I liked how EQ did it in the beginning with just one hotbar for your spells with a limit of 10 spells; I don’t like the idea of many hotbars with all my spells on it ready to use at a moment’s notice. I like that it takes some thought and preparation to have the right spells memorized before I enter into combat. With that said, I think it’s important that we are able to change our spell slots before and during combat as needed. I state this because there has been many times where I had my slots full of buffs or misc spells and had a roaming mob jump me and I had no spells available to defend myself with, I quickly learned to always leave the last spell slot as the root spell so I can back away and change spells quickly if required. Most new games prevent you from changing spells or weapons mid-fight and I hate this because of what I described above; in my opinion we should be able to switch weapons and spells any time whether we are in combat or not.
Also, I hope Pantheons spell book allows us to save our favorite spells as sets like EQ did. I always had mine arrange as Buff’s, Attacks, Misc…etc… and if I was loaded in buff mode and got attacked I would root and back away and immediately choose my attack set so I can defend myself. This was such a useful mechanic and I hope we see it in Pantheon.
This has to be one of those situations where there's a middle ground. 5 hotbars with 50 abilities seems unwieldy to a lot of folks, whatever your theorising. Having to choose before each combat a functionally limited subset of abilities from those you have chosen to train in can be very frustrating (I'm looking at you, Elder Scrolls Online).
If we are to have a limited set in Pantheon, please put in a mechanic to allow stepping outside that set to not be an immersion breaking automation or click-fest?
fazool said:...they open their book WHILE fighting and they read their book and cast the spell, not from memory, but from their book....
It avoids too much clicky-click swap ui management interruption and it feels role-playingy and enhances tactics. Trying to aim with a spellbook up on screen kinda reproduces the unwieldiness of not casting from memory. As suggested it could add to casting times etc also. Nice.
Personally I prefer the EQ1 style of limiting your choices to how many spells you can have mem'ed at once, but as has been stated offically before, you will be adapting to fights on the fly, melee will be swapping out weapons, I would assume that spells also wouldnt be a setup so that they could not change spells in the middle of a fight as well, as long as you could mem it in time that is =)
Vaildez said:I kinda like the idea of having a limit on the amount of spells/skills you could actively use in combat or out of combat without removing/changing them. I think this it be interesting if there were 2 of the same class in a group but having different spells so they could possibly serve different roles. It also annoys me looking at 50 spells loaded on hot bars that take up a large chunk of the screen..
Agree, ive have seen some new games that have 50 spells on a screen, this is a joke, it becomes a spam fest, you dont even get to view your environment any more, just your spell slots. I want to enjoy the game and look at the mob, not my spells.