A Jaded Life

Official Road to Purgatory-Beta Forum

-Gloinar, confirmed Beta-Account

Title: What the Fudgecakes, Pantheon?!

Hey Guys

I just want to know, what are your experiences with PvP-Combat in the Beta? Is the balance as shot as I believe it to be? Can it be fixed?

Let me explain where I’m coming from. I play with three others, we all know each other from previous games so when we all got an invite, we decided to get together asap and play together. All of us are students and took a one-semester break for Road to Purgatory, so we all have a lot of time to play together.

We all created our characters and went through our starting-towns, after making sure that we started close together. So, when we were in the level 25 to 30 range, we met up and grouped up. Everything cool, Half-Orc Fighter, Dwarf Paladin, Snow-Leopard Stalker and a Lucare Druid. The races should be self-explanatory, except Lucare, those are more or less the male variant of a dryad. Sounds like a rather balanced party, right? Well, we did. Sure, a little light on the magic, a second dedicated caster would be cool, but we just don’t have one.

So, after we met up, we started to travel and quest together. Everything cool, we are in the wilderness, almost no other players and the fights work great. Well, until we met another group. At least I think it was another group. And that’s where my question about PvP-Balance comes from.

To illustrate my point, watch this video:

mist-fight.avi

A snow-covered forest. The view seems to be first-person, out of the eyes of someone rather small, who is walking in the forest. Suddenly, the person stops and turns, looking at those walking behind him. A sylvan in a robe, carrying a staff, a half-orc with an axe and leather-armour and a snow-leopard in leather come into view.

“Still the right direction, Len?” comes from the person making the video.

“Should be, Gloin. I can’t check, the thingy we got has cooldown, you know? But when I checked after we left town, it pointed in this direction.” answers the Sylvan, Len.

“Let’s get going. The direction changed the last few days, so our target is on the move. We can’t waste time, I want to get that quest done so we get the extra rep.” comes from the Half-Orc.

“Yes, yes Drogio, I know. You are certain that we can get a ton of quests, if we just grind the rep. Where have I heard that before, I wonder?” mocks the leopard.

“Why, Tamir, I think I heard something along those lines, way back when we were killing friggin teddy-bears in that stupid demon-forest, collecting friggin feathers or something and what did we get when we were done? Oh, right, a whole lotta nothing.” chimes in the person making the video, obviously the dwarf Gloinar.

The group makes a little more fun of the one who views every reputation-bar as the way to ultimate power, no matter how small or how remote the community is. Well, he got a title calling him insane once, but everyone knows that titles are just a joke.

The video speeds up while nothing happens, until the group comes on a clearing. Nothing is visible and, if not for the reduction to normal speed, the viewer would not see anything special with the scene. Nobody is talking or making jokes, just more snow-covered trees, as far as the eye can see.

“Wha…” Len’s voice sounds out behind the group, causing the three others to whirl around. The next moment a ‘chuk’-, a ‘tchunck’- and a ‘squack’-sound are clearly audible in the forest, and the viewers see the cause in clear detail. ‘Chuk’ was an arrow piercing Len’s throat, ‘tchunk’ was a silvery icicle, almost as thick as a wrist piercing his chest and ‘squack’ was an axe out of the same material lodging itself into his skull.

Just when the three of them want to spring into action, the two ice-made weapons explode, showering all of them with gore, causing a wave of revulsion. Killing in-game is one thing, having a team-mate literally blown to pieces and getting showered with them? Whole different ball game.

“Protection of the Forgefather!” Gloinar instantly uses one of his strongest group protection-buffs, ignoring its cost and long cooldown.

Now buffed and a little better protected, it’s time to counterattack. But before any of them can even think of an appropriate reaction, white mist envelopes them all.

“The hell?!” asks Gloinar.

“I think I saw three people vanish into the woods. But don’t ask me to trace them, we would just get boned again.” says Tamir.

“Team-Logout. Asap!” orders Drogio.

After a few moments of undisturbed time for the characters, they log out. During that time an active attack on any of them would stop the log-out for all of them, due to the team-log-out option, so it’s useful for teams in contested territory, just in case someone waits for one or two to leave the game, before attacking. But with the log-out, the video turned black and ends.

back in text

See what I mean? Just what the hell are you supposed to do in an ambush like that? There was literally half-a-second between the strange feeling you get when observed and the first attack hitting. How the hell do you react to that if you are not a friggin ninja? So, back to my original question, What the Fudgecakes?

Gloinar out.

-Harms, confirmed Beta-Account

How about git gud?

Or in all seriousness, you stumbled into a planned and well executed ambush. Just what do you expect if multiple people prepare and focus their attacks, most likely buffed up to the nines, onto your clothy? Hell, they even went to some serious overkill-level. I’d guess that every single one of those attacks would have been lethal, maybe not the arrow if serious healing was close-by but the other two? No way, José.

So, Gloinar, what exactly do you expect? If you blunder into an ambush, you get rekt. That’s about as surprising as the fact that you get wet if you fall into a river.

But those are just my two cents

Harms

-Malaf, confirmed Beta-Account

Can only agree with the guy above me. You got rekt, so don’t whine on the forum.

-Do’brown, confirmed Beta-Account

Would you like to have some cheese to your whine, Sir?

Heracles, Official Pantheon Moderator

Please, guys, keep it civil.

And before you jump on me for an official answer, I’m just keeping the forum clean and civil, I have literally no impact on game-design or balance.

-Gloinar, confirmed Beta-Account

Me again. Yes, I’m re-using this thread, because, reasons.

I will give you some background on the situation. My buddies and I met a tribe of hunter-gatherers and got along with them, you know, good first contact, nice talks, did a few quests for them. Then, the big cheese of the place, their chieftain and his son want to talk to us. Cool, we thought.

Talking to them, they told us that the daughter of one of their greatest heroes who was supposed to marry the chieftain’s son was abducted by some sort of monster taking the form of a child. Sounds creepy as hell, but almost standard fantasy-quest fare, right?

Well, we got a quest, called Find the Shieldmaiden, objective was to bring the shieldmaiden back to the village, bonus if we killed the one she was with. As the area up here is friggin huge, friggin empty and friggin boring we got a compass-thingamajig that would guide us. Problem, two hours cooldown and only a direction, no distance or anything. But hey, quest said it was hard and we had no other quests so off we went, hoping for awesome rewards and more quests. Those are friggin rare here, no idea how it’s somewhere else.

So, following compass-thingamajig we went north and east. On our travels we got another quest, escort a hunter to some town called Yari, right direction so we took it and moved on. Well, joke was on us, the next day, the signal shifted, no longer north-east of us, but suddenly south-east, but throwing the other quest away and possibly losing a whole quest-hub? No, thanks. So we went on to Yari. The signal staid south-east of us, then shifting south-west.

Once we got to Yari, it was almost directly west of us, so we knew that they were moving, so we went searching. The result, you have seen in the video.

But that’s not all. Luckily, we had all placed our respawn in Yari so it didn’t take that long for Len to join us again and he was safe with the debuffs. Once Len was back with us we looked again. We would have done so sooner, but sadly he had the compass-thingamajig when he died and it vanished with his corpse. Now, the signal was pointing almost straight north but for some reason, the needle was no longer steady, it wobbled a few degrees back and forth. Sure, a wobble like that is no problem if you are close, but on a distance of who knows how many miles? For some reason the thingamajig broke.

By now, we were all pretty pissed and wanted the quest done. So we just went north, checking the compass as often as possible and so on. One morning, the wobble went away for a moment, before going wild. Guessing that something was up, we hid in the shrubbery and waited. A few hours later, the wobble was still there and still pointing north. From the maps we had seen, we knew that we were on a friggin peninsula, so unless they wanted to stay in the area, they would have to go past us.

We thought we were lucky when we saw two riders below on the clearing in front of us. One looked similar to the guys who gave us the quest, just a little bigger, the other looked smaller, not quite child-like but who knows what their children look like. Skin-tone was right, hair-colour was a bit strange but the compass suddenly started to point directly to them, once they were close enough.

So, this time we were in an ambush, according to you, we should easily win, right? Why don’t you look at what happened to us?

ambush.avi

The view-point is set a little above the heads of the taller characters, looking down on Gloinar, Len and Drogio who are hidden in the shrubbery. In front of them, a large meadow is visible and on a bit of the side, Tamir is semi-visible, almost like a silhouette, indicating that he is using a skill to remain unseen unless you are able to break the skill or in his party.

On the meadow, two riders are visible, one big, one small. Next to them, an animal is running. For some reason, the smaller animal seems incredibly out of place.

“I’ll snare them, then you move out to distract them. Tamir will take the monster out and hopefully the control on the other will break.” Len suggests.

“Sounds good.” Drogio, the combat-leader of the group, agrees.

All three get ready and, once their target is in range, Len starts chanting. A few moments later, vines break the ground under the horses and ensnare them. But instead of falling like expected, taking their riders with them and possible even landing on the riders and taking them out of the fight, the horses just disappear.

Both figures start falling, the taller one going into a controlled fall, like a martial artist, the other just falling. But the vision gets blocked the next moment, as snow springs up, obscuring the events on the field. Still, Gloinar and Drogio move a forward a little, just to see two figures flying out of the swirling snow.

One is the tall figure, white-hair flying but now a glowing armour out of red light envelops her. In addition, the eyes that look at the paladin and the fighter shine with yellow light. If that was not enough to indicate the fact that she was unhappy with them, the drawn back, huge axe would be a second, definite indicator for that fact.

The other figure is smaller, it’s the strange animal. But just as the animal gets closer, it takes a huge leap and in the air, it rapidly changes, from leaping animal to attacking sylvan. Before, Len had been ready to dodge the charge of the antelope-like animal but instead a large spear is expertly thrust at his chest. The surprise, combined with the momentum of the charge, are too much and the spear easily stabs into his chest before withdrawing for more attacks.

While the sylvan prepares for more attacks, the first figure is on Drogio and Gloinar. Gloinar tries to make her focus on him, but no dice, she simply dodges past and strikes a furious blow, easily breaking the parry-attempt, the buffs and the armour of Drogio, lodging the axe deep into his chest, before kicking Drogio in the chest to dislodge it.

In the clearing, the snow has mostly fallen back to the ground and the smaller rider is visible, just like Tamir. But Tamir is no longer in his stealth-mode, he is hanging up in the air, help up by strange tentacles coming from the small rider.

Just as Gloinar thinks about ways to help, the eyes of the small rider glow silver, she gives a shout and heave of effort and Tamir gets ripped apart. Literally ripped apart.

Forced to defend himself, Gloinar is no longer able to think about his buddy, at least for a moment. That moment ends when the world forces him to think about his friend, because the severed arm of said friend is thrown in his face. The shock made his defense crumble, allowing multiple attacks to hit him and with the last group-member taken down, the recording turns black as well.

back in text

Who was it that asked ‘What do you expect when you blunder into an ambush’? Would you please come forward and tell me why the friggin hell I was slapped in the face? And not just any slap? Why I was slapped in the face by a teammates ripped-off bloody arm?!

So I ask, once more: What the fudgecakes?!

Gloinar out.

-Harms, confirmed Beta-Account

Ok, sorry to sound harsh but: Again, git gud!

Damn, those three owned you, owned you hard. No idea about the two smaller ones, but the tall one used something similar to the Rage-Aura of the berserker-class. At least the red glow looks just like that. But the aura just glows around the berserker, it’s not some sort of armour-style thing, it just strengthens the berserker but drains stamina like crazy and can’t be turned off easily, so it’s a fight until the berserker keels over. The glowing eyes, again, no idea, some sort of strength buff?

And an ambush only works if you have enough power, the easiest way to escape an ambush is to break the kill-box. What that looks like, you ask? Well, the video is an excellent example.

Shuigun, confirmed Beta-Account

The Art of the Bitch-Slap: Next level…

“I won’t even dirty my hand by slapping you.”

-Morgana, confirmed Beta-Account

Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark…

You do realise that the one you wanted to ‘save’ was the one who killed you? I would think about the meaning of that fact.

It can either mean that the one you are hunting is powerful enough to completely mind-control someone more powerful than you are, so if you have bad luck, it is very possible that you end up mind-controlled yourself. (On second thought, continue hunting them and tell us what happens if a player gets mind-raped. I would be quite grateful if you give us a thorough accounting of the effects of mind-control on player-characters, so the rest of us can avoid getting their mind scrambled.)

Or it can mean that the NPCs who gave you the quest lied to you. That would mean that you stumble around in the dark, unknowing just where the pitfalls and trip-wires are. Or in other words, if they lie to you, in order to use you, do you really want to let yourself be used and hope that they are benevolent afterwards? I mean, to me, Road to Purgatory feels a lot less railroaded than previous mmo-rpgs, more in line with classic pen&paper RPGs, so if NPCs want to screw you over, they can definitely do so, but unlike in other mmo-rpgs, you can actually avoid getting screwed and change the outcome. Not like in some games when your gamer-senses scream at you ‘That cave is a trap’ but the only way to advance the story is to go in and stumble into the trap.

Oh, well, I hope you continue your hunt, there is far too little information on magic, especially mind magic. Maybe, you can gain fame by writing the definite treatise on getting mind-raped, from the victim’s point-of-view.

-Antiby, confirmed Beta-Account

Just watched the second video and I gotta say, Dayum, they got style.

I don’t think that the caster gave you the hand on purpose, but sometimes, hilarity strikes in the oddest of ways.

But I have to agree with the poster above me, I would think twice if I want to continue that quest.

-Gloinar, confirmed Beta-Account

Ok, things ain’t funny any longer.

Why the hell does a quest vanish? Not complete, nothing about failing, just gone from the log? And the compass-thingamajig is gone as well, not broken and pieces remaining, just gone.

Is the game screwing with us or is it a bug? Or both?

-Vulcanar, Official Pantheon Development Team

I was told about this interesting thread and just had to take a look.

Let’s start at the bottom and work my way up.

@ Gloinar: It’s neither a bug, nor is the game screwing with you. Everything is working as intended. And that’s all I’ll say about it.

@ Morgana: Interesting Meta-Gaming there. But you are right, with the statement that there is little information about magic and even less about mind magic. For good reason. In addition, yes, with careful analysis of circumstances around you, it is easily possible to avoid situations that would turn out bad for you. So, keep your eyes open and be careful.

@ Harms: Why, yes, it indeed looks very much like the berserker aura.

@ Gloinar, again: About both videos. Everything you saw there was legit. Nothing more to say, from a developers point of view. We will continue to look at the metrics of magic usage and the appropriate power-result and there will probably be adjustments, we will see.

Vulcanar

*throws down smoke-bomb and vanishes in a puff of smoke*

-Werot, confirmed Beta-Account

First after dev!

Also, Gloinar, learn to play

-Antiby, confirmed Beta-Account

So, dev says everything’s legit.

About the vanishing quest, I’d guess that it can’t be completed any longer. For example, if the target is dead, the quest is no longer possible. Dunno if it would count as failed or not, but it would no longer be relevant. Or if someone completed it before you. If Quest-Failure has negative consequences, I don’t think you should be penalised for not being fast enough. Or, maybe, the quest-giver got killed and the game doesn’t want you to waste days or weeks on a quest that can’t be completed any longer.

I wish you good luck on your hunt, we still need that treatise about mind-control against player-characters.