Goblin Squad Member
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Local Listings
In some game Open World PVP Games (EVE, Freelancer, Xsyon, and Wurm) there is a list of players in your local area. Whenever you come into an area with other players or they come into your local area it shows you their name.
In other games (Darkfall and Mortal Online) there are no such lists to show you who's nearby.
The local list is a double edged sword for PvP. It both shows people when there are targets nearby, but it also shows players when enemies are approaching. Players quickly learn to paste their local in a prominent place and check it frequently while doing... anything.
So will there be one or not?
Personally I'm strongly against one because:
-Watching local is distracting and immersion breaking while listening for footsteps is easy and immersive.
-It means no ambushes, no concealing numbers, and just generally is a nerf to the sneaky and clever.
-It destroys a lot of the function that watchtowers and hideouts should serve.
Join The Party
Ok, I'm sure everyone is familiar with parties. You join a group with your buddies and see their health / map location / active effects etc. This is a great boon to coordinated groups because it allows party members to split off and know where the group is even if the group is on the move. Another great use is have a bunch of gatherers party up with the captain of a group of friendly soldiers roaming the area. Now if one gets attacked the soldiers know where and can mount a rapid response.
Would we, or would we not like to see this function in PFO?
I say yes, but not in the usual manner. I'd love to see it implemented as a feature for spell casters called something like "telekinetic bond", "empathetic bond", or "soul bond." (Or perhaps all three for arcane casters, good/neutral divine, and evil/neutral divine.) This should be a feature they can really pump some points into with stronger versions allowing you to share more information with the party and even unlocking things like short ranged teleports to other party members or small bonuses like slightly increased health regen for characters who really focus on it.
I think it could be a very fun spin on a mechanic that's taken for granted in most games / great way to have it make sense from and RP perspective.
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Goblin Squad Member
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GW's thinking concerning convenience features seems to be that if it is possible to achieve through 3rd party means, it should be provided to everyone because otherwise some will have an unfair advantage.
I think coordinates and health could easily be extracted from the game and sent to a 3rd party, arranging this information in a small window close to realtime that can be continuously accessed by players, amounting to the same thing as a 'party window' and GPS tracker.
Teleports are of course a different story but I'm not sure there should be any form of long distance teleportation available to anyone.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That's why I was proposing short range teleports. You might be able to warp to / pull your scout back to you, or jump over to assist an ally in trouble on the battlefield but this definately would not be something used to teleport any further than across a hex at the absolute maximum, and even for that far I'd expect a sizeable cooldown. I hate long range teleports too.
I think that a character specialized in this would be far more useful than third party programs once you start to get mechanical bonuses so I doubt people would take the time to create / debug them. I was thinking along the lines of this being a path you can start down from day 1.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the idea of being able to skill in to party boosting. I also agree with you on the no local chat name list. I want there to be one so we can talk but it shouldn't list all the players in it. I don't think they will go for having to skill up to see party stats though, and I kind of hope they dont.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to leave the whole hot-button issue of so-called 'immersion' out of our list of factors.
Immersion is as wholly subjective as opinion: anyone can claim 'immersion-breaking' at whim for anything whatsoever. I think it is complete hogwash that gained the proportions of a popular myth just for the sake of rhetoric in forum posts.
So you don't want a list of nearby players. That is fine: I can see arguments both ways. But I propose 'immersion-breaking' should be considered an invalid justification outside of a novel or movie. Possibly it might be useful if you are using an oculus rift, but when you are watching a 2D flatpanel and manipulating a toon with mouse and keyboard nothing is 'immersion-breaking'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I believe local listings should be a function of the Watchtower / Hideout, however I don't see that a Watchtower should be able to detect a hideout (being that a WT is a stationary object).
So a WT or HO can see travelers, but travelers can not necessarily see the HO and perhaps not even the WT (depends on distance and Line of Sight).
If the traveler is actually a Ranger, Druid or just someone training in skills of detecting hideouts, then they will have a chance to do so.
As for the "Join the Party", especially the short range or long range teleportation idea.... Not a chance of GW doing that.
This is not Star Trek, with Away Teams beaming down on your location. Or "Beam Me Up, Scotty.. all my Red Shirts are dead."
I seriously doubt anything but teleporting a few feet away will be in the game. You probably won't be able to teleport through a structure or even over one (non ceiling wall).
If teleportation finds its way into the game, EVERYONE will train it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Regarding local player lists: I'd prefer it not be there - it's effectively an early warning radar. I thought about possible exceptions, maybe showing companions or fellow citizens. One hopes the game is more populated than Wurm, though, and any decent population would quickly overwhelm such a list.
In our settlement areas we should have the ability to find a fellow citizen by name (We just ask commoners and they tell us the direction). So we enter a name or click on our company list and a highlight or arrow appears to guide us. Higher social skills could allow us to find multiple friends that way.
Party lists might show everyone invited to a party, but I don't think the map should show locations of party members beyond some distance. In Darkfall, for example, party member locations can be seen anywhere in the world.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'll wait for the Devs to say "will be".I believe local listings should be a function of the Watchtower / Hideout...I was about to make the same point, although instead of saying "should be", I'd have said "will be".
They already have, since that's the way they described Watchtowers and Hideouts.
I was trying to draw the distinction between your absolute "should". Of course, everything that "will be" is subject to change. But things that "should be" endure.
The game "should be" one in which PvP is meaningful. The game "will be" using an Alignment and Reputation System to accomplish that goal. The game "might" use some other system to accomplish that goal, but that goal will remain.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I always read "will be" as more absolute than "should be". "Will be", like "shall be", is required. "Should be" is likely to happen, but might not.
In general, I think "should" carries with it "ought", whereas "will" leaves out any expectation of propriety.
Consider the difference:
- Griefers should ruin the game.
- Griefers will ruin the game.
And while I'm a "word-nerd", and very much enjoy discussing such things, it's certainly not very important.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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We don't currently expect to automatically give you a list of everyone nearby.
Watchtowers and hideouts might give capabilities something like that. If so, it's more likely to be something resulting from an active search by someone in the building than a passive capability added to every allied character in the hex. But we need to do more development on those.
We most likely will have a fairly typical team UI that lets you see their hit points (if they're within a certain range) and location on the map.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If teleportation finds its way into the game, EVERYONE will train it.
I think when people state things like this it's really showing a lack of spark for originality. You see it all the time. "If flying is in the game everyone will fly." "If there is a difference in movement speeds everyone will play max speed characters." "If X is in the game everyone will X."
Lets assume for a second that if you have teleportation it is your only ability, it doesn't allow you to equip any item, it costs 10k gold per use, it has a 24 hour cooldown, and a range of 1-foot.
Is everyone going teleportation anymore? If your answer is no, then that means somewhere between the fears in your head, and the über-gimped version I just described, there is a version that's actually pretty balanced.
I think that version is one that allows you to teleport yourself/others around the area of a battlefield, and requires you to train into a tree focused on the "bonds" I want in-place of the party system and then devote a large portion of your active character build to that tree.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Watchtowers and hideouts might give capabilities something like that.
I take this to mean that the capabilities of Watchtowers and Hideouts might look like a list of local players. I don't take this to imply any change to the announced capabilities of Watchtowers and Hideouts.
Hideouts have a "threat radius" that determines how they interact with their surroundings: when a character using fast travel enters the threat radius of a hideout, the characters in the hideout can trigger an ambush—the targets drop out of fast travel in the vicinity of the hideout, and the bandits may be able to overtake them and engage them in melee combat before they can exit the area and re-enter fast travel.
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Watchtowers have a "detection radius" that determines when and if the occupants are alerted to the presence of potentially hostile forces in the hex.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I believe local listings should be a function of the Watchtower / Hideout
We don't currently expect to automatically give you a list of everyone nearby.
Watchtowers and hideouts might give capabilities something like that. If so, it's more likely to be something resulting from an active search by someone in the building than a passive capability added to every allied character in the hex. But we need to do more development on those.
We most likely will have a fairly typical team UI that lets you see their hit points (if they're within a certain range) and location on the map.
Thank you for the clarification where the thought process on WTs / HOs stands.
I'm looking forward to when the conversation moves from "Might Be" to "Will Be".
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Goblin Squad Member
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If teleportation finds its way into the game, EVERYONE will train it.I think when people state things like this it's really showing a lack of spark for originality. You see it all the time. "If flying is in the game everyone will fly." "If there is a difference in movement speeds everyone will play max speed characters." "If X is in the game everyone will X."
Lets assume for a second that if you have teleportation it is your only ability, it doesn't allow you to equip any item, it costs 10k gold per use, it has a 24 hour cooldown, and a range of 1-foot.
Is everyone going teleportation anymore? If your answer is no, then that means somewhere between the fears in your head, and the über-gimped version I just described, there is a version that's actually pretty balanced.
I think that version is one that allows you to teleport yourself/others around the area of a battlefield, and requires you to train into a tree focused on the "bonds" I want in-place of the party system and then devote a large portion of your active character build to that tree.
Even if limited to the battlefield, at some point everyone will find themselves on a "battlefield" of one type or another (actual battlefield or streets of a settlement). Because the advantage to teleport to your friends is such an advantage over those that can't, all companies will require that they have some combatants trained in doing so.
If players have a choice between bows & arrows or machine guns, and all choose machine guns, is that a lack of originality or a sign of intelligence?
Not all magic found in PF RPG will be translated into PFO. The nature of the controls, player base and activities in an MMO will prohibit those skills / spells because they would be over powered and universally required.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...all companies will require that they have some combatants trained in doing so.
I don't really see that as a bad thing if we are assuming companies with 15+ players. I wouldn't want it to majorly effect moving armies or transporting goods across long distances, but if it's seen as highly important role in group PvP I actually find that desireable.
I think the balance GW should seek in EVERY role is that it should be desirable to have it in a group. In an MMO such as this things are only overpowered if they overshadow other roles' specialties / everything that serves the same role.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...all companies will require that they have some combatants trained in doing so.I don't really see that as a bad thing if we are assuming companies with 15+ players. I wouldn't want it to majorly effect moving armies or transporting goods across long distances, but if it's seen as highly important role in group PvP I actually find that desireable.
I think the balance GW should seek in EVERY role is that it should be desirable to have it in a group. In an MMO such as this things are only overpowered if they overshadow other roles' specialties / everything that serves the same role.
So your argument that if everyone has it, it is unoriginal was a farce?
Even if used for just short distances, everyone will use it to "blink" in and out of battle.
It is a less problematic game mechanic to require that players either crawl, walk, run or ride into or out of combat.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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"All companies will have some combatants trained in doing so" isn't a bad thing, if we limit "Companies" to those with more than 15 players. It's also a major step away from "All major engagements will have some combatants with this ability slotted" or "All players will train this skill".
I can easily compare it to the PnP forms of teleportation, or to other MMO forms, and come out favorably; if the objection is to using it to leave combat, put an interruptible cast time on it. If it is useful for entering combat, put a serious debuff on the user on exiting. If it is being used too much, increase the coin drain associated with it. If it is too useful, nerf the usefulness.
Heck, take that entire paragraph and it applies without loss of generality to almost every skill and ability possible.