Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Downranking / Codex Development

    • 185 posts
    April 3, 2020 3:14 PM PDT

    Wathing the dev stream, the reasons stated for getting rid of downranking were that the "codex gets super clutterd".

    And we were told that there was an "exciting re-design of the codex" coming.

     

    Its been said before, but the "Living Codex" is a glorified Spell Book.

    Its something they should be able to task One person with for One week and have a fully functional freeking Spell Book.

    Its amazing to me that this would be a reason for limiting player choice and getting rid of downranking.

    And indicative of how the development has gone for the past several years, that this is being made into a massive effort that spans many, many months of "development" and is still in its infancy.

     

    Please do not try and turn this into a AAA MMO on a shoestring budget that obsesses over trying to include every feature possible in a game so that is appeals to the masses.

    Please just do the Old School MMO that was promised and stop the endless "exciting re-designs" of non-essential content like climbing and spellbooks. etc that will take eons to complete.

    I can't imagine thats what any of us are looking for in this game.

    End of rant.


    This post was edited by lotuss79 at April 3, 2020 3:15 PM PDT
    • 839 posts
    April 3, 2020 3:40 PM PDT

    I understand what you are saying, but i think that is only looking at the spellbook in a superficial way.  For the spellbook to be full functioning, it needs to be linked to every spell, skill, stat, upgrade etc.  So there are a lot of other things that need to be functioning in the background for it to actually work. 

    I'm sure you have a lot of people who wish to rant along with you, i get it. But there is probably a lot more going on that we are being explicitly shown, regarding not only the spellbook but every single one of those insane amounts of character stat data we got a glimpse of in the stream.

    Continue ranting :)

    Edit: Regarding the oldschool being taken away, I dont get that feeling from the features they are showing us, i see no reason why most of the features shown cant fit into a slower, tactical, team focused combat as well.  Pantheon was not supposed to be built on old mechanics, but it is supposed to throw back to a more social, tactical and slower paced combat as it was in original eq / vg.  Having the option to weave combos, while it appears twitchy now, lets just hold onto our britches and see if that is how it feels when it is implemented in alpha testing


    This post was edited by Hokanu at April 3, 2020 3:44 PM PDT
    • 185 posts
    April 3, 2020 4:31 PM PDT

    Hokanu, you are of course correct in what the spellbook has to achieve. I would just say that this applies to every spellbook in every game that has a spellbook, and is something that probably should have been done and settled, say, in 2016. Devs went on to talk about how the right side of the codex will have upgrades and the left side will have descriptions! etc. Thats "tool tips"... not a massive accomplishment to be crowing about, but thats just me.

     

    On the 'Old School' matter, i kinda agree as well.

    The mechanics of it are looking very good to me. I very much like the directions their spell effects are going in as well.

    The major concern here is the addition of features that really act as just "keying mechanisms" (climbing, acclimation, etc) that i don't really see adding to the enjoyment of the game, but can be tinkered with indefinitely and push the game back for years, and for no beneficial reason.

     

     

     

    • 839 posts
    April 3, 2020 5:14 PM PDT

    lotuss79 said:

    Devs went on to talk about how the right side of the codex will have upgrades and the left side will have descriptions! etc. Thats "tool tips"... not a massive accomplishment to be crowing about, but thats just me.

    -snip-

    The major concern here is the addition of features that really act as just "keying mechanisms" (climbing, acclimation, etc) that i don't really see adding to the enjoyment of the game, but can be tinkered with indefinitely and push the game back for years, and for no beneficial reason.

     

    100% matey, i have those fears washing over me from time to time with varying intensity haha, I'm talking myself back from the edge with the assumption that they are on a slow release of fluff features because they dont want to spoil the content aspect of the game.  Keeping the fluff rolling out slowly that gives us a few ooohs and aaahhs while all the heavy lifting is being done undercover.   Thats the hope i'm focusing on. 

    I'm not actually anticipating seeing huge progress until its time for me to go in to alpha, thats when i am hoping i am going to have my holy sheets moment as i oogle at everything that has been accomplished behind closed doors... fingers crossed anyways

     

    • 245 posts
    April 3, 2020 7:08 PM PDT

    In my opionion the ability ranks removal and removal of downranking is not so much because of clutter in the spell book (although it's a extra positive effect).

    It's about game balancing and design scale, now and in the future. It's about streamlining.

    They need to stay lean and mean in their development, their resources and also their game systems and ideas.

     

    If they need to design, balance and create synergistic links and mastery lines for 20-30 abilities / spells per class - that's a lot less work than if every class has 1-6 versions of most abilities or spells and therefore the devs have to go through 80-120 spells and abilities for each class. That's a huge difference, especially for a small team.

     

    The synergy we saw, all the states we saw - all looks much more positive to me.

    It looks like they are creating game that looks simpler on the surface, but is actually very deep with a lot going on under the hood and a lot of potential interactions and synergies to learn which will really help to showcase the really good players that know their class or know their inter-class synergies well.

    It will help to bring out the challenge of combat and the fun of combat through an LAS system.

     

    It makes Pantheon more like chess - easy to learn but hard to master. Which is surely what it was designed as and what we are hoping for.


    This post was edited by Ezrael at April 3, 2020 7:19 PM PDT
    • 77 posts
    April 3, 2020 11:12 PM PDT

    lotuss79 said:

    Devs went on to talk about how the right side of the codex will have upgrades and the left side will have descriptions! etc. Thats "tool tips"... not a massive accomplishment to be crowing about, but thats just me.

    Yeah I definitely disagree with the tone and sentiment of this comment.  Joppa didn't appear to be "crowing" about an accomplishment to me.  He said they were removing some stuff on one side of the codex to make room for some other stuff.  He described briefly what they were removing and what they were adding in its place and seemed enthusiasitc at what he viewed as an overall improvement.  These were framed as upcoming changes.

    Anyway from your original post you seem more concerned with feature bloat and scope creep on the project in general and are citing the upcoming codex changes as examples.  I think (in general terms) most people share your concern as scope creep will delay the project.  In this specific instance I don't share your concern as I am going to extend the benefit of the doubt to VR that they know how to manage their scope, resources, budget, and project timeline.  I would elaborate but need to leave it there as I'm on my mobile and am getting tired of correcting my typos.

    Regarding the subject line on this thread…

    I can definitely see downranking of spells as something most spell casters particularly healers and anyone looking to conserve mana would want to take advantage of.  Removing it seems like some depth to gameplay is lost.  However, I don't play a spell caster and have found little or no need to down rank spells for the classes I play so I really don't care and if this will help VR unclutter my UI, and balance current and future class design I'm all for it.  In fact, as I'm typing this I realize removing downranking spells is probably a reduction in scope of work for VR and could accelerate development.  

    I like the additional information Joppa described going into the codex.  I want detailed tool tips the more information we can be given on how our spells and abilities work the better.  The text macro for chat will definitely be nice in raids and such.  


    This post was edited by Olympeus at April 3, 2020 11:44 PM PDT
    • 1315 posts
    April 4, 2020 7:35 AM PDT

    Down ranking really only matters if mana grows by level and gear exponentially. If a fully geared level 50 only has say 10 times the mana of a naked level 1 and 2 times the mana of a level 20 with gear then its unlikely that any efficiency gains will be measurable due to down ranking. Often the lower level spells actually have a lower efficiency than your top rank.

    Its much better in my mind to pick a high efficiency synergy LAS rather than pick a few lower rank copies of a primary single target healing spell so I do less overhealing on an as needed basis. Gives me more options without loosing the ability to be extra efficient.

    We still have not seen a good example of HP, Mana and damage progression from naked level 1 to geared level 20 to geared level 40 to endgame geared 50. Without this information fretting about the effect of not being able to down rank is a waste of time and brain cells.

     

    • 1618 posts
    April 4, 2020 7:52 AM PDT

    lotuss79 said:

    Hokanu, you are of course correct in what the spellbook has to achieve. I would just say that this applies to every spellbook in every game that has a spellbook, and is something that probably should have been done and settled, say, in 2016. Devs went on to talk about how the right side of the codex will have upgrades and the left side will have descriptions! etc. Thats "tool tips"... not a massive accomplishment to be crowing about, but thats just me. 

    I think you complete missed the point of the video. The codex/spellbook was not the concept in the video. What they were clearly showing off was the Mastery system and the synergies between a character's abilities and the groups abilities. 

    What made me the happiest is that they are keeping to their promise to make the game interactive and active enough that you won't be able to box effectively. It's clear they you will have to pay attention to what states each creature has and ensure that you can effectively maximize them. You will most likely have to change your setup each group, because the makeup of the group determines what states are available.

    Hopefully, this discourages boxing without banning it. Similar to creating a game base around teams, but still allowing people to solo, if they can.

    • 1618 posts
    April 4, 2020 5:18 PM PDT

    I am really torn about the lack of down ranking. Normally, I am against allowing down ranking. But a couple of the abilities shown concerned me. I don't remember which one, but I think it was a cure-type. It took a single target and made it a group effect, doubling its mana cost. I definitely understand a higher mana cost for the group version. But, taking away the option of a single target effect for lesser mana is kinda harsh.

    • 888 posts
    April 5, 2020 9:37 AM PDT

    Beefcake said:

    I am really torn about the lack of down ranking. Normally, I am against allowing down ranking. But a couple of the abilities shown concerned me. I don't remember which one, but I think it was a cure-type. It took a single target and made it a group effect, doubling its mana cost. I definitely understand a higher mana cost for the group version. But, taking away the option of a single target effect for lesser mana is kinda harsh.

    Suggestion:  Allow us to spend an extra Mastery point to keep the downranked version as a separate power.  This keeps the Codex from being cluttered but allows us to still keep a few of the key skills we want.

    • 57 posts
    April 5, 2020 9:56 AM PDT

    Maybe I missed something, but from what I heard the spells get 'upgraded' every so often.  Does that mean that 'Spell: Heal I' becomes 'Spell: Heal II' and so forth?  If so, is the Mastery associated with the particular spell line or the actual spell? 

    I really hope that the mastery is for the spell line and not any one particular spell, because it would not be fun to invest the mastery points into a soon to be replaced spell and then start back over with a zero mastery spell.

     

    • 1399 posts
    April 5, 2020 11:39 AM PDT

    Beefcake said:

    I am really torn about the lack of down ranking. Normally, I am against allowing down ranking. But a couple of the abilities shown concerned me. I don't remember which one, but I think it was a cure-type. It took a single target and made it a group effect, doubling its mana cost. I definitely understand a higher mana cost for the group version. But, taking away the option of a single target effect for lesser mana is kinda harsh.

    I had this same concern about DPS spells. How does this look with a single pull and our best nuke has been converted to an AOE for 2x mana cost?  A WoW spam fesr where mana management is no longer a thing? I'm not so sure that sounds like "Old School" to me.