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Goblin Squad Member

If all abilities are earned, all abilities should be available at anytime, with one another, if they are passive.


Kryzbyn wrote:
If all abilities are earned, all abilities should be available at anytime, with one another, if they are passive.

I 100% agree with you, but then there becomes a serious power gap between a 20/20/20/20 and a 20 because the character level 80 guy has passive defenses from all 80 levels. I'm not sure why, but evidently the level 80 and the level 20 are supposed to be the same power level.


Kryzbyn wrote:
If all abilities are earned, all abilities should be available at anytime, with one another, if they are passive.

Not necessarily:

Ranger bonus - +10% stealth chance when in the wilderness.
Rogue bonus - +10% stealth bonus in civilized areas.

A player can have both of these. They will never be available at the same time.

Similarly: Fighter - +10% hit chance with swords
Monk - +10% damage with fists.
Barbarian - Super Attack with Axe.
-Never active at the same time.

leveling up in multiple classes with give you breadth of abilities. It will not necessarily give you more to use at any one time, or more power in 1.

Similarly, depending on how large the bonuses are or what the prerequisites are, they may not scale in such a way that the bonus outweighs the players skill and gear selections.

Goblin Squad Member

I don't think they're supposed to be "the same power level". I think it's just not supposed to be a cakewalk for the 20/20/20/20 to take out the 20. But then again, it's probably not going to be a cakewalk for a 20 to take out 2 10's, so this seems ok to me.


Caineach wrote:
Kryzbyn wrote:
If all abilities are earned, all abilities should be available at anytime, with one another, if they are passive.

Not necessarily:

Ranger bonus - +10% stealth chance when in the wilderness.
Rogue bonus - +10% stealth bonus in civilized areas.

A player can have both of these. They will never be available at the same time.

Similarly: Fighter - +10% hit chance with swords
Monk - +10% damage with fists.
Barbarian - Super Attack with Axe.
-Never active at the same time.

leveling up in multiple classes with give you breadth of abilities. It will not necessarily give you more to use at any one time, or more power in 1.

Similarly, depending on how large the bonuses are or what the prerequisites are, they may not scale in such a way that the bonus outweighs the players skill and gear selections.

The key word in Kryzbyn's post was *available*. The stuff you mentioned is indeed mutually exclusive, but what about HP, saves(or equivalent), SR and the like? There are no situations where those types of passive abilities would be rendered useless, so the 20/20/20/20 would have 80 levels of each?

Goblin Squad Member

GunnerX169 wrote:

I think people are kinda going off track here a little bit.

It wouldn't be a F20/Pld20. It would only be a F20 with the abilities of a Pld20 as well. That sounds kinda powerful but hold on.

Both get all martial weapons, up to heavy armor, and shields.
Fighters get tower shields as well, but this is moot as we will see later.
Fighters get more Dex bonus and reduced check penalties from their armor, which means they benefit from having more DEX. Th only class skill a PLD has with a check penalty is ride.
DEX is one of the few "dump" stats for a paladin.
Fighters get a bonus to will saves against fear, but paladins are immune to that anyway.
Fighters get some bonuses with lots of different weapons
Fighters get a whole bunch of bonus feats
Paladins get the ability to cast some spells, this is based on CHA, a major dump stat for fighters.
Spell casting also requires a free hand, I know everyone loves to forget it, but if it has somatic and/or material components you need a hand free to cast. This means no dual wielding or shields if you want to cast in combat.
Paladins can turn undead, fairly poorly, again CHA.
Paladins can heal, more CHA
Paladins get a bonus to saves (CHA)
Smite evil (CHA)
Paladins can detect evil!
Paladins are immune to all those nasty diseases that both they and fighters have loads of fort save to resist anyway!
Paladins can enhance their weapon or summon a spiffy mount, the fighter can pay for the majority of either of these things anyway, and in an MMO it's not a finite X/level resource.
Paladins get a bunch of auras that do some stuff.
PALADINS HAVE TO BE LAWFUL GOOD!
PALADINS HAVE TO FOLLOW A CODE OF CONDUCT!

In case you missed it, that pretty much means no going invisible and sneaking up on people to murder them in cold blood before they can react, at least it does in any game I've run =/

So in the end you end up with a paladin with a few extra points of attack and damage bonus and a handful of feats that may or may not be useable by the paladin...

It really depends upon how things stack and how specific abilities add together...and certainly certain class combo's have better synergy then others.

For example... what about the Monk/Wizard?

A character that has all the defensive capabilities of a Monk, can melee effectively bare handed (no spell casting problems there) AND has access to all the spells that a Wizard has? Are you telling me that wouldn't be ALOT more powerfull then just the Wizard or the Monk alone?

It also depends upon the nature of the abilities and how they are implimented. With ACTIVE abilities it MAY be true that you can only do one at a time... i.e. I can choose to do a Power Attack OR cast Magic Missle ...but that only describes a FRACTION of the abilities that PnP and most MMO rulesets give to characters. You've also got PASSIVES, TIMED self-buffs and timed de-buffs.

In those cases you've got to figure out how all those abilities interact with each other... and you've got to figure out those interactions so that the 10/10 & the 5/5/10 and the straight and the 20/20/20/20/20 aren't completely out of league with one another. That's no simple or easy feat of DESIGN or CODING.

For example, if they were using the PnP ruleset...which they know thier not.. but for the sake of arguement since the examples you used were from the PnP rulset (and forgive me...I'll reference DnD since I'm not as familiar with Pathfinder by memory) DOES Weapon Specialization (typicaly implimented as a Passive) stack with Favored Enemy (typicaly implimented as a Passive) stack with Smite Evil (Active)? Putting those together makes them rather powerfull...but then what do you do about the 10/10 multi-classer that is dependant upon the synergy between the 2 classes to make up for the fact that he can't go as Deep down any one class track (where typicaly the more powerfull abilities are located)? These are not simple design questions/decisions to resolve.

Even with spell-failure due to armor penalties or hands-free casting. Ok so maybe that works for ACTIVE spells (i.e. Fireball, Web, etc)...what about TIMED spells? So every time the character goes adventuring they strip off thier plate, put away thier weapons and give themselves 8 hours of every single buff in the game, including self-buff only spells, and make themselves FLYING, INVISIBLE and SILENT... and now put thier plate-mail back on and pick up thier bow/2-handed sword/etc. A character that can PREDICTABLY have access to every single buff in a ruleset (because they can cast them all themselves and don't need to worry about going to other people....whoops there goes that whole interdpendance thing) including self-buffs from multiple different classes is NOT more powerfull then someone that only has reliable access to the BUFFS from thier own class? Yet at the same time it's not always so straight forward to say something like "Oh this Buff shouldn't work when wearing armor...or this self-buff shouldn't stack with that self-buff" because what about the guy who is 10/10 or 5/15 and is relying on the fact that certain things stack together to make up for the idea that they don't have access to some of the more powerfull (by themselves) abilities that often come at higher levels down any one class track?

If they were using a PnP Rulset (which we know they are not) or even the rulesets from any one of the major MMO's and allowing the equivalent of 20/20/20/20 all at the same time....they'd absolutely be dead in the water. The only thing that MIGHT make the situation workable is that they are creating thier own MMO ruleset and not tied to using class mechanics from the PnP ruleset or the type of simplistic rulesets that many MMO's currently use. Even still, working out the details of implimentation strikes me as a VERY, VERY complicated and difficult design task.

Essentialy for every single ability they put in the game whether active, passive, buff, debuff, spell...etc, they need to figure out how it should interact with N abilities (where N is the total number of abilities) in light of making sure that the 10/10 the 20 and the 20/20/20/20 can all still function on the same playing field. Even if you have as few as 100 different abilities (which really is VERY few) that's 10,000 different decision matrix's...even trying to break things into broad categories....that strikes me as a VERY daunting design task.

Goblin Squad Member

cannabination wrote:

I've agreed on the damage output since my very first post... they should be about equal. It's the *defense stats* that I'm concerned about.

Someone who has been adventuring for 5 years should be tougher to kill than someone who's been adventuring for 2. Please argue *that* statement.

In a heartbeat I can argue that. Because we have to keep them on a sane playing field. Obviously if 4 years down the road, any new player who starts, knows at day 1, they always be 2 leagues short of the vets playing today, aren't going to bother starting. It has nothing to do with flavor as much as "It has to be done this way or the game is going to be unfun for anyone who didn't start in the 100,000 that were proposed as the goal for the first year. IMO the proper compromise is any defense/HP bonuses, or direct damage increases will have to be in their own tree, one that can be obtained by anyone regardless of class.

Oh and he's been adventuring for 6 years instead of 2, even without HP boosts, he will be tougher to kill, regardless of HP Defense etc... Why because he will have seen and known the counter for every combination you throw at him, he will know how to get away when etc... Someone playing a game without levels/skills etc... at all for years longer then someone who has, the person who has been playing for 5 years has an edge over the one for 2 years even when you start them with identical characters.

Quote:
If you spend 2 and a half years to get to level 20 and only have three decent attack skills, that alone is enough to make me worry.

As Nihi said, when I throw numbers out there, it is just for the purpose of having a tangible idea for comparison and drawing a scale to compare A and B. A can be 3, or 100, the concept still applies.

Quote:
Your character building creativity not-withstanding, this system *is* going to lead to some pretty sweet possible combos, and since they're talking about releasing prestige class capstones later we can even expect them to become "legitimized". But let's say I want to hit that arcane trickster capstone and start putting my points into the rogue tree exclusively, for a year

Odds are if/when prestiges are added after the fact, some sort of reskill/respec of some sort will be added to fit whatever it is supposed to be, or it will be something obvious. Since prestiges are most likely going to be bonus perks for the vets, maybe the prestiges will be added down the road and say arcane trickster has no capstone of it's own, but requires rogue and wizard capstones. Or maybe it just has no capstone, but requires minimum wizards 3rd level spells merit badge and rogues 5th badge or so.

Just because capstones and Prestige Archetypes were forcasted, that is not the same as forecasting prestige capstones.

As far as class mix-matching, to an extent I can see it reasonable, and to some degree either way it will have pro's and cons of a team vs a player, for instance the hold/sneak attack combination should work great, a wizard/rogue combo can do it, a wizard + rogue team can do it slightly faster (considering the universal cool-down etc...), and then the wizard can be targeting the next guy with hold while the rogue is killing the first. That is good balance, doing both roles yourself is fully possible you get options to do it at timings that a team would be weak to, versatility to cover yourself if the enemy freezes your buddy first, you can handle his role.

Now as far as the kiting example, I would have to say you can't necessarily stay out of his reach. The opponent could charge while you are casting/firing etc... you just used an ability and your universal cool down etc... Every tactic should have a counter attack, and most likely 1-2 classes that can beat it, Whether you get beaten in it by the person who has the class as his only 20, or one of his 5 20's, the results should be identical.

Goblin Squad Member

GrumpyMel wrote:

Even with spell-failure due to armor penalties or hands-free casting. Ok so maybe that works for ACTIVE spells (i.e. Fireball, Web, etc)...what about TIMED spells? So every time the character goes adventuring they strip off thier plate, put away thier weapons and give themselves 8 hours of every single buff in the game, including self-buff only spells, and make themselves FLYING, INVISIBLE and SILENT... and now put thier plate-mail back on and pick up thier bow/2-handed sword/etc. A character that can PREDICTABLY have access to every single buff in a ruleset (because they can cast them all themselves and don't need to worry about going to other people....whoops there goes that whole interdpendance thing) including self-buffs from multiple different classes is NOT more powerfull then someone that only has reliable access to the BUFFS from thier own class? Yet at the same time it's not always so straight forward to say something like "Oh this Buff shouldn't work when wearing armor...or this self-buff shouldn't stack with that self-buff" because what about the guy who is 10/10 or 5/15 and is relying on the fact that certain things stack together to make up for the idea that they don't have access to some of the more powerfull (by themselves) abilities that often come at higher levels down any one class track?

If they were using a PnP Rulset (which we know they are not) or even the rulesets from any one of the major MMO's and allowing the equivalent of 20/20/20/20 all at the same time....they'd absolutely be dead in the water. The only thing that MIGHT make the situation workable is that they are creating thier own MMO ruleset and not tied to using class mechanics from the PnP ruleset or the type of simplistic rulesets that many MMO's currently use. Even still, working out the details of implimentation strikes me as a VERY, VERY complicated and difficult design task.

Well as you said not every skill/ability is going to be mixed in identically to the P&P game. Self buffs, do not need to be in existance at all. You can still keep interdependence by simply requiring more out of a character at once. Sure I can slap on my fullplate armor, charge the dragon, attempt to alternate my attacks and self heals etc... but even if I can keep up and somehow pass every concentration check etc... I am still attacking 1/2 as often as I could have if someone were healing me.

I can cast hold person and blitz the enemy to Coup de Grace him, but when that guy jumps up behind me to gank me, I may or may not be able to stop him, and may be wasting my chances to CDG my first target while trying to hold the second, where if I had brought a friend, he'd have held the 2nd while I was killing the first.

Buffs are a grey area, but either 1. They can be weakened, B. They can be rebalanced, durations can be shortened etc... Heck they could buff the heck of several of them, but chance the duration to "concentration". Might tick off a bunch of people, but it would prevent dues ex machina syndrome.

Goblin Squad Member

Let me state one thing. I firmly believe that Goblinworks design goal of making a plateau where (by whatever mechanism) players don't significantly advance in combat power once they've reached a certain level is absolutely essential to PFO being both viable and enjoyable.

Unlike many people... I've actualy had experience of playing an "infinite advancement" (in terms of power) MMO and it absolutely sucks.

The game had a Level Cap and they removed it and allowed infinite advancement in terms of level....it was an absolute disaster....and it's nothing about "casual vs hardcore". Here's what happened...

You could be playing for 10 years, 20 hours a week... the guy that can play 80 hours a week eventualy supasses you to such a degree that with open world events...you and the rest of the player base shouldn't even bother to show up. You have some live event with what's supposed to be a "World Threatening Monster"....somthing that is a HUGE challenge for 99.9% of the player base...things that people are struggling with, are supposed to make a concerted effort to work together to defeat...inspire awe and fear in the players....well what happens when one of the 10 or so people that can play 80 hours a week shows up.... he one shots the Arch-Nemisis and does it while lying on it's back naked because the thing can't even touch his defenses then. An event that's supposed to provide hours of thrills and chills for hundreds of people is over in 5 minutes.

Infinite advancement (in power) is an absolute killer in terms of any sort of open world content....because eventualy you'll reach a point where 99.9% of the player base might as well not even show up...because they have no fun/usefull role to play....at best they are extra's...at worst spectators to something that's over in 5 minutes....and no one wants to play that over the long term...trust me it's not very fun.

That sort of dynamic is one of the reason WHY instances were born...but even with instances there is a core problem....If people are advancing at different rates....then eventualy it becomes unworkable for long term play partners to adventure together...because what is impossibly hard for one becomes trivialy easy for the other.

It doesn't matter what the advancement mechanism is either...if it's simply power-grinding...then it's the handfull of guys that can play 80 hours a week that come to dominate the game completely....if it's a function of real time since the character was created (i.e. "offline advancement") then it's simply the handfull of players that were there since day one that are dominant and everyone that started later is prepetualy relegated to 3rd wheel.

It's not SUCH an extreme problem in instance based themeparks....because at least there the primary play experience is catered to the individual player with content scaled to thier level. However with Open World games...it's an absolute DISASTER...and with Open World games that are primarly focused on PvP instead of PvE it's an absolute Death Knell... the game becomes all about the .1% of the players that are at the very top of the power heap...and everyone else might as well not bother to show up. VERY, VERY few people...hardcore gamer or not...are going to want to play that game for long.

It's one thing for people to expect to have to "put in their dues"...and most gamers are ok with that, even for an extended time..maybe even years....but eventualy most people are going to want the ability to be relevant and competitive in SOME aspect...and if they are NEVER afforded the possibility of that...it's simply a non-starter.

Trust me...limitation on advancement in Power in some arena is a very, very good thing. Goblinworks design intent in that regards is spot on.

Goblin Squad Member

Also, most MMOs institute hard-caps for things like Defense, Critical Chance, etc. I doubt that PFO will be any different. Even if you have 4 Archetypes that all give you 100 Defense, it's not like you're going to have 400 Defense.


They've already said that time won't be 1:1 so your "8 hour" buff could last for 1 hour, or maybe just 8 minutes in game. They have also said saves will be based purely on stats. I expect HP are going to be relatively constant and a more important factor will be Effective HP from damage resistances and/or dodgy, parry things.

Monk/Wizard still has the stating problems that everyone seems to want to gloss over. Do you use a Robe of the Magi or a Monks Robe? Periapt of Wisdom or Brooch of Shielding? Headband of Intellect or Headband of Ki Focus? So you can still only be 70% of both or 100% of one plus maybe 10% of the other (and that's acceptable to me for the extra time investment). Same thing with the ranger/wiz fair-average shooty + spells or excellent in one and shoddy in the other. It's just a matter of making the gear matter more then the abilities on their own.

I seem to recall the "powers that be" mentioning Eve's training times and implying that they would follow a similar curve. Meaning that 6 months in you will be around a level 16, and the next two years will be polishing of those last 4 levels, so your 10/10 isn't actually a 10/10 it's closer to a 18/18. I could be wrong on this but that's what I want to remember.


Onishi wrote:
cannabination wrote:

I've agreed on the damage output since my very first post... they should be about equal. It's the *defense stats* that I'm concerned about.

Someone who has been adventuring for 5 years should be tougher to kill than someone who's been adventuring for 2. Please argue *that* statement.

In a heartbeat I can argue that. Because we have to keep them on a sane playing field. Obviously if 4 years down the road, any new player who starts, knows at day 1, they always be 2 leagues short of the vets playing today, aren't going to bother starting. It has nothing to do with flavor as much as "It has to be done this way or the game is going to be unfun for anyone who didn't start in the 100,000 that were proposed as the goal for the first year. IMO the proper compromise is any defense/HP bonuses, or direct damage increases will have to be in their own tree, one that can be obtained by anyone regardless of class.

Oh and he's been adventuring for 6 years instead of 2, even without HP boosts, he will be tougher to kill, regardless of HP Defense etc... Why because he will have seen and known the counter for every combination you throw at him, he will know how to get away when etc... Someone playing a game without levels/skills etc... at all for years longer then someone who has, the person who has been playing for 5 years has an edge over the one for 2 years even when you start them with identical characters.

There a several holes in this argument. I'm going to ignore them all and just say that if you make a character that has existed for 5 years equal to one that has existed for 2, there is no incentive to play for that extra 3 years. You aren't increasing in power, and therefore are not growing. How is it less fair for the guy who just started to be perpetually weaker than it is for the guy who has been dedicated to the game since release to be perpetually average? The idea that player skill is the only thing to separate players seems like socialist gaming to me. Let's hand out T-ball trophies to everyone for paying their $15 per month.

Onishi wrote:
As Nihi said, when I throw numbers out there, it is just for the purpose of having a tangible idea for comparison and drawing a scale to compare A and B. A can be 3, or 100, the concept still applies.

You're missing my point. A level 20 Paladin should be able to fill his bars with abilities that work well together. As should a 20/20/20/20, but with a wider array of abilities. It's the *DEFENSES* I'm worried about.

Onishi wrote:
Odds are if/when prestiges are added after the fact, some sort of reskill/respec of some sort will be added to fit whatever it is supposed to be, or it will be something obvious. Since prestiges are most likely going to be bonus perks for the vets, maybe the prestiges will be added down the road and say arcane trickster has no capstone of it's own, but requires rogue and wizard capstones. Or maybe it just has no capstone, but requires minimum wizards 3rd level spells merit badge and rogues 5th badge or so.

Why? Where did you get any of the info you used to make those determinations? Phrases like "will", "odds are", and "most likely" need some support.

Onishi wrote:
Now as far as the kiting example, I would have to say you can't necessarily stay out of his reach. The opponent could charge while you are casting/firing etc... you just used an ability and your universal cool down etc... Every tactic should have a counter attack, and most likely 1-2 classes that can beat it, Whether you get beaten in it by the person who has the class as his only 20, or one of his 5 20's, the results should be identical.

I think you're missing my point again. I wasn't saying that an arcane archer is an un-killable character, I was stating it was a viable dual-class. Since we seemed to be debating whether or not multi-class characters would be viable I thought it worth mentioning.

I absolutely cannot understand the logic of two characters being equal power level(AGAIN... DEFENSIVELY) when one has lived, adventured, and experienced for 3 times as long. Why even bother with levels if a level 3 and a level 20 will have such a power disparity? That poor level three is going to take 2.5 years to get up to the 20's power level. In terms of an mmo(outside of WoW) 2.5 years is an ETERNITY. Level one guy has probably a 15% chance of sticking with the game long enough to see his level 20, and we're gonna focus the game on *that guy* rather than the guy who's already been playing(and paying) for nigh on three years? Seems extremely backwards to me.

Goblin Squad Member

GunnerX169 wrote:

They've already said that time won't be 1:1 so your "8 hour" buff could last for 1 hour, or maybe just 8 minutes in game. They have also said saves will be based purely on stats. I expect HP are going to be relatively constant and a more important factor will be Effective HP from damage resistances and/or dodgy, parry things.

The exact time a Buff lasts is somewhat irrelevant. Thing is if you can effectively apply some sort of power boost outside of combat that will last into combat...then any hinderence which would only apply during combat no longer becomes an effective counter-balancing factor...as it is easly avoided by the player (such as by putting weapons away or taking off armor while out of combat).

In terms of time...for buffs which are not self-cast only, then a reduced duration makes the straight 20 character even weaker by comparison....since he can't even compensate by trying to hunt up other people to buff him up before he goes adventuring.

GunnerX169 wrote:


Monk/Wizard still has the stating problems that everyone seems to want to gloss over. Do you use a Robe of the Magi or a Monks Robe? Periapt of Wisdom or Brooch of Shielding? Headband of Intellect or Headband of Ki Focus?

It's really not a big deal...you use whichever one gives you the most benefit at the time....and if situations change you take the all of 2 seconds that it would normaly take in an MMO to switch an item from inventory to equiped.

Plus, if you've made gear such an important factor in the power equation... you've now got an additional problem in that the game has now switched from just a level based power-curve grind, to a gear based power-curve grind.... which introduces a whole new can of worms. Not to mention that the player that's been playing for 8 years to get the 20/20/20/20 is likely to have a very pronounced inherint advantage in access to gear over the guy who has spent 2.5 years to get his straight 20.

GunnerX169 wrote:


I seem to recall the "powers that be" mentioning Eve's training times and implying that they would follow a similar curve. Meaning that 6 months in you will be around a level 16, and the next two years will be polishing of those last 4 levels, so your 10/10 isn't actually a 10/10 it's closer to a 18/18. I could be wrong on this but that's what I want to remember.

The actual time is or actual level irrelevent to the purposes of discussion. I was simply using 10/10 becuase I heard them say they wanted a character with 20 "levels" to be at plateau in terms of power.

Whatever time or level that is...call it X.... what's at issue is how that compares with the guy that has had X + 6 years of advancement...and what mechansims can be used the 2 can go out and play on the same combat/adventuring field without one completly dominating the other.

This wouldn't neccesarly be a problem if the design was only intended to function over 2-4 years....but most MMO's particularly MMO's of this style are intended to have 10+ year life-spans... so you have to consider that when planning out a design..... and trust me, it's an absolute nightmare trying to go in and patch in fixes to a core design feature that wasn't anticipated to need to work with 10+ years of growth after the fact....you really want those things planned out in advance as much as you can.

Goblin Squad Member

Onishi wrote:
GrumpyMel wrote:

Even with spell-failure due to armor penalties or hands-free casting. Ok so maybe that works for ACTIVE spells (i.e. Fireball, Web, etc)...what about TIMED spells? So every time the character goes adventuring they strip off thier plate, put away thier weapons and give themselves 8 hours of every single buff in the game, including self-buff only spells, and make themselves FLYING, INVISIBLE and SILENT... and now put thier plate-mail back on and pick up thier bow/2-handed sword/etc. A character that can PREDICTABLY have access to every single buff in a ruleset (because they can cast them all themselves and don't need to worry about going to other people....whoops there goes that whole interdpendance thing) including self-buffs from multiple different classes is NOT more powerfull then someone that only has reliable access to the BUFFS from thier own class? Yet at the same time it's not always so straight forward to say something like "Oh this Buff shouldn't work when wearing armor...or this self-buff shouldn't stack with that self-buff" because what about the guy who is 10/10 or 5/15 and is relying on the fact that certain things stack together to make up for the idea that they don't have access to some of the more powerfull (by themselves) abilities that often come at higher levels down any one class track?

If they were using a PnP Rulset (which we know they are not) or even the rulesets from any one of the major MMO's and allowing the equivalent of 20/20/20/20 all at the same time....they'd absolutely be dead in the water. The only thing that MIGHT make the situation workable is that they are creating thier own MMO ruleset and not tied to using class mechanics from the PnP ruleset or the type of simplistic rulesets that many MMO's currently use. Even still, working out the details of implimentation strikes me as a VERY, VERY complicated and difficult design task.

Well as you said not every skill/ability is going to be mixed in identically to the P&P game. Self buffs, do not need...

Onishi,

I don't think it's NECESSARLY an impossible design goal to achieve...but I do think it's an incredibly DIFFICULT and COMPLICATED one to impliment well. That's really my concern here....High Level Design Goals can sound really cool and neat on paper/theory... but when you actualy get down to the nuts and bolts of implimenting those goals and turning them into functional working systems and mechanics....there is ALOT of very ugly sausage-making that goes on....and the more complex the design your goals neccesitate...the uglier and the messier the sausage making gets...and very often you end up with mechansims that just don't work well...or are hugely costly in terms of time and resources spent...and very difficult to tweak or add to when you need to do so.

Goblin Squad Member

GrumpyMel wrote:
stuff...

So you don't like games where a group of people have to work together to defeat a more capable foe?

In most RPGs, 99.9% of the population can't defeat a CR 6 dragon, but a 10th level fighter can probably handle one with little effort.

I'm failing to see the problem here...

Goblin Squad Member

cannabination wrote:
Onishi wrote:
cannabination wrote:

I've agreed on the damage output since my very first post... they should be about equal. It's the *defense stats* that I'm concerned about.

Someone who has been adventuring for 5 years should be tougher to kill than someone who's been adventuring for 2. Please argue *that* statement.

In a heartbeat I can argue that. Because we have to keep them on a sane playing field. Obviously if 4 years down the road, any new player who starts, knows at day 1, they always be 2 leagues short of the vets playing today, aren't going to bother starting. It has nothing to do with flavor as much as "It has to be done this way or the game is going to be unfun for anyone who didn't start in the 100,000 that were proposed as the goal for the first year. IMO the proper compromise is any defense/HP bonuses, or direct damage increases will have to be in their own tree, one that can be obtained by anyone regardless of class.

Oh and he's been adventuring for 6 years instead of 2, even without HP boosts, he will be tougher to kill, regardless of HP Defense etc... Why because he will have seen and known the counter for every combination you throw at him, he will know how to get away when etc... Someone playing a game without levels/skills etc... at all for years longer then someone who has, the person who has been playing for 5 years has an edge over the one for 2 years even when you start them with identical characters.

There a several holes in this argument. I'm going to ignore them all and just say that if you make a character that has existed for 5 years equal to one that has existed for 2, there is no incentive to play for that extra 3 years. You aren't increasing in power, and therefore are not growing. How is it less fair for the guy who just started to be perpetually weaker than it is for the guy who has been dedicated to the game since release to be perpetually average? The idea that player skill is the only thing to separate players seems like socialist gaming to...

Are you playing the game to have "FUN" or are you playing the game to be perpetualy more powerfull then anyone who started playing the game after you did? (or can spend more hours a week grinding then you..if that's the advancement mechansim)

If you are playing the game to be more "powerfull" then anyone else...then eventualy you are going to end up playing the game by yourself because virtualy no one is interested in playing an Open World PvP focused game as a perpetual 3rd class citizen against people they can't possibly hope to compete against in some aspect of play.

It's one thing to say you have to put in X amount of time/effort to play on roughly the same field to compete. It's another thing to say X is an ever moving/increasing number that 99.9% of the players signing up for the game can never have a chance in heck of meeting. You'll have a player population of about 10 people total.

Again this is nothing about casual freindly either...it's that you have some FIXED amount that is used to set the bar that at least a decent portion of you target audience can hope to meet at SOME point. That dynamic falls apart where you have "infinite advancement" (in terms of power) and the bar is set by .1% of the player base of your game that the other 99.9% can NEVER hope to meet....with an EVER WIDENING GAP between the .1% and everyone else. People might not have a particular problem with a small gap in power, even in games which are focused on DIRECT COMPETITION... the problem is with infinite power advancement...what may start out as a small gap, eventualy gets wider and wider until it effectively becomes an "I Win" button...and no one but the .1% should even bother to show up. That's why there needs to be some limitation on power advancement.

Note here that we are JUST talking about ONE ASPECT of advancement...personal combat/adventuring power.

The neat thing about a game like PFO...is that personal adventuring/combat ability is JUST ONE ASPECT OF THE GAME. You've also got the whole faction/nation/kingdom building ASPECT of the game...and that has the potential to be much more open ended.

Let's for a second assume that the game had a "hard cap" of 20 adventuring levels (much like I think PnP does)....once you reached that level you were at the pinnacle of your performance as an adventurer/combatent, etc. You never learn how to swing a sword any harder, never learn to dodge/parry a blow more effectively, never learn to cast a spell more powerfully. You are as powerfull in that aspect as a mortal being can ever hope to be. However, that does NOT mean there are no other ASPECTS of your life in which you can improve.

You may be able to improve the vastness and prestiege of your personal holdings...

You may be able to improve your standing within your faction...

You may be able to improve your factions standing within the World.

Just because you can't swing a sword any better, does that prevent you from striving to be...

The general of the most powerfull army on the Continent?

The richest merchant in the realm?

The Lord of a vast domain upon which the sun never sets?

The most respected Cleric/Wizard/Sage in all the Land?

There is this whole other aspect of Meta-Game that opens up to players with a game like PFO....where there advancement really is only limited by what they can achieve.

Isn't that actualy what mirrors what happens in most PnP campaigns when players start to reach that level of play.

On top of that, the 99.9% of the players who aren't going to be able to compete on that aspect....are generaly ok with that too.

Because they say "Ok, I may never get to be the King....but at least I can beat the King in single combat if I chance upon him on the battle-field. I can adventure just as well into the Dungeons of Zune as the King can. If a Dragon shows up to threaten Town, I don't have to run and hide while I wait for the King to come and one-shot him effortlessly...I'm just as good at fighting that Dragon as the King is."

Basicaly people are ok if they can't compete in EVERY ASPECT of play as the top .1% of players...as long as they can at least compete in SOME ASPECT of play with them. They aren't forver relegated to the role of scrub #4567

Goblin Squad Member

Chris Lambertz wrote:
Added discussion thread for Goblinworks Blog: Your Pathfinder Online Character.

Thank you for the head's up. Side note, I signed up for the newsletter, and received an e-mail for the first blog, but have not received an e-mail since then. Is a blog notification being sent out?

Goblin Squad Member

Kryzbyn wrote:
GrumpyMel wrote:
stuff...

So you don't like games where a group of people have to work together to defeat a more capable foe?

In most RPGs, 99.9% of the population can't defeat a CR 6 dragon, but a 10th level fighter can probably handle one with little effort.

I'm failing to see the problem here...

No you aren't understanding my point at all...Games that focus on cooperative play are great....they are my preference in fact.

Games where .1% of the PLAYERS permanently get to play "MARS, God of War" and the other 99.9% of the players are PERMANENTLY relegated to playing "Joe, the totaly outclassed Peon" are not generaly FUN...especialy where "Joe" is expected to compete directly with "Mars" as a primary focus of the game.

The guy playing "MARS" MAY have fun for a little while (most people would actualy get bored of that pretty quickly).... "Joe" may tolerate it for a little while.....but it's almost certain that almost no one's going to be interested in playing that game for very long. They generaly don't succeed in attracting audiences that are large enough to fill up a softball team.

Note the O Level NPC Farmer doesn't have a choice whether he has to stay in the game world or not... the guy PAYING to play for ENTERTAINMENT does.


GrumpyMel wrote:

Are you playing the game to have "FUN" or are you playing the game to be perpetualy more powerfull then anyone who started playing the game after you did? (or can spend more hours a week grinding then you..if that's the advancement mechansim)

If you are playing the game to be more "powerfull" then anyone else...then eventualy you are going to end up playing the game by yourself because virtualy no one is interested in playing an Open World PvP focused game as a perpetual 3rd class citizen against people they can't possibly hope to compete against in some aspect of play.

It's one thing to say you have to put in X amount of time/effort to play on roughly the same field to compete. It's another thing to say X is an ever moving/increasing number that 99.9% of the players signing up for the game can never have a chance in heck of meeting. You'll have a player population of about 10 people total.

I can see how I may have come across that way, but I'm not really a power gamer at all. I do plan to play the game a bunch though, and if my character stops effectively progressing after 2.5 years, then that's his shelf life imo. After that, he becomes a virtual npc in my eyes while I train up another character.

"GrumpyMel wrote:
Again this is nothing about casual freindly either...it's that you have some FIXED amount that is used to set the bar that at least a decent portion of you target audience can hope to meet at SOME point. That dynamic falls apart where you have "infinite advancement" (in terms of power) and the bar is set by .1% of the player base of your game that the other 99.9% can NEVER hope to meet....with an EVER WIDENING GAP between the .1% and everyone else. People might not have a particular problem with a small gap in power, even in games which are focused on DIRECT COMPETITION... the problem is with infinite power advancement...what may start out as a small gap, eventualy gets wider and wider until it effectively becomes an "I Win" button...and no one but the .1% should even bother to show up. That's why there needs to be some limitation on power advancement.

What I've been advocating is adding 5% of your passive defenses from all levels, classes, abilities, or w/e past your current 20. The amount of gap between a 20 and a 20/20 in that scenario is very small. 20/20 isn't going to steamroll 20 because of 5% more defensive stats. Calling it *infinite advancement* seems a little disingenuous. I'm just talking about a little nod to the guy that's been playing for years. Realistically, make it go 5%/4%/3%/2%/1%. That way our intrepid level 20 *can* always catch up, but OG McAncient continues to improve all around after 20 rather than just gaining a slightly bigger toy box every so often.

GrumpyMel wrote:

Note here that we are JUST talking about ONE ASPECT of advancement...personal combat/adventuring power.

The neat thing about a game like PFO...is that personal adventuring/combat ability is JUST ONE ASPECT OF THE GAME. You've also got the whole faction/nation/kingdom building ASPECT of the game...and that has the potential to be much more open ended

All of that is super true, and I don't have any desire to equate that sort of "life" development with character power level in terms of why the game should be played. I'm not saying that in ten years I want to be able descend on the wings of a draco-lich and lay waste to all the kingdoms of men. What I'm saying is that I don't understand why a character who's been around for 10 years can't have some *small* defensive advantage reflecting their breadth of experience over a character who's been around for 2.


As I was eating dinner I considered that the defensive stats might all be gained through the "merit badges" attained by doing specific things in game rather than as passive bonus from abilities, if that's the case then this is a moot point.

Goblin Squad Member

cannabination wrote:
As I was eating dinner I considered that the defensive stats might all be gained through the "merit badges" attained by doing specific things in game rather than as passive bonus from abilities, if that's the case then this is a moot point.

I have a feeling the reality of PFO will be so far removed from all the conversations we have here that, if we ever bother to come back to these early posts, we'll laugh at how wrong we were. That's not to say PFO isn't interested in hearing our thoughts and concerns; I'm sure they are.

I'm just thrilled to be given the opportunity to be part of the conversation :)


Nihimon wrote:

I have a feeling the reality of PFO will be so far removed from all the conversations we have here that, if we ever bother to come back to these early posts, we'll laugh at how wrong we were. That's not to say PFO isn't interested in hearing our thoughts and concerns; I'm sure they are.

I'm just thrilled to be given the opportunity to be part of the conversation :)

I'm sure you're right, but these conversations are the whole point of the forum as far as I can tell. Even if the devs just see one angle they hadn't considered in all these forums then I count my participation in the discussion a success, even if it was the guy I was debating's idea. If I come off a little strident it's simply because if ever is the time to raise concerns, it's in the development process.

Any yeah, it's pretty freakin' excellent that the game's developers are encouraging this type of back and forth at this point in the development process.

Goblin Squad Member

cannabination wrote:


All of that is super true, and I don't have any desire to equate that sort of "life" development with character power level in terms of why the game should be played. I'm not saying that in ten years I want to be able descend on the wings of a draco-lich and lay waste to all the kingdoms of men. What I'm saying is that I don't understand why a character who's been around for 10 years can't have some *small* defensive advantage reflecting their breadth of experience over a character who's been around for 2.

That's not at all an unreasonable end goal (IMO). The problem comes in SCALING a system that can sustain that end goal over the life of the product.

If for example (strictly hypotheticaly) that a character increased thier Defensive Strength (what-ever-that translated to in game terms) by 1% per level achieved after they hit level 20. On it's surface that doesn't sound like all that huge a difference. So a 20/5 would be 5% more "Defensive" then a straight 20... that sounds like the small advantage you are talking about... that would be the equivalent of having the Level 20 need to roll an extra +1 on a 20 sided die "to hit"...nothing unreasonable.

Problem is when you start to SCALE that out....our 20/20/20/20 is now 60 levels higher then our straight 20 translating to a 60% Defensive advantage (or the equivalent of +12 on a d20)...that's pretty huge. Extend that scale out to 20/20/20/20/20/20...now we are talking about 100 levels of difference or 100% defensive advantage...that's the equivalent of our Level 20 not even being able to hit our older player by rolling a "natural 20".

That's the problem with open ended systems...the gap between the median and the upper end of the system is EVER WIDENING to the point where things no longer scale and the mechanism breaks completely. Unless there is some hard limit imposed....your only hope is that the product itself will die a natural death before the mechanism breaks due to scaling issues.

On the other side of that coin...you'll get the person complaining that..."I've been playing 10 years and the advantage between me and the 2 year guy is reasonable...but I've been playing 2 whole years more then the 8 year guy...and the difference between us is insigificant....why should that be?".

Goblin Squad Member

Kryzbyn wrote:
GrumpyMel wrote:
stuff...

So you don't like games where a group of people have to work together to defeat a more capable foe?

In most RPGs, 99.9% of the population can't defeat a CR 6 dragon, but a 10th level fighter can probably handle one with little effort.

I'm failing to see the problem here...

Needing a group is one thing, I believe the fear is needing a group of 20/20/20's and the full 20's and below being too weak to bother being brought in.

Canna your talk of small advancements dosn't sound that out of whack. Assuming they stay at very small barely noticable.

Now onto the subject of equipment, I think equipment requirements can subsidize some of the possible over the top too powerful combinations if they wind up existing, If so they do also still have to be limited, it can't be the typical MMO .2 seconds to throw on a robe, don't even have to pause from swinging the sword, it has to be at least a 10-15 second change. Weapons IMO a practical approach could be only allowing hotbarring of 2 weapons (and they be shown on the belt), the remaining weapons you should have to dig through your bag of holding/backpack for, and take a bit to retrieve.

I am not even close to suggesting all skills be tied to a weapon or ability. I'm more on par with a set mix of things, without the skills and ballance I can't begin to estimate which ones are best for which in theory.


That's why my initial suggestion was .25%/lvl past 20, or 5% per 20 lvl block. You're right, though, that may well not stand the length of the game. Make it an even smaller percentage, or make it scale down with each 20 lvl block, whatever. I'm just worried about my character starting to feel really stagnant after the fifth year if the only advances I've made in the last two and a half are new abilities, especially if I'm just randomly branching out in abilities at that point because I fully realized my character concept at level 20, 20/20, 20/20/20, or whatever.

Goblin Squad Member

cannabination wrote:
That's why my initial suggestion was .25%/lvl past 20, or 5% per 20 lvl block. You're right, though, that may well not stand the length of the game. Make it an even smaller percentage, or make it scale down with each 20 lvl block, whatever. I'm just worried about my character starting to feel really stagnant after the fifth year if the only advances I've made in the last two and a half are new abilities, especially if I'm just randomly branching out in abilities at that point because I fully realized my character concept at level 20, 40, or whatever.

Well I think also what you should note, a large extra portion of he game is going to focus on the settlement building, conquest, defense, crafting and construction. Sculpting your character is only half the game, sculpting the world is where limitless potential may exist


My assumption is HP, AC, hit, crit, SR, DR and the like will all have hard caps. The number of skills, abilities, spells you can learn effectively won't. I imagine PFO will be essentially an E6 campaign, with a period of vertical progression, and then only horizontal progression. And I agree with Onishi that the abilities earned from multi-classing will be balanced with a global cooldown.

Will a level playing field be "too level" for some? Probably. Will horizontal progression give the 10-year veteran an advantage over the newer player? Maybe. But I think when that 10-year mark rolls around, we'll all be far more concerned with the world we've created than whether we have an edge over the new guys.


I'd say sculpting your character is even less than half, but at the same time it's an important factor that can't get stagnant or you quit playing him. Or worse, because of the other aspects of your character(i.e. your position in a guild, settlement, corporation or w/e) you get stuck playing a character you don't like.

Goblin Squad Member

cannabination wrote:
I'd say sculpting your character is even less than half, but at the same time it's an important factor that can't get stagnant or you quit playing him. Or worse, because of the other aspects of your character(i.e. your position in a guild, settlement, corporation or w/e) you get stuck playing a character you don't like.

Character stagnation is certainly a valid concern...and I'm not neccesarly opposed to the idea of some growth after plateau...though I am opposed to the concept of open-ended growth....although I'm opposed to unrestricted growth (Though the Real Time limits on skill advancement can work to curb that).

I am a little concerned with the mechanism for that growth being multi-classing into other classes up until level 20 until you reach them all.

That strikes me as problematic in terms of making the abilities earned from multi-classing BELOW 20th (i.e. the guy who's 10/10 or 14/6 etc) usefull enough in conjunction that some-one who wants to go that route is not completely gimped...but not so usefull that the guy who already has 20 in one or more classes isn't overpowered.

It's also a bit problematic from the standpoint of the guy who really isn't interested in playing a class significantly from the one they started out with ....if they want to advance at all, their given no choice but to do that.

I'd much prefer a mechanic whereby once you get you 20 levels of adventuring classes (in whatever combination you choose)....you branch into some sort of Prestiege Class...where the abilities involved are specificaly geared to not add much power compared to the guys who don't have them.


GrumpyMel wrote:
Kryzbyn wrote:
GrumpyMel wrote:
stuff...

So you don't like games where a group of people have to work together to defeat a more capable foe?

In most RPGs, 99.9% of the population can't defeat a CR 6 dragon, but a 10th level fighter can probably handle one with little effort.

I'm failing to see the problem here...

No you aren't understanding my point at all...Games that focus on cooperative play are great....they are my preference in fact.

Games where .1% of the PLAYERS permanently get to play "MARS, God of War" and the other 99.9% of the players are PERMANENTLY relegated to playing "Joe, the totaly outclassed Peon" are not generaly FUN...especialy where "Joe" is expected to compete directly with "Mars" as a primary focus of the game.

The guy playing "MARS" MAY have fun for a little while (most people would actualy get bored of that pretty quickly).... "Joe" may tolerate it for a little while.....but it's almost certain that almost no one's going to be interested in playing that game for very long. They generaly don't succeed in attracting audiences that are large enough to fill up a softball team.

Note the O Level NPC Farmer doesn't have a choice whether he has to stay in the game world or not... the guy PAYING to play for ENTERTAINMENT does.

It's not going to be GOD characters it's going to be (or at least the goal is) more along the line of f(x)=(2x-1)/x, wherein as time (x) approaches infinity the power (f(x)) of a character approaches the limit of "2". Obviously my numbers are arbitrary, but the basic graph of the function remains the same.

Goblin Squad Member

Matthew Trent wrote:


Do you think that all characters in eve with 20 million skill points are equally good?

I own 3 Characters in the 20 million area.. and all 3 are completely different, and skilled in a different path... but none of them are equally good.

My Miner can pilot Indy Caps
My Guard can fly Tech2 Cruisers and level-3 BC's
My Trader can fly a Freighter, and trade in just about any system in a region...


GunnerX169 wrote:
It's not going to be GOD characters it's going to be (or at least the goal is) more along the line of f(x)=(2x-1)/x, wherein as time (x) approaches infinity the power (f(x)) of a character approaches the limit of "2". Obviously my numbers are arbitrary, but the basic graph of the function remains the same.

Exactly... I think. I'm not particularly math savvy, but I'm pretty sure that's an excellent expression of what I mean, but I could have never said it that way cogently.

Goblin Squad Member

GrumpyMel wrote:
If for example (strictly hypotheticaly) that a character increased thier Defensive Strength (what-ever-that translated to in game terms) by 1% per level achieved after they hit level 20...
cannabination wrote:
That's why my initial suggestion was .25%/lvl past 20, or 5% per 20 lvl block.

If they allow each new level to increase your defenses at all, I imagine they'll use diminishing returns, where you're 2nd level 20 adds on a fraction of the defenses your first 20 added, and that your 4th level 20 will add only a minute fraction of what your 2nd level 20 added.

Hudax wrote:
But I think when that 10-year mark rolls around, we'll all be far more concerned with the world we've created than whether we have an edge over the new guys.

Amen, brother.

GrumpyMel wrote:
I am a little concerned with the mechanism for that growth being multi-classing into other classes up until level 20 until you reach them all.

I can't speak from any certainty to this, but I would imagine there is a fundamental misunderstanding here. I strongly suspect that the only people who choose to branch into other classes and get level 20 in them will be those who see that making sense for their character. It may be that the Capstone ability for a Fighter is the last Skill you can train for a Fighter, at which point there's nothing more to gain in the Fighter Archetype, but I think it's just as likely that there will be additional (think 6 months to train) skills that will keep you busy for a very long time. Likewise, I imagine there will be a significant number of non-Archetype Skills (think Crafting, Trading, Building, etc.) that we could easily invest a significant amount of time advancing.

Once you reach level 20 Fighter, I seriously doubt the only advancement avenue left open to you will be to start leveling another Archetype.

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:
...Once you reach level 20 Fighter, I seriously doubt the only advancement avenue left open to you will be to start leveling another Archetype.

THIS!

I highly doubt we will see 20/20's anywhere!

Class skills (aka Merit badges) are simply not the only ways to enhance your character but simply a way to specialise in a distinct way.

So two 20 Fighters may be very different because they trained different skills but they both have basically the same "special Fighter skills" on top and no chance to get any "special Wizard skills" which might NOT mean that a 20 Fighter can never cast spells.


I'd imagine you're both right, at the three or even five year marks for most people. There will be some people, though, with a strong desire to hit 20/20 before they hit 20/crafting equivalent because their character concept is the aforementioned arcane trickster, arcane archer, or whatever(unless they give us some idea of what those prestige capstones will require, as you may well be able to do get on track for a PrC well before your first 20). We're also talking about a 10 year time-frame, so at some point the desire to hit that second capstone will end up happening for most veteran players.

It likely won't be the first, second, or even third priority for most characters, but it will eventually come about for a great many of them so it seems worth discussing.

Goblin Squad Member

cannabination wrote:
but it will eventually come about for a great many of them so it seems worth discussing.

Certainly, it's worth discussing. However, I'm really not convinced that it will eventually come around for everyone.

I am not sure if it's in the cards, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Skill Ranks that don't really ever end, but just get progressively longer to train. If I have the opportunity to spend two years training the next rank of some skill, with the understanding that the rank after that will take 4 years to train, I might well decide to go ahead and do that, rather than branching into another Archetype that I'm really not interested in.


Lawdy, lawdy, Nihimon... you've got some patience. I don't even think I could wait four years for an "I win button", or the ability to open Scrooge McDuck's vault. I see your point of view, for sure, just saying that I couldn't do it.

Goblin Squad Member

cannabination wrote:
Lawdy, lawdy, Nihimon... you've got some patience. I don't even think I could wait four years for an "I win button", or the ability to open Scrooge McDuck's vault. I see your point of view, for sure, just saying that I couldn't do it.

The example was for illustration only, I'm not really that patient. :)

The point is that we don't really know what kind of advancement opportunities there will be, and I seriously doubt we'll be funneled into a second or third archetype.

Goblin Squad Member

GrumpyMel wrote:
more stuff...

So what? Name an MMO nowadays where you get to start at the level cap, or the characters are all equal in power. I'll wait.

This is a level of QQ that is mind boggling.

IMHO, of course.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Bluenose wrote:
Daniel Powell 318 wrote:
Don't try to eliminate specialization, make specialization more fluid: The cleric, depending on spell choice, can either be a healer, a leader, a striker, a controller, or a tank. The fighter, with different equipment and feat choices, can easily be a tank, striker, or controller.

So the cleric is going to be able to perform any role depending on what spells they prepare that day. The fighter is going to be able to perform any role that they have the correct feats for. One of these can change from day to day. The other... not so much.

Or perhaps equipment is going to be the defining factor. If it matters enough to make a difference, then you're probably going to require 'level-appropriate' gear. Good luck getting enough of that to fill any role you like.

By the way, I am amused that you've already decided the cleric should be able to do all the things the fighter can, and other things. Nice way to make fighters relevant.

Well, yeah. The cleric in the source material can do anything the fighter can, but he can't do everything the fighter can. The source material is the only thing I have to base any discussion on. Take the "Clerics are OP" discussion out to fora where rules are being discussed.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Elorebaen wrote:
Side note, I signed up for the newsletter, and received an e-mail for the first blog, but have not received an e-mail since then. Is a blog notification being sent out?

The first blog wasn't just to tell you "hey, there's a blog," but also to tell you "the blogs are on every second Wednesday." We haven't sent any emails since then.

Shadow Lodge

I've never played EVE, I've played a number of other MMOs, but missed that one.

DDO seems like it's the closest to PFO just because it's 3.5e and this is replicating an OGL-based game.

But, while DDO has "traditional" 3.5e multiclassing, I'm not sure I understand how it'd work in PFO.

Someone mind giving me a brief breakdown on how it works in the inverted skill-first style of EVE/PFO?

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Vic Wertz wrote:
Elorebaen wrote:
Side note, I signed up for the newsletter, and received an e-mail for the first blog, but have not received an e-mail since then. Is a blog notification being sent out?
The first blog wasn't just to tell you "hey, there's a blog," but also to tell you "the blogs are on every second Wednesday." We haven't sent any emails since then.

On that note, is there somewhere I can sign up for emails when a blog entry gets posted? 'Every second Wednesday' isn't going to become a habit, but 'Check my email' already is, and I do it roughly 200 times more often than I get an email that I care about.

Goblin Squad Member

Daniel Powell 318 wrote:
On that note, is there somewhere I can sign up for emails when a blog entry gets posted? 'Every second Wednesday' isn't going to become a habit, but 'Check my email' already is, and I do it roughly 200 times more often than I get an email that I care about.

Wow.. I have a hard time *not* checking the blog for updates every day...


Whereas I never check it save for when a new discussion thread links me back to it . . .

Goblin Squad Member

The most balanced way to cover the "level" concern would be to include a system of Active Class Levels. What I mean by this is at any one time you may only have a combination of 20 class levels in effect and the chosen abilities/benefits that come with the choices made when gaining those levels. Think of it like the way classes are handled in Rifts for the purpose of souls, you can invest in one class or split it between various classes. This is one way of ensuring that in "end game" situations that the balance is easier to achieve.

Example

1. I make a wizard and complete 20 "levels" to get the capstone ability.

2. I decide I want to gain some fighter levels but have some of my options from my wizard class available to me.

- I open my class ui panel and "enable" 19 levels of wizard.

3. I decide I want to work on fighter levels next by selecting level 1 in the fighter tab.

- A window pops up when I click on the level 1 fighter box that states I am currently in Multiclass mode. This will also warn me that I will not be allowed to earn the fighter capstone if I accept this choice.

4. I decide that is fine since I do not find the fighter capstone to my liking. I hit accept and I am now considered to be a Fighter 1/Wizard 19.

5. Now when I reach enough to open up fighter level 2 I must remove 1 level from wizard.

Alternately, if I want the capstone from every class available I must always start with a clear class ui panel when starting that new class and not enable any of my already earned class levels or forfeit the capstone ability for the active class.

Goblin Squad Member

Nukruh wrote:
The most balanced way to cover the "level" concern would be to include a system of Active Class Levels. What I mean by this is at any one time you may only have a combination of 20 class levels in effect and the chosen abilities/benefits that come with the choices made when gaining those levels.

This is undoubtedly true, in that it is the most "balanced" way.

I would argue (and have, repeatedly) that this level of balance is not only not necessary, but actually a bad thing.

First, that kind of balance is necessary in any system that is going to be significantly about set matches of 3 on 3, or 5 on 5, etc. PFO is not going to be that system, to my understanding. PFO will instead *always* face potentially massive imbalances when 20 or 50 or 500 players get together to act against 10 or 5 or even 1. Because of that, I very much hope that PFO is more concerned with implementing the kinds of things that fans of fantasy would read about in novels, rather than concerning themselves with the kinds of things that fans of Arena PvP would want.

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:

I would argue (and have, repeatedly) that this level of balance is not only not necessary, but actually a bad thing.

First, that kind of balance is necessary in any system that is going to be significantly about set matches of 3 on 3, or 5 on 5, etc. PFO is not going to be that system, to my understanding. PFO will instead *always* face potentially massive imbalances when 20 or 50 or 500 players get together to act against 10 or 5 or even 1. Because of that, I very much hope that PFO is more concerned with implementing the kinds of things that fans of fantasy would read about in novels, rather than concerning themselves with the kinds of things that fans of Arena PvP would want.

Balance in large numbers is even more important since level disparity is also very noticeable especially over the long run. When I am going against a team of 5-20 others in say a battle ground I know we are about an even match, in open world PvP the same is usually in place for the most part. In a system that has player buildings, a level power disparity past a certain point makes it tough on lower level citizens to stand a reasonable defensive chance. There would be no fun to one day roll into a PvP encounter to only find out that Aroden himself has returned to the world on that same battlefield and he is actually another player. A system of combined classes above 20 "levels" might be fine for the first 3 years but at some point it would tip, usually not to the benefit of newer characters. Many developers have done things in the past without looking at the long term effects only to be bitten down the road. Usually with very subpar "fixes" since they have got so deep into the code by that point. Most dev teams say they plan to learn from the past, yet rarely if ever do they follow through with that. It would be nice to see that be a reality for a change.

This is all from mainly a PvP standpoint, PvE is another balance beast in itself within a system lacking some form of balancing cap.

Also, as a point of reference, I have played in many large scale based open PvP games: UO, DAoC, Shadowbane, Warhammer Online to name a few. Usually as part of one of the more skilled mmorpg PvP guilds to set foot on a battlefield so I am well aware of the dynamics of power levels in various situations related to combatant numbers/level/player skill disparities.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

How long is the long run? If player power (which is itself a function of abilities and equipment) increases at a logarithmic rate, then the top stays at the top, but the next tier keeps getting closer.

If there is a top, eventually it will be reached. If there is no top, there will be a group of people higher than any other.

Goblin Squad Member

The long term is impossible to put a number on in reality for a game that doesn't even exist and has no exact life span in years to speak. The only way to go is with looking at other games which have fallen into a theoretical long run situation. World of Warcraft is one such game. While I could not give an exact date as to when it was decided there was the realization of how item stat budget was handled thus leading to greatly inflated numbers after a certain point. Adjusting for that was the best that Blizzard was able to do since they were already past the tipping point of revoking the system as a whole, some would say because of certain players falling into a sort of "big numbers syndrome" where evening out the numbers would have been a worse solution even if it would have been a more reasonable one.

Now as for a "top" in PFO, that is also something we can only speculate on and I could expand some thoughts into that realm in an additional post after I of course have some time to get something worthy written up.

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