Missing things from Vanguard

[Anyen]

I've been playing Vanguard since very early beta and there's a few things that have irritated the hell out of me, but have gone unchanged the entire time. Most of this post is asking for things to be "dumbed down" as the masochistic hardcore would call it. I'm not a wimp that plays only on Saturday afternoon's and wants to be level 50 a week from now - I lead a high end raiding guild on in EQ on The Rathe and spent over 350 days played in EQ throughout the 6 years I played. I like challenges, but I think some things have gone too far.


The first problem I have is how far mobs chase you when you try to run from them.

This is a screenshot I took last week in Shrine of the Eternal Flame. There's a huge camp of ashendrag's right where the red circle is, but it's out of clip plane distance for me. The screenshot is shortly after I ran from two level 24 2 dot mobs when I had full health. As you can see I'm almost dead. The problem is twofold. First, I'm a warrior and was significantly better geared than most people my level. Second, I had to use sprint just to make it where I did.

If I were any other class, or had average gear for my level I would have been dead in this situation. This is too unforgiving in my opinion. Had I stayed and fought and then decided to run when i realized it was a futile effort than this would be completely alright. But that's not what happened. I made a simple mistake and got 2 mobs instead of 1, and did everything right from there on out. I immediately ran, switched to defensive stance, and popped sprint and even then just BARELY lived. I counted the amount of time that it took me to run back to where I was when I started and it took me 42 seconds. Mobs just chase you too far.




The second thing that should have been done 6 months ago is a message indicating players are link dead in groups. Come on, I shouldn't even have to be asking for this. It's ridiculous that I have to put everyone that I group with on my friends list just to see the message which tells me they've gone offline.

Both broker's and the LFG tool needs to have better search tools. You can't search for specific stats, types of armor, or 2h weapons with brokers the way they are now. And as far as the LFG tool goes, it's pathetic. Especially considering how much hype was put into it. You can't even search what continent someone's on using it and you're just as well off using /who all lfg x to x level as you are using the tool.

A /who all friend command would also be nice to have. This is something the original EQ had and the friends social tab is not an adequate substitute. I don't want to have to bring up a new window every time I want to see which of my friends are online, and even then I don't want to have to scroll through the entire list to determine which of them are online or not.


And finally, travel times are ridiculous. If you want to travel between continents it takes you almost a solid hour unless you started right near a boat or that's where your final destination is. Hell, the run from Tursh alone to New Targonor takes 25 minutes. People don't even bother asking players on other continents to come to groups. Ever been in Trengal Keep and wanted to go group in Coterie Infineum Sanctuary? Yeah, me either. There needs to be even more dock locations.

Horses need to be faster as you get higher level too. A 20 speed increase from the level 10 horse to the level 30 horse is just stupid as the cost for them is almost a 100 fold increase. Nobody even bothers with the higher level mounts and they're acting as a horrible time sink right now as well.

[rangoth]

I disagree on the chasing distance, and it's not some hardcore e-peenix thing either. Mobs should chase you a bit, why should it turn around and just stop attacking after 10 feet?

The way I see it, in a game with out zones, leashing should achieve the following:

1.) Prevent perma-aggro from shit you run by while moving from area to area
2.) Allow you to eventually escape an encounter that is too difficult for you without dying if you are on your toes.
3.) Just like WoW does in a dungeon, make moving around the dungeon without fighting impossible. One should be able to leash ent mobs and just run to the end.
4.) someone else may want to add to this list.

I will concede your comment on horses though, the upgrades need to be better by more than 20 speed...look cooler, maybe a bit faster, maybe hold more shit? Something, the 20 speed is not enough to justify the 10x cost increase.

[Reggie]

Definately going to second the Travel opinion. It was an adventure the first time around...but.

More jin portals please. Something

[Arbuste]

All of them valid complaints, except for the Horses. It's not only +20, as you can add new tacks and horseshoes. You're looking at at least +30% run speed from Tier1 to Tier2. And the price will eventually (soon) be irrelevant.

VG's issues have more to do with mechanics based on tedium and shitty design than bugs. "Meaningful travel", right. Travel time is probably my biggest gripe. If you're near a dungeon and unable to find a group, you are fucked. The next dungeon is 30m-1h running / zoning away. Solo quests around the dungeons don't last long, if you even want to do that. When I want to dungeon crawl, I might not be willing to "Kill 50 Bandits." Or "Bring 100 Flowers!"

[Nattac]

Lets not forget around 20 fake loading times >< jk jk =p

I definitly agree with all those points.. if i see someone on thestra lfg my lvl and im in qalia.. pfft i don't even bother

Ooo on another note, it's not like these people on other continent's wouldn't take the group. It's the fact, by the time they get there.. it's very likely the group may disban - Ive had one person travel from Qalia to Thestra.. He said never again after he finished

[Guzrog]

I think leash distance is fine personally, but I also have a pretty dope PC. I feel the leash distance makes me respect the world a bit more, in WOW for example you can just run through the majority of zones/camps with little concern for you're own well being as they'll leash very very quickly. The LFG thing seems like a cosmetic thing, its not that hard to hit "o", its actually quicker than typing /who all LFG even @ 120wpm+.

As far as travel, I enjoy the longer times as it makes the world feel just as large as it is, which is fucking huge, this game is 17gb+. Its all personal opinion but thats my take on it.

[Nino]

Originally Posted by Anyen

I've been playing Vanguard since very early beta and there's a few things that have irritated the hell out of me, but have gone unchanged the entire time. Most of this post is asking for things to be "dumbed down" as the masochistic hardcore would call it. I'm not a wimp that plays only on Saturday afternoon's and wants to be level 50 a week from now - I lead a high end raiding guild on in EQ on The Rathe and spent over 350 days played in EQ throughout the 6 years I played. I like challenges, but I think some things have gone too far.


The first problem I have is how far mobs chase you when you try to run from them.

This is a screenshot I took last week in Shrine of the Eternal Flame. There's a huge camp of ashendrag's right where the red circle is, but it's out of clip plane distance for me. The screenshot is shortly after I ran from two level 24 2 dot mobs when I had full health. As you can see I'm almost dead. The problem is twofold. First, I'm a warrior and was significantly better geared than most people my level. Second, I had to use sprint just to make it where I did.

If I were any other class, or had average gear for my level I would have been dead in this situation. This is too unforgiving in my opinion. Had I stayed and fought and then decided to run when i realized it was a futile effort than this would be completely alright. But that's not what happened. I made a simple mistake and got 2 mobs instead of 1, and did everything right from there on out. I immediately ran, switched to defensive stance, and popped sprint and even then just BARELY lived. I counted the amount of time that it took me to run back to where I was when I started and it took me 42 seconds. Mobs just chase you too far.




The second thing that should have been done 6 months ago is a message indicating players are link dead in groups. Come on, I shouldn't even have to be asking for this. It's ridiculous that I have to put everyone that I group with on my friends list just to see the message which tells me they've gone offline.

Both broker's and the LFG tool needs to have better search tools. You can't search for specific stats, types of armor, or 2h weapons with brokers the way they are now. And as far as the LFG tool goes, it's pathetic. Especially considering how much hype was put into it. You can't even search what continent someone's on using it and you're just as well off using /who all lfg x to x level as you are using the tool.

A /who all friend command would also be nice to have. This is something the original EQ had and the friends social tab is not an adequate substitute. I don't want to have to bring up a new window every time I want to see which of my friends are online, and even then I don't want to have to scroll through the entire list to determine which of them are online or not.


And finally, travel times are ridiculous. If you want to travel between continents it takes you almost a solid hour unless you started right near a boat or that's where your final destination is. Hell, the run from Tursh alone to New Targonor takes 25 minutes. People don't even bother asking players on other continents to come to groups. Ever been in Trengal Keep and wanted to go group in Coterie Infineum Sanctuary? Yeah, me either. There needs to be even more dock locations.

Horses need to be faster as you get higher level too. A 20 speed increase from the level 10 horse to the level 30 horse is just stupid as the cost for them is almost a 100 fold increase. Nobody even bothers with the higher level mounts and they're acting as a horrible time sink right now as well.

Leashing - This problem is/waas twofold. Continuing to damage an NPC with a damage shield for instance, resets the leash length, and modified run speed over 100% keeps creatures beating your butt as you try and flee. We've recently made a pass and reset ALL runspeed modifiers to not exceed 100% of normal runspeed in almost every case. Cheetahs can still catch you along with other creatures that should be fast. A hobbling zombie however, should not be able to run you down and kill you. We found a NPC two nights ago that was running around in solo area at 130% runspeed killng people left and right. We will continue to fix these as we find them as the script we ran may have missed a few here and there. There is also a bit of code that looks at whether or not a creature 'should' be able to get to you and if it for some reason can't, it ports to you. This was to remedy NPCs getting stuck, but has obvious adverse effects on classes that run extremely fast like bards. Creatures were teleporting to your location and beating you down; was good fun. This also should be remedied. On top of that, leash lengths were also brought in a bit, and we can continue to monitor it to make sure that you can get away, if that was your intention. The problem is trying to balance 'fleeing' against 'kiting'. If we make leashes too short, then we screw over classes that kite.

Linkdead - I will ask if this is something we can address, but honestly haven't heard many people commplain about this at all. I've never lost connection to the server, but I do know this can be common for people in certain parts of the country/world.

Brokers/LFG - The brokers received a recent pass and will get better search support very soon. The coder in charge of this is working on something a bit more important right now, but will get to this soon. We discussed problems with LFG functionality here on the boards, and it was a subject in a big meeting on Monday. It is near the top of the list on the 'How can we make getting together more user friendly' list.

Travel - In our meeting on Monday this was the big topic. Our world is huge, and we'd like to maintain the 'feel' of the large world without penalizing people who need to get somewhere in a short amount of time. We have to balance the need for ground mounts, flying mounts, ocean vessels, and teleportation without trivializing either transportation methods or content. This is a touchy subject with people strongly polarized on all sides. We will endeavor to find a happy medium that allows people to find groups, get into a group, meet up, or adventure in a prefered area without a massive time commitment dedicated solely to travel. For the record, I HATE long travel times, especially since my days of 8+ hour sessions are long gone. I have a few hours to play, and if I have to spend 3/4 of it getting somewhere then I am not having fun. Again, there are plans in the works, but we take this stuff very seriously and we will not rush a quick or easy fix in that we may regret. Know that travelling is a focus here and we are looking at ways to maximize people's play times. There will never be a nexus or POK though, we will likely have some mix of player driven, group driven, and stand alone systems for travel on a per continent basis.

Horses - Horses are 40%, 60%, and 80% runspeed modifiers. The 20% is significant, and we can make higher level mounts more attractive by allowing higher armor and saddlebag additions if necessary. People are upgrading horses currently so it may be too early to consider modifying these. Flying mount quests are going live as well, so there will be a good deal of excitement when these start appearing.

I didn't spell check this, so forgive the bad grammar.

[holymight]

Originally Posted by Nino

Horses - Horses are 40%, 60%, and 80% runspeed modifiers. The 20% is significant, and we can make higher level mounts more attractive by allowing higher armor and saddlebag additions if necessary. People are upgrading horses currently so it may be too early to consider modifying these. Flying mount quests are going live as well, so there will be a good deal of excitement when these start appearing.

Any chance you could tell us the level/faction restrictions on the flying mounts?

[Bolero]

The linkdead thing needs to go in. People aren't going linkdead because of network issues, they are going linkdead because they CTD which happens all the damn time. In any case, a group message is needed.

I would prefer that mobs don't leash at all, but that's just me. BTW healers and casters can take 3-4 even level 2 dots at the same time (at least my druid and BloodMage can in the mid 20s) without breaking a sweat. To say that any other class would be dead with 2 even level 2 dots isn't quite right.

I agree about the travel time. It is excessive. Maybe on a high pop server it doesn't matter because people are everywhere, but on my low pop server you can be in Trengal keep without a single tank nearby while 2 are LFG in CIS. It's lame. Pretty much everyone in the 20s is in CIS while the other dungeons will go completely unused because of the travel time to them. Low population with ridiculous travel times just makes it so there will be only one used dungeon for each level range. As much as the designers wish this could be like EQ in 1999, that kind of travel time will never be acceptable in an MMO these days IMO.

I enjoyed this game. Got a druid and a Blood Mage to the mid 20s, but I'm not playing past the free month. I also really loved diplomacy, but it basically stopped when I hit level 60. The bugs and hitching drive me nuts. Maybe when things get a bit more fleshed out I'll resub. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

[Ham n Cheese]

I don't even want to begin imagining how much I'd fucking hate to travel if I actually had to wait and use boats (I did it twice out of curiousity, never again). Travel time is insane, it should be like flight paths, once you've "made it" to a place once, you shouldn't have to run the same long ass path again. Seriously to run to the top of Thestra from New Targ probably takes 30 minutes, don't find a group so you want to check out coterie? there goes a night of playing.

[Jabberwhacky]

Are mobs supposed to stay in the "encounter window" if they are out of view distance but still aggro on you? They don't now, and it's really lame. There's no way to tell when something has stopped chasing you. Other games this doesn't matter so much, since you could just turn around and look, but here in VG where the view distance is 50 freakin meters, it just sucks.

[Ham n Cheese]

If you end a sentence with "/" it should not assume you hit enter and then did a who on the zone.

Helms not being in the game a month after release is ridiculous.

[Anyen]

Horses - Horses are 40%, 60%, and 80% runspeed modifiers. The 20% is significant, and we can make higher level mounts more attractive by allowing higher armor and saddlebag additions if necessary. People are upgrading horses currently so it may be too early to consider modifying these. Flying mount quests are going live as well, so there will be a good deal of excitement when these start appearing.

The horses are at 40%, 50% and 60%. Not 60 and then 80.

Thank you very much for the response Nino. We all appreciate it here.

[Mithrull]

Disagree with the chasing distance. I have average gear for my level and sprint saves me quite a bit. Remember also that several classes get speed buffs and never even bother with sprint. Long as you don't generate a bigger train as you run it's not hard to lose 90% of what's chasing you.

I'm starting to agree with the travel thing though. Affordable mounts doesn't make up for lack of porting classes or other things we see in the latest MMOs. I'd actually like to see boats remain (as the goal anyway since the things are still broken) as the only way to travel intercontinentally. I like the idea of separate economies etc. But travel within each continent is keeping people apart more so than any other game I've ever played. I suppose flying mounts will could change that. Let's just hope you don't fall from them when zoning like in beta.

Add guild banks to the list of the strangely missing. It's 2007 and people are using BANK MULES!

[Ssinurn]

Originally Posted by Nino

Linkdead - I will ask if this is something we can address, but honestly haven't heard many people commplain about this at all. I've never lost connection to the server, but I do know this can be common for people in certain parts of the country/world.

Nino, I think this is because people have real problems with the grouping code. If you make a group, by the time everyone gets to the spot over half of them get booted out of game. I myself get CTDs, others get lock ups, etc. It just say 'x goes offline' if you have them on friends or they are guildies.

This grouping stuff is buggy enough to happen to everyone in my guild very frequently and we live all over. This is also fairly common from talking to others. One of my friends was locking up every 30 minutes and she has a current gen good pc with all the proper tweaks.

So what may be CTDs or lockups, people would also call that to be an LD too in other games. It would still give a message to the group as an LD, even if your PC just died.