I never played classic EQ on a live server, my only experience has been with Project1999 so I never got to play with alot of hte old mechanics. I have been told before that back in classic your stamina bar actually mattered, and you lost stamina with every swing, the amount depending on the weight of your weapon and I think str or something. Will Pantheon be using anything like this? I would love to see the pure melee classes have a resource to manage like that, without giving them abunch of WoW-like abilities that makes the combat not feel as realistic.
Has this been talked about at all by the devs? Anyone have any thoughts?
Spell caster are having multi colored mana, pretty sure one of the team ( might have been Joppa ) stated melee classes will have a similar or equal version of their own.
Zandil said:
Spell caster are having multi colored mana, pretty sure one of the team ( might have been Joppa ) stated melee classes will have a slimier or equal version of their own.
Yes, spot on mate, we spoke about this in one of last Dev Round tables and we will be able to speak more about it down the track when this has been fleshed out properly and starts to get implemented into our Internal Dev builds.
Zandil said:
Spell caster are having multi colored mana, pretty sure one of the team ( might have been Joppa ) stated melee classes will have a slimier or equal version of their own.
Might have been! ;)
I'm reviving an old thread here because I can't find anything else on medding/stamina and on watching the Twitch video recently it looked like the casters were medding and the meleers were tapping their feet waiting. Was that the case? Is the melee mana equivalent (stamina or whatever) to be developed still?
One thing that always annoyed my in the old days was casters having to med when melee characters just swing a sword and swing and swing (and moan about casters holding things up).
I think all characters should have a 'power' resource used in the same way, else there will always be awful downtime inequality.
I do like the idea above of defferent types of resting with different recovery rates. Would be very interested to see resting (regains power/mana/stamina slowly but can react quickly) and proper medding (for casters *and* warriors) where you regain faster, but suffer delays/damage when attacked and/or interrupted
I was going to start a new thread, but I was able to find this pre-existing one and I'm necro'ing it for the sake of discussion.
When watching the latest stream, it appeared that melees still do not have a resource to balance such as stamina/endurance, but rather cooldown timers similar to EQ on skills such as backstab while using autoattack. I realize it's still pre-alpha (or pre-pre) and everything is still subject to change. Irregardless, it's not the end of the world no matter the decision, but I think EQ's melee combat can be improved on taking the best of both worlds from EQ/VG.
I think VG requiring resources for melees and the amount of melee skills VG had versus kick/taunt/slam for example with EQ was an improvement; however, I thought VG took a step back from EQ by allowing fast regeneration of said resource which allowed for ability rotation spam (yes, I know some disagree with this notion). I would like to see Melees have skills that fall in line with VG, but with the recovery time in line with EQ. So, you still have to plan inside and outside the battle of what skills you would want to use as a melee, while also still having the /auto attack in the background that most games today removed which definitely causes ability spam rotation. I believe this would make melees require more strategy and skill. I'd be curious to hear other community members thoughts on melee resource management.
Also, I was wondering if this is still a goal for Pantheon or if requiring resource management for melees been scrapped?
Raidan said:I think EQ's melee combat can be improved on taking the best of both worlds from EQ/VG.
I think VG requiring resources for melees and the amount of melee skills VG had versus kick/taunt/slam for example with EQ was an improvement; however, I thought VG took a step back from EQ by allowing fast regeneration of said resource which allowed for ability rotation spam (yes, I know some disagree with this notion). I would like to see Melees have skills that fall in line with VG, but with the recovery time in line with EQ. So, you still have to plan inside and outside the battle of what skills you would want to use as a melee, while also still having the /auto attack in the background that most games today removed which definitely causes ability spam rotation. I believe this would make melees require more strategy and skill.
This. Definitely.
I listened to the old Roundtable from 2/2015 yesterday and I was wondering about some of this also. In that, they say that every class will use mana. Warriors and rogues were going to use red to signify aggression and bloodshed. They didn't get into whether or not all colors of mana regenerate at the same rate, though. There were some other pretty cool concepts in that discussion (particularly the plan they had for specialization regarding colored mana) and I am also wondering if this stuff has all been scrapped or if they are still planning for it.
Assuming it is still the goal. I agree with you Raidan. Melee needs resource management to be just as important as magees. I dont have the benefit of being very knowledgable of how it worked in VG or EQ. But I liked how it worked in XI in general but I would make improvements on how XI did it. But basically melee had weapon skills and abilities. Abilities had cooldowns (not global could be 2 mins could be 30 mins). These abilities were utility or enhancements or buffs most time though some were direct attacks as well. And then there were weapon skills which you had to build TP (stamina) to use. There were some ways to help build TP faster as well. But maybe Id like to see stamina be a resource that depletes instead.
Cohh did have a staminar bar that drained when he used at least some of his abilities. It was not really talked about though, so we don't know if he was actively managing that resource, but regardless it should be expected that it wouldn't be in a balanced state at the moment anyway. Just seeing that a resource mechanic has been implemented indicates that conscious resource management is possible going forward.
You also lost stamina while swimming. I don't recall stamina running out being a major issue. I think you could still use your ability. I fell off the boat in ocean of tears a few times and had no idea where to go. I ended up swimming around the ocean in fear of drowning when my stamina ran out. I can't exactly recall the effect, but I think you basically couldn't swim as fast, but I never sunk into the ocean I don't think. You also lost stamina when jumping. I think the only effect was you couldn't jump anymore when running out of stamina.
In this discussion I listened to, they said everyone would also have an endurance bar and they specifically stated that it will be needed 'for more than just jumping'. They said it would be important for travel, I believe. It was the colored mana that was used for fighting.
Bazgrim said:Raidan said:I think EQ's melee combat can be improved on taking the best of both worlds from EQ/VG.
I think VG requiring resources for melees and the amount of melee skills VG had versus kick/taunt/slam for example with EQ was an improvement; however, I thought VG took a step back from EQ by allowing fast regeneration of said resource which allowed for ability rotation spam (yes, I know some disagree with this notion). I would like to see Melees have skills that fall in line with VG, but with the recovery time in line with EQ. So, you still have to plan inside and outside the battle of what skills you would want to use as a melee, while also still having the /auto attack in the background that most games today removed which definitely causes ability spam rotation. I believe this would make melees require more strategy and skill.
This. Definitely.
Specifically, pally's as MT in VG. If was in the MT group I never struggled with endurance. They had 2 very nice ways to regain endurance for group. If I was in a different group though, I struggled with endurance alot.
Shucklighter said:In this discussion I listened to, they said everyone would also have an endurance bar and they specifically stated that it will be needed 'for more than just jumping'. They said it would be important for travel, I believe. It was the colored mana that was used for fighting.
In VG, you could run and that either used endurance very slowly or not at all (if I remember right). You did have a sprint option that used endurance rather quickly.
Shucklighter said:In this discussion I listened to, they said everyone would also have an endurance bar and they specifically stated that it will be needed 'for more than just jumping'. They said it would be important for travel, I believe. It was the colored mana that was used for fighting.
This is all subject to opinion, but to me it never made much sense for a class like warrior or rogue to have a magic/mana bar. It's one of the things I though World of Warcraft did well. It had a rage bar for warriors and a energy bar for rogues. Most classes have some magic spells to cast, but not all. I suppose it's easier to balance and program just one resource for combat, but it's not as much fun IMO. Stamina would be a good resource for melee type abilities.
@Enitzu and Ainadak
I did see Cohh's stamina bar, but it made me think more in lines of "stamina" from EQlaunch if either of you played it there. Where there were reprecussions from being out of stamina (see below), but, your use of abilities wasn't affected by it. Good point though and I'll have to watch a bit closer now that you both have brought it up.
@Amsai
In EQ - melees didn't have a resource to manage until much later as most melees at launch only had a few skills such as taunt/kick/slam/bash and the majority of their DPS came from autoattack - it was called endurance once disciplines and other combat abilities/skills were added several expansions later. Only casters had a resource to manage - mana, which, took a long time to regen from out of mana to max - often 5 minutes+ at later levels. So, in groups, you could tell good casters who were usually good at juggling resources either by keeping the group alive (healers) or DPSing consistently (casters) during constant pulls. Melees had it much easier by typically hitting /a and 1 & 2. As a warrior, there was some skill involved with taunting, positioning, etc., but that's a sidebar conversation.
At launch, endurance was called stamina and affected the following (may be a few points I'm forgetting):
1. While swimming, you lost stamina, and sunk like a rock if you were out and you drowned.
2. You lost stamina when you swung your weapons based off their weight. Higher the weight faster the stamina loss (Kunark had heavy weapons). There actually were discussion if some heavy weapons were worth using (like Wurmslayer)
3. Spells like Invigor mattered to restore the stamina
4. Having 100+ stamina was important as it negated a minor attack speed reduction when your stamina was out
5. Jumping consumed like 10% of your stamina bar each jump.
6. Running out of stamina in certain situations was bad - you walked slower, couldn't swim or jump. You had to sit down and wait to regain stamina.
7. If you were out of food/drink your stamina/health/mana didn't regen.
But, being out of stamina didn't affect your ability to use kick/slam/bash etc.
In VG you had combat skills as a melee similar to WoW for example. And, you had a resource as a melee to manage - endurance. And, each class had multiple stances, typically one that was more DPS based versus mitigation based for a melee. There were also combat "chains" that activated on critical strikes that required endurance to use. And, the regeneration of endurance was "much" faster than that of mana at EQ launch. So, typically, you were never concerned with running out of resources in VG combat as you could regenerate to full quickly afterward, versus EQ, which required 5+ minutes often to med from 0% to full.
So, my suggestion was basically take the endurance component, skillsets and ideas from VG like crit chains, but implement them using EQ's resource management framework to keep the strategy within and outside of combat so you would need to weigh the skills used within combat and you may decide not to use a crit chain if it came up to conserve resources for the next fight for example.
In addition, I would be ok with all classes still having EQ's original concept of stamina in addition to either endurance or mana though for another layer of complexity.
@Raidan
I had assumed that it was a typical stamina bar also and that it was a catch all for things that would require significant physical exertion or the like. However, it was only when Cohh used his activated abilities that I noticed the stamina dropping. Even during the heavy jumping and climbing parts of the Amberfaet preview Cohh's stamina still didn't drop (as far as I could tell). That's why I believed that this was an ability/skill focused resource management bar and not a more general stamina bar.
Raidan said:@Enitzu and Ainadak
I did see Cohh's stamina bar, but it made me think more in lines of "stamina" from EQlaunch if either of you played it there. Where there were reprecussions from being out of stamina (see below), but, your use of abilities wasn't affected by it. Good point though and I'll have to watch a bit closer now that you both have brought it up.
@Amsai
In EQ - melees didn't have a resource to manage until much later as most melees at launch only had a few skills such as taunt/kick/slam/bash and the majority of their DPS came from autoattack - it was called endurance once disciplines and other combat abilities/skills were added several expansions later. Only casters had a resource to manage - mana, which, took a long time to regen from out of mana to max - often 5 minutes+ at later levels. So, in groups, you could tell good casters who were usually good at juggling resources either by keeping the group alive (healers) or DPSing consistently (casters) during constant pulls. Melees had it much easier by typically hitting /a and 1 & 2. As a warrior, there was some skill involved with taunting, positioning, etc., but that's a sidebar conversation.
At launch, endurance was called stamina and affected the following (may be a few points I'm forgetting):
1. While swimming, you lost stamina, and sunk like a rock if you were out and you drowned.
2. You lost stamina when you swung your weapons based off their weight. Higher the weight faster the stamina loss (Kunark had heavy weapons). There actually were discussion if some heavy weapons were worth using (like Wurmslayer)
3. Spells like Invigor mattered to restore the stamina
4. Having 100+ stamina was important as it negated a minor attack speed reduction when your stamina was out
5. Jumping consumed like 10% of your stamina bar each jump.
6. Running out of stamina in certain situations was bad - you walked slower, couldn't swim or jump. You had to sit down and wait to regain stamina.
7. If you were out of food/drink your stamina/health/mana didn't regen.
But, being out of stamina didn't affect your ability to use kick/slam/bash etc.
In VG you had combat skills as a melee similar to WoW for example. And, you had a resource as a melee to manage - endurance. And, each class had multiple stances, typically one that was more DPS based versus mitigation based for a melee. There were also combat "chains" that activated on critical strikes that required endurance to use. And, the regeneration of endurance was "much" faster than that of mana at EQ launch. So, typically, you were never concerned with running out of resources in VG combat as you could regenerate to full quickly afterward, versus EQ, which required 5+ minutes often to med from 0% to full.
So, my suggestion was basically take the endurance component, skillsets and ideas from VG like crit chains, but implement them using EQ's resource management framework to keep the strategy within and outside of combat so you would need to weigh the skills used within combat and you may decide not to use a crit chain if it came up to conserve resources for the next fight for example.
In addition, I would be ok with all classes still having EQ's original concept of stamina in addition to either endurance or mana though for another layer of complexity.
Some of these things I didn't know and I played EQ a lot at release. I don't remember stamina dropping from melee attacks and I don't know how you determined that you had an attack speed penalty at zero stamina. I ran out of stamina while list in the ocean, but I don't recall sinking. Perhaps I just stopped every once in a while to allow my stamina to come back. I also don't remember slowing down when stamina ran out. I do recall mobs hitting me in the back and being stunned for what seemed like a few seconds. It always appeared to occur when you had your back turned to them.
Raidan said:1. While swimming, you lost stamina, and sunk like a rock if you were out and you drowned.
I don't remember this unless it came much later in the game. I know a couple friends afk swam into corners when they went to sleep to max their swimming.
But I would love to see melee with some kind of stamina/endurance resource to manage, especially if it gives life to new abilities from support classes.
Amsai said:Assuming it is still the goal. I agree with you Raidan. Melee needs resource management to be just as important as magees. I dont have the benefit of being very knowledgable of how it worked in VG or EQ. But I liked how it worked in XI in general but I would make improvements on how XI did it. But basically melee had weapon skills and abilities. Abilities had cooldowns (not global could be 2 mins could be 30 mins). These abilities were utility or enhancements or buffs most time though some were direct attacks as well. And then there were weapon skills which you had to build TP (stamina) to use. There were some ways to help build TP faster as well. But maybe Id like to see stamina be a resource that depletes instead.
It's worth noting that shortly after an endurance pool was granted to characters in EQ1, all the spells that regenerated endurance (such as Invigor) were removed from the game.
The reason is that it was trivial to zerg many raid targets by fighting until death, rez'ing, then throwing Invigor and/or 2 or 3 other endurance regen on a player, then sending them back into the fray to pop all their disciplines.
@Raidan
Thanks for that info man. Lots of juicy details. I could see that combo of VG and EQ working together to not only make melee more skillful in their tactics. But Im all for depth. The deeper the mechanic the more fun the gameplay. Of course I know its a different genre, but Dark Souls is very resource management heavy. Swing with abandon all you want but then get one shotted because you pissed away your stamina lol.
And like your example with certain abilities, I think to add into the mix limited there should be a handful of cooldown only abilities that each class has (class unique would be best). Then have most everything else tied to mana or endurance bars depending on magic or melee as well as cooldowns. Then I guess still have stamina maybe for climbing and swiming for all classes? Something like this set up with a complex resource management like in your examples could work wonders for melee combat.
@Iksar
You're right - I remember that also. Pretty sure you didn't drown while swimming aganist a wall because it was a bug, as you were /numlocked against the wall so you couldn't fall and the player was swimming above the water. I know with Kedge raids that they used to cast invigorate once stamina was low so we could swim again. Eventually swimming didn't take stamina so it became a non-factor.
@UnknownQuantity
Stamina dropped from weapon swings that I know with 100% certainty, and players figured out the weapon speed reductions from parsing data. I never specifically parsed the data myself, so that is second-hand knowledge on the weapon speed reduction although I always "felt" slower as a warrior swinging without stamina and asked for "zings" stamina recovery spells because of it. When you ran out of stamina at launch while swimming, you couldn't move at all. And, I think having 100+ stamina negated many if not all of the stamina issues. It's been so long now though and my Google-Fu is failing me - can only find a few P1999 forums mentioning stamina.
Anyway, the old EQ stamina points really are irrelevant even if I am 100% wrong - I was just using those to clarify to Amsai that EQ didn't use "stamina/endurance" for abilities like most MMOs today including VG and it appeared that Pantheon was following the EQ model from the streams, which again, I need to watch again closer.
*Cheers*