In terms of overall difficulty WOW isnt much easier than VG.

Actually I’ve been saying that WoW is harder ever since I started back in August. Here in VG combat is little more than key spamming with ‘Simon Says’ reactions. In WoW there are no such sounds and lights to indicate what moves to do next, you have to know when is the best time to apply them.

You are also missing several other things that VG is missing, not just that WoW used, but that many other games used.

Social hubs – There is no ‘natural’ gathering point for players to gather, rest, find group members for a dungeon. EQ had these all over; zone in points were a natural social hub and you could find others to travel across that outdoor zone with, or you could find/drop off members of the group. Also, they were naturally social places as that’s often where people rested.

Instancing = intelligent level design – By ignoring instancing VG actually has ‘dumber’ encounters. They don’t have to balance for a group, they just drop a bunch of monsters in an area. They don’t have to worry about players breaking through the encounter in a certain way, again because they aren’t balancing for that, they simply change respawn timers and make things respawn at a certain speed.

There is no world – Quest givers and merchants are nothing more than signposts with heads. They do not give off a feeling like they ‘live’ in this world. There most certainly is a lack of a feeling in a great majority of the game that the world was ‘lived in’ at all. Most places seem very deliberately dropped, with mob x and y deliberately spawned there. A player should not need to do diplomacy to learn world lore or see and feel the history.

There are other things, but there have been countless threads already.

I really hate to be blunt but if you play 4-6 hours and only get 10 coppers and couple spider legs then you really, really, REALLY suck :(.

No. There are still several areas of the game that lack “itemization”, meaning, the critters in said areas drop loot that either has no value at all, or has no loot at all.

Just got to Skawlrfsomething island in Qalia this evening and the place is PACKED with quests giving good item rewards. And otherwise mobs have dropped blue items very nicely too.

That’s why you have that perception. Qalia got the best pass on loot and itemization. Back when I got my invite in late August it had just opened and everyone was told to go there to try it out. People who had previously been in beta were saying to go there specifically because nearly everything had itemization and quest rewards were way better.

Go somewhere else, you’ll find several places that give zero loot.

- - - - -

Just a reminder peeps – insults, direct or indirect, won’t be tolerated. Disagree and post your disagreement, sure, but leave the insults and name calling out of it.

rabb1t

02-04-2007, 01:52 PM

im hoping vanguard stays complicated so that it takes some intelligence to play.... not just hitting buttons.

Not sure what you are implying here. Vanguard is exactly that - the button flashes, a sound goes off, and you push it. Simon says, nothing more. The game is playing you.

yewsef

02-04-2007, 02:03 PM

vevielle

02-04-2007, 02:05 PM

Not sure what you are implying here. Vanguard is exactly that - the button flashes, a sound goes off, and you push it. Simon says, nothing more. The game is playing you.

when i was playing in beta it was not very simple at all. i had decisions to make when my health got to a certain point. it was not laid out.

basicly if im a cleric in a group the way i heal and fight should be different then another person playing a cleric.

and also, i feel that no one, not even "hard core" gamers (like myself) that play 8+ hours a day, should be able to hit level 20-30 in a matter of a few days, or even weeks. i would like to see a game where it does take months, and months, and months to get max level, even up to 6-10 months to achieve.

there might be some people where if they're level 16 and they dont get another level in an hour or two feel dissapointed... but leveling isnt, and shouldnt be the only sense of accomplishment. watching the EXP raise, for me, is enough gratification.

in DAOC is took me weeks to get from level 49-50, and it was the best time i ever had.

it saddens me that people complain about "slow" leveling because you could get max level in such a short period of time in WOW. there's no sense of accomplishment there for me. I am scared to see people already in their 20's after a week and a half or so.

im not saying it should take a week to get level 5, you should be able to get to level 5 i think in a few hours...but after that it should take time.

i do disagree with the simon says. i've only gotten up to level 16 or so in beta and i was constantly on my toes deciding what i was going to do next. when i killed one wolf it was a different battle then the wolf i killed before that, and the one i killed after. it should get more and more complicated as new abilities are gained, and mobs are more intelligent. at least i hope =)

Dashel

02-04-2007, 02:06 PM

kab

02-04-2007, 02:07 PM

What you can learn from life and Vanguard. Grow a pair and deal.

Fixed to be more generic.

vevielle

02-04-2007, 02:07 PM

I'm confused what the OP is trying to get at? is he saying VG is better since you can't out run a monster every time (for me that's good)? but then I read his name and I recognized him and his other posts and laughed.

By the way, WoW is..... VERY VERY easier than Vanguard it's not even close, they are in different leagues.

I agree, WOW and VG are different games. VG, i hope, is going to continue to be geared toward more of the "veteran" mmorpg players. WOW is a much less complicated and involved game.

kab

02-04-2007, 02:10 PM

Not sure what you are implying here. Vanguard is exactly that - the button flashes, a sound goes off, and you push it. Simon says, nothing more. The game is playing you.

Sadly this is true. I would have rather seen some things like counterspelling and so forth be "hidden". In other words the player has to actually be paying attention and look for the opportune moment. Instead the game does everything it can to notify you and get you to push a button.

Sure, the first one has a bigger learning curve but that's not always a bad thing and it forces players to be engaged and watching carefully. Most new players probably aren't going to know the mechanic exists or understand it. So what? If they don't know about it then it's probably not going to bother them that they aren't using it and it will be exciting for them once they start to learn about it from other players or their own research and experimentation.

Dashel

02-04-2007, 02:13 PM

Not sure what you are implying here. Vanguard is exactly that - the button flashes, a sound goes off, and you push it. Simon says, nothing more. The game is playing you.

What button flashes to tell you how to pull things. What do you push to tell you when to heal or taunt or manage agro or dps more/less etc. Keyboard and mouse are the interface. What you're saying is analogous to "The Declaration of Independence is just like some kid scrawling "OMG l33t" because they both used pen and paper."

Neither VG nor WoW is just simon says.

vevielle

02-04-2007, 02:14 PM

Halbe

02-04-2007, 02:15 PM

Not sure what you are implying here. Vanguard is exactly that - the button flashes, a sound goes off, and you push it. Simon says, nothing more. The game is playing you.

I'm not sure what classes you've played, but speaking from my experiences as a healer class in both games, the simplistic view of "Simon Says" when comparing the gameplay of these games, in my opinion, is rather off.

As a disciple, I have a number of different options while in group play. I say group because, short of becomming a FPS, combat is going to be similar in all games, you find the path of least resistance. You find that combination that does the most damage, and use it. In a level/skill based game, this will always be the case.

Now, in groups, this is totally different. Again, as a disciple just duo'ing with a DK, I have more (not alot by any means mind you) things to take into consideration. Trying to utilize the weakness system being one. Using my endowment chaines to heal is another. Managing my Jin. If I decide to try to heal using an endowment chain, and part-way though I get stunned, we are in trouble. Do I use my instant heal that uses Jin? If so, where does this leave me? Will I have enough jin to finish my next chain? SHould I go with a DPS move that aquires Jin, or will that not leave me enought time to heal?

In WoW as a Pally or Druid (my two classess of choice)? Autoattack until one of us is at 50 percent, then heal. My biggest choice was what judgement to use.

Again, from my personal experience, saying the system is "Simon Says" is a rather large overgeneralization of the system as a whole.

Now, I do agree with your other post.

I have no problem logging in and spending my time adventuring, if that is infact what I'm doing, adventuring. I have no problem only gaining alittle exp and some items if it seems I've truly spent my time productively .

But the travel makes this rather difficult. It does, if joining a full group, seem that you spend more time traveling then in the actual area.

Even just the addition of a Wow-like flightpath system would help this. There doesn't have to be one at every location, just some.

kab

02-04-2007, 02:19 PM

I do think that it is important that when you are first starting out that it is not vital to have a full understanding of the mechanics.

I also think that it is important that when you reach, lets say level 15-20+ combat should be extremely difficult for you if you do not act upon the warnings. This ensures that people who do take the time to learn and understand all the commands are compensated by being able to take on a mob better than less informed and engaged players.

I agree. My point is that right now the system doesn't require any "skill" or interaction aside from hitting flashing buttons. It's not reliant upon the player seeing that a spell has been identified and countering it, or a player noticing the parry and using that against their enemy. Instead there's a loud noise and a giant flashing button that says "PRESS ME YOU IDIOT".

I don't like that.

vevielle

02-04-2007, 02:21 PM

Sadly this is true. I would have rather seen some things like counterspelling and so forth be "hidden". In other words the player has to actually be paying attention and look for the opportune moment. Instead the game does everything it can to notify you and get you to push a button.

Sure, the first one has a bigger learning curve but that's not always a bad thing and it forces players to be engaged and watching carefully. Most new players probably aren't going to know the mechanic exists or understand it. So what? If they don't know about it then it's probably not going to bother them that they aren't using it and it will be exciting for them once they start to learn about it from other players or their own research and experimentation.

I'm not sure what classes you've played, but speaking from my experiences as a healer class in both games, the simplistic view of "Simon Says" when comparing the gameplay of these games, in my opinion, is rather off.

As a disciple, I have a number of different options while in group play. I say group because, short of becomming a FPS, combat is going to be similar in all games, you find the path of least resistance. You find that combination that does the most damage, and use it. In a level/skill based game, this will always be the case.

Now, in groups, this is totally different. Again, as a disciple just duo'ing with a DK, I have more (not alot by any means mind you) things to take into consideration. Trying to utilize the weakness system being one. Using my endowment chaines to heal is another. Managing my Jin. If I decide to try to heal using an endowment chain, and part-way though I get stunned, we are in trouble. Do I use my instant heal that uses Jin? If so, where does this leave me? Will I have enough jin to finish my next chain? SHould I go with a DPS move that aquires Jin, or will that not leave me enought time to heal?

In WoW as a Pally or Druid (my two classess of choice)? Autoattack until one of us is at 50 percent, then heal. My biggest choice was what judgement to use.

Again, from my personal experience, saying the system is "Simon Says" is a rather large overgeneralization of the system as a whole.

Now, I do agree with your other post.

I have no problem logging in and spending my time adventuring, if that is infact what I'm doing, adventuring. I have no problem only gaining alittle exp and some items if it seems I've truly spent my time productively .

But the travel makes this rather difficult. It does, if joining a full group, seem that you spend more time traveling then in the actual area.

Even just the addition of a Wow-like flightpath system would help this. There doesn't have to be one at every location, just some.

I agree with you, very well explained.

For the traveling, on the other hand, i think at low levels it should be an annoyance to have to travel by feet... until you can get a horse.... then upgrade that horse and so on. Then in the upper percentile, lets say level 45+ traveling should be fun , fast , and convienant however.

It gives more of a drive to accelerate to achieve high levels to know that you'll eventually be rid of the slow means of travel that plagued you in the low, weak state of level 10.

kab

02-04-2007, 02:21 PM

As a disciple, I have a number of different options while in group play. I say group because, short of becomming a FPS, combat is going to be similar in all games, you find the path of least resistance. You find that combination that does the most damage, and use it. In a level/skill based game, this will always be the case.

Considering you're playing as what is arguably the most difficult class I don't know that your experiences are indicative of the combat system as a whole. In fact, it's not really the combat system that I dislike so much as it is the interface. I'll live with it to be sure but I can seen where rabb1t is coming from with it being "Simon Says" because sometimes it certainly feels like that.

Isobel

02-04-2007, 02:24 PM

I think you mean to say ‘you need long game sessions, period’. I’ve been saying this since August on the beta boards – Vanguard completely fails to reach their “core gamer” audience in every way once a character gets past about level 10. There is simply no way anyone can achieve anything in the 1-2 hour play session they claim their “core gamer” audience plays.

There is no way anyone can achieve anything in the 1-2 hour play session? I can. I have done. So have you, if you think about it. I've achieved levels. I achieved aquisition of gear. I've ahieved social interaction. I've had fun! What else should we, as players be looking to achieve?

The only way I could see that being remotely possible is if they have a solid guild and are guarenteed a group within about 5 minutes of their coming online.

For the most part i roll with a regular trio, however, speaking for those times when my regular group is not online i find that i do have to do a bit more work to find a group than i'm used to. I would attribute that the the fact that it;s less than a week after launch. I assume that the majority of players are still learning their characters and trying to figure out where to go as opposed to other games wherein everyone knows what you mean when you /ooc "LFG for Varsoon". In this game if someone /shouts LFG for Riftseekers there is a quiz period before someone can enter the group because they have to figure out where Riftseekers is, what kind of area it is, and what level range is needed. I'd say give it some time and this will even out.

No, not really. In WoW you can take a gryphon and be almost anywhere in a matter of minutes. That means that through the majority of your play session you are LFG and then in the dungeon. If we ignore LFG time, then the big difference is travel time. Travel time in VG is extremely high at times and it can take a group 15 minutes to gather and get where they are going. This can easily eat up upwards to ½ hour of a gamers time by the teen levels, and as such, again the “core gamer” is left with very little time to actually play.

Again, I mentioned this back around August. If you have a 15 min LFG time, 15 min travel time (each way), for a 1 hour play session that leaves 15 minutes for the encounter. With WoW, if you remove almost all of the travel time you’d have 15 min LFG, 5 min travel (each way) which leaves 35 min for the encounter. Double the time in VG. Which means, in actuality, you are actually doing more fighting and spending more time in dungeons in WoW.

While i agree that gryphons cut travel time i also feel they cut immersion and exploration. It is altogether too easy to get /ooc directions to the next gryphon tower and never look at the terrain before or after unless you have a quest there. While i understand that it can be frustrating i'm happy they leaned a little more toward exploration.

Actually I’ve been saying that WoW is harder ever since I started back in August. Here in VG combat is little more than key spamming with ‘Simon Says’ reactions. In WoW there are no such sounds and lights to indicate what moves to do next, you have to know when is the best time to apply them.

I can't agree with this. Not on any level. Once i figured out what each power did i found WoW to be the most mindless round of button mashing i've ever played. It's not that way by definition but we've all seen druid's spamming Moonfire and Warlocks spamming lifetap while their pet tanks.
You are also missing several other things that VG is missing, not just that WoW used, but that many other games used.

Such as?

Social hubs – There is no ‘natural’ gathering point for players to gather, rest, find group members for a dungeon. EQ had these all over; zone in points were a natural social hub and you could find others to travel across that outdoor zone with, or you could find/drop off members of the group. Also, they were naturally social places as that’s often where people rested.

Towns. Those are the 'natural' gathering points.

Instancing = intelligent level design – By ignoring instancing VG actually has ‘dumber’ encounters. They don’t have to balance for a group, they just drop a bunch of monsters in an area. They don’t have to worry about players breaking through the encounter in a certain way, again because they aren’t balancing for that, they simply change respawn timers and make things respawn at a certain speed.

By eliminating instancing they also gave thier playerbase a chance to experience competition. This is a good thing. If you're racing against another group for a spawn you're not just dealing with AI you're dealing with other players. Nothing inherently dumb about that.

There is no world – Quest givers and merchants are nothing more than signposts with heads. They do not give off a feeling like they ‘live’ in this world. There most certainly is a lack of a feeling in a great majority of the game that the world was ‘lived in’ at all. Most places seem very deliberately dropped, with mob x and y deliberately spawned there. A player should not need to do diplomacy to learn world lore or see and feel the history.

This is totally a feeling and i feel that the world is immersive as it can be. Also, why should the player not need to do Diplo. to learn lore? I find it's often better to make people work for things.

- - - - -

Just a reminder peeps – insults, direct or indirect, won’t be tolerated. Disagree and post your disagreement, sure, but leave the insults and name calling out of it.

The game is less than a week old. Yes, there are valid issues, not the least of which is that caravans and felloships aren't in yet. Having said that, the best things that Vanguards can learn form WoW is what not to do.

vevielle

02-04-2007, 02:30 PM

The game is less than a week old. Yes, there are valid issues, not the least of which is that caravans and felloships aren't in yet. Having said that, the best things that Vanguards can learn form WoW is what not to do.

<claps> very well explained Isobel.

I personally think that, for me, the world immersion is a bit lax. but as you said, its a week old. =)

Halbe

02-04-2007, 02:35 PM

The game is less than a week old. Yes, there are valid issues, not the least of which is that caravans and felloships aren't in yet. Having said that, the best things that Vanguards can learn form WoW is what not to do.

I couldn't agree with your post more.

One of my major gripes in the WoW v. VG comparison (aside from the fact that we are comparing a game with 2-years live development with one just released) is the idea of immersion.

WoW itself is not what is immersive. It's the predeveloped storyline from the franchise as a whole.

I would imagine, a great percentage of the WoW population played the Warcraft Games. I know I did. Because of this, you already had a backstory. A premise.

When you saw a character or a zone, you already new something about it, you already felt as though you were in the WoW world, because you already felt connected through previous knowledge.

Vanguard doesn't hav that. They have to build their lore from scratch. When you see a key figure in Vanguard, you have to ask "Who is that?" Not, "Wow, I remeber him from WC3!".

I think people lose sight of this fact. It isn't that WoW is such an immersive game when you start, it's that the backstory is already one you know.

Kiste

02-04-2007, 02:39 PM

Ok, guys. You seem to have missed the OP's points. The problem is not that Vanguard is challenging. The problem is that it's challenging all for the wrong reasons. Maybe you should try to understand what is being said instead of falling back into the kind of knee-jerk Vanboism that made the beta forums such an unpleasant place (yes, I'm talking to you Jacosta).

Whether you live or die often doesn't depend in how good a player you are. It doesn't depend on your decisions or your tactics. It doesn't depend on whether you screw up or not. In this game, people die a lot without making any mistakes or mistakes so small that they shouldn't result in death.

Some of my biggest issues in Vanguard (hell, they're not even just issues, they're a full subscription) relate to the fact that the game gets you killed for the most retarded reasons. And the OP has cited some of them.

Let me give you a few examples, which all happened to me:

1. I zone into a chunk. I look at the mobs. They're 2 dots and two levels lower than me. After a while, some undead mob pops into view (remember the shitty draw distance of mobs), walking towards me. I try to circle the mob but it aggroes me from pretty far away. Turns out it's a 4 dot mob 5 level higher than me. I pop sprint and cleric invulnerability and run. After 20 seconds, the mob is still on my ass. I get killed in a matter of seconds.

So what did I do wrong? What mistake did I make that would warrant death? What could I have done to avoid death? How does risk vs reward figure into this?

2. Mobs and their spammable "I Win" buttons. I'm talking solo mobs, btw. There are mobs that cast long-duration Silence, which means death for casters. Nothing you can do about it. There are mobs that spam huge damage debuffs that last for frigging 40 seconds so you run out of mana before you can kill them. Nothing one can do about it. There are mobs that spam long durations stuns over and over again. Nothing you can do about it. There are mobs with retardedly overpowered DoTs. There are mobs that chain heal themselves at a level players have no way to stop them.

I'm not suggesting that mobs should be straight melee but, for crying out loud, success against solo mobs should not depend on how often they land their overpowered abilities. Russian Roulette is not good game design. Something being challenging implies a way to overcome that challenge.

So when I'm fighting a mob with 5s stuns it means I, as a BMG, have to keep my HP up and be careful so the stun doesn't hit me when I'm low on health. I have to adjust my tactics. That's cool. What's not cool is that the next mob of that kind, that shouldn't even pose a challenge, hits me with the stun 4 times and kills me. Running away is also no option because, guess what, you'll get stunned and killed.

Where in that scenario was the mistake that warrants death? There was no mistake, there was merely bad luck. Again, VG decided to kill me off for no good reason and there was nothing I could have done about it. I didn't go into combat unprepared, I didn't do a risky pull, I didn't mess up with my spells, I didn't fight a mob that was supposedly too hard (dark blue and I killed dozens before).

3. I solo some quest mobs in Qa Riverbank. Another mob sudden spawns next to me and attacks me. I'm dead. Again, there was little, if anything, I could have done to avoid death.

4. I solo some quest mobs in Qa Riverbank. Another mob suddenly spawns next to me and attacks me. This time, I am still good on health so I decide to run. Too bad the mob, like so many others, is equipped with a spammable stun/snare/root. I die. Again, there was little, if anything, I could have done to avoid death.

5. I solo some quest mobs in Qa Riverbank. Another mob suddenly spawns next to me. Neither of the two mobs has these uber stuns/snares/roots. Must be my lucky day. I pop sprint. This is great, I might actually be able to flee for once! I'm all excited that I'm not going to die as punishment for a mistake I didn't make.... until I notice that all the mobs in that area are, as so often, laid out like a frigging sensor grid so there is no place to flee. I die again.

6. Three friends and I decide to explore that scorpion cave in Dailuk. The mobs there are green four-dots. Not much of a challenge. We've never been in there before and as soon as we entered, we saw a few scorpions. We attacked. Suddenly 4 more mobs spawn all around us and rape us. That was fair...

7. Back again in the cave, we fight our way deeper inside. At one point, we kill a 5 dot named that aggroed us through some wall, right after we had beaten down 3 4 dot mobs. After that, there was a respawn of another two. We killed them. It was avery close fight, we all felt we pulled something off that would have gotten others killed. Low on HP and mana, we had to rest for a minute while crap behind us and further down respawned and killed us. There are no safe spots or anything so what could we have done? Nothing.

8. Two friends and I fight our way into that evil gnome bunker that leads to the Chrysol Mine (or whatever it's called) to kill Swoops and Officers for a quest. What we didn't know is that the archers on the roof can apparently aggro and shoot trough the roof. So after a tough fight, we're stuck in combat mode and can't rest. Some crap aggroes through the wall, we die.

9. I'm duoing with a friend in that Fang Village in Qa. The place is pretty low and we basically kill everything effortlessly. We fight a ratman in a house when suddenly two of these toxic cloud mobs spawn on our asses. They stack their uber dot on me, the healer, and I'm dead before anyone can do anything. Their DPS are insane.

12. I aggroed one of these Goat Herders by accident in Qa Riverbank. They apparently don't have a leash and follow you to the chunk line... which you survive rarely.

11. Thanks to the bug with the GF 8800 video cards, that has gone unfixed for months now, I crash about ever 45 minutes. Crash usually means death because the game is built around the notion of assrape DPS. You crash and there's a 90% chance you run into a group of mobs that kills you in seconds before the game drops you. If you're in combat while crashing, it's always death. Hell, in EQ there was usually a good chance to survive crashes and disconnects because stuff didn't kill you within 10 seconds.

To sum it up, death in Vanguard is too random. It's not the kind of good difficulty that results in hard fights and punishes you for gross mistakes or miscalculations. It's the frustrating kind of difficulty that makes you feel ****ed in the ass because often you simply don't deserve the penalty. It's like if Sigil took CT's death touch, that unfun idea from EQ, and made it a central design tenet of Vanguard.

There are a few things I'd really love to see:

1. A non-aggro period for mobs after respawn. At least 5 seconds.

2. A better escape mechanic in the outdoors. Less stun/root/snare that prevent you from fleeing trivial things. Put that stuff on the hard mobs. Having to flee is a penalty in itself. You lose time by not being able to finish the fight, by having to run and having to rest up and return to the mob. That would be the appropriate consequence from getting aggro from a roamer or a sudden respawn. Death is completely out of proportion.

3. Putting the player into invulnerability mode immideately after they crash, at least until the major CTD issues are fixed.

4. A rebalancing of certain mob abilities to make luck less of a factor in certain fights.

5. Safe spots for resting in dungeons and caves.

6. Reduce the density of the mob population in certain outdoor areas or reduce their aggro range so fleeing from a fight gone bad doesn't result in death half of the time.

Right now, Vanguard kills players at a ridiculous rate. I've prolly died more often going from 1-18 as a BMG than I died going from 1-50 in EQ1. Sure, there was a lot of crap in EQ1, too. Mobs aggroing through walls etc. But combat DPS were a lot lower and there were zone lines... the game was a lot more forgiving than Vanguard is because you could actually take some punishment and not die to insane mob DPS within seconds. Vanguard has probably the highest DPS combat in any MMORPG and the escape mechanics should take that into consideration.

Things are too uncontrollable and I for one believe that punishment should the the result of your actions and not of simple misfortune.

vevielle

02-04-2007, 02:48 PM

There are a few things I'd really love to see:

1. A non-aggro period for mobs after respawn. At least 5 seconds.

2. A better escape mechanic in the outdoors. Less stun/root/snare that prevent you from fleeing trivial things. Put that stuff on the hard mobs. Having to flee is a penalty in itself. You lose time by not being able to finish the fight, by having to run and having to rest up and return to the mob. That would be the appropriate consequence from getting aggro from a roamer or a sudden respawn. Death is completely out of proportion.

3. Putting the player into invulnerability mode immideately after they crash, at least until the major CTD issues are fixed.

4. A rebalancing of certain mob abilities to make luck less of a factor in certain fights.

5. Safe spots for resting in dungeons and caves.

6. Reduce the density of the mob population in certain outdoor areas or reduce their aggro range so fleeing from a fight gone bad doesn't result in death half of the time.

Right now, Vanguard kills players at a ridiculour rate. I've prolly died more going from 1-18 as a BMG than I died going from 1-50 in EQ1. Sure, there was a lot of crap in EQ1, too. Mobs aggroing through walls etc. But combat DPS were a lot lower and there were zone lines... the game was a lot more forgiving that Vanguard is because you could actually take some punishment and not die to insane mob DPS within seconds. Vanguard has probably the highest DPS combat in any MMORPG and the escape mechanics should take that into consideration.

Things are too uncontrollable and I for one believe that punishment should the the result of your actions and not of simple misfortune.

You brought up a lot of good points. I had many fustrating deaths myself.

The idea about a non-aggro period after a mob spawns is interesting, im not quite sure how i feel about it. I think that it could go either way.

The ability to escape a fight gone bad is terrible right now, i agree. with sprint basicly useless, and most mobs having a stun/root/snare ability makes it very difficult. I think that if you are fighting a mob that is two levels below you and you decide to flee you should have a good chance of getting away. If you are fighting a mob that is a few levels above you your chances of getting away should be very small.

rebalancing is certainly needed in relation to this.

i am not a fan of the safe spots in dungeons to rest. if i enter a dungeon i would like to feel like my life is constantly on the line and that i need to be aware. i should not be able to run toa corner and rest in a dungeon if i have to get up from my computer for a minute. I should clear the area, and then know that i have a few minutes before more creatures venture towards me. This i think just has to do with spawn rates being too fast.

The aggro range i agree is still to wide even though they raised it a few months ago.

Corven

02-04-2007, 02:52 PM

I can agree with some of the points made above (particularly about a timer after a mob spawns before it aggros, giving you a chance to react to its spawn).

But honestly, all of the same stuff happened in WoW. I died many times in WoW due to a mob suddenly spawning in next to me also. So we're clearly turning into a thread about "what Vanguard could learn from WoW" into "here's what I don't like about Vanguard".

Which is a more useful thread, to be sure (the OP is a pretty obvious troll) but it's also been done to death here and elsewhere.

Isobel

02-04-2007, 03:03 PM

Maybe you should try to understand what is being said instead of falling back into the kind of knee-jerk Vanboism that made the beta forums such an unpleasant place (yes, I'm talking to you Jacosta).

Knee jerk Vanboism? How about flat disagreement?

Whether you live or die often doesn't depend in how good a player you are. It doesn't depend on your decisions or your tactics. It doesn't depend on whether you screw up or not. In this game, people die a lot without making any mistakes or mistakes so small that they shouldn't result in death.

In the first few days of a game there is no such thing as a small mistake that shouldn't result in death. There are only small mistakes that you are lucky enough to recover from and small mistakes from which you learn.

1. I zone into a chunk. I look at the mobs. They're 2 dots and two levels lower than me. After a while, some undead mob pops into view (remember the shitty draw distance of mobs), walking towards me. I try to circle the mob but it aggroes me from pretty far away. Turns out it's a 4 dot mob 5 level higher than me. I pop sprint and cleric invulnerability and run. After 20 seconds, the mob is still on my ass. I get killed in a matter of seconds.

So what did I do wrong? What mistake did I make that would warrant death? What could I have done to avoid death? How does risk vs reward figure into this?

You got in the Mob's aggro range and you didn't have a 1. group, 2. exit strategy, 3. clip lane up far enough to see the mob coming and start running early enough. This is all specualtion. Having not been there i couldn't say for sure.

2. Mobs and their spammable "I Win" buttons.

Where in that scenario was the mistake that warrants death? There was no mistake, there was merely bad luck. Again, VG decided to kill me off for no good reason and there was nothing I could have done about it. I didn't go into combat unprepared, I didn't do a risky pull, I didn't mess up with my spells, I didn't fight a mob that was supposedly too hard (dark blue and I killed dozens before).

Distance equals life. That's a serious problem from melee classes. For them fear equals life. Groups help too.

3. I solo some quest mobs in Qa Riverbank. Another mob sudden spawns next to me and attacks me. I'm dead. Again, there was little, if anything, I could have done to avoid death.
Sudden pops are frustrating but very common, in every game.

4. I solo some quest mobs in Qa Riverbank. Another mob suddenly spawns next to me and attacks me. This time, I am still good on health so I decide to run. Too bad the mob, like so many others, is equipped with a spammable stun/snare/root. I die. Again, there was little, if anything, I could have done to avoid death.

In this case i tend to swim, weave the mobs or stun and run. I've found it very helpful.

5. I solo some quest mobs in Qa Riverbank. Another mob suddenly spawns next to me. Neither of the two mobs has these uber stuns/snares/roots. Must be my lucky day. I pop sprint. This is great, I might actually be able to flee for once! I'm all excited that I'm not going to die as punishment for a mistake I didn't make.... until I notice that all the mobs in that area are, as so often, laid out like a frigging sensor grid so there is no place to flee. I die again.

The river will save you. I've found the mobs in the river have a much lower aggro range and are much less populus than in the water.

7. Back again in the cave, we fight our way deeper inside. At one point, we kill a 5 dot named that aggroed us through some wall, right after we had beaten down 3 4 dot mobs. After that, there was a respawn of another two. We killed them. It was avery close fight, we all felt we pulled something off that would have gotten others killed. Low on HP and mana, we had to rest for a minute while crap behind us and further down respawned and killed us. There are no safe spots or anything so what could we have done? Nothing.

I have found a very few safe spots in the dungeons i've been in. Honestly though, the fact that i found them surprised me. It's a dungeon, i never expected safety.

12. I aggroed one of these Goat Herders by accident in Qa Riverbank. They apparently don't have a leash and follow you to the chunk line... which you survive rarely.

To sum it up, death in Vanguard is too random. It's not the kind of good difficulty that results in hard fights and punishes you for gross mistakes or miscalculations. It's the frustrating kind of difficulty that makes you feel ****ed in the ass because often you simply don't deserve the penalty. It's like if Sigil took CT's death touch, that unfun idea from EQ, and made it a central design tenet of Vanguard.

There are a few things I'd really love to see:

1. A non-aggro period for mobs after respawn. At least 5 seconds.

2. A better escape mechanic in the outdoors. Less stun/root/snare that prevent you from fleeing trivial things. Put that stuff on the hard mobs. Having to flee is a penalty in itself. You lose time by not being able to finish the fight, by having to run and having to rest up and return to the mob. That would be the appropriate consequence from getting aggro from a roamer or a sudden respawn. Death is completely out of proportion.

3. Putting the player into invulnerability mode immideately after they crash, at least until the major CTD issues are fixed.

4. A rebalancing of certain mob abilities to make luck less of a factor in certain fights.

5. Safe spots for resting in dungeons and caves.

6. Reduce the density of the mob population in certain outdoor areas or reduce their aggro range so fleeing from a fight gone bad doesn't result in death half of the time.

Right now, Vanguard kills players at a ridiculour rate. I've prolly died more going from 1-18 as a BMG than I died going from 1-50 in EQ1. Sure, there was a lot of crap in EQ1, too. Mobs aggroing through walls etc. But combat DPS were a lot lower and there were zone lines... the game was a lot more forgiving that Vanguard is because you could actually take some punishment and not die to insane mob DPS within seconds. Vanguard has probably the highest DPS combat in any MMORPG and the escape mechanics should take that into consideration.

Things are too uncontrollable and I for one believe that punishment should the the result of your actions and not of simple misfortune.

There are certain bugs that you've mentioned that are valid. The most blatant one being the stuck in combat bug. For the most part, however, i don't think the game is too hard or that whether you live or die "doesn't depend on how good a player you are". It has everything to do with how good a player you are. I've only died once from lag and, it turns out that was my fault. I had Norton running in the backround becuase i'd forgotten to turn it off. There is a learning curve in any game. The learning curve in this game is sharp, very sharp, so very, very sharp. After a week i don't think it's realistic to expect to have mastered it yet.

Jacosta

02-04-2007, 03:09 PM

I guess you're a terrible player Kiste because I've never died to a mob except by my own stupidity. Of course I learned how to travel back in EQ1 playing a dark elf. The game is meant to be difficult and like real life you will die due to random things. Your entire post screams of I want an I win button. If you can't hack it in Vanguard then I surprised that you can hack it in any MMO.

1. That random 5 dot mob is most likely named and you're not paying attention to your surroundings. They had the same thing in EQ1 like the hill giant in West Commonlands or the high level shades in The Oasis. One learned rather quickly where to go and how to avoid them. Also if there is no fear of death in traveling then you have rendered the entire point behind traveling. You're supposed to experience the content and to feel the danger of being in the world. WoW and EQ2 lack it. Other MMOs like EQ1 and Anarchy Online don't lack it and made the entire journey fun.

2. If they cast silence maybe you should work your perception up so you can counter it. Casters have the ability to counterspell silence to keep it from going off and is set to the default key of G.

3. Yes there is a way to avoid death from a mob that spawns on top of you. It's called pulling the mob you want from out of the spawn area. This prevents spawning mobs in the camp from agroing you right away.

4. See point 3.

5. Being observant of your surroundings heading into the area will allow you remember the placement of mobs in case you have to run from a bad pull.

6. Rushing headlong into an area means you deserved to die. Scouting and learning the layout by going slowly will minimize deaths. Also having a well balanced party helps a lot as does having the people knowing their role.

7. Keep moving forward and making sure you pay attention to your surroundings. Also learning tactics helps out a lot.

8. That would be a bug and you should report it. If the developers don't know about the bug then they can't fix it.

9. Sounds to me like you picked the wrong fight with the wrong person and paid the price for it. Of course, now that you know that the mob will call pets only means you have to be more prepared in the future.

10. Some mobs have a leash and some don't. This is by design and to make you fear your surroundings. Also if you agroed the mobs then it's your fault.

11. Blame Nvidia for bad drivers not the game.

Reply to your points on what to change:

1. If they are going to add in non-agro status after spawn you will have effectively countered being fearful of the world. That is a bad design decision since it will hold your hands.

2. The counter is in the game and that is with having better resists. It also renders fear into nothing.

3. I can agree with this since it was in beta, but the moment you moved you lost the buff.

4. Or you can learn to be better at defeating them by using tactics combined with knowing your abilities.

5. Having rest spots inside of a dungeon doesn't make sense. *Gornad the Mad has this uber dungeon laid out filled with traps and monsters to keep adventurers at bay.* Would it make any sense for him to put in a rest stop for adventurers? Nope it doesn't.

6. It wouldn't make sense and renders fear of and respect of the environment moot. Learn your surroundings and you'll be fine. My main at level 10 has got 7 deaths with a kill to death ratio of 57 kills to 1 death. I got it because I'm careful and pay attention to my surroundings. I also respect and fear the world around me so I play cautiously.

The game kills players at a high rate because you don't respect or fear the world. You also don't think and plan your fights ahead of time. WoW held your hand and made sure you were never overwhelmed so you could always win the encounter. In Vanguard you have to learn what to do and understand that life isn't fair and you will die. It's a matter of how many times you die that is the difference as well as learning from those deaths.

vevielle

02-04-2007, 03:18 PM

WoW held your hand and made sure you were never overwhelmed so you could always win the encounter. In Vanguard you have to learn what to do and understand that life isn't fair and you will die. It's a matter of how many times you die that is the difference as well as learning from those deaths.

I cried when i heard that WOW reacted to player complaints like this :

Player: *Whine* i lagged and fell off a cliff in this dungeon into lava and died
WOW: Ok! you can no longer fall off cliffs!

lag deaths happen.

the world is "real" and should be dangerous. whether you walk off a cliff or lagg of a cliff it should kill you either way. whether you run into a mob or lag into a zone with high level mobs that should kill you, you should die.

but, when you are engaged in a battle that goes wrong, i do think you should have more of a chance of escaping then you do now... but never 100%

sweetdigs

02-04-2007, 03:20 PM

Elikal, why are you still here? You do nothing but complain about VG. Seriously, go play the game you like instead of trying to turn VG into something that you want it to be, and that most of us here don't want it to be.

Kiste

02-04-2007, 03:22 PM

In the first few days of a game there is no such thing as a small mistake that shouldn't result in death. There are only small mistakes that you are lucky enough to recover from and small mistakes from which you learn.
Says who? I'm a believer in proportionality. The penalty should be proportional to the action. It makes no sense that a small mistake has the same consequence as a bad mistake. Besides, many deaths aren't the the result of ANY mistake.

You got in the Mob's aggro range and you didn't have a 1. group, 2. exit strategy, 3. clip lane up far enough to see the mob coming and start running early enough. This is all specualtion. Having not been there i couldn't say for sure.

1. So we're now supposed to look for a group for overland travel? That hypothetical group would have had to run too and at least one would have died.
2. What exit strategy is there when you get aggroed by a mob that's too high for the chunk and can kill you in a few seconds?
3. You can't change mob draw distance.

Distance equals life. That's a serious problem from melee classes. For them fear equals life. Groups help too.
So we now need groups for dark blue solo content? Fine with me, as long as they up the EXP from solo mobs to make groups happy, too.

In this case i tend to swim, weave the mobs or stun and run. I've found it very helpful.
It should be apparent to everyone that this is not an option in many cases. Try to stun or root or whatever when two mobs are hitting you. Besides, not all classes have effective means of escape other than sprint.

The river will save you. I've found the mobs in the river have a much lower aggro range and are much less populus than in the water.
Too bad the river is half a chunk away.

I have found a very few safe spots in the dungeons i've been in. Honestly though, the fact that i found them surprised me. It's a dungeon, i never expected safety.
There must be something to accomodate for the fact that dungeons in VG are not instances, which means that spawns are often staggered you can't really control the mob population. A seemingly cleared spot might pop mobs from a staggered spawn while your group is resting up. There must also be something to accomodate for the fact that respawn is sometimes too fast. It's not about being "safe" it's about things being managable.

It has everything to do with how good a player you are.
Right, because mobs spawning next to you out of thin air and chain-snaring you when you try to run has something to do with how good a player I am. You can be as skilled as you like, in some areas mob density is so high that you cannot flee without drawing more aggro.

I've only died once from lag and, it turns out that was my fault.
Thanks for opening my eyes. I see now that all the CTD crashes are really my fault. I should have bought a shitty video card instead of that high-end 8800 GTS.

The learning curve in this game is sharp, very sharp, so very, very sharp.
There is no learning curve involved with random death. There is nothing to learn.

Jacosta

02-04-2007, 03:34 PM

but, when you are engaged in a battle that goes wrong, i do think you should have more of a chance of escaping then you do now... but never 100%

You do have a chance to survive and it all depends upon your group and or your skills. Albeit depending upon the level of the mob is the final determining factor.

Kiste

02-04-2007, 03:36 PM

I guess you're a terrible player Kiste because I've never died to a mob except by my own stupidity. Of course I learned how to travel back in EQ1 playing a dark elf.
You're my hero. Guess what, I've played EQ1 too. I've been playing MMORGs for more than 8 years. Yes, I'm a terrible player!

1. That random 5 dot mob is most likely named and you're not paying attention to your surroundings. They had the same thing in EQ1 like the hill giant in West Commonlands or the high level shades in The Oasis. One learned rather quickly where to go and how to avoid them.
Oh goodie! Wouldn't it help if you actually saw the mobs from more than 20 yards ways?

2. If they cast silence maybe you should work your perception up so you can counter it. Casters have the ability to counterspell silence to keep it from going off and is set to the default key of G.
Tell that to the level 3 gnomes. Yes, this particulary example is a type of mob from the gnome newbie zone. I'd like you to see your mad skillz at counterspelling on your newb gnome.

Besides, how can you counter melee skills?

3. Yes there is a way to avoid death from a mob that spawns on top of you. It's called pulling the mob you want from out of the spawn area. This prevents spawning mobs in the camp from agroing you right away.
Oh, I admire your intelligence. Why didn't I think of that!

5. Being observant of your surroundings heading into the area will allow you remember the placement of mobs in case you have to run from a bad pull.
Doesn't help with the sensor grid layout.

6. Rushing headlong into an area means you deserved to die. Scouting and learning the layout by going slowly will minimize deaths. Also having a well balanced party helps a lot as does having the people knowing their role.
Yes, of course. There are no problems. There are only retarded people who do not understand games like you do. Right.

7. Keep moving forward and making sure you pay attention to your surroundings. Also learning tactics helps out a lot.
I'm getting tired of your stupid answers. How tdoes this relate to random respawns in outdoor zones?

9. Sounds to me like you picked the wrong fight with the wrong person and paid the price for it. Of course, now that you know that the mob will call pets only means you have to be more prepared in the future.
WTF are you talking about?

10. Some mobs have a leash and some don't. This is by design and to make you fear your surroundings. Also if you agroed the mobs then it's your fault.
Right, it's by design because you say so!

11. Blame Nvidia for bad drivers not the game.
Sure, because nothing could ever be wrong with Vanguard! It's the stupid players! It's the hardware! Nothing is ever a fault of the saints at Sigil!

1. If they are going to add in non-agro status after spawn you will have effectively countered being fearful of the world. That is a bad design decision since it will hold your hands.
BS!

2. The counter is in the game and that is with having better resists. It also renders fear into nothing.
Yeah, people should start collecting resist gear in their teens! Because there is so much of it! I see it now, uit'S all my fault for not having a full set of resist gear at level 13!!

3. I can agree with this since it was in beta, but the moment you moved you lost the buff.
The buff was (and is) only applied when the chunk crashes, not when you crash.

4. Or you can learn to be better at defeating them by using tactics combined with knowing your abilities.
Look, kiddo. The only way you can be challenged by MMORPGs or not understand your class is if you're too retarded to play video games. MMORPGs are actually pretty simplicistic compared to stuff like, say Strategic Command or even Alpha Centauri. Instead of alsways answering with your idiotic eloborate rephrasings of "learn2play n00b" you should try to actually not insult everyone by implying that they are stupid (unlike you, you MMORPG god).

The game kills players at a high rate because you don't respect or fear the world. You also don't think and plan your fights ahead of time.

Blah, blah, blah. Your postings are useless and insulting to everyone's intelligence.

Jacosta

02-04-2007, 03:49 PM

You're my hero. Guess what, I've played EQ1 too. I've been playing MMORGs for more than 8 years. Yes, I'm a terrible player!

Oh goodie! Wouldn't it help if you actually saw the mobs from more than 20 yards ways?

Tell that to the level 3 gnomes. Yes, this particulary example is a type of mob from the gnome newbie zone. I'd like you to see your mad skillz at counterspelling on your newb gnome.

Besides, how can you counter melee skills?

Oh, I admire your intelligence. Why didn't I think of that!

Doesn't help with the sensor grid layout.

Yes, of course. There are no problems. There are only retarded people who do not understand games like you do. Right.

I'm getting tired of your stupid answers. How tdoes this relate to random respawns in outdoor zones?

WTF are you talking about?

Right, it's by design because you say so!

Sure, because nothing could ever be wrong with Vanguard! It's the stupid players! It's the hardware! Nothing is ever a fault of the saints at Sigil!

BS!

Yeah, people should start collecting resist gear in their teens! Because there is so much of it! I see it now, uit'S all my fault for not having a full set of resist gear at level 13!!

The buff was (and is) only applied when the chunk crashes, not when you crash.

Look, kiddo. The only way you can be challenged by MMORPGs or not understand your class is if you're too retarded to play video games. MMORPGs are actually pretty simplicistic compared to stuff like, say Strategic Command or even Alpha Centauri. Instead of alsways answering with your idiotic eloborate rephrasings of "learn2play n00b" you should try to actually not insult everyone by insinuating that they are stupid (unlike you, you MMORPG god).

Blah, blah, blah. Your postings are useless and insulting to everyone's intelligence.

1. I've been playing MMOs for a lot longer then 8 years. In fact, this makes my 11th year playing MMOs. You are a terrible player if you don't learn from your mistkes.

2. Turn up your far clipping plane. That would make it your fault as well.

3. Guess that means you shouldn't be messing with that mob at level 3 huh? Your fault for not thinking ahead of time and planning. Roots and stuns are good counters for melees and backing out their 5 meter range.

4. Which makes it your fault not the game's fault.

5. Ad hominem persona

6. Paying attention to where the mob spawns at overcomes the so-called randomness in the outdoors.

7. Keep up with the conversation and read what you wrote then what I wrote as a reply.

8. The developers stated that during beta. Of course, it's never your fault. :rolleyes:

9. How could Vanguard to account for a card that wasn't even made? According to you it's all Vanguard's fault and not yours or anyone elses. :rolleyes:

1. What a great bit of fact to disprove my statement. :rolleyes:

2. I do so what's your problem with building up your resists? Oh that's right you expect the game to go easy on your for your mistakes. You shouldn't be playing WoW as it's too difficult for you. Try Hello Kitty Online World. (http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geusM7RsZFxSsBtdtXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE3cXRxamd yBGNvbG8DZQRsA1dTMQRwb3MDMQRzZWMDc3IEdnRpZANERkQ1X zExMg--/SIG=12jtoegv9/EXP=1170708411/**http%3a//www.sanriotown.com/onlinegame/index.php%3fs=introduction)

3. It also applied to when you crashed as well. I should know since I was tracking down a nasty little bug with Nvidia drivers and Vanguard's code. Every time I came back I had the buff. Did you really play in beta?

4. Ad hominem persona

5. Ad hominem persona

You were saying about knee jerk reactions? Seems to me that's all you can do in response to my post.

Isobel

02-04-2007, 03:50 PM

Says who? I'm a believer in proportionality. The penalty should be proportional to the action. It makes no sense that a small mistake has the same consequence as a bad mistake. Besides, many deaths aren't the the result of ANY mistake.
1. So we're now supposed to look for a group for overland travel? That hypothetical group would have had to run too and at least one would have died.
2. What exit strategy is there when you get aggroed by a mob that's too high for the chunk and can kill you in a few seconds?
3. You can't change mob draw distance.
So we now need groups for dark blue solo content? Fine with me, as long as they up the EXP from solo mobs to make groups happy, too.
It should be apparent to everyone that this is not an option in many cases. Try to stun or root or whatever when two mobs are hitting you. Besides, not all classes have effective means of escape other than sprint.
Too bad the river is half a chunk away.
There must be something to accomodate for the fact that dungeons in VG are not instances, which means that spawns are often staggered you can't really control the mob population. A seemingly cleared spot might pop mobs from a staggered spawn while your group is resting up. There must also be something to accomodate for the fact that respawn is sometimes too fast. It's not about being "safe" it's about things being managable.
Right, because mobs spawning next to you out of thin air and chain-snaring you when you try to run has something to do with how good a player I am. You can be as skilled as you like, in some areas mob density is so high that you cannot flee without drawing more aggro.
Thanks for opening my eyes. I see now that all the CTD crashes are really my fault. I should have bought a shitty video card instead of that high-end 8800 GTS.
There is no learning curve involved with random death. There is nothing to learn.

Too high for the chunk? Bears and bunny rabits live within the same square foot of forest. Badgers and field mice do too. The mix is logical, natural and i personally find it a joy. I love the fact that i have to pay attention all the time. I love the fact that the Devs have gone away for the idea that if you stay in a particular chunk, zone or area you'll find only a particular level of mob. It keeps me from mindlessly pulling everythng i see. I'm sure there are deaths that aren't the result of any mistake.
None of the 11 examples you provided fall into that catagory.
It's true you can't chage mob aggro rang, except by leveling, however, the faster you start running the more likely you'll get away. Also, the farther away the mob is the more casts of mez, root, stun, whatever you'll get off in the hopes one of them sticks.
No players don't need a group for "solo content". However, we as players do need to understnad that "solo content" is a subjective term. What i can solo as a druid or Sorcerer a warrior or a BM may not be able to solo as well.
A stun can be landed while being hit. I admit it's hard but it can be done.
The fact that the river is half a chunk away is a difficulty. I would suggest if you're having problems staying alive in the area you stay closer to it.
Um, you shouldn't be able to control the population in a dungeon. Neither should the area be "cleared" except for a short time. My group and i have found that constantly moving and medding in shifts is the way to keep everyone viable and alive in situations like this. The situation you are describing shouldn't in my opinion, be made "manageable" for us. We should learn to manage the situation better.
All mobs spawn out of thin air. Many mobs have a snare. Mobs also tend to follow you when you train them along. This situation is still not impossibe. It's just bloody hard, but i think that's a good thing. It forces players to be a lot more carful when pulling and when trying to get to and from an area.
I'm not saying your deaths from lag are totally your fault. I'm saying that not all deaths from lag are the fault of the game.

Very few deaths are random. They just seem that way because we haven't learned how to prevent them yet.

Rourke

02-04-2007, 03:57 PM

sigh...wow...i read through a lot of complaints...and i call major BS here on a lot of them.

I won't write a novel like some here, as i really dont care..but real quick....

4 people can go into Rift Seekers Torrent at level 11 and walk out with blues and AT LEAST 2 yellows in LESS then 2 hours easy.

My wife..who never played an MMO except some WoW can identify potential aggo issues while fighting and move out of range. If you can't play as well as my wife..you need to find someone to teach you some skills.

If your dying from trying to run away..i almost guarantee you waited way to long before you decided to cut and run. Also..if your traveling..the higher the mob..the bigger the aggro range. Learn this and stay alive. We never die when running away..mostly because if we commit to a fight..we commit to the death to.

Lastly..the "button mashing" isn't really so mashy. Incorrect desisions against 4 dots will get you killed pretty much instantly. If you get a finishing move..sure it lights up..but if your not paying attn and just hitting buttons you miss your chance to use that move and maybe a chance to kill a rare spawn.

This game rocks..and takes more practice than people want to admit. If you want loot and coin....you gotta earn it. You need to play smart and have a plan. Anyone who disagrees is lying or just sucks.

Kates

02-04-2007, 04:11 PM

I tend to agree with Kiste on some of the points. I'm level 18 and have 21 deaths according to my stats page. That may seem like a lot but over half of those are death from random crashes where I run head long into mobs. When you crash in this game while running, your character doesn't stop. It just keeps running until A) You run into something. B) You die. C) Your character finally gets booted from the server. I have an 8800 series video card - so does my boyfriend, and we crash constantly, expecially running through the wilderness with bard speed. I die more to bugs than stupid mistakes.

Mobs aggroing through walls and ceilings really really needs to be fixed. You can't plan for extra aggro from unseen mobs. I don't care how good you claim to be.

Also, what the hell is up with elevators - Uggh (I realize this isn't something that will get you killed).

Some things I disagree with (Kiste's post). If you are fighting inside the spawn - and things spawn around you, you will die. I always try and pull things outside the spawn. I've never accidently run into a 5 dot mob. Then again, I have a good rig so I can see them from afar. That might be a funtion of having a lower end system - I don't really know.

A lot of Kiste's points are valid in my opinion. I think people should cut him/her some slack. As fun as this game is - I AM HOOKED - it is still buggy as hell and pisses me off when I die to stupid crap.

One last thing: encounters are hard enough without the goddamn mobs disappearing for 5 seconds where you have to move around in order for it to appear again. Sometimes this alone is death in a tight dungeon. This was suppose to be fixed in beta. I've died to that too.

Edit: Oh yeah, and jacosta talks a lot of shit for someone that is level 10. :) Less time here flaming people and more time in game? Just a thought :D

Corven

02-04-2007, 04:17 PM

Another problem here is that some folks have decided that since they were good at WoW, they're good at MMORPGs, period.

Now, a game with some actual challenges to it (and yes, I include luck in this; not all luck is bad and it's great to get a lucky crit and win a fight you thought you'd lost. The converse of that also has to be true unfortunately) comes along and the refrain is "OMG THIS IS TOO HARD MAKE IT LIKE THE GAME I'M GOOD AT".

So, in summation: If you want a game to play that is like WoW, go play WoW. That is not what many of the people playing Vanguard want, and we do not want Vanguard to turn into WoW.

In further summation: QQ NEWB LRN2PLAY

My patience with having these same things repeatedly posted on these and other boards is now at an end.

Isobel

02-04-2007, 04:26 PM

I tend to agree with Kiste on some of the points. I'm level 18 and have 21 deaths according to my stats page. That may seem like a lot but over half of those are death from random crashes where I run head long into mobs. When you crash in this game while running, your character doesn't stop. It just keeps running until A) You run into something. B) You die. C) Your character finally gets booted from the server. I have an 8800 series video card - so does my boyfriend, and we crash constantly, expecially running through the wilderness with bard speed. I die more to bugs than stupid mistakes.

Mobs aggroing through walls and ceilings really really needs to be fixed. You can't plan for extra aggro from unseen mobs. I don't care how good you claim to be.

Also, what the hell is up with elevators - Uggh (I realize this isn't something that will get you killed).

One last thing: encounters are hard enough without the goddamn mobs disappearing for 5 seconds where you have to move around in order for it to appear again. Sometimes this alone is death in a tight dungeon. This was suppose to be fixed in beta. I've died to that too.

Edit: Oh yeah, and jacosta talks a lot of shit for someone that is level 10. :) Less time here flaming people and more time in game? Just a thought :D

Couple of things...
You'r stats page is probably wrong. The last time i looked my stats page said i had 0 kills and 0 deaths. I have both killed and died so, yeah, not so accurate.
Bugs are a fact of gaming. Yes they should definetly be fixed. As those fixes go into place they will cause new bugs, it's just a fact of MMOs.
I agree that mobs aggroing through mobs and ceilings is a bug that should be fixed. Having said that i also think that those of us who have AEs should be more careful. I've pulled a mob and all of his friends from another room when i dropped my AE without thinking.
Mobs dropping through the floor is also a fact of MMOs. It has happened to me in every game i've ever played no matter how long they've been out. If the most popular well funded long lived games can't eliminate it totally, i don't expect Vanguard to do so.

As far as people's level vs. their time on the forums. Your listed level on the forums is something you have to change manually and you listed level on vgplayers is often wrong.

Kates

02-04-2007, 04:30 PM

Couple of things...
You'r stats page is probably wrong. The last time i looked my stats page said i had 0 kills and 0 deaths. I have both killed and died so, yeah, not so accurate.
Bugs are a fact of gaming. Yes they should definetly be fixed. As those fixes go into place they will cause new bugs, it's just a fact of MMOs.
I agree that mobs aggroing through mobs and ceilings is a bug that should be fixed. Having said that i also think that those of us who have AEs should be more careful. I've pulled a mob and all of his friends from another room when i dropped my AE without thinking.
Mobs dropping through the floor is also a fact of MMOs. It has happened to me in every game i've ever played no matter how long they've been out. If the most popular well funded long lived games can't eliminate it totally, i don't expect Vanguard to do so.

As far as people's level vs. their time on the forums. Your listed level on the forums is something you have to change manually and you listed level on vgplayers is often wrong.

Couple of other things...

I'm not saying the game should be bug free. I'm saying that a lot of deaths occur to these bugs. Saying that anytime someone dies is because they suck or the are terrible players is incorrect. There are times you die, where it was NOT your fault. Period.

As for the level remark, it was said in jest - hence the smileys.

Also, my stats page seems to be somewhat accurate in terms of level and xp when it updates.

Jacosta

02-04-2007, 04:37 PM

Edit: Oh yeah, and jacosta talks a lot of shit for someone that is level 10. :) Less time here flaming people and more time in game? Just a thought :D

That's my live character, but in beta my character was a much higher level. The reason why I haven't leveled is because I'm waiting for the guild I belong to to start playing. I do not want to outlevel them and leave them behind. I would much rather wait for them to get into the game and we play together. As for flaming someone would you be so kind as to where I insulted, been rude, or otherwise violate the rules of the forum in this thread? Oh that's right you can't because it doesn't exist. That makes it all in your mind then.

Halbe

02-04-2007, 04:40 PM

That's my live character, but in beta my character was a much higher level. The reason why I haven't leveled is because I'm waiting for the guild I belong to to start playing. I do not want to outlevel them and leave them behind. I would much rather wait for them to get into the game and we play together. As for flaming someone would you be so kind as to where I insulted, been rude, or otherwise violate the rules of the forum in this thread? Oh that's right you can't because it doesn't exist. That makes it all in your mind then.

Let's call a spade a spade here...

Your first reply began with, "Then I guess your a terrible player..."

Actually, much of that post took that tone.

Personally, I would consider that a flame, or the makings of one.

Kates

02-04-2007, 04:43 PM

Isobel

02-04-2007, 04:44 PM

Couple of other things...

I'm not saying the game should be bug free. I'm saying that a lot of deaths occur to these bugs. Saying that anytime someone dies is because they suck or the are terrible players is incorrect. There are times you die, where it was NOT your fault. Period.

As for the level remark, it was said in jest - hence the smileys.

Also, my stats page seems to be somewhat accurate in terms of level and xp when it updates.

I understand what you're saying. Death from lag isn't any kind of fun. Death from bugs isn't any kind of fun. However, most of the examples in your original post weren't lag or bugs. They can easily be attributed to player error.
Honestly, less than a week after launch, saying that the game is too hard or hard for the wrong reasons is a premature. This game and we as players of this game are in our infancy. None of us is so expert as to completly rule out player error except in the case of bugs.

Jacosta

02-04-2007, 04:44 PM

Let's call a spade a spade here...

Your first reply began with, "Then I guess your a terrible player..."

Actually, much of that post took that tone.

Personally, I would consider that a flame, or the makings of one.

Actually my first reply was, "What you can learn from life and Vanguard. Grow a pair and deal with how Vanguard is."

Now from the post you quote and said was my first reply let's look at the post I was replying to shall we?

You're my hero. Guess what, I've played EQ1 too. I've been playing MMORGs for more than 8 years. Yes, I'm a terrible player!

Agreeing with someone doesn't make it a flame. Let's continue shall we?

Yes, of course. There are no problems. There are only retarded people who do not understand games like you do. Right.

I was flamed and never replied in kind which is why some of my replies were, "Ad hominem persona."

Halbe

02-04-2007, 04:55 PM

Actually my first reply was, "What you can learn from life and Vanguard. Grow a pair and deal with how Vanguard is."

Now from the post you quote and said was my first reply let's look at the post I was replying to shall we?

Agreeing with someone doesn't make it a flame. Let's continue shall we?

I was flamed and never replied in kind which is why some of my replies were, "Ad hominem persona."

Uhh...

This all starts on page 4, where Kriste gives her opinions on issues with the game, which she is entitled too.

About mid-way down, after this post, is when you use the "I guess your a terrible players". This was the post your innitial response was in-light of, not the response you quoted.

You did not agree with this, you actually came out and said, without provocation, "You must be a terrible player".

The text you quote is in response to your flame.

Jacosta

02-04-2007, 04:59 PM

Uhh...

This all starts on page 4, where Kriste gives her opinions on issues with the game, which she is entitled too.

About mid-way down, after this post, is when you use the "I guess your a terrible players". This was the post your innitial response was in-light of, not the response you quoted.

You did not agree with this, you actually came out and said, without provocation, "You must be a terrible player".

The text you quote is in response to your flame.

Context is your friend.

I guess you're a terrible player Kiste because I've never died to a mob except by my own stupidity. Of course I learned how to travel back in EQ1 playing a dark elf.

I guessed which means "To predict (a result or an event) without sufficient information." That wasn't a flame as I was making a prediction based upon the information provided from the first post. Now if I had said, "You're an awful player and you suck at life" then that would be a flame. Like I said context is your friend.

gelfling

02-04-2007, 05:11 PM

Warning: uncharacteristic ranty-post coming up.

Argh! Posting without reading the whole thread because the topic and the OP hit a nerve! Vanguard isn't like WoW and I'm very, very glad that it isn't like WoW.

If Vanguard ever became as simple and horribly colourful as WoW, I would delete it, hit cancel and never look back. Please can we make WoW a four letter word? To me it's even more offensive than the NGE but that's a story for another day...

To anyone who thinks that Vanguard (or any other game) is too difficult or a bit too challenging, just post and ask for help. Don't ask for the world to be dumbed down because you won't take the time to find a way through the difficulty you are experiencing. Just ask for help. There are plenty of people out there who do understand how to play Vanguard and who do enjoy helping people. If you can't find them on your server, re-roll on another one. If something doesn't work for you be constructive. Don't wave the nerf bat or post a comparision or whine. Just ask "How do I...?"

...gelfling

Editing to add: people who play WoW are just people who play WoW. I don't understand where all the negativity about the players who play it comes from though that is not an invitation to explain it to me. Lets stop spending our attention on WoW. Please. Pfft.

*wanders off to get some chocolate and calm down* :)

rabb1t

02-04-2007, 05:46 PM

when i was playing in beta it was not very simple at all.

I got into beta in August. It has gotten more complex from what I’ve seen, but it still is very basic.

and also, i feel that no one, not even "hard core" gamers (like myself) that play 8+ hours a day, should be able to hit level 20-30 in a matter of a few days, or even weeks.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing there. However grinding over and over and over on the same mobs in the same areas is not the only way to achieve this.

They could have very easily designed small dungeons around social hubs with several quest goals related to them. To me it seems they went for sheer landmass vs. interesting places / nooks / cranies to explore.

i do disagree with the simon says. i've only gotten up to level 16 or so in beta and i was constantly on my toes deciding what i was going to do next. when i killed one wolf it was a different battle then the wolf i killed before that, and the one i killed after. it should get more and more complicated as new abilities are gained, and mobs are more intelligent. at least i hope =)

Could be the classes I and you have played. I played all the defe tanks, Bard, Rogue, Deciple, Cleric, all to at least 8th, and several to 12th, with a high of 15th. (Could be more, heh been like 6 months I’ve had access, so… heh) To me, since I’d place hotkeys similarly (ex: heal on 4, armor rend on 5, dot on 6, etc) it always seemed like I was using similar abilities in similar ways with little more than Simon Says reactions when I’d get an opening.

I agree, WOW and VG are different games. VG, i hope, is going to continue to be geared toward more of the "veteran" mmorpg players. WOW is a much less complicated and involved game.

I wouldn’t say that I agree with that or not. I don’t quite know how to feel about the veteran status. I’ve grown up with gaming, seen the entire industry evolve since Pong, played 19 MOGs post-release, 23 different online games in various beta and release states (a couple not mogs, and a couple mogs of a different sort). I wouldn’t say that VG is targeting “vets” any more than WoW is.

I would, however, agree that they are targeting a more “old school” approach with the long travel times, non-instanced design and slower leveling speed.

In some ways that’s a good decision, but in some ways I’d say it is a bad one.

Even just the addition of a Wow-like flightpath system would help this. There doesn't have to be one at every location, just some.

Personally I was expecting more of a hub system. Like there would be this hub of activity, vendors, trainers, peeps gathering to sell and group, and there would be an outer ring around that with lots of dungeons and places to explore. Once you would go beyond the level range of this area I expected you’d have a difficult and dangerous area you’d have to cross to get to the next hub.

I don’t know if a flight path would help. Yea, it would speed things up, but I think the overall design is somewhat flawed. Yeah, it is like ‘real life’ where things are all spaced out and you have all this travel time, but I won’t agree that’s a good design.

There is no way anyone can achieve anything in the 1-2 hour play session? I can. I have done. So have you, if you think about it. I've achieved levels. I achieved aquisition of gear. I've ahieved social interaction. I've had fun! What else should we, as players be looking to achieve?

Well, here is an example. Today I logged in at ~10:30 in my lv 14 bard body. First thing I did was put up LFG. Until ~11 I messed around looking at various gear. I then went to an area I knew I could solo. It wasn’t until about 12:15 that I got a group call. Thus, in the time between 10:30 and 12:15, a period of 1.75 hours, I died a couple of times soloing, so got no experience gain, did aquire some coin, so I gained about 2 silver, but really that was it. I saw no new lands, killed no new creatures, explored no new areas.

I don’t know. I just don’t see the gain for the “core gamer” as really there when Sigil claims the game is designed around 1-2 hour play sessions. It seems unless you find a group almost immediately you are on your own in terms of exploring and moving around. With as spread out as things are and the fact you have to return to a bind that often isn’t close to your starting point… I don’t know. I just don’t see it as a game a real core gamer would be attracted to.

I assume that the majority of players are still learning their characters and trying to figure out where to go

True enough, the game newness may be part of it.

While i understand that it can be frustrating i'm happy they leaned a little more toward exploration.

I don’t know. As someone who loves exploring and adventuring I still have to say I’d much prefer the hub system I mention above. Everything here seems long, drawn out and boring.

In an example I’ve used before – when I was young my family would go visit grandparents once or twice a year. The first half of this trip was an ~8 hour drive down to Disneyland. To me, Vanguard is focusing on that 8 hours of desert drive, compared to something like WoW, which focuses on just the time you spend at Disneyland.

I have no problem at all with exploring and adventuring and looking around, but with VG it just seems you are spending huge amounts of time looking at the same things and the same monsters and the landscape rarely ever changes.

Like, if you start on Qalia, you are just about going to be staring at desert, snakes, buzzards, lizardmen… at least until 15th level. That’s an awful lot of looking at the same critters and land.

Maybe it’s just me *shrug*

This is a good thing. If you're racing against another group for a spawn you're not just dealing with AI you're dealing with other players. Nothing inherently dumb about that.

If you enjoy ‘forced competitive consumerism’ sure, me I see it as indirect PvP and if it is going to be such it should be such. (Like Warhammer’s design.)

The game is less than a week old.

No, the game has been post release for less than a week. The game has effectively been as it is now since around August in some areas, and since November in others. Yes, things have been patched and tweaked, but much of it remains exactly the same as I first saw it ~6 months ago.

Gutdog

02-04-2007, 05:59 PM

I didn't bother to read the whole thread and this has probably already been said but if so I will repeat for emphasis on the point.

To Elikal - the game you want exists - WoW. It also has all new content with the new expansion. Perhaps with all your long winded analysis of Vanguard you may have come to the conclusion that Vanguard is not the game for you? Which begs the question of why are you still here?

Isobel

02-04-2007, 06:06 PM

Personally I was expecting more of a hub system. Like there would be this hub of activity, vendors, trainers, peeps gathering to sell and group, and there would be an outer ring around that with lots of dungeons and places to explore. Once you would go beyond the level range of this area I expected you’d have a difficult and dangerous area you’d have to cross to get to the next hub.

Well, here is an example. Today I logged in at ~10:30 in my lv 14 bard body. First thing I did was put up LFG. Until ~11 I messed around looking at various gear. I then went to an area I knew I could solo. It wasn’t until about 12:15 that I got a group call. Thus, in the time between 10:30 and 12:15, a period of 1.75 hours, I died a couple of times soloing, so got no experience gain, did aquire some coin, so I gained about 2 silver, but really that was it. I saw no new lands, killed no new creatures, explored no new areas.

I don’t know. I just don’t see the gain for the “core gamer” as really there when Sigil claims the game is designed around 1-2 hour play sessions. It seems unless you find a group almost immediately you are on your own in terms of exploring and moving around. With as spread out as things are and the fact you have to return to a bind that often isn’t close to your starting point… I don’t know. I just don’t see it as a game a real core gamer would be attracted to.
True enough, the game newness may be part of it.
In an example I’ve used before – when I was young my family would go visit grandparents once or twice a year. The first half of this trip was an ~8 hour drive down to Disneyland. To me, Vanguard is focusing on that 8 hours of desert drive, compared to something like WoW, which focuses on just the time you spend at Disneyland.
Like, if you start on Qalia, you are just about going to be staring at desert, snakes, buzzards, lizardmen… at least until 15th level. That’s an awful lot of looking at the same critters and land.
If you enjoy ‘forced competitive consumerism’ sure, me I see it as indirect PvP and if it is going to be such it should be such. (Like Warhammer’s design.)
No, the game has been post release for less than a week. The game has effectively been as it is now since around August in some areas, and since November in others. Yes, things have been patched and tweaked, but much of it remains exactly the same as I first saw it ~6 months ago.

What we as players were expecting doesn't really signify. Whether or not we can work with what we have been given does. I was exect some sort of central hub such as ACs but again, i think the age of the game has something to do with that. Give it six months and you won't be able to move on the side of the Kahl bank which has the broker.

The problem with your example, again, was your actions. If a player puts an LFG tag and then goes off and does something else rather than actively looking for a group in chat, through the (admittedly limited) group tool and in tells to duos and trois they see then the fact that it takes an hour to get a group isn't the fault of the game. If a player is bored with the area they are looking at wouldn't it be logical that they find another area to look at?
I like the drive as well as the park, although i admit that the annoying squalling brats in the park tend to make me wish i had super destructive powers. I'm the kind of person who finds the most entertaining things on the road along the way rather than the pre-packaged glitz of the park itself.
Again, this is a question of style. I enjoy the fact that the different regions have a land "style" as it were. regions should share a feel. It makes sense to me.
I love the race to a mob and the competetiveness and community that can come from a game with no instances. I think instances are the single worst thing for community.
You are correct. The game has been in post release for less than a week. The fact is that things have chaged a great deal from when i started beta. Many things are the same, yes, but many things have also changed. The issue is, whether the things that stayed should have stayed. I for one, am happy that they did.

vylo

02-04-2007, 06:20 PM

1. There should be a penatly. If I had my way you would lose 20% of a level each time you die and there would be level loss. The great thing about EQ was the n00bs were in their place....the low levels. There was actual respect for those who reached 50 + because of the time, skill, and effort invested. You didn't just pay a few silver and walk within 500 feet of your corpse and respawn fully geared. You walked butt naked to a dragon with a 2 mile see-invis aggro radius if you screwed up. Harsh? Yes. But damn, you actually felt some accomplisment. No "ok so we wiped 10 times on spider boss, lets repair and try again". That's BS, if you do that badly a blizzard representative should come to your home personally and bust your keyboard over your face.

2. That's because if you are walking through the woods and a hungry tiger jumps you, he isn't going to give up after 100 feet of chasing you. Chances are he will chase you until one of the following happens:

A) he kills you

B) one of you tires out, if it is you, see A

C) you stop and kill him

D) He gets bored of chasing you.

E) something more appealing catches his eye (this is why halflings exist)

D isn't going to happen for a while. Hungry animals tend to be quite vehement about catching their meals. Any animal that doesn't chase you for a minimum of a quarter of a mile isn't acting realistic at all.

As for humanoid NPCs, while not as single minded in their endeavors, aren't going to simply be satisfied with letting you walk away because you managed to get half a football field from their stronghold. Hell in some RPG stories they would hire people to hunt you to the ends of the earth, kill you, kill everyone you loved, and kill everyone they loved. The only exception to this would be "gatekeepers" who would be flat out "dee dee dee" if they abandon their post to chase some necromancer into oblivion.

Oh and you can run faster then mobs. It is called sprint, SoW, wolf form, horses, bard song.

3. See number 1. You obviously die too much, I got several pieces of gear with a group on a 2 hour quest hunt in a dungeon. It was because we were competent. We never wiped, and only one person died. Of course if you blunder into the dungeon with the attitude that mistakes don't matter, you will make them and end up costing the group and yourself and visible amount of progress. Continue to do this and you get blacklisted from groups for being a poor player.

"but that would make me quit and the devs wouldn't want that!" WRONG. If you can't be bothered to play the game to a level where you don't make your group wish they could commite homicide over the internet, no one wants you playing their game.

In terms of overall difficulty WOW isnt much easier than VG. Fighting mobs or going into a dungeon is only a few inches easier, but they are those inches that matter. I really was unsure, since I had played WOW such a long time ago, if it really WAS that easy. It isnt. Trust me. It is only nuances easier. Nuances which matter. You need to know what you do just as in VG, but you dont die for every minor mistake. You have a chance to run and return another time. In VG, you cant. If you fall into a trap, you're dead. End of the story and make the long CR. And really, it is not the hardship of the CR which bothers me, its the time it steals, going back ALL the way to that huge dungeon your quest leads into. Added the big aggro radius, the far wandering mobs, the long way mobs follow, the slighly lowered XP, the lack of good and funny little loot... it adds. VG doesnt need a deep or big change to appeal a real lot of people. But those small differences may make or break it. So its a bad EQ2 deja vu. Zombie brains and spider legs and trash to sell for copper. Any decend loot and reward is only gained by long time lasting quests and long hardships. That is what makes VG still hardcore.

Allow me to speak in words any WoW player will understand:

"It's fine learn 2 play"

RedRider

02-04-2007, 06:45 PM

Hmm, I can find a ton of stuff to critique in Vanguard, but your points simply point out the heart of Vanguard. A game with a much slower pace, where you have to think.

As far as WoW's difficulty be close to Vanguard... not really, I raised my frist character to 60 in 6 weeks of relativly casual play (7.5 days played) and I know the crazies have done it in 4 days 20 hours. I expect Vanguard to take about 30 days played to get to 50 and will try and see as much of the world as I can on the way.

yewsef

02-04-2007, 07:36 PM

CurseUppl

02-04-2007, 07:43 PM

Man, some of you moaners should play EVE Online

www.eve-online.com

You think Vanguard is merciless? Play EVE and you'll come crying to the doorstep begging for the gankers to leave you alone.

Kiste

02-04-2007, 07:58 PM

I’m not necessarily disagreeing there. However grinding over and over and over on the same mobs in the same areas is not the only way to achieve this.

They could have very easily designed small dungeons around social hubs with several quest goals related to them. To me it seems they went for sheer landmass vs. interesting places / nooks / cranies to explore.

I think something a lot of people don't understand about WoW is Blizzards design philosophy. They didn't put "it should take 6 weeks to reach 60" in their design documents. They merely figured out that repetition ad nauseam isn't fun. They looked at how long they can keep people doing a certain piece of content before it gets dull. At that point, they decided to move the player into the next area. Content dictated the leveling curve.

They didn't design the game with a certain "hours to max level" target. Sigil did that with Vanguard, they already announced these numbers at a time when there barely was any content (it was 450 "combat hours" IIRC), at which point it dawned on me that they had it completely backwards.

Now, WoW might have been too quick to move players into new areas in some cases. At times I wished that whole zones would last longer than an afternoon. The pace of content progression in WoW was a bit too frantic. Still, the lesson to be learned from WoW is that you will bore players to death if your leveling curve is too steep for the amount of content you can offer them.

Also, your point about landmass vs. content density is very valid. Landmass in itself is useless. It's an entirely self-serving feat with no value in itself. If landmass had any value, Dark and Light would be a great game. The landmass must be proportional to the quantity of content. In VG right now we have far too low content density in many areas.

Could be the classes I and you have played. I played all the defe tanks, Bard, Rogue, Deciple, Cleric, all to at least 8th, and several to 12th, with a high of 15th. (Could be more, heh been like 6 months I’ve had access, so… heh) To me, since I’d place hotkeys similarly (ex: heal on 4, armor rend on 5, dot on 6, etc) it always seemed like I was using similar abilities in similar ways with little more than Simon Says reactions when I’d get an opening.
Visceral combat has the player reacting to the things that happen in the game world and not having the players react to some *plonk* sound and an icon lighting up in the UI.

As much as DDO sucked, at least they tried to give MMO combat a new spin. Now, let's see what Funcom can do with AoC and I can't wait to see what Garriot will do with Tabula Rasa. I'll prolly won't play it but I'm curious what he comes up with.

I hate the fact that I'm playing the UI rather the game. If I had to change one little detail to make things at least a wee tiny little better it would be modifying the counterspell mechanics. I should be able to trigger counterspell while it is available and not cancel it out by casting another spell. Yes, since as a BMG I basically cast all the time I often don't react quickly enough to the counterspell *plonk*.

Jacosta and friends will prolly barge in now with something that amounts to "pay more attention, n00b" but that's my point exactly. I don't want to play attention to the UI. I want to interact with the game world. Playing the UI is nothing but bad game design.

I wouldn’t say that VG is targeting “vets” any more than WoW is.
Seriously. If it wasn't for terror-respawns and overpowered russian roulette mob abilities, the game would be noobsauce. Other than that, basic combat is every bit as simplicistic, easy and retarded as in WoW. I'm not sure why people are so delusional not to see the similarities. Maybe because they like to thumb their own chests and look down on WoW players who supposedly aren't as "leet".

I would, however, agree that they are targeting a more “old school” approach with the long travel times, non-instanced design and slower leveling speed.

In some ways that’s a good decision, but in some ways I’d say it is a bad one.
It's a matter of implementation. I do believe that you can have a game with these traits if you actually try to innovate other areas of the game to make these things work. I think some people here (and most definately Brad McQuaid) are too hung up on how MMORPGs are "supposed" to work, this whole notion that game mechanics that are inherently unfun can somehow result in something that people enjoy to play doesn't appear to be particularly well substantiated.

Some people seem to be unable to grasp the fact that the industry (and the customers for a large part) have moved forward. Vanguard doesn't have the privilege of being the first and only of its kind like EQ was back in 1999/2000. We kept up with a lot of crap back then, simply because everything was new and exciting.

The gaming market has matured but the practiced game design tenets haven't for much of the old guard. I mean, Brad doesn't even have the excuse of age, he's a far cry from having Richard Garriott's experience and yet Sigil still cling to outdated ideas as if they're gospel.

And I guess we can see clearly now where this clinging to outdated ideas has lead to. If the rumors I keep hearing are true (4-digit pre-order numbers, 5 digit sales total) then we're looking at a total failure. Note the absence of the usual "hey, we sold X-hundred thousand of copies" press release.

Personally I was expecting more of a hub system.
Everyone with half a brain was expecting a hub system. Because it's the only way you can have a viable game that is group-centric. I'm still dumbfounded that apprently no one at Sigil put any thought into engineering the social experience. I don't know if they figured that it might be good enough to throw people into a huge world with no proper hubs because it worked in EQ or something and that hubs might form themselves. I think it's not too early to say that the plan has failed.

Yeah, it is like ‘real life’ where things are all spaced out and you have all this travel time, but I won’t agree that’s a good design.
It's actually counter-productive.

For example, the other night I was soloing near Evendusk Fortress. I had my LFG flag up, ocasionally dropped a line in the regional channel and watched for groups looking for more. On two occasions I was refused by groups because the travel time from Evendusk Fortress to the Chrysol Mines (or whatever they are called) are like 30 minutes and people didn't want to wait around for that long. Now, when I moved to that that chunk, getting into groups for ToD wasn't really an option for the same reason. So I figured that if I wanted to group I should prolly sit around in Khal, which is pretty much in the center, and twiddle my thumbs.

The travel times murder group gameplay. It's maybe the single biggest screw up in the basic design of Vanguard. It's shizophrenic. It's like the devs came up with a group-centric game and a game that's completely anti-grouping at the same time. You can't be social and anti-social at the same time.

I don’t know. I just don’t see the gain for the “core gamer” as really there when Sigil claims the game is designed around 1-2 hour play sessions. It seems unless you find a group almost immediately you are on your own in terms of exploring and moving around. With as spread out as things are and the fact you have to return to a bind that often isn’t close to your starting point… I don’t know. I just don’t see it as a game a real core gamer would be attracted to.
The game has missed its target demographic. One thing you can't afford to do when you have 2-4 hours a night is to spend half of it looking for group and riding through that desolate wasteland that is Telon.

Maybe people would complain less about the leveling curve if they didn't have to spend so much time riding through pointless, repetitive landscape while getting repeatedly knowed off their horses by rabbits and insects 10 levels lower than them.

A few months ago I read an interview with Richard Garriot who said something to the extend that one of his design goals with Tabula Rasa is that people can quickly join up with friends, get into the action *instantly* and have fun.

At first I thought the guy was on dope. What about all the conventional wisdom? You know, immersion and stuff?

It took Vanguard to show me that too much of that can be a burden and now I understand why Richard is considered a genius game designer while Brad, well, is the guy who slapped a graphical front-end on a DIKU-rip-off and has now proven with Vanguard that he's not in the same league as Garriot.

I don’t know. As someone who loves exploring and adventuring I still have to say I’d much prefer the hub system I mention above. Everything here seems long, drawn out and boring.

In an example I’ve used before – when I was young my family would go visit grandparents once or twice a year. The first half of this trip was an ~8 hour drive down to Disneyland. To me, Vanguard is focusing on that 8 hours of desert drive, compared to something like WoW, which focuses on just the time you spend at Disneyland.

Let me share a little anecdote from the beta forums with you. Back before they opened Qalia I started a thread that suggested to cut the land mass of Thestra by 30%, forget about Qalia and Kojan and put all the content in the remaining landmass (about 1/3 of the total landmass VG has now).

My arguments were that:

1. The huge world size spreads out players too much, which makes grouping uneccessarily difficult. That strikes me as kinda dumb in a group-centric game.

2. The huge world size prevents the devs from properly directing the player stream to social hubs and chokepoints. There are none. Again to the detriment of a social grouping experience.

3. The travel times aren't meaningful, they add nothing but tedium and boredom. Especially since the world looks basically the same everywhere except for trees and ground color (everything looks like it's covered with acne scars due to indiscriminate normal mapping). Exploration is a worthless feature if all there is the discover is legions of the same mobs. Why would I like to look at yet another field of evenly distributed oversized fruit flies?

4. The lack of content density resulting from the world size makes the world appear lifeless and boring

5. The distances, the lack of social hubs and the dilution of the player base make the game basically unplayable for people who start out a few months after release. It will be impossible to group for newbies once the majority of the players have moved out of the sub-30 zones. Sigil has designed a game that doesn't even have a snowball chance in hell to attract new subscribers later on.

Not surpisingly, I got basically laughed off the forums by the usual suspects who replied with feverish fantasies of a game that is based on a "nomad lifestyle" and other ridiculous ad hoc explanations they made up and claimed to be "intended design". All I saw was a game where someone went batshiit with a virtual landscape creation tool and a dev team struggling to fill that empty void with content to the best of their abilities.

I didn't see intent and purpose, I saw failed design on a very basic level and I felt sorry for the dev team who weren't responsible for these stupid decisions but had to somehow make them work. Poor bastards.

VGMafia

02-04-2007, 08:11 PM

Man, some of you moaners should play EVE Online

www.eve-online.com

You think Vanguard is merciless? Play EVE and you'll come crying to the doorstep begging for the gankers to leave you alone.

I played EVE for almost two years before quitting due to lack of time. Pointless to compare it to any fantasy MMO, so I don't know why you're raising it here.

CurseUppl

02-04-2007, 08:27 PM

I played EVE for almost two years before quitting due to lack of time. Pointless to compare it to any fantasy MMO, so I don't know why you're raising it here.

Ganking = all MMO's. There's your comparison.

EVE catered to the group that didn't want a watered down game.

Blizzard on the other hand, made a game that would only put $$$ in their pockets as Kiste mentioned in his *long* post. That's not the game I want to play, because the game is created just to keep my attention for long enough for them to earn some money.

And I think that Sigil and Vanguard are striving for somewhere in between the two. A game that brings them money without providing brainless entertainment.

VGMafia

02-04-2007, 08:29 PM

I think something a lot of people don't understand about WoW is Blizzards design philosophy. They didn't put "it should take 6 weeks to reach 60" in their design documents. They merely figured out that repetition ad nauseam isn't fun. They looked at how long they can keep people doing a certain piece of content before it gets dull. At that point, they decided to move the player into the next area. Content dictated the leveling curve.

Blizzard designs its games around "what is fun for the most people". They look at the core game, drill out much (not all) of the monotony, simplify the UI so that the UI doesn't become a mini-game of its own, and focus on the core elements of what most (again, not all) people enjoy about a certain kind of game. They did that with Warcraft, and they did it again with WoW. They don't approach the game with an a priori idea of how it should be done other than whatever is done should be done because it appeals to the most people possible. People say that is cynical, but I don't think it is. I think it's very hard for game junkies and computer geeks to design games that appeal to a large number of non-junkies and non-geeks -- it's very hard to step back from ones leetness and design an interface that your grandma could learn in an hour or two. Most game designers don't bother, but Blizzard is relentlessly talented in this regard.

I hate the fact that I'm playing the UI rather the game. ... Playing the UI is nothing but bad game design.

Agree 100%! Again, see my point above. The UI should be as easy to use and as seamless as possible so that it feels natural quickly. In my opinion, the UI should not be a mini-game of its own, or require outstanding typing skills to use well.

I think some people here (and most definately Brad McQuaid) are too hung up on how MMORPGs are "supposed" to work, this whole notion that game mechanics that are inherently unfun can somehow result in something that people enjoy to play doesn't appear to be particularly well substantiated.

I agree, which is why I have said elsewhere that in some ways the game seems ideologically designed. By that I mean, there is an ideology about "this is the way we think these games should be, regardless of what most people like to play" that clearly represents an a priori ideology about game design.

Some people seem to be unable to grasp the fact that the industry (and the customers for a large part) have moved forward. Vanguard doesn't have the privilege of being the first and only of its kind like EQ was back in 1999/2000. We kept up with a lot of crap back then, simply because everything was new and exciting.

Bingo!

The gaming market has matured but the practiced game design tenets haven't for much of the old guard. I mean, Brad doesn't even have the excuse of age, he's a far cry from having Richard Garriott's experience and yet Sigil still cling to outdated ideas as if they're gospel.

Again, it sounds and feels like ideology to me. In a sense, Vanguard is a game about nostalgia, don't you agree? Ideological nostalgia.

rabb1t

02-04-2007, 08:31 PM

I can't wait to see what Garriot will do with Tabula Rasa.

It should be interesting. I don’t think the current form (it’s been redesigned like 3x) focuses on anything truly new, but they are mixing in a few new elements. Like I know if you move your aim chance gets lowered, but it is still based off of your character skill/stats. So, I don’t think in terms of gameplay we’ll seen anything terribly new there.

TR may offer some more new things with the battlegrounds though, as those are supposed to be changed and altered depending on who is winning the war in that section. (Provided it actually ever releases, and does so before Warhammer. Once Warhammer is out it should greatly advance/redefine battlezones and fronts.)

Everyone with half a brain was expecting a hub system. Because it's the only way you can have a viable game that is group-centric. I'm still dumbfounded that apprently no one at Sigil put any thought into engineering the social experience.

I’m surprised and not surprised. There is a lot of psychology and sociology behind the way players play (even more so in single player games) and any game should have someone on staff who can understand the various perspectives. (Or at least have a beta that lets in public peeps where people like me will point to said aspects; which they did, and I did post about, but I don't know if anyone heard me or if it was done at a point 'soon enough' to allow things to be redesigned.)

It is entirely possible they didn’t have someone on-staff and just didn’t think about these aspects.

I shudder to think that they didn’t think about them at all. (Though it would not at all surprise me to learn some day that one of the reasons Microsoft dropped them was due to such lack of forethought in design such as this.)

I don't know if they figured that it might be good enough to throw people into a huge world with no proper hubs because it worked in EQ or something and that hubs might form themselves. I think it's not too early to say that the plan has failed.

Well, that’s the big point with my referencing it here (as well as my original beta post about it back in late Aug or September.) The social hubs appeared in EQ because the zone was either small enough or dangerous enough that people gathered in certain areas near obvious locations such as zone ins or safe spots. I’m sure everyone who has played the original EQ knows about the docks in Ro. That's the best example I can think of for a 'natural' zone created social hub.

Due to the vastness of VG there just are no identifiable zone ins or safe spots. The whole thing can often qualify as either, and as such, as we have both pointed out, there are no natural hub centers.

The travel times murder group gameplay. It's maybe the single biggest screw up in the basic design of Vanguard. It's shizophrenic. It's like the devs came up with a group-centric game and a game that's completely anti-grouping at the same time. You can't be social and anti-social at the same time.

Yeah, that’s why I assumed social hubs would be in. It just makes the most sense when making a group based game.

A few months ago I read an interview with Richard Garriot who said something to the extend that one of his design goals with Tabula Rasa is that people can quickly join up with friends, get into the action *instantly* and have fun. … At first I thought the guy was on dope. What about all the conventional wisdom? You know, immersion and stuff?

The thing with TR is, by my understanding, there will be social areas, where you train, level up, buy/sell goods, etc, but then when you want to get into a mission area travel will be quick and painless.

I believe that immersion and lore will be scattered throughout the game. As example, the ‘runic’ you see here and there actually is a real language. (Well, a real made up one.) You can decipher the language if you have seen enough of it, and it actually gives you bits of information and lore.

I suppose someone could say that’s like VG’s diplomacy, in that you need to go ‘out of your way’ to make time for it, but it will be there. The travel time and group finding time won’t impact the amount that is available to players during their missions.

Back before they openen Qalia I started a thread that suggested to cut the land mass of Thestra by 30%, forget about Qalia and Kojan and put all the content in the remaining landmass (about 1/3 of the total landmass VG has now).

Here is the thing I don’t get – with racially restricted classes why didn’t they go with a FFXi type of design? Have each ‘home continent’ only go up to say, level 15, and then have the remaining content for levels 16-whatever on a neutral continent that everyone has access too.

It seems pretty silly to me to make a game that restricts the class mixing and then not encourage people to travel around.

VGMafia

02-04-2007, 08:33 PM

Ganking = all MMO's. There's your comparison.

EVE catered to the group that didn't want a watered down game.

No, EVE was just a no-holds-barred PvP sandbox MMO. I loved it! But it doesn't have anything to do with VG or WoW. In VG PvP is an afterthought, in EVE it's basically the entire game. EVE is about empire building, politics, player-driven content. The only fantasy MMO that is anything like that is Lineage ][ and that is pretty far off it. I think comparing VG and EVE is inapposite really.

CurseUppl

02-04-2007, 08:45 PM

No, EVE was just a no-holds-barred PvP sandbox MMO. I loved it! But it doesn't have anything to do with VG or WoW. In VG PvP is an afterthought, in EVE it's basically the entire game. EVE is about empire building, politics, player-driven content. The only fantasy MMO that is anything like that is Lineage ][ and that is pretty far off it. I think comparing VG and EVE is inapposite really.

That's why I loved it too! I am saying that EVE was an indepth game. And ganking was simply part of it. Countless people (inlcuding me) cried about losing their ships. It happened. And that people who think Vanguard has bad penalties, well, play EVE and you'll see bad penalties.

As an EVE gamer, I get tired of people thinking Vanguard and WoW has harsh penalties. And you'll most likely agree with me.

In fact, this might be the wrong thread I posted in :rolleyes: Should've gone in that other one that moans about the death penalty.

VGMafia

02-04-2007, 08:49 PM

That's why I loved it too! I am saying that EVE was an indepth game. And ganking was simply part of it. Countless people (inlcuding me) cried about losing their ships. It happened. And that people who think Vanguard has bad penalties, well, play EVE and you'll see bad penalties.

Yeah but the really bad penalties come from PvP. I see that as being a different animal. I loved EVE's hardcore death penalty for PvP because it made PvP meaningful. But to be honest if you knew what you were doing it was almost impossible to die in what EVE provided as PvE. So the death penalty wasn't about making the game "harder" as it is in a PvE context, it was about making the PvP more meaningful and more heart-pounding. In VG the penalty is not stiff, really. You just need to go back to your tombstone and almost all of your XP is back and all of your stuff -- it's just a time-sink.

As an EVE gamer, I get tired of people thinking Vanguard and WoW has harsh penalties. And you'll most likely agree with me.

Agree, although I think the issue is different between PvP and PvE esp when you make PvE more challenging as VG has (EVE has no instarespawns and so forth ... PvE is almost all completely and totally maneageable).

Halbe

02-04-2007, 08:53 PM

Kiste -

I had a whole post typed, but lost it when I lost focus watching the Super Bowl :(

In any case, just a short synapsis -

1.) WoW's game design, from levels 1-60, are like you said, content driven. However, wouldn't this also signify a LACK of content on their part with such quick times to 60?

Also, WoW's endgame is of the basic philosophy, "Go grind rep/instances/ect while we add." It's the same philosophy as VG. They just hide it behind the first 60 levels, which is where you spend the least amount of time.

2.) Combat in a level/skills based MMO is always going to be the same. No matter how much players hope/pray for the next best thing, it will always be the similar.

WoW's interface and combat compared to VG's, in concept, is relativly similar. Except in WoW, although I don't have specified times for specific abilities to gain additional effect, I still mash buttons.

This is something that, in my opinion, will never change.

VG took strides with its' weakness system, and needs to build off this. Chains are great, but a system like Weaknesses, relying on each other is the next evolution of combat. UI's, and unfortunatly button mashing, will always be a staple of these games.

3.) I agree about hubs, as I said earlier.

It isn't about the size of the landmass, but rather the time of travel. It's just too long right now.

Actually, in vanguards case, they need a large landmass. Without instances, like WoW, they can't "magically" create a new zone. It is better for VG to have too much land then too little, but they need to make the existing content more accessible to the masses.

I'd type more, but the Colts are knocking on the doorstep. Gotta watch...

Isobel

02-04-2007, 09:07 PM

I

Not surpisingly, I got basically laughed off the forums by the usual suspects who replied with feverish fantasies of a game that is based on a "nomad lifestyle" and other ridiculous ad hoc explanations they made up and claimed to be "intended design". All I saw was a game where someone went batshiit with a virtual landscape creation tool and a dev team struggling to fill that empty void with content to the best of their abilities.

I didn't see intent and purpose, I saw failed design on a very basic level and I felt sorry for the dev team who weren't responsible for these stupid decisions but had to somehow make them work. Poor bastards.

Let's talk about ad hoc arguments.

An ad hoc hypothesis is one created to explain away facts that seem to refute one’s theory. It also generally involves creating opinions and calling them facts. Such as...

"You have to play the UI. not the game."
No, you may play the UI and not the game. I don't. Many other people enjoy the game and don't "have to play the UI".

"The lesson to be learned from WoW is that you will bore players to death if your leveling curve is too steep for the amount of content you can offer them."
Certain players, some players, will get bored if make a very steep leveling curve. Many players, those that Vanguard was designed to appeal to will take it for the challenge it was meant to be and step up.

"Seriously. If it wasn't for terror-respawns and overpowered russian roulette mob abilities."
Interesting, these things can be overcome with some care and some skill. So, i translate this to..'With some care and some skill this game would be noobsauce.' Well yes, but that's true of any game, isn't it?

"Everyone with half a brain was expecting a hub system."
We should probably talk about post hoc ergo propter hoc later too. The city system works fine. People do group and find friends, quite happily within it. A hub system is not, by aby means "they only way you can have a viable game that is group centric".

"The game has missed its target demographic. One thing you can't afford to do when you have 2-4 hours a night is to spend half of it looking for group and riding through that desolate wasteland that is Telon."
Well, at least some of the people whom i've seen getting groups and happily killing across Telon must be a part of the target demographic don't you think?

If you started out believing the central design of the game is flawed and that the decisions Sigil made were stupid then of course you aren't happy with the game.

Eldahir

02-05-2007, 12:03 AM

2. Mobs and their spammable "I Win" buttons. I'm talking solo mobs, btw. There are mobs that cast long-duration Silence, which means death for casters. Nothing you can do about it. There are mobs that spam huge damage debuffs that last for frigging 40 seconds so you run out of mana before you can kill them. Nothing one can do about it. There are mobs that spam long durations stuns over and over again. Nothing you can do about it. There are mobs with retardedly overpowered DoTs. There are mobs that chain heal themselves at a level players have no way to stop them.

I'm not suggesting that mobs should be straight melee but, for crying out loud, success against solo mobs should not depend on how often they land their overpowered abilities. Russian Roulette is not good game design. Something being challenging implies a way to overcome that challenge.

So when I'm fighting a mob with 5s stuns it means I, as a BMG, have to keep my HP up and be careful so the stun doesn't hit me when I'm low on health. I have to adjust my tactics. That's cool. What's not cool is that the next mob of that kind, that shouldn't even pose a challenge, hits me with the stun 4 times and kills me. Running away is also no option because, guess what, you'll get stunned and killed.

Where in that scenario was the mistake that warrants death? There was no mistake, there was merely bad luck. Again, VG decided to kill me off for no good reason and there was nothing I could have done about it. I didn't go into combat unprepared, I didn't do a risky pull, I didn't mess up with my spells, I didn't fight a mob that was supposedly too hard (dark blue and I killed dozens before).

Strongly disagree with you there. The unique dangerous skills some specific mobs might have is the exact thing that makes those encounters interesting and a change from the usual boring grind. Yesterday I was fighting some cyclops that had an attack that would slowly drown you (however it didn't last long and think it would take a lot of unluck to die from it). Seriously liked that, but the drowning effect could've been even worse to make it interesting. I recall playing one mud with similar mobs down in one cave, though their drowning kill was a one shot thing and they looted you after that so.. :)

Vanguard needs way more mobs with dangerous unique abilities! And preferably abilities that KILL you without question, unless it is cured. That would also encourage grouping. Grouping, which this game is all about. It's not about running around killing non challenging mobs thinking "lolz i pwn" like you might want.

Or hell, they don't even need to be cured. For example, make some rare mob that slowly kills a player if the mob even touches him (aka, hits damaging hit points). There would be no cure but it sure would bring an interesting fight using wards, slows and other debuffs and dmg prevention things. And of course, you'd need a group.

Kiste

02-05-2007, 12:49 AM

Strongly disagree with you there. The unique dangerous skills some specific mobs might have is the exact thing that makes those encounters interesting and a change from the usual boring grind. Yesterday I was fighting some cyclops that had an attack that would slowly drown you (however it didn't last long and think it would take a lot of unluck to die from it). Seriously liked that, but the drowning effect could've been even worse to make it interesting. I recall playing one mud with similar mobs down in one cave, though their drowning kill was a one shot thing and they looted you after that so.. :)

Vanguard needs way more mobs with dangerous unique abilities! And preferably abilities that KILL you without question, unless it is cured. That would also encourage grouping. Grouping, which this game is all about. It's not about running around killing non challenging mobs thinking "lolz i pwn" like you might want.

Or hell, they don't even need to be cured. For example, make some rare mob that slowly kills a player if the mob even touches him (aka, hits damaging hit points). There would be no cure but it sure would bring an interesting fight using wards, slows and other debuffs and dmg prevention things. And of course, you'd need a group.
You know, I don't even disagree here. I like unique, interesting mob abilities. You entirely missed my point.

First of all, I'm talking about solo mobs here, you're talking about group tactics. Can we agree that there is solo-content in Vanguard? All these 2-dot mobs? Yes. Ok. So what's the point encouraging grouping for content that's not meant for groups? Seriously, take a group to kill 2 dot mobs? Is it that what you want? That's like Isobel suggesting that people deserve to die for not travelling in a group.

I wouldn't mind at all if there were mobs that would require groups to use their abilities to their full extend.

Also, what you're suggesting implies that there are actually ways to counter these abilities or to deal with their effects. I don't see how this is viable in solo content when you can't rely on a large number of abilities shared between several classes in a group.

What would be a Level 3 Gnome caster's counter against these mobs that silence for 15s? There is none. What's a BMG's or tank's counter against these mobs that debuff your damage by half? What's a caster's or healer's counter against mobs that stun you over and over again for several seconds?

This stuff belongs on group mobs. In groups you have the neccessary redundancy and abilities to deal with it.

Abelian75

02-05-2007, 12:53 AM

Quite a flame catcher, don't you think?

What, the thread title, or your name?

Seriously, dude, I'm pretty darn outspoken against mindless WoW-hatred, but it really seems like you're just trolling around here.

Isobel

02-05-2007, 01:26 AM

That's like Isobel suggesting that people deserve to die for not travelling in a group.

Also, what you're suggesting implies that there are actually ways to counter these abilities or to deal with their effects. I don't see how this is viable in solo content when you can't rely on a large number of abilities shared between several classes in a group.

What would be a Level 3 Gnome caster's counter against these mobs that silence for 15s? There is none. What's a BMG's or tank's counter against these mobs that debuff your damage by half? What's a caster's or healer's counter against mobs that stun you over and over again for several seconds?

This stuff belongs on group mobs. In groups you have the neccessary redundancy and abilities to deal with it.

Which would be ridiculous if that had actually happened, but since it didn't we're all good. What i did suggest is that having a group, or an exit strategy or paying attention to your surroundings is a good way to keep from dying.

There are ways to counter these abilities and deal with their effects. I've outlined these options previously.

A level three gnome caster should:

A. Avoid those mobs altogether if possible.
B. Scroll his camera as far out as he can and put his clipplane as far up as he can.
C. Run.
D. Pull very carefully to a place that he has scouted a bit to ensure safety.

From my own, personal experience, a Mordebi Sorcerer can solo their way from the moment they are made down to Kahl, doing all the quests. It's relativly slow and one has to be careful, but it can be done.

Kiste

02-05-2007, 01:57 AM

A level three gnome caster should:

A. Avoid those mobs altogether if possible.
B. Scroll his camera as far out as he can and put his clipplane as far up as he can.
C. Run.
D. Pull very carefully to a place that he has scouted a bit to ensure safety.

Now, let's see.

A. Sure, if the level three gnome caster doesn't wish to progress through the newbie quest line.

B. Again, there is no way to change the draw distance of mobs. I told you that. Besides, what does this have to do with the fact that these mobs have an overpowered ability?

C. With the kind of DPS mobs churn out that's doomed to fail as much as it succeeds.

D. What does this have to do with some mobs having uncounterable "I Win" buttons that make luck and not planing or skill the deciding factor? Hey, why not give every mob just Cazik's death touch?

Isobel

02-05-2007, 02:21 AM

Now, let's see.

A. Sure, if the level three gnome caster doesn't wish to progress through the newbie quest line.

B. Again, there is no way to change the draw distance of mobs. I told you that. Besides, what does this have to do with the fact that these mobs have an overpowered ability?

C. With the kind of DPS mobs churn out that's doomed to fail as much as it succeeds.

D. What does this have to do with some mobs having uncounterable "I Win" buttons that make luck and not planing or skill the deciding factor? Hey, why not give every mob just Cazik's death touch?

A. He could wait, he could get a group, he could level on other mobs for a while and then come back or he could see option D of my previous post.

B. You did tell me that and you are technically correct. There is however a way to change where you are standing, how many people are standing with you, and what level you are when you get close to the mob. They don't have an overpowered ability. They have many abilites which take care and skill to learn to ovecome. (While looking into post hoc ergo propter hoc i would also suggest looking into, Half-truths, Hasty generalization, Misleading vividness, and Package-deal fallacy or False dilemma.)

C. Untrue, it can be done, as i have said. It takes attention. It takes care. It takes skill. It can definetly be done. The ratio at which it fails or succeeds is based more on player skill than anything else.

D. Nothing since the "I WIn" button doesn't exist. (See also; Ignoratio elenchi.)It may be impossible for you to kill the mobs in question. Killing them is not impossible. With care, skill and planning, depending on exactly what class the hypothetical gnome is, the mob will be dead before it gets to him.

Xofi

02-05-2007, 04:19 PM

I haven't found much difference between vanguard and wow as far as killing monsters. You pull, hit a few buttons and repeat. If you are dying too much kill lower things or get a group.

I would agree that dying due to crashes, bugs, etc. is annoying but doesn't mean that vanguard is a hard game. It just means its not a finished game.

Bregalad

02-06-2007, 04:20 PM

1. VG devs call it a 3rd gen game cause in its making they observed and learned from what they call 2nd gen - namely, WoW. Folks at Sigil studied WoW in depth, and made decision on how to build their world so it targets a different audience. The learning did take place - but not in order to produce a clone, but rather produce a counterpoint.

2. The game has been out a week. People are still learning the world, their abilities, the way to deal. Now, you know who gets into most accidents on the road? The 'experts'. Those who think they are such hot drivers that their skills can get them out of about every situation. Ask a guy who just rear-ended another car, and he'll tell you that the guy in front broke way too hard, that it happened too all of a sudden to react to. Scary thing? It does not even occur to him his distance was about five times less than recommended at that speed. He was totally sure that his distance was within 'his skill scope'. Same thing with MMOs - people who are so 'jaded' by previous MMOs that they are not even aware they are eschewing some basic safety techniques they employed long time ago when they were noobs. It was easy to do with WoW cause there was a game that really did not add anything new - just pulled togeather a good-looking concoction of familiar stuff and made it more accessible and fool-proof. In VG, we are all noobs, no matter how many MMO years we got under our belts. Style yourself a vet, and VG will kill you. Repeatedly. It is kinda funny, you know. A lot of people reminisce fondly of early EQ1 times, when they were overwhelmed, scared, clueless - but when time comes to again become a newb and having to learn basic survival skills after having been an 'expert' for years, a whole lot of people tend to resent this.

3. Now, the game is just out. There are bugs to fix, there are issues to tune. Who knows, maybe Brad was wrong, maybe his 'core' MMO playerbase is actually a bunch of old dogs not willing to learn new tricks. If so, sad times are ahead if upcoming MMOs, in order to succeed, will tend to appeal to our previous 'expertise' by being even more accessible than WoW is. Toontown, anyone?

4. About the 'Simon says' thing. In EQ1, up until level 16 or so, there really was not a lot of variance on tactics. And it really was not until late 20s that classes acquired anough different abilities to have a real choice. And game is planned out well ahead - level 50 is far from pinnacle of your projected class abilities, more like midway. So, if at level 14 you have that single button light up for you to mash, that may seem a bit blah. But what if around level 35, you might have 4-5 buttons light up, presenting so you have to choose between your own finisher, a sympathetic, a counter, a rescue, or figuring out it's time to start casting evac? Sigil did promise that combat will get a great deal more complex towards mid-high levels.
Again that 'expert complex'. Get to level 10-14 in a week and people think they figured out everything there is to know about a game that took a team of pros five years to design.