Goblin Squad Member
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Posted to ideascale:
There are “achievement gates” that must be met in order to continue training feats within a role. My understanding of the design goals for this (which may be incomplete) include:
1. the desire to restrict the free spending of accumulated xp to “level” a character without playing the game and;
2. for these achievements to be achieved in the course of normal play so it does not feel to be a grind. “Normal play” and “grind” are subjective experiences that become counterproductive to argue over, in my opinion.
I propose a modification to the achievement gate to increase satisfaction within various play styles while meeting the design goals as I understand them. I propose that certain currently gated feat trees have a cooldown for training ranks. For each achievement gate, the developers assume a certain amount of time is needed in game to meet the requirements during the course of play. That would be the baseline cooldown. Time spent in game would cause the cooldown to proceed. Meeting the necessary achievement prior to the completion of the cooldown would cause it to reset immediately. This allows those whose “normal play” happens to be the activity that includes the achievement requirement the ability to train as originally envisioned, and allow others whose play style differs to still progress their training at a pace as anticipated by the developers.
My hope is that such a system would deflect criticism of intent and design regarding “grinds”, make progression of the game more forgiving towards a variety of play styles, and retain the original design intent of the developers. Share your thoughts below.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the idea of looking at Achievements as a minimum amount of actual gameplay prior to being able to train. I'm not sure if I like the idea of this timing being up to the developers arbitrarily though.
Let's look at the current system.
Adding Skeletons to Divine helped diversify play style reward. Bandits could give points in Subterfuge. Shamans and bombers are the only ones logically connected to Arcane but there could be more added. How about tying it to to escalation type too? Participate in an escalation area, kill a bonedancer of any monster type and get Divine. Or for Razmirans Arcane. Or Broken Men Martial.
Don't forget that killing Elite creatures then lets you 'triple dip'.
Have they said if this is in the works? I don't see why skeletons would be the only one creature type segregated.
I also think the same system should be used for PvP. Players should get whatever achievement advance for the weapon used PLUS an achievement based on the role of the target. If I kill a player who has the highest level role in wizard then I should also gain Arcane points. It should be possible, though much slower, to gain all achievement types solely through PvP, right?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Have they said if this is in the works?
There will, when we get there, be many--or perhaps manymany--ways to gather the Achievements one needs. For now, it appears they've picked out, or nearly so, what they believe is the minimum for the Minimum Viable Product.
Ryan's post about it taking him only four hours to gather all the Achievements needed to take a new character to Fighter level 8 seems to say it won't be too daunting in the present environment. More variety will arrive as we Crowdforge its priority.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Have they said if this is in the works?There will, when we get there, be many--or perhaps manymany--ways to gather the Achievements one needs. For now, it appears they've picked out, or nearly so, what they believe is the minimum for the Minimum Viable Product.
Ryan's post about it taking him only four hours to gather all the Achievements needed to take a new character to Fighter level 8 seems to say it won't be too daunting in the present environment. More variety will arrive as we Crowdforge its priority.
Ryan failed to mention that Fighters have an advantage in gaining Marshal Points, with 5 weapons. Try doing that through the Rogue Tree, with only two weapons, and the rest from Escalations (where your group has to let you get all of the achievements).
You have to kill about 1000 mobs in order to get the same Achievement Points a Fighter gets in 500 or less..... I'll double check my math later, but it is close enough.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The more inventive they become at making activities that will increase the counter for Achievements, the better. Can they do it to cover all varieties of playstyles, in a way that doesn't force certain activities, or use mechanisms other than "kill these creatures"? If they did, more people would likely pass the Achievement gate on their own doing activities they enjoy before a cooldown timer had a chance to reset anyway.
A while ago in another thread, someone brought up a lesson learned by Blizzard after introducing the effect of rest on experience gain. They learned that if you present a mechanical effect as a negative, it is not well received. If you present the same mechanic as a positive, it is better received. So rest to get normal xp - not well received. Lower xp gain rate, then introduce resting as a bonus to bring up to previous normal level - well received. I see a cooldown timer in the same way. It is an attempt to take a negatively perceived gate (getting the Achievement) into a positive (getting the Achievement early resets the cooldown). Achievements become a way to advance your character "faster" and therefore positive, while the original design intent of introducing a time requirement in "levelling" is preserved. They can still scale that time up and down as they like, or the Achievement up or down. Bars don't have to have numbers on them.
Its a psychological ploy, sure, but it has worked for other developers and been accepted by their communities.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The idea of gaining bonus points to help 'catch up' is an incentive to not play. I was never really a fan of that mechanism in wow.
In this proposal is it possible for someone to bypass the achievement requirements by either not playing or simply logging in and parking your toon for hours? If not then what do they need to do? If there are alternative activities then what are they?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The idea of gaining bonus points to help 'catch up' is an incentive to not play. I was never really a fan of that mechanism in wow.
In this proposal is it possible for someone to bypass the achievement requirements by either not playing or simply logging in and parking your toon for hours? If not then what do they need to do? If there are alternative activities then what are they?
1. Yes. That would be as long/slow as GW decided to make it. Like regaining Reputation now.
2. Alternative activities don't yet exist, but some hope that GW will make them. Such as a cleric healing an ally to get a divine tick rather than killing a skeleton.
"Forcing people to play" is an approach that is doomed to failure. Making people want to play is the goal. I could join a party, they go off kill things, I get credit towards achievements though I contribute nothing. Not much different than me parked somewhere in game allowing time go by.
Try doing that through the Rogue Tree, with only two weapons
Only dagger and short bow? I figured short sword would count as subterfuge also, I guess not?
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Goblin Squad Member
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1. Yes. That would be as long/slow as GW decided to make it. Like regaining Reputation now.
2. Alternative activities don't yet exist, but some hope that GW will make them. Such as a cleric healing an ally to get a divine tick rather than killing a skeleton.
"Forcing people to play" is an approach that is doomed to failure. Making people want to play is the goal. I could join a party, they go off kill things, I get credit towards achievements though I contribute nothing. Not much different than me parked somewhere in game allowing time go by.
There's a difference between being 'forced' to play and being rewarded for playing.
I'd like to see rewards match playstyle. Not playing at all is not a playstyle.
Healing someone should grant divine achievements. Joining a party while they go off killing things is different from parking your toon somewhere and doing absolutely nothing. Not much different, but a little. It should earn something like Social points. A player who logs in and hangs out at a bar all day should make a great high level bard someday.
If the same player is earning Martial or Arcane points for parking their toon in a tavern then that removes some of the incentive for players actively choosing to participate in Martial or Arcane related activities. And in general I think power should be rewarded to players who participate in game.
Experience points are the ceiling of player power and not a baseline reward.
I agree that there should be no grinding though. Rewards should be given for quality of play and not quantity. Selecting and participating in respective activities doesn't need to eat much time but it should require some planning along with a bit of luck.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Try doing that through the Rogue Tree, with only two weaponsOnly dagger and short bow? I figured short sword would count as subterfuge also, I guess not?
I'd like to see hiding before striking an enemy count as subterfuge no matter what weapon someone uses. Does anyone see a use for Stealth in the game as it is right now? I don't play a rogue but if it's being used it should be rewarded.
Until stealth hides you from all players unless in the same party/raid, then stealth is only useful for NPC attacks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Try doing that through the Rogue Tree, with only two weaponsOnly dagger and short bow? I figured short sword would count as subterfuge also, I guess not?
Dagger and short sword are both counted as one item - light blade achievement. Separating them out has been one suggestion as a way to increase options for rogues. There will always be options to increase what generates Achievement points, and GW has said that they plan to do this. But will they be able to cover all playstyles, is the question. What if i choose to play a pacifist gatherer? Or an information broker/bartender, never leaves his tavern, whose main focus will be to train up knowledge/perception/bluff?
There's a difference between being 'forced' to play and being rewarded for playing.
Exactly
Wizards have it even rougher as we only have one way to gain Arcane Achievement. Struggling to get Arcane up to 28 and I shudder at the next step (I think it's 5000+ kills).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thumbs way up to that, Häagen!
I'm hitting all the Achievement-related threads I can find hoping to see some glimmer of the plans for gates beyond those for killing blows. Diversifying weapons/targets to kill is not, from my perspective, really that much of a recommendation for future implementation. I'm hopeful we'll get some insight soon on this.
Struggling to get Arcane up to 28...Wow. I've not been able to find interest in testing up to those heights when things "don't count" yet.
<grin> just trying out all the angles before EE so I know the ropes when it starts. Arcane 21 wasn't too bad (1250 kills) but there really needs to be 3 or 4 ways to get each kind of achievement.
Adding Skeletons to Divine helped diversify play style reward. Bandits could give points in Subterfuge. Shamans and bombers are the only ones logically connected to Arcane but there could be more added. How about tying it to to escalation type too? Participate in an escalation area, kill a bonedancer of any monster type and get Divine. Or for Razmirans Arcane. Or Broken Men Martial.
Don't forget that killing Elite creatures then lets you 'triple dip'.
Have they said if this is in the works? I don't see why skeletons would be the only one creature type segregated.
I also think the same system should be used for PvP. Players should get whatever achievement advance for the weapon used PLUS an achievement based on the role of the target. If I kill a player who has the highest level role in wizard then I should also gain Arcane points. It should be possible, though much slower, to gain all achievement types solely through PvP, right?
We are looking at spreading some of these achievement points around a bit more, but Divine was the one with the most immediate need of attention, so we started there. Currently, that means giving Divine points not only for killing skeletons, but also for killing Cultists, Elite Cultists and Ghouls. You can also get Divine points for Blessings and Conversions when participating in certain Escalation Events.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We are looking at spreading some of these achievement points around a bit more, but Divine was the one with the most immediate need of attention, so we started there. Currently, that means giving Divine points not only for killing skeletons, but also for killing Cultists, Elite Cultists and Ghouls. You can also get Divine points for Blessings and Conversions when participating in certain Escalation Events.
Thanks Bob, you guys have been vocal in saying how you're hoping to make Achievements more accessible to how people play. Part of what prompted me posting this was thinking "Where does it end?" I think it will add to gameplay, but thinking of the scope you will have to add to cover enough possibilities to stop complaints that their play style is not accommodated is daunting. Having a background mechanism, like a cooldown, to me seems to give you flexibility and time to add the scope at your leisure. Since i don't think you should be designing things for a temporary purpose, I proposed it as a permanent modification.
Wizards have it even rougher as we only have one way to gain Arcane Achievement. Struggling to get Arcane up to 28 and I shudder at the next step (I think it's 5000+ kills).
Not exactly a huge help here, but you can also get Arcane points from Escalation Events that involve Dispel interactions, which for now means these two Events:
Razmiran Cultists: Freeing Minds
Nature's Wrath: Stone by Stone
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'll trust Goblinworks' intention to get many ways for each into the game when they can free up the resources to put in the code. They know they need more, but other things are screaming louder, and they're a small shop.
I agree, it will take a lot of time to spread Achievement points around, especially if they expand beyond "kill this". Time that could be better spent on other areas of development.
Part of what prompted me posting this was thinking "Where does it end?" I think it will add to gameplay, but thinking of the scope you will have to add to cover enough possibilities to stop complaints that their play style is not accommodated is daunting. Having a background mechanism, like a cooldown, to me seems to give you flexibility and time to add the scope at your leisure. Since i don't think you should be designing things for a temporary purpose, I proposed it as a permanent modification.
There are definitely some ways for dealing with this by changing some of the background mechanics, and we've been discussing some possibilities there. As one of the oddities of development, adding a small number of achievements, or shuffling which achievements get which kinds of points, is easily done at this point because it doesn't involve code, so we designers can make such changes on our own. Other changes require code, and thus have to wait in line behind higher priorities.
And you're right, we probably can't shuffle things around to a point where all the achievement paths feel exactly equal. But if we can get them to the point that all of the paths feel achievable for anyone playing the game reasonably regularly, then we'll be in a pretty good place.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thanks, Bob. Please take a look at Wizards, when you can; Clerics got their skeletons, but Wizards still feel limited in non-Escalation Achievements.
Also, please ask Ryan to continue on his path of testing a new-build character of each Role, as he began with Fighter. It was quite instructive to see level 8 achievable with only four hours of effort directly aimed at Achievements; Fighters are inarguably the most-flexible there, so his results in the other three should, I hope, guide further conversation about Achievements.
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Until stealth hides you from all players unless in the same party/raid, then stealth is only useful for NPC attacks.
I hope stealth never hides the stealthier from all other non-party members. "Stealth" is fine, "Invisibility" is not. It has always been a problem since it was introduced, and gives stealthers a ridiculous and unwarranted advantage. Plus, things like a one-shot kill are not fun, and I am glad they will be practically impossible in PFO. Still, training perception will be a pretty expensive side skill to train when getting to higher levels, so dedicated stealthers will still have a big advantage, just not one as silly as outright invisibility.
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Offhand suggestion:
Give the role achievements (subterfuge, divine, arcane etc) based on the armor feat you have slotted instead of the weapon you are using.
Someone with Crusader slotted killing stuff with a greatsword should be getting divine points, not martial points.
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Think I'll close out the thread for now with this quote from the Contructive Criticism thread.
The staff is just too swamped with other things right now to consider Achievement revamps. Its not that we don't want to entertain ideas its just that we don't have time to even talk about them. Let's revisit this topic after a month or two.
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I hope stealth never hides the stealthier from all other non-party members. "Stealth" is fine, "Invisibility" is not. It has always been a problem since it was introduced, and gives stealthers a ridiculous and unwarranted advantage. Plus, things like a one-shot kill are not fun, and I am glad they will be practically impossible in PFO. Still, training perception will be a pretty expensive side skill to train when getting to higher levels, so dedicated stealthers will still have a big advantage, just not one as silly as outright invisibility.
Then what would be the point in the stealth skill? Or even bothering to train it? The current state is that it only hides you from NPC's, which is only marginally useful, maybe for gathering resources if you don't want to mess with mobs.
If stealth doesn't make you invisible to other players, then in PvP it does absolutely *nothing* useful.
I think the general idea is, if you don't like being ganked by invisible stealthers, train perception for yourself.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Offhand suggestion:
Give the role achievements (subterfuge, divine, arcane etc) based on the armor feat you have slotted instead of the weapon you are using.
Someone with Crusader slotted killing stuff with a greatsword should be getting divine points, not martial points.
The logical extension would be that the Wizard/Scholar killing stuff with a longbow is earning arcane points and the Rogue/Scout killing stuff with a staff/wand and cantrips is earning subterfuge points.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The current state is that it only hides you from NPC's...I don't believe that's accurate. Stealth reduces the range at which other players can see you. You won't even show up on their mini-map.
It just doesn't reduce that range to 2 meters.
I wonder if there is a plan to have only allies or group mates show up on one's mini map?
The current state is that it only hides you from NPC's...I don't believe that's accurate. Stealth reduces the range at which other players can see you. You won't even show up on their mini-map.
It just doesn't reduce that range to 2 meters.
OK, I could be wrong. My experience with it has been I've seen other players sneaking from what I deemed to be quite far off.
Warrants further testing then - thanks!
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Here are some bits and pieces on Stealth from Stephen:
Should be working as expected, but to start with you both have minimum Stealth and Perception so your visibility distance should be approximately 55% of normal visibility while stealthed (which is still pretty far). If the stealthing character buys up Stealth, that distance should decrease, and if the viewing character buys up Perception, that distance should increase.
I think those skills aren't as limited by achievements as craft skills, so please play around with it this week's test if you're curious. I'm sure our QA would appreciate any reproduceable cases where is doesn't appear to be working :) .
The formula is* (Perception - Stealth + 300) x 0.15% + 10% (penalties should not be able to reduce Perception or Stealth below 0).
For example, if the Stealthed character had Stealth 250 vs. a viewer with Perception 100, the Stealthed character would only be visible and targetable at 32.5% ((100 - 250 + 300) x 0.15% + 10%) of the normal ranges.
* This is slightly different from the formula posted in a previous blog, mostly because I forgot the specifics at the time ;) .
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hi, since the blog post covers several topics, I moved this aside. Can we get some clarifications on the stealth mechanics, please?
As I understand it:
-You will be equally invisible to allies.
Most likely, though there might be an override for people you're actually in a party with. It's likely going to be hard for us to differentiate "ally" from "PC the system thinks should be friendly but I actually want to kill" reliably in all cases, so we may err on not making assumptions that you want friendlies to be treated as allies.
-Being spotted does not break stealth.
Correct.
-Being targeted (but not attacked) does not break stealth.
Correct.
You didn't list it, but being attacked does not break Stealth if you don't attack back. However, there are attack effects that reduce Stealth or temporarily disable it, and if you're a character with very high Perception, it might be worth your while to take those attacks to try to make Stealthed characters easier for your party to notice.
-Stealth can be entered any time not engaged in combat, even in plain sight of foes. (The blog says "run away and enter stealth mode". Though hiding in plain sight is unlikely to fool anyone).
Uncertain at this juncture (that is yes you can enter it when out of combat, but you might also be able to enter it when in combat in certain situations). The crucial element is that Stealth stance is not a stance from which you can make attacks; as soon as you try to make an attack, you'll go into a normal combat stance (and "combat stance" should be understood to be different from "in combat"). We need to work through all the permutations on exactly when you can reenter Stealth vs. how long you'll stay in combat after you stop making and taking attacks.
-"unaware" in the description simply means 'not targeting you'.
Right. Another way to keep targets unaware of you is to get your friends to attack them and just wander up unstealthed when they're not paying attention (which is more like flanking).
-I further assume "maximum stealth" and "maximum perception" are comparable scales so that specialized characters of same power level will have roughly 50% distance.Yes. They're both skills, so both have a max of 300 skill total, and the skill total is used in the calculations.
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1.So, based on the blog it sounds like even at max stealth skill, opponents will still be able to see us at at significant distances.
"Significant" is a bit of a loaded word. What feels like too far away for the stealther is likely to be "OMFG there's a rogue right in my face!" to the guy with Perception.
2.If that's the case, stealthers will never be able to sneak into melee range of anyone with basic perception training
Very likely.
3. That would be a problem because many players expect and want rogues and particularly assassins to work like in other MMOs, ie melee burst attacking from invisibility.
We suspect that that's not nearly as many as those that hate being on the receiving end of a rogue completely out of nowhere. Also keep in mind that we don't have the option to limit Stealth to just Rogue-type classes, as other games do (though we can give them feats to make Stealth better). So we have to worry about situations like "OMFG there's a touch-spell specialized Sorcerer right in my face!"; that is, we can't specifically say "this is powerful, but we know exactly what kind of attacks can be made out of stealth, because only attacks rogues get could be made out of stealth, and we can balance around those."
4. Do I have this right? Devs, could you adress typical expected viewing distances to help clear this up? Alternatively, could you adress your vision for what should be achievable by stealth in PFO?
Due to how we're splitting different hexes onto different server processes and plans to include more tree cover than is common in other MMOs, our vision range isn't going to be hundreds of yards. But that's likely a whole other discussion that we'll talk more about when we have the tech for hexes developed further, and I probably shouldn't have used hard numbers in the blog since it's still somewhat in flux.
What does seem likely, and why we set the numbers the way we did, is that having a reasonably high Stealth, even against someone with good Perception, means that you're not visible at all until you've already gotten inside max attack range with a ranged weapon, and you're probably close enough that you can leap/charge from further away than they can actually target you. In the total Max Stealth vs. No Perception situation, you've basically reduced their "can target you" range to melee range, even if they see you a few meters past that.
(could you also possibly give an indication on whether maxing stealth and maxing perception will require roughly comparable effort?)
They will probably have very similar total XP costs, but keep in mind:
Stealth is based on Dexterity, so Rogues (plus Rangers, Monks, and anyone else Dex-focused) will be able to buy it up without buying anything they didn't already want. Meanwhile Perception is based on Awareness (our version of Wisdom), so non-Divine casters may wind up having to buy more Will saves, Awa-based skills, etc. to get their score high enough to buy advanced levels of Perception. In the long term, everyone will probably get around to maxing it out, but for most of your career it's going to be much easier for Rogues to keep Stealth high than for most roles to keep Perception high.
Skills only go up to 200 from pure ranks; you have to get the last 100 points from slotted passive feats, racial bonuses, magic items, and buffs. Rogues will probably see a lot more value in having those things to truly max out the skill (and have passive Stealth-boosting feats as part of their role feats) than most other players. So even in the end game, the likely comparison is around 300 Stealth vs. around 200 Perception.
We'd like to do bonuses and penalties for light (i.e., time of day), concealment (i.e., terrain ground cover), and viewer facing. But it's too early to tell which of those will be viable so I don't want to promise any of them.
Ultimately, we get that other MMOs have trained players that Stealth means total invisibility until you're right up on your target's back, but that's not true at all in Pathfinder tabletop, doesn't fit the non-magical nature of Pathfinder rogues, and probably is super unfun for everyone who's not the stealth-based character. So we're going with something that isn't quite as powerful and trying to make Rogues effective and fun in other ways (such as Sneak Attack also triggering off of the Flat-Footed state and giving them lots of ways to escape melee). Our current expectation is that they're a hit-and-run role, not a go-off-like-a-landmine role; they aren't meant to appear and kill a target before he can react, but neither are they screwed once the target starts reacting.
And if we put it in play and find out that, indeed, very few people bother with it, we can easily make it more effective. We'd rather buff things that are underperforming, rather than nerf things that are overperforming.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Warrants further testing then - thanks!
We tested it fairly extensively in one of the earlier Alphas, and I'm not sure if any of this has been fixed, but if I'm remembering correctly, it made very little difference what your Stealth or Perception ranks were.
Specifically, I remember having no trained Perception, standing next to someone with at least 4 (maybe 7) ranks in Perception, and we both saw a third party fade in and out of view at almost the same distance - that is, I don't believe I was standing more than 1 meter in front of them. I also remember having no trained Stealth and disappearing at roughly the same distance as someone with I believe 7 ranks in Stealth as measured from a third party with at least 4 or 5 ranks of Perception.
I believe the default mini-map zoom level shows you other player characters at the edge of the map as soon as they come into view. I can verify that stealthed players do not show up at that distance; you must get closer to them before they show up on your minimap. Even then, they will be "in shadow" and you shouldn't be able to target them until you get even closer.
I'm looking forward to getting another detailed testing report on this.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Think I'll close out the thread for now with this quote from the Contructive Criticism thread.
The staff is just too swamped with other things right now to consider Achievement revamps. Its not that we don't want to entertain ideas its just that we don't have time to even talk about them. Let's revisit this topic after a month or two.
Hopefully rather than closing the conversation entirely, folks can continue to have constructive conversations on Achievements that might, in turn, lead to ideas the developers can work on when the time comes. That was the point of my previous thread on the topic--it certainly can't hurt to keep up the talking so long as we understand the time frame for any feedback.