UPDATED 3/17
This thread will be continually updated with information as its released and will be used to clarify the system. Feel free to express concerns or questions they will be viewed by the dev team.
Mana Colors:
Red - (Rage, Aggression, Anger) This mana is used by classes like the Warrior and Rogue.
White - (Purity, Virtue) This mana is used by Cleric and Crusaders. Typically associated with preserving life.
Purple - (Arcane) Associated with Magic and used by Wizards or Enchanters.
Spells:
There are two types of spells in Pantheon currently verified.
1. Class Specific Spells
2. Lootable Spells that are Mana specific
Lootable spells will not be role altering spells. For example a lootable spell will not be a charm that alters the play style of your character, but rather enhances your class with additional flavor. They want players to view these spells as rare and have the feeling of ice comet in Everquest. These spells will drop for everyone, but be specific to a class or group of classes and will NOT be usable by every class.
Spells will have visual and audible progression. This means that a spell will evolve with your characters progression and a level 1 direct heal will be less impressive than a level 30 or level 50 heal. The naming of these spells and flavor text are both very important to the design team. What this means is a level 1 fire spell may be called flame flicker and a level 50 may be molten torrent. I did not clarify how the descriptions of these spells will be written, but from what I understand they will have some lore written into the spell rather than just giving points of damage.
Focus/Mastery
Rather than call these specializations I will refer to these as stances or spell sets. So the way this system works is basically at level 25(focus) and level 50(mastery) you unlock 2 advanced stances which help you fully realize the true potential of your class. Each stance has strategic value and unique color mana that is associated with them. Because of this you are required to have a set of gear specific to each stance to fully realize the potential of each stance. These advanced play styles do NOT effect your role as a class, but rather give you additional tools to accomplish the same goal.
Announced Classes/Masteries
Cleric
Main Healing Class in Pantheon. (not the only one)
Mastery's (aka Stances): Devout and Resolute
Devout - Focuses on enhancing the core identity of the cleric. Will improve your heals making them more potent while adding modifiers on them like AOE effects. This mastery uses Grey Mana.
Resolute - Focuses on front line CC and gains a line of protection bubbles for the group. This is a mitigation healer and protects players from taking damage directly. The front line CC comes in the form of a wall(force field) that the cleric can place in a tunnel or hallway that requires creatures to destroy before passing. This mastery uses Gold Mana.
Lets give an example strategically where you may want to have your clerics focus on their resolute mastery.
Raid Example
Your raid comes to a large room with a Boss and 20 smaller adds that come from all directions. You can't outright cc 20 adds so you decide the best course of action is to funnel them into a manageable position so that your tanks can control them. You place the tanks at the front of the raid and create 3 barriers in the form of a triangle so that the only point of entry is the front. When engaged the swarm cannot pass the walls and funnel to the entrance where they are picked up by the tanks.
In this particular situation it would have been much more difficult to control the swarm because they came at all angles at once, but by having walls with collision you're able to assist the tanks in their control while protecting your back line. This is just an example that I created to emphasis the role of this mastery.
Additional key points of masteries.
- The process of switching takes time and will not be instantaneous. (more information to come)
- You will need to lock in your spells just like Everquest before the encounter starts. So there is a limited amount of spells that can be locked in at a time.
Classes will maintain their role and identity no matter which mastery they are using at the time. A cleric will not become a tank or a dps, but rather change the way they handle incoming damage based on their mastery.
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Frequently Asked Questions (updating)
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If you have anything you would like to add or questions you may have feel free to ask them. Hopefully we can get these answered and I can update them in the FAQ. This should help cut down on the same questions being asked. Also feel free to voice your concerns and hopefully he can address those as well. I will try to keep this updated as much as possible.
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Pending Questions
Xonth Ask
1.How does this work where doors or hallways are not available such as outdoor zones? Are zones going to be tailored to provide as much use for these abilities as possible, basically taking every opportunity to create bottlenecks even if you normally would not build this way
2.In the event you block a doorway with this shield pillar do the mobs look for other paths to get to a player? Will a gnoll turn around and run the “long” way around to get to the players?
3.How does this ability affect other players? I would assume this won’t stop PC from passing.
4.Normal CC allows a group to stagger how mobs attack the group, a wall that collects mobs behind it seems to only solve a problem temporary, if mobs keep building up behind my wall its only a matter of time before this goes from a help to a hindrance…
I want to thank Joppa for taking time last night to give some more information on the class system. As an oldschool Everquest player I'm hoping to relive my glory days in MMO's through this game, but I understand that this is not and cannot be simply a re-hashed version of Everquest. I can honestly say after hours of listening to the devs that this game is a spiritual successor to Everquest and Vanguard. They understand the love that we have for these titles and genre because they have the same experiences. They simply want to expand the core beliefs that these games represent. Class identity means a lot to them and they are trying to expand these concepts while maintaining what we love about the classic class design. Remember this is a process and giving them feedback will help them produce the game of our dreams.
The shield wall abilities seems very limited by environment. As far as I can understand you use it to block doors or hallways. This creates several questions for me.
1.How does this work where doors or hallways are not available such as outdoor zones? Are zones going to be tailored to provide as much use for these abilities as possible, basically taking every opportunity to create bottlenecks even if you normally would not build this way
2.In the event you block a doorway with this shield pillar do the mobs look for other paths to get to a player? Will a gnoll turn around and run the “long” way around to get to the players?
3.How does this ability affect other players? I would assume this won’t stop PC from passing.
4.Normal CC allows a group to stagger how mobs attack the group, a wall that collects mobs behind it seems to only solve a problem temporary, if mobs keep building up behind my wall its only a matter of time before this goes from a help to a hindrance…
On the masteries in general will it be more like a sliding bar with each main focus at either side so I could be something like 30% Devout and 70% Resolute or is it you pick one or the other and if you want the alternative you must remove all the other abilities.
Xonth said:
The shield wall abilities seems very limited by environment. As far as I can understand you use it to block doors or hallways. This creates several questions for me.
1.How does this work where doors or hallways are not available such as outdoor zones? Are zones going to be tailored to provide as much use for these abilities as possible, basically taking every opportunity to create bottlenecks even if you normally would not build this way
2.In the event you block a doorway with this shield pillar do the mobs look for other paths to get to a player? Will a gnoll turn around and run the “long” way around to get to the players?
3.How does this ability affect other players? I would assume this won’t stop PC from passing.
4.Normal CC allows a group to stagger how mobs attack the group, a wall that collects mobs behind it seems to only solve a problem temporary, if mobs keep building up behind my wall its only a matter of time before this goes from a help to a hindrance…
On the masteries in general will it be more like a sliding bar with each main focus at either side so I could be something like 30% Devout and 70% Resolute or is it you pick one or the other and if you want the alternative you must remove all the other abilities.
Some very nice questions here and hopefully we can get some of those finer details answered. I would like to say however that the pillar mechanic seems to be just a tool in the mastery, but its not the mastery itself. Remember the mastery revolves around shielding allies and healing them so that aspect doesn't change. I think this is just simply a cc mechanic the class gains for situational use.
As far as the wall goes I think it would act as a barrier. If mobs can get past the barrier than it will simply effect their pathing, however if it blocks completely than they will attack it till its destroyed. While in a dungeon I can see this being good if you have a roamer that paths down a hall way but you need to engage another group. you can cc and pull the other group then put barrier on the other side to block out the roamer to at least delay it till your group could handle the additional add. I think in a raid environment you can get even more creative with having multiple barriers to effect pathing.
As far as the slide bar thing goes I think you will simply have pools of mana that are effected by your gear. so you may have 1000 white mana and 400 gold mana, but some gold mana spells may cost 600 mana to cast. That isn't confirmed, but just a theory I have.
I would prefer if at say Level 25 you have to pick a path to go down with your class i.e Cleric has to decide either devout or resolute and to change requires a great deal of effort say going on a quest chain or going to a temple to devote yourself to another demi god etc.
This system just sounds like WoW's Duel spec system or SWTOR dual spec system, in both of those games depending on your specs you have to switch gear and wait for mana to regen after switching, not really seeing the difference here.
I would prefer you just say Pantheon doesn't have specializations, A cleric is a cleric a wizard is a wizard.
I am loving the coloured mana system by the way.
Zandil said:
I would prefer if at say Level 25 you have to pick a path to go down with your class i.e Cleric has to decide either devout or resolute and to change requires a great deal of effort say going on a quest chain or going to a temple to devote yourself to another demi god etc.
This system just sounds like WoW's Duel spec system or SWTOR dual spec system, in both of those games depending on your specs you have to switch gear and wait for mana to regen after switching, not really seeing the difference here.
I would prefer you just say Pantheon doesn't have specializations, A cleric is a cleric a wizard is a wizard.
I am loving the coloured mana system by the way.
I agree with Zandil. Trying to diversify a class might actually deviate from the intention of a certain class. Why would a party want a cleric who is a hybrid, when all the party wants from the cleric, is for the cleric to optimize his/her healing capabilities. What I'm trying to say is, that if a class deviates from its original purpose, another player would have to somehow compensate for that. I'm not saying that this will be the case with pantheon, just that I haven't seen any games where this kind of specialization functions properly.
Vortikai said:
I think I might need to see this in beta, but for me, I just don't see the point in multi-colored mana. Maybe it will work out really well, though. I am just seeing this as a "must carry two-three sets of gear on you" type thing.
I would have to agree, the more it is fleshed out - the worse it appears. I appreciate you taking the time to write this Djay, and I'll address a few points here.
Not sure on your raid example. Most if not all games have some form of AoE taunt, so it's not truly an issue to have to form a "wall." Now, if Tanks were able to obtain a skill such as Shield Wall, etc. that mitigated more damage and was an AoE taunt and turned them into Spartans ala 300 - that would be neat.
Switching may not be instantaneous, but it's feasible, if you have a set of gear, and are medding between raid mobs, all it truly would do is make the raid (or group) encounter longer. We need Resolute Cleric for Boss A, and Devout Cleric for Boss B. It's needlessly gimmicky. Just give me a cleric that has unique skills to Pantheon that you have to complete Rights of Passages to obtain.
And again, swapping of gear to change "specializations/stances" is just ridiculous. If a player has multiple specializations and masteries, they should be available to that player, not because they are wearing heavy plate armor or light plate armor. I understand some relics would make that mastery more powerful, which is fine, but armor shouldn't be the reason why a cleric is who he is. Now, if the gear restricts the player due to stats that are innately on the gear, that is much more realistic, and it would accomplish the same goal - if you swapped gear you still would have to med Grey or Gold magic.
By having "Gear Swap Specializations" - all it appears to me is a Wow Talent Tree combined with Gear Scores reskinned. Basically, where WoW had your PVP/PvE gear sets, this will have PvE/PvE.
I realize it's early, and my critique is harsh. I'm hoping I'm wrong and it tests awesome in alpha/beta, but I'm skeptical at best.
I will say I liked the idea of multicolored mana system. I get it and I see how it could extend the life of the game. While the choose option A or option B at level 25 and then at level max again I really not to fond over. I get that its not a permanent chose but It seems allot like going dirge or troubadour depending on the armor and skills you have found and you can change between the two in a few minutes of work. Seems I think most of us wanted to avoid haveing cleric types A and B, Enchanter types A and B, Warrior types A and B... at max level. Everything we have been talking about for more then a year is to avoid having multiple versions of the same class.
I posted this yesterday about the Path of Focus/Mastery, it bears repeating: There is no "other types" of clerics... just Clerics.. that know moAr than other clerics...
Follow threw on Brad's idea. (if I may?)
And Joppa also reiterated, that they had deliberated quite heavily & decided not to lock each branch, or path of mastery. So to extrapolate that, means that it is like AD&D multi-classing. Where if you start to pursue another branch of Focus, or Master other than one... your advancements in both becomes rather slow (& cumbersome of sorts). Way more so, than if you just had pursued one path mastery, then... start to learn another.
Classic. It allows for dynamic bounce of play style. A Wizard who unloaded Root from his spell bar, was a totally different Wizard than one who has root. Problem was, there were very few spells, that were decisive enough, to really ponder, or endless waiver over what you should have loaded.
I think no two Clerics, will have the same spells loaded. They will be slightly different in approach & cadence from one another, but the same. There can be no min/max in this regard and it's Masterful thinking on Brad & Co's part. *
Also, lets not confuse the path that your Character takes, from One's adventures and NPC spoken to... (As abilities & dropped spells, etc), with the Treasures One finds along the way (equipment). That is where the matrices of hodge-podge meta-gaming comes into play (see EVE).
Hence
I bet the rarity of some equipment/items, are indeed rare. I mentioned before, but I see some "socks" giving off green mana as you are mobile. Or, even rare types of equipment that have facets, & allow crystals, or gems etc.. to infuse whatever color you want/need, but it will never be two at once. These crystals, gems (ie:catalysts) may involve crafting, to make rare (perfect) color shifts, etc. the color spectrum in infinite.
Can you imagine what Dragon magic requires as mana..? Just knowing... would be a 10 year journey for my Character. (I will pay upfront please)
The possibilities are endless. The problem is, does VRi have enough restraint to hold back on such items. As over a coarse of a few years, not to trivialize such a rare item. But I don't see any problem with many of these fears, most are easily circumvented with a basic mechanic.
*VRi is going places...
I am enjoying reading about the new approach the team is taking with class design. For those that feel deflated over the recent news, would removing gear swapping have a large impact on your opinion? I am imagining just putting multiple mana types on choice (BIS?) group and raid items that are difficult to attain so that, with enough time and persistence, one can have their cake and eat it. Does this fall in line with the current development?
Zaphodd
Zaphodd said:
I am enjoying reading about the new approach the team is taking with class design. For those that feel deflated over the recent news, would removing gear swapping have a large impact on your opinion? I am imagining just putting multiple mana types on choice (BIS?) group and raid items that are difficult to attain so that, with enough time and persistence, one can have their cake and eat it. Does this fall in line with the current development?
Zaphodd
You make a great point here and I was thinking the same thing, but the reason may be that the two together are so strong its game breaking. it also puts people in the weird situation where they get only enough mana to get a specific spell then put the rest towards another.
So the more I go over the system It leaves me questioning the point. I am a firm believer in the KISS(keep it simple stupid) method and I just wonder if the juice is worth the squeeze for this system. Everyone would have been happy with a simple Everquest 1 approach to class design and gear; this just seems to add more work. I'm also not sold on the need to have both focus and mastery when they are the same thing it just muddles the system even further.
Item wise I am concerned that this will limit us on unique items like journeyman's boots or fungi tunics that we had in everquest 1 because the need of mana colors. These universal items gave a lot of flavor to EQ and would be sorely missed in pantheon I feel.
Either Way I would have to see this In beta before making any personal decisions on the topic.
DJay said:
Zaphodd said:
I am enjoying reading about the new approach the team is taking with class design. For those that feel deflated over the recent news, would removing gear swapping have a large impact on your opinion? I am imagining just putting multiple mana types on choice (BIS?) group and raid items that are difficult to attain so that, with enough time and persistence, one can have their cake and eat it. Does this fall in line with the current development?
Zaphodd
You make a great point here and I was thinking the same thing, but the reason may be that the two together are so strong its game breaking. it also puts people in the weird situation where they get only enough mana to get a specific spell then put the rest towards another.
That is the point, and the depth of Brad's idea.
I like the potential of the system and look forward to testing it to see if the practice bears out the theory. One thing I like most about this is that it diversifies the loot meta-game. One cleric may have very different BIS items than another cleric because he is focusing on accruing and using a different type of mana. A system such as this could give the game a longer lifespan and not just have each member of a specific class going for item x for slot y.
Hieromonk said:
DJay said:
Zaphodd said:
I am enjoying reading about the new approach the team is taking with class design. For those that feel deflated over the recent news, would removing gear swapping have a large impact on your opinion? I am imagining just putting multiple mana types on choice (BIS?) group and raid items that are difficult to attain so that, with enough time and persistence, one can have their cake and eat it. Does this fall in line with the current development?
Zaphodd
You make a great point here and I was thinking the same thing, but the reason may be that the two together are so strong its game breaking. it also puts people in the weird situation where they get only enough mana to get a specific spell then put the rest towards another.
That is the point, and the depth of Brad's idea.
I don't know which designer came up with the class system, but it seems like Joppa is the main driving force so it may be his baby.
DJay said:
Hieromonk said:
DJay said:
Zaphodd said:
I am enjoying reading about the new approach the team is taking with class design. For those that feel deflated over the recent news, would removing gear swapping have a large impact on your opinion? I am imagining just putting multiple mana types on choice (BIS?) group and raid items that are difficult to attain so that, with enough time and persistence, one can have their cake and eat it. Does this fall in line with the current development?
Zaphodd
You make a great point here and I was thinking the same thing, but the reason may be that the two together are so strong its game breaking. it also puts people in the weird situation where they get only enough mana to get a specific spell then put the rest towards another.
That is the point, and the depth of Brad's idea.
I don't know which designer came up with the class system, but it seems like Joppa is the main driving force so it may be his baby.
What we are seeing, is the outer forces of the Right of Passage system, being unfolded organically as Path of Focus, & Path of Mastery. As I am sure those heads have collaborated in-depth on it. But the greater Vision is Brad's.
Regardless, the multi-color mana has great potential.
DJay said:Hieromonk said:
DJay said:
Zaphodd said:
I am enjoying reading about the new approach the team is taking with class design. For those that feel deflated over the recent news, would removing gear swapping have a large impact on your opinion? I am imagining just putting multiple mana types on choice (BIS?) group and raid items that are difficult to attain so that, with enough time and persistence, one can have their cake and eat it. Does this fall in line with the current development?
Zaphodd
You make a great point here and I was thinking the same thing, but the reason may be that the two together are so strong its game breaking. it also puts people in the weird situation where they get only enough mana to get a specific spell then put the rest towards another.
That is the point, and the depth of Brad's idea.
I don't know which designer came up with the class system, but it seems like Joppa is the main driving force so it may be his baby.
Joppa said:
DJay said:
Hieromonk said:
DJay said:
Zaphodd said:
I am enjoying reading about the new approach the team is taking with class design. For those that feel deflated over the recent news, would removing gear swapping have a large impact on your opinion? I am imagining just putting multiple mana types on choice (BIS?) group and raid items that are difficult to attain so that, with enough time and persistence, one can have their cake and eat it. Does this fall in line with the current development?
Zaphodd
You make a great point here and I was thinking the same thing, but the reason may be that the two together are so strong its game breaking. it also puts people in the weird situation where they get only enough mana to get a specific spell then put the rest towards another.
That is the point, and the depth of Brad's idea.
I don't know which designer came up with the class system, but it seems like Joppa is the main driving force so it may be his baby.
Indeed it is :)
At least we know who to blame ;)
I like the sound of this. I agree with others above, in that I hope this will not lead to lots of bag space required for situational gear. A good equipment management system is really required here, maybe like for the different gears in VG (harvesting, diplo, crafting), where you didn't carry equipment in your bag, but instead had it on different tabs of your character sheet. If the system works similar to this in Pantheon, I see no problem with it.
UPDATE
So just to keep everyone updated on this thread and its progress. I spoke with Chris for several hours the other day regarding the class system and some significant changes are being made. One change coming down the pipe is that Mana is no longer being attached to armor because they heard the feedback from the community and having to much gear to carry around. He also reiterated that items like fungi tunic and journeyman boots would be to hard to put in if they ran with a system of armor with mana. We spoke about some of the other classes the monk being one and I will be updating my thread this week to reflect some of these classes and the overview of the class design.
I am for the multi colored mana system myself. I like how 'your this' but when you 'add that' you change as does your source of energy/rage mana whatever word you wanna use here.
I am a little cautious about a duel spec system like WoW where gear has to be switched in and out. I do like how rift's stats change based on your spec and the use of those stats to your spec. If they worked stats like that I could see it working with duo spec.
We WILL be collecting resist gear as I am pretty sure Brad said would prob be that case, so, I am not against extra gear BUT man, the HE double hockey stick with min maxing. Make our gear challenging to FOR SURE, Make our gear useful at every level FOR SURE, BUT please don't make us need to collect multiple sets. There are good time sinks and others that are just annoying this seems like one of them.
Xan
I think a multi-color mana system is intriguing. I look forward to testing this novel idea. I am confident that it will pan out in testing. If it doesn't; I am confident that it will be removed. I really want to test this idea, even if ends up not working, just so that I can see what it would be like. I suspect that this will becomes a _Green Eggs and Ham_ idea, where some folks don't want it until they finally try it for the first time.
Minor edit for clairity