Welcome to Project: Gorgon!


Project: Gorgon is a 3D fantasy MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) that features an immersive experience that allows the player to forge their own path through exploration and discovery. We won't be guiding you through a world on rails, and as a result there are many hidden secrets awaiting discovery. Project: Gorgon also features an ambitious skill based leveling system that bucks the current trend of pre-determined classes, thus allowing the player to combine skills in order to create a truly unique playing experience.

The Project: Gorgon development team is led by industry veteran Eric Heimburg. Eric has over a decade of experience working as a Senior and Lead Engineer, Developer, Designer and Producer on successful games such as Asheron’s Call 1 and 2, Star Trek Online and other successful Massively Multiplayer Online Games.



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  1. #11
    Senior Member Yaffy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tinlaar View Post
    Some ideas that I'm going to throw in:
    -And speaking of damage calculation, by using that formula above, flat damage reduction is significantly less valuable than vulnerability reduction or % damage mitigation, and VUL reduction is better than %DR when both have the same values. My solution to this would be to put FDR at the back, so the formula becomes DMG=ATT*VUL*%DR-FDR. That way, FDR works as advertised, and VUL reduction has the same effect as %DR.
    I made a post about this recently and why this isn't a good idea, because it does work this way for certain damage mitigation sources and it lets Staff/Shield become essentially invincible too easily.

    I would love it if the flat damage reduction from armor scaled better, because it goes from god-tier at early game to basically useless at end game, but making flat damage reduction scale perfectly would be way too strong for staff players who can get hundreds of flat damage reduction compared to a normal player who probably won't even reach 50 flat damage reduction in a level 80 armor set.
    Last edited by Yaffy; 02-22-2022 at 09:09 AM.

  2. #12
    Senior Member Celerity's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tinlaar View Post
    so the formula becomes DMG=ATT*VUL*%DR-FDR. That way, FDR works as advertised, and VUL reduction has the same effect as %DR
    This would be a pretty big buff to flat damage mitigation that's not really needed. Tanks, or rather specifically staff/shield is already op. It would need to be accompanied by a complete recalculation of all the flat damage mitigation numbers to keep the balance the same. I do like the idea in theory though for simplifying things.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tinlaar View Post
    Speaking of DoTs, I feel like it really makes no sense that they bypass armor somehow. I've seen even high level players get burned to death on the reg, while they could solo elites just fine
    This +1, I don't know if the idea of armour reducing them is the solution, but ever since the dot rework, basically all enemy dots in the game got roughly doubled in strength. Ever since then they have always been the most dangerous thing in the game and a rakshasa fire mage or a fire droach is at least twice as strong as anything else that's the same level. Hopefully this is something Citan is addressing.

    I would add my ideas of potential quit moments (going to Kur rather than SV, transmutation as a core game mechanic being hidden away in a high level zone etc.) but I've already talked about them in more detail in the past on both these forums and discord.

  3. #13
    Senior Member Mikhaila's Avatar
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    One suggestion for more high end players: Increase the benefits of doing Fungal Fortress.

    Right now, I find it hard to ever get a group to do FF. People aren't that interested in doing it.

    Drop rate is too low. The amount of time farming you would have to do to get a yellow piece of gear that isn't screwed up somehow, is quite daunting. It's easier to simply farm materials for a max crafted yellow level 80.

    The WT aurest missions provide better chances at dropped gear, and are dailies making it easy to get a group, and giving a lot more cash at the end.

    Level 85 vs Level 80 mods is not a huge jump. But dropping from a yellow or yellow mc level 80 to a red 85 can be a huge loss.

    Maybe those goblin teleporters go somewhere spiffy to explore? It does feel like a smaller dungeon compared to WT or GK.

    Suggestion: make the spore infested dirt drop more commonly, and have a recipe for fertilizer that makes 9 fertilizer. Many players spend time farming dirt for fertilizer in low level zones. This adds a small reason to do FF.

    There is the possibility for other things as well. Random drops of "giant porcini cap" "Chunk of tasty fungus flesh" etc for cooking recipes.

    WT has a lot of small items worth money or can be used for crafting, not so much FF.

  4. #14
    Junior Member Tandiril's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by xerandus View Post
    It was Citan on Discord. That was a direct quote.
    Wow I missed that one xD maybe the admin boosts were still on :D
    On a more serious note, my experiences are similar to what you described, really good gear and you still need to tread carefully.

  5. #15
    Junior Member Domo's Avatar
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    Hello Friends,

    I have over 1000 hours in Project Gorgon and consider myself a casual. So, I will provide input and suggestions from this perspective. I adore the game and it has provided me tons of fun and made me some friends I have gamed with even outside of Project Gorgon.
    The starting experience in Project Gorgon is gold. It is one of the best MMORPG intros I have ever played. The things to discover and do there are awesome.

    Serbule Keep is another zone that has so many things going on and was fun to discover the dungeons.
    Serbule Hills is vast and sometimes feels too empty. There are only a few interesting things to discover, but overall I am not too fond of spending time in that zone. It feels like a bland version of Serbule Keep. The Ranalon curse though is the best one I have discovered.

    Etibule was interesting for me and I enjoyed exploring the zone. Albeit still having some dead areas, but it was a fun experience.

    Sunvale is very flat. The first problem is that you discover Sunvale too late. I like the suggestion of linking the Animal Nexus to it. Overall Sunvale feels like there is very vast empty spaces and can sometimes feel monotonous to explore. There seems to be interesting things going on, but I am not compelled to investigate them. The island needs a rework. Especially the terrain. Add a volcano few mountainous cliffs.

    Kur was a painful zone for me to explore and still is. Yes, I know there are ways to gain heat, but the whole cold mechanic is painful. And this is also where one of the issues regarding mobs start becoming problematic. I will discuss this later as the zones from Kur onwards seem to share this problem. I will be honest I don’t like going to Kur. When I need to go there, I usually wait for the Wolf Cave daily quest as it makes it easy to get to the important NPC. Can we also add more respawn points? Why if I die in the North, I must start at the South again. This makes no sense. It is already a pain to just get past the mobs. Please add more respawn points to cut down traveling.
    Gazluk has the same problem as Kur. Although more interesting to explore it just is not fun to fight with the cold mechanic and the mobs.
    For Kur and Gazluk my suggestion is to increase the cold timer. The desert areas thirst timer takes a long time to get to 0 why can this not be done for the cold zones.

    I have no issues with the Casino. A fun place to be.

    Rahu is a very interesting to explore, but then you hit the vast open desert and you have long stretches of sand with mobs. I feel the area needs rework especially the mobs there

    Ilmari I think was done right. It still feels like a desert, but it has interesting landmarks. The terrain is interesting. The new rework is wonderful. The mobs are logically placed more spread out.

    As you go into the higher zones it feels like you are discovering less and less interesting areas.

    Before we go to Povus let us talk about the mobs. The mobs in Kur, Rahu, Gazluk are overwhelmingly clumped together. The mobs need to be spread out more. Maybe create areas where your mobs are limited to. The Yeti Cave is another area of pain. Outside that cave an army of Yetis are waiting to pummel you with their rocks.
    Rahu desert mobs are even worse they are just clumped like a carpet. You have Rhino and Skeletons. I am not a lore person, so I have no idea if the lore supports the skeletons and Rhino to be in a desert. If they are meant to be fillers fair enough. But the mobs always disturbed me in that desert.

    I have not spent as much time in Povus, but the times I did the mob density is still a problem. The zone is interesting in terms of the landscapes. My only gripe is the Povus invasion at night it is painful when you can find a group to do it. This is one of the reasons I have not yet committed to explore Povus as I feel I need to be well geared to explore there.

    I also want to talk about the skills. I will admit that I am not a crafter. I do like the combat skills in the game, but what is painful for me is how all the skills are linked with synergy levels. In essence you are forcing a person who does not enjoy crafting to do crafting just to unlock their synergy levels.
    Would it not make sense to reduce the synergy dependencies and let crafters come into their own as specialists?

    I love the animal forms and Bat is my favourite animal form. From an animal player perspective there are some things that I think can be changed. I have no issue with NPC refusing to talk to me. I can live with that since I made the choice. Please allow animals to collect wood. We can pick fruit so it makes sense that we should be able to pick up wood. Create an item in place of the wood saw that animals need to carry to allow them to pick up wood. With the recent launch of riding as an animal I was forced to revert my form to human just to level that. As an animal player I was not very happy to do this, but the extra inventory space is hard to give up. An alternative system should be considered for animals to get speed and inventory.

    I love the necromancy skill line, but I realized at higher levels that my damage was lower, in part due to the pet AI and in part due to my pets not staying alive(They do die a lot). I spent effort at a graveyard to create my skeleton guards, mages only for them to die so easily in the dungeon. A suggestion, give us a revive option like animal handling. As a future skill Idea please give the necromancer the ability to fight without pets or create a warlock version that specializes in darkness.

    Storage is not fun to manage. I have storage chest everywhere and I loose track of where stuff is placed. Maybe as an interesting idea to explore. Why not create an NPC that can teach you dimension magic. Once you have mastered this skill you can access all your storage at dimension access points. As you gain favor you can unlock more and more dimension points allowing you to access all your storage.

    I can’t think of anything else. I am just a casual player and hope something here might prove to be helpful.
    Last edited by Domo; 02-24-2022 at 03:04 AM.

  6. #16
    Junior Member Kirdikan's Avatar
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    Great review. I don't agree with everything you said but great and useful review.

  7.   This is the last staff post in this thread.   #17
    Administrator Citan's Avatar
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    Thanks for the feedback everyone! I'm still interested in more feedback, wanted to answer some queries --

    I'm kind of curious, in regards to close combat, how did we get from the Povus lamp lighting "It only takes me about 30 minutes, in pretty shoddy gear" to "And I learned that city fighting... sucks in this game". That sounds like very different statements. What changed?
    I think there's kind of a misunderstanding here -- I realized city fighting (as I envisioned it) wasn't going to work in Povus before we launched Povus. It went through many iterations before it launched (and then many more iterations after). When I timed myself doing the lamp lighting quest, I was using what I considered a "final density" of monsters, but they weren't the same exact monsters that I ended up using, and I underestimated how impactful that would be. (Also, the layout wasn't randomized yet, so I may have inadvertently been memorizing what happens where -- not sure how much that affected timing though.)

    My original intention was that lamp-lighting should be a soloable task for a single level 85 player with decent-but-not-great gear. And I still think that's a nice benchmark to hit eventually, but I also realized it's not really that critical right now: I still expect high-level monsters and players to fluctuate in power a lot, so trying to perfectly tune a huge encounter like that is guaranteed to require revision later anyway.

    I think it's currently in the right ballpark. Too hard, but I could easily see it being too easy after a few more revisions.

    In regards to needing more max level characters to get better data: Yes, there are many, many ways that skills can be combined. But if a combination isn't deemed viable, you aren't going to get a lot of data on that if you want to make changes.
    I'm not trying to drill down as deep as you're suggesting... when I sit down to revise gear, the most important questions I want answers for are stuff like:
    • which treasure mods are currently popular?
    • which mods are seriously under-used?
    • which skill combinations are popular?
    • which abilities are used in each skill?


    I've routinely used this sort of data in the past, but I've realized it's becoming inaccurate at high level due to the low number of samples. I'm not expecting to be able to actually "balance via data", as you can do when you have millions of players. ("Looks like the Sword of Godhood is OP by 5.4%!") But I can definitely get enough data to answer basic questions about how players are playing the game.

    The first goal is to have enough data to detect the majority of currently-active skill combinations. Right now for some skill combinations, there's only one or two players using it at high level. But they are absolutely dominating the game with those combinations, which tells me that... there's not enough players, basically. Otherwise more people would have picked up on it.

    Ideally I could get enough data bulk to tell which mods are used with which skill combinations. I hate when I make the mistake of replacing treasure mods that seem like junk (and are under-utilized, based on my data), but are actually critical for a certain skill combination. The data is too thin for me to pick up on that sort of thing, so instead of nurturing a weird combination, I accidentally snuff it out. That sucks.

    about the wipe: you mentioned at some point that you might open a fresh server when the time comes. The blog doesn't mention that, and also doesn't imply it by the sound of it. What's the status on that idea?
    That got edited out of the blog post because when I mentioned that in Discord, people assumed it was a sure thing, that we would 100% definitely add another server when we leave beta. But that's not something I can predict. If the beta population becomes huge right before we leave beta, then we could launch a new server right after beta. But if populations are low leaving beta, I'm not going to open a new server -- that would split people up too much.

    I'm also not going to force people to play on an overcrowded server if I can help it, even during beta. We have another year or so of beta remaining. If we suddenly get really overcrowded next month, I'm not waiting until the game launches to open a new server!

    So I don't want to put ideas in peoples' heads that there's a certain timing that I can predict. We'll open more servers if and when the in-game population merits it.

    Thanks for the input everyone!
    Last edited by Citan; 02-26-2022 at 05:24 PM.

  8. #18
    Senior Member Yaffy's Avatar
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    Thanks for the reply Citan, it's always interesting to hear what your view point on these topics is.

    For determining what skills/mods/etc are too strong/weak, whats your methodology to do so? I'm interested in knowing how you figure out if something is too strong/weak.

    Popularity is one aspect for sure, but I believe that popularity is mostly an indicator of how easy it is for a player to get a skill combination to a level that they feel like is good, rather than how good the skill is when maxed out. Most people usually settle on a skill set they want to stick with to end game around level 40 or earlier, so most people at end game will play skills that feel good around that level range with some mediocre gear they managed to scrounge up, rather than a skill combination that's good with a full set of max enchanted yellows at level 80 or something along those lines. I know that you have a particular interest in players around that level though so perhaps that's a fine way of looking at it.

    That's also partly related to the point you made about skill combinations that aren't very common, but are really strong at end game that are used by a few players. Those builds are unpopular because they probably suck or don't make any sense around mid-level, and only really shine once you have a super good set of gear and the resources to really pump as much into it as possible.

    One examples of a skill that's really strong but unpopular as far as I'm aware is Giant bat, which is really hard for newbies to get (Without asking another rare bat player for help at least) and requires books that are only available for a short period of time each year, but then it has some potentially really overtuned abilities like confusing double which are total trash normally but scale ridiculously well with good gear. It seems giant bat is unpopular because it's so hard for a newbie or mid-level player to actually get and then use the skill properly, but it's absurdly good for soloing once you have everything you need to deck it out. I almost never see bat players that aren't around max level, but those that are max level are always doing silly things like soloing bosses.

    Another good example is knife which is really easy to acquire, but it's pretty mediocre for newbies because it lacks a lot of utility that make leveling up easier like movement, ranged abilities/AoE (Unless you want to spend lots of money on knives), and good survivability options. I see a lot of newbies picking it up because it's an easily available skill that sounds neat, but I notice a lot of dissatisfaction from beginners with the skill and it seems a lot of those players either quit the game or switch from knife to something else. That said, once you dump tons of money into the skill via throwing knives, venom, whittling, etc it theoretically has really great DPS. It's just that the early game utility is so lackluster and at end game it seems like even high level players don't want to invest in it considering how much it costs to keep it fully powered.

    I think one bit of data that could help a lot with balancing skills would be noting how popular skills are at different level ranges, because I think a better indicator that a skill is overpowered would be if a skill is more popular with max level players versus early game players. To me that tells me there are players who are going out of their way to switch off of playing their initial build they went through the game with so they could specifically play a new build because they thought it would be better (And probably stuck with it because it was). Conversely, if a skill is more popular with beginners than end game players, that might indicate that the skill is easy to get at first, but there are problems that make people not want to continue playing it in the long term. Even if the population isn't very big, I feel like there might be some noticeable outliers that could give you insight not just on how to balance skills, but also how to make sure skills stay fun and appealing from the start of the game to the end.
    Last edited by Yaffy; 02-27-2022 at 10:59 PM.

  9. #19
    Junior Member Tinlaar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yaffy View Post
    I made a post about this recently and why this isn't a good idea, because it does work this way for certain damage mitigation sources and it lets Staff/Shield become essentially invincible too easily.
    Quote Originally Posted by Celerity View Post
    This would be a pretty big buff to flat damage mitigation that's not really needed. Tanks, or rather specifically staff/shield is already op. It would need to be accompanied by a complete recalculation of all the flat damage mitigation numbers to keep the balance the same. I do like the idea in theory though for simplifying things.
    Personally, I think that the FDR numbers would need to be tweaked. While my suggested formula isn't really perfect, it is a simpler version of the equation that's easier for players to understand. Shield and staff would need rebalancing anyway, as per Yaffy's forum post about the damage reduction calculations.

    Quote Originally Posted by Domo View Post
    Hello Friends,
    Can we also add more respawn points? Why if I die in the North, I must start at the South again. This makes no sense. It is already a pain to just get past the mobs. Please add more respawn points to cut down traveling.
    Exactly, I'd say even Sun Vale requires more respawn points.

    Quote Originally Posted by Citan View Post
    The first goal is to have enough data to detect the majority of currently-active skill combinations. Right now for some skill combinations, there's only one or two players using it at high level. But they are absolutely dominating the game with those combinations, which tells me that... there's not enough players, basically. Otherwise more people would have picked up on it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Yaffy View Post
    Popularity is one aspect for sure, but I believe that popularity is mostly an indicator of how easy it is for a player to get a skill combination to a level that they feel like is good, rather than how good the skill is when maxed out. Most people usually settle on a skill set they want to stick with to end game around level 40 or earlier, so most people at end game will play skills that feel good around that level range with some mediocre gear they managed to scrounge up, rather than a skill combination that's good with a full set of max enchanted yellows at level 80 or something along those lines. I know that you have a particular interest in players around that level though so perhaps that's a fine way of looking at it.

    That's also partly related to the point you made about skill combinations that aren't very common, but are really strong at end game that are used by a few players. Those builds are unpopular because they probably suck or don't make any sense around mid-level, and only really shine once you have a super good set of gear and the resources to really pump as much into it as possible.

    One examples of a skill that's really strong but unpopular as far as I'm aware is Giant bat, which is really hard for newbies to get (Without asking another rare bat player for help at least) and requires books that are only available for a short period of time each year, but then it has some potentially really overtuned abilities like confusing double which are total trash normally but scale ridiculously well with good gear. It seems giant bat is unpopular because it's so hard for a newbie or mid-level player to actually get and then use the skill properly, but it's absurdly good for soloing once you have everything you need to deck it out. I almost never see bat players that aren't around max level, but those that are max level are always doing silly things like soloing bosses.

    Another good example is knife which is really easy to acquire, but it's pretty mediocre for newbies because it lacks a lot of utility that make leveling up easier like movement, ranged abilities/AoE (Unless you want to spend lots of money on knives), and good survivability options. I see a lot of newbies picking it up because it's an easily available skill that sounds neat, but I notice a lot of dissatisfaction from beginners with the skill and it seems a lot of those players either quit the game or switch from knife to something else. That said, once you dump tons of money into the skill via throwing knives, venom, whittling, etc it theoretically has really great DPS. It's just that the early game utility is so lackluster and at end game it seems like even high level players don't want to invest in it considering how much it costs to keep it fully powered.

    I think one bit of data that could help a lot with balancing skills would be noting how popular skills are at different level ranges, because I think a better indicator that a skill is overpowered would be if a skill is more popular with max level players versus early game players. To me that tells me there are players who are going out of their way to switch off of playing their initial build they went through the game with so they could specifically play a new builds because they thought it was better. Conversely, if a skill is more popular with beginners than end game players, that might indicate that the skill is easy to get at first, but there are problems that make people not want to continue playing it in the long term. Even if the population isn't very big, I feel like there might be some noticeable outliers that could give you insight not just on how to balance skills, but also how to make sure skills stay fun and appealing from the start of the game to the end.
    I agree with Yaffy on this, although another important aspect of this is that each and every skill requires so much investment for them to be viable, especially at level 50+. Personally, I'd suggest a complete overhaul of the gear system.
    -Gear should be similar to that in games like Warframe, where the weapons have slots for mods to fit into. This is already kind of a thing in PG, but it takes new players far too long to figure it out, and they usually stick to the "bigger number on gear is better" paradigm like in other MMOs.
    -Get rid of augmentation entirely, and allow the free extraction and installation of mods/treasure effects (maximum 6 slots for yellow gear, 7 slots for max-enchanted yellow gear). This has several very important implications for the game:
    1. The complicated and expensive resource sink of training augmentation is now gone
    2. It makes specific gear more desirable again, like those dropped from bosses, or those that give special skills, like the Gazluk armor sets.
    3. It makes trying out new skills more convenient. For example, you want to change from KF/ment to KF/psy. Instead of grinding for another completely new armor set entirely, just extract all the ment mods and replace them with psy mods. No more messing around with RNG trying to roll the exact mod, just go out and kill some mobs that would drop gear already with that mod inside, or drop the mod you want.
    4. It would be much easier to try out the effects of different mods, and make it easier for players to experiment and learn how damage calculation works on their own.
    -Transmutation should be performed on individual mods instead of the gear itself. The 7-day limitation for equipment repairs is just unreasonable. If a player wants to grind harder to reroll their gear until they get the mods they want, let them.
    Last edited by Tinlaar; 02-27-2022 at 10:19 PM.

  10. #20
    Senior Member Mikhaila's Avatar
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    I actually don't think making it easier will see that much more experimentation from players, or trying to figure out damage calculations. If you can strip all the mods out of gear and just design your gear, people would do that, but not necessarily the testing. The bulk of people would simply find it much easier to get a blueprint for gear from someone else and just make that gear. You'd see a huge increase in players selling mods, or even sets of mods. Easier, certainly. I don't think easier is always better.



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