Haveing the same class being played 2 or more ways differently, but still be effective is a good thing, It show how diverse a class can be played and that there is no one real way to play a class. As per combat pacing, you honestly want to have high strung gameplay is not enjoyable all the time (some games yes EG: DOOM ETERNAL) here is a good examaple of time to risk/reward . If you have to grow carrots in a small backyard plot. Would you rather take your time and do it right and properly so you get the maximum yield for what your planting in the space provided or speed through it to get just the exact amount you need just to get by? Mistakes can happen in both process, but the chance to mess up is even grater if one speeds through the process. What I am trying to say is that going fast all the time is not always good or enjoyable and it takes away from the enjoyment and can be very stressful for some if they rush through it. just let the combat pacing be slower the FF14 but faster the EQ and I think it would be fine I don't think people would complain about that, and also making sure the windows of opertunity are not so tight that only a select few can accomplish. make it where everyone can do it in a reasonable fashion..
I'm Sorry but if you can't cast a prepatory ability and follow up with a combo in 4 seconds you may need to to be in a diff role entirely.
There are times where you will not only need to cast things in a fast succession, but also change targets to address the add coming in while also casting as fast as possible to heal while maintaing resources and procs.
Just because you think you can't manage 4 seconds between abilities because of a made up high latency, and what I can only assume is insanely slow reaction time, doesn't mean the rest of the players who want a high skill ceiling and engaging playstyle should suffer.
To this day on these forums people complain about the heroic opportunity garbage from EQ2, how fake and forced it was, how it led to ugly interactions between group members. They complain about rotations. They complain about staring at their abiilty bar instead of actually looking at the game world, and yet when VR rolls out this 4 second status crap they say "thank you sir may I have another!".
"High skill" shouldn't be determined by who can stomach tedious, forced gameplay.
vjek said:It applies equally to anyone in north america too, if the GCD is 0.5 seconds (500ms) and you factor in even 100ms of latency (not atypical) and human reaction time of 250ms. That's at 850ms consumed in a 1000ms window, worst case. Fun? Not really. It essentially means you can't react "normally", but rather, you have to be anticipating every keypress. And to Vandraads point, then you're just playing the UI, not the game. There's nothing wrong with being efficient, but when the design forces you to predict the future, that's not ideal.
Far better to err on the side of caution than ride the knife of frustration, for mechanics like this, if your intended audience is the players seeking a spiritual successor to EQ, old school gameplay, slow paced MMO combat, and/or non-twich gameplay, and/or non-action-MMO gameplay.
This is who I was refering to, other posts before and after. Everquest was slow and strategy based and 4 seconds is far from "quick twitch" and it is also ONLY one skill combo in the kit. This game is also a multi-tasking game. If management is too hard as the pantheon Shaman like described above im sure there will be slower, less involved healers.
Lets not forget there is programmable Macros for every single spell and ability. This can easily be telegraphed to party members so they know the ability is being cast. This keeps players actively engaged and promotes text communication not voice. Its high risk high reward for paying attention not predicting the future.
Agreed, Tezlia. 4 seconds would be plenty, as a baseline. 1 second? Not so much.
As far as programmable macros being usable in Pantheon, so far that's not been demonstrated.
Given the LAS hotbar restrictions, I don't think I would personally be giving up an active ability for a communications macro.
Keno Monster said:To this day on these forums people complain about the heroic opportunity garbage from EQ2, how fake and forced it was, how it led to ugly interactions between group members. They complain about rotations. They complain about staring at their abiilty bar instead of actually looking at the game world, and yet when VR rolls out this 4 second status crap they say "thank you sir may I have another!".
"High skill" shouldn't be determined by who can stomach tedious, forced gameplay.
I do agree with you on Heroic Opp from EQ2. That was just total trash and half-ass'd at best. I'd prefer synergy in the way classes can benefit each other through debuffs or maybe even casting something on an ally that will give them higher penetration on the next skill used, so it by passes resists or some armor class. That would give the utility, without the need to pressure forced skills.
vjek said:Agreed, Tezlia. 4 seconds would be plenty, as a baseline. 1 second? Not so much.
As far as programmable macros being usable in Pantheon, so far that's not been demonstrated.
Given the LAS hotbar restrictions, I don't think I would personally be giving up an active ability for a communications macro.
Sorry i was refering more to the party message that can be attached to each skill. As in the party message is triggered as soon as you use the skill.
I'm aware of the claim (around 9m30s on the April 2 video) yet, this hasn't been demonstrated, nor has the UI (or any UI elements) been shown that will support it without consuming LAS hotbar slots.
The current codex, spellbook, or UI they've shown to date does not have any of this in it. Hopefully they'll show it soon.
I know they've said this a future feature, but so is Progeny, Colored Mana, and more, so I'll remain skeptical until they actually show it. :)
I'd like to share an example of how the "state of being" / "synergy" / "mastery" features/mechanics could affect combat.
I'm going to make a bunch of assumptions for demonstrative purposes so bare with me.
- The warrior "Shield Slam" ability can be upgraded through the mastery system to add a "knocked-down" status effect for 4 seconds.
- The "knocked down" status effect temporarily reduces the avoidance of the enemy NPC down to 0 for the duration of the effect.
- The "knocked down" status effect also allows certain abilities to capitalize on the status with additional bonus effects.
Here are some synergy considerations that would emerge:
- The warrior can now synergize some of his own abilities. As an example, the warrior could use Shield Slam to knock down the enemy, guaranteeing that his next two abilities will land. They could use this window to reliably increase their threat with Angering Blow (whether in addition to using taunt, or instead of using taunt), or if they want to deal extra damage, they could use Strike of Breaking and follow it up with their highest damage melee ability. If the enemy has 30% or lower HP, they could use Shoulder Crash and then follow that up with their highest damage melee ability.
- The warrior can now synergize with all other melee classes. While the enemy is in a knocked down state, other melee classes could exploit that same window, and with the same variety of choices. They could guarantee that a debuff lands and then follow that up with a high damage attack, or they could use multiple high damage attacks in succession.
- The warrior can now create additional synergy with some of the other classes depending on what abilities they have loaded and whether or not they are available. As an example, the "Shadowfall" ability from rogues might receive a bonus effect that penetrates X% of armor while used on an enemy in a knocked down state, or perhaps Shadowfall doesn't generate threat for the rogue while used during this window.
Here are some tactical considerations that would emerge:
- Let's assume that Shield Slam has a 45-second cooldown. One of the primary benefits of using this ability is that it can interrupt/stun an enemy. By adding the "knocked down" effect, Shield Slam is now multi-functional. A warrior could use it defensively to interrupt a spell cast or temporarily stun an enemy to reduce incoming damage. They can also use it offensively to create a window of opportunity where they can reliably increase threat without having to use taunt, deal some extra damage, or facilitate specific melee-induced debuffs being applied. All of these considerations are amplified when you factor in that other group members could capitalize on the same status effect.
- A well-coordinated group might know that the enemy they are battling has a particular spell that they want to interrupt and would leverage this ability both offensively and defensively. If the warrior uses Shield Slam while the enemy is casting a spell, they benefit from having a successful interrupt. Since the ability also applies the knocked down effect, melee classes could exploit that window by using their highest-damage melee abilities or temporary buffs (these would likely be used while the enemy is casting a spell) that grant haste, increased damage, procs, etc. Knowing that the melee classes will be using their high-damage abilities, the warrior chooses to prioritize Angering Blow as one of the abilities he follows up with in order to help retain threat during the burst damage created during this window.
- A warrior/rogue could coordinate a successful Shield Slam / Shadowfall combo if/when both abilities are available, but there is an inherent cost and consideration for doing this offensively. It wouldn't really make sense for the warrior to spam Shield Slam every time it's available since he would be missing out on the interrupt potential and/or synergy potential with other melee classes depending on a variety of factors. (Does the NPC cast spells that you want to interrupt for extra value? Do your group mates have enough abilities available that could efficiently capitalize on the window, and if not, is it worth holding off on using Shield Slam until they do, or would it be more beneficial to execute a successful interrupt? What are the HP/MP resources looking like for key group members? How many and what type of enemies are you actively engaged with and what are their resources looking like? Is there any danger of repops/pathers? Do you have enough threat to coordinate burst damage on your target without losing aggro? What other abilities do you have available if you do lose aggro, or if some other unforeseen event transpires?) There would be times where using it offensively/defensively/synergistically is optimal and times where it wouldn't be, and making these types of decisions would be dynamic, in that sense. The value of the choice would be relative depending on all of these considerations (and more) being observed in real-time. There are both proactive and reactive elements of play and choosing if/how/when abilities are being used would feel weighty.
Some great examples, but I still think VR need to be very careful not to make the synergies *too* impactful. And by that I mean having such a useful or powerful effect that they are more important then the base abilities and natural interactive synergies of a group (or even *as* important).
If they are too significant then the combat will be all about getting synergies to trigger and that would be a very different feel than anyone hoping for something like 'old school' combat a la EQ would be pleased to see.
I am not against the idea at all - this sort of idea can really add to combat - BUT (and it's a HUGE but (no pun)) - if they are anything more than 'nice to have' buffs and bonuses that help but don't skew the combat focus and rhythms away from it's fundamentals, then it could go horribly wrong.
I see them as special, but little, rewards for players who know their self-synergies well and maybe often play with another player so know their cross-synergies and rhythms well and maybe often play with a group so know the potentially very complex cross-group synergies well and manage to get into a rhythm on a good night.
I would want them to be an added sparkle and an extra interest for those good enough to pull them off, not a fussilade of fireworks and distractions that make anything else relatively unimportant.
If your group are finding a current encounter a struggle, striving for synergies should be a high risk tactic that is difficult to pull off, but that *just* might tip the balance your way, not something that if you get lucky with can flip a difficult encounter into something easy. And certainly not something you can just fire off every few seconds in combat like clockwork.
just an idea, but how about a hotbar button with 4 empty slots within the hotbar button itself and when a skill is used the next one in line is quesed up till all the skills or spells are on CD? it's something I saw from Astellia but some sort of idea like that but not exact
I've got to be honest, when I first saw the removal of down ranking, I came to these forums, ready to rant about it, purely because I loved that feature in EQ. However, I forced myself to mull it over, I watched the stream three times, and I can honestly say, I now really love the idea of a mastery system, knowing that, even when you hit max level, you're still able to work toward something, namely mastering each of your abilities until you've essentially mastered the class with 100% access to all abilities in their upgraded state. Spells with different names that had the same effect was actually quite annoying, too, so I'm glad to see that kind of thing removed. The notion that, spell books became bloated is true, however, that was easy to resolve by simply organising the spells effectively (the first 2 - 3 pages of my spell book included everything I used regularly, and everything else was organised by spell type).
There is one reason I was able to accept the removal of down ranking, and that was the ability to modify spells by shift-clicking them to cast with 50% effectiveness / mana consumption, I really love this idea, and, as someone that regularly had a low, and high level mez spell memorised in EQ, it makes the LAS less restricting as you don't need to use that additional slot (I know I'm probably in a minority having multiple variants of the same spell available at once, but that's just me, I guess).
How about shift-clicking uses 50% mana / effectiveness and ctrl-clicking uses 25%? Making those kind of snap decisions would be a great tactical choice to make, especially if it's a function available for use with 'all' spells that are viable for use in the LAS slots. Maybe the 50% effectiveness could have a bonus of taking 50% of the cast time, too? Whether that's unbalanced, I'm not sure.
In regards to these 'states', I'm really not a fan of them, especially given just how extreme the bonus appears to be, imagine this kind of system, combined with damage meter addicts? Ugh, what a nightmare that would be, I play MMOs to relax, and be challenged, not to be full speed ahead 100% of the time, that's not challenging, it's tedious repetition, and when you're not utilising it, there will always be some muppet with the attention span that's rivalled by a goldfish commenting on it. If it absolutely has to be part of the Pantheon combat system (and yes, I'm receptive to giving it a go in alpha testing), a longer duration with reduced effectiveness would be preferable, otherwise it makes standard utilization of spells / abilities seem 'unproductive' by comparison. It just feels way to FPS / twitch gaming for an MMO. Recenent MMOs would be relevant for a system like this, but not a game trying to bring the old school gameplay back to life (not in every sense, I get that).
@187
Does what you described sound good to you? It seems like you are for that style of combat??
Foolbok23 said:...As for the down ranking debate I'm fully against it in a social aspect and not a selfish one. What made EQ so great to me was the community on servers. Just starting off in the commons area and a random high level druid would stop and buff you with SoW, regen, and a damage shield. Later on I would return the favor handing out shaman buffs in starter zones. Hell, I could make decent money just sitting in Plane of Knowledge buffing people from max level all the down to level 1. People always wanted one hour plus buffs for grinding or even trade skills. Now with down ranking my buff at level 50 probally would be to high for the spell to land on a level 10 and I'd no longer be able to cast prior versions of that buff due to the auto update feature. So due to people too lazy to manage their codex/spellbook the community has to suffer. Am I supposed to just stand at the gates of a starter city and heal folks running to guards for salvation in starter areas?
When scaling was talked about previously (quite some time ago), devs had said that high level buffs landing on low level players would automatically scale somewhat in their effectiveness, so you could still do what you're talking about, but it wouldn't make a low level person indestructable like it could do in EQ.
What I remember in EQ was low-level players going to the East Commons tunnel where high level players traded and endlessly spam begging for buffs, because they were so effective, it made normal playing without them seem tedious. Not exactly a good aspect of emergent social behaviour.
Removal of down ranking means plus scaling means it's easier to help and doesn't trivialise content.
That's a thought, what if mana usage scaled with the spell, be it a buff, a heal or damage
The noob only get 10% of the buff, it only cost 10% of the mana.
Killing a bunny, only required a bunny's worth of mana.
Mob your killing only has 1% left thats all the mana that was expended.
Sounds about like hand holding mana management, and I'm not real keen on that, I was always proud of how well I, as a Wizard managed my mana. But so far how I see things, they don't seem interested in mana management as a thing.