Aldie said:The last thing i want to see is the game turning into the gear swap nightmare FFXI was. I spent more time writing situation gear scripts than actually playing. That game suffered from having to switch gear for every single ability you used if you wanted to maximize efficiency though. Hell, we even had "idle" sets with (-physical damage taken) just to run around in. I think my paladin had 12 different set of gear on me at all times and that didn't even include specific elemental resist gear (fire, water, earth, etc).
I'm all for more options gameplay wise, but not to the extreme that FFXI was.
I asked about this early on around the kickstarter time frame. I was told they didnt want to go that direction. So while there wll be situational gear, im 99% positive you wont be swaping in and out of gear per ability as in FFXI.
But I do think some limited swaping of weapons durring combat could be a thing. And even if they did make swaping gear instant, there would obviously need to be some limitiations (without even getting into weight). 1. Cant instantly swap gear in combat. 2. Cant instantly swap gear back to back (some kind of cool down). 3. Can still swap gear manually out of combat with no cooldown(exception for maybe rings etc to still be done in combat). Just a few ideas so that its not abused.
Oh and whoever said instant gear swaping is nonsense. Super Man, Sailor Moon and a whole list of magical girls and super heroes would like to have a word with you! ^.~
I can see not wanting people constantly swapping gear just to use clicky effects. But why not allow it otherwise? Couldnt you prevent that exploit by putting a cool down timer on clickies upon equip? 30seconds or more before you can use an effect after equipping? Is there another reason?
On the weight thing they seem to be hinting at pretty notable employment of pets to handle storage. Mounts specifically, but they didnt exactly rule out other pets for this purpose in that long thread. I can see there being ways to access your extra gear on pet storage only when out of combat being used as a mechanic to limit crazy swapping.
I'm not arguing for constant gear swapping. It actually sounds like a royal PITA to me. I'm just curious and presenting some more thoughts.
I guess there may be less of a need to quick swap with the situational gear if the environmental effects were on your combat gear. Like you add a fleece lining to your armor and then remove it via a crafting station or NPC or something later or if there was situational gear based on enchantments so you could keep whatever and have a magic reason for it to negate or reduce an environmental challenge.
It would still be nice to see some sort of quick change option if there are going to be sets of gear that are more appropriate for long travels. Especially since it seems like a pain to transport a bunch of sets of gear to an area bank just so you can change into it quicker. But in my opinion opening up the possibility of just muling gear from place to place when there are going to be long travel times isn't very fun.
I hate to be the bubble buster but I can almost assure you there will not be one click gear swap. I remember carrying around bags of resist gear so that I was prepared when a raid was called. Was it a pain in the butt? Yes. Did it ruin the game for me? Not in the slightest. It is just silly to be able to click a button and switch out a whole armor set. Just organize your gear in your bags. It doesnt take long to swap out to gear you need. I also don't think the need to swap gear is as extreme as everyone is making it out to be. Will we need different pieces of gear for situations? I am sure. Will we need to carry around 5-6 sets of armor? I highly doubt it. I do feel like we should be able to switch out weapons in combat but not gear. As far as macros to quickly swap weapons I am not opposed to but they would have to be in your general inventory to do it and not in a bag obviously.
I don't mind hotkeys and macros to switch sets, but make it take time and even animate the removal and donning of each item in succession, not just poof the entire paper doll at once.
Show the characters putting on their different items. The time delay will serve to make it worth thinking about doing, even in combat you *could* do it but make the delay enough to where it is highly unlikely and you are vulnerable to damage and stunning while doing it.
Gear switching in the middle of the fight is a no for me, it creates loads of problems and to min/max effectively you would need to switch gear constantly during the fight.
However having a button to switch between 2 sets of weapons, in the middle of the combat is a nice quality of life.
I don’t see the need for a quick equip button, if they make it so you can right-click the item and it’s equipped instantly.
I would like to be able to save a preset for my cold gear, click that and all my cold gear is equipped. Not something to switch on the fly in combat. We know so far there is what? 4-5 atmospheres? So instead of going through my bags and equipping each item and maybe forgetting one. I would just like a UI that lets me save what I am wearing and name that "Cold" "Heat" and when I click it, it puts on that equipment. The easier item management is, the more fun the game gets. No one likes to have to constantly organize their bags.
I think some of this might play into Death Penalty.
If for example, the death penalty was armor degradation to the point of breaking and needing a town blacksmith to fix then carrying another set of gear (with implied weight penalty) would be a balancing act to keep the dungeon run going before a return to town occurs. Would not need to be a static x% broken but could be more variable on the armor pieces if practical.
Thinking about the toxic importance players have given to damage per second
Thinking about meaningful and compeling group-oriented gameplay
Thinking about risk and reward
I think I favor the possibility to switch gear during combat,but as Dullahan and Vandraad suggest,taking time to equip gear.
But the gear switch during combat as a sort of down time process
You never know what monster will show up on your adventure & when they introduce mob immunity to certain attacks it invites players to use their brain
not just max dps;looking at the situation and the need to identify and anitcipate mob immunities
I believe players need to be able to respond to that during combat.
Enjoy the idea of a gear switch system during combat where other group members have to cover for a player that decides to switch gear during combat
It could create meaningful group interaction
Just like when group members have to cover for a group member when they are out of mana.
As Vandraad says,no 1-button solutions or gear switches in one second
We need to stir away from the desire to do instant max dps ,many want it now now now and faster faster faster
But it would be best to put meaningful and compeling group-oriented gameplay at the top instead.
Fluffy said:
Thinking about the toxic importance players have given to damage per secondThinking about meaningful and compeling group-oriented gameplay
Thinking about risk and reward
I think I favor the possibility to switch gear during combat,but as Dullahan and Vandraad suggest,taking time to equip gear.
But the gear switch during combat as a sort of down time process during combat
You never know what monster will show up on your adventure & when they introduce mob immunity to certain attacks it invites players to use their brain
not just max dps;looking at the situation and the need to identify and anitcipate mob immunities
I believe players need to be able to respond to that during combat.
Enjoy the idea of a gear switch system during combat where other group members have to cover for a player that decides to switch gear during combat
It could create meaningful group interaction
Just like when group members have to cover for a group member when they are out of mana.
As Vandraad says,no 1-button solutions or gear switches in one second
We need to stir away from the desire to do instant max dps ,many want it now now now and faster faster faster
But it would be best to put meaningful and compeling group-oriented gameplay at the top instead.
Only gear you should be able to swap in combat is weapon and instrument slots.
What they allow to be switched I leave in the middle.Make the swap a risk that players take.A good group would be able to cover for a player switching during combat.
If environment is about to have an effect on our equipment ,like a raincoat for the right weather and temperature, equipment swapping could become very interesting. But for class balance it would need to be the same equipment type specified for the class I suppose.I like the idea that a character would freeze without the right equipment in places comparable to Mount Everest
Janthu said:I think some of this might play into Death Penalty.
If for example, the death penalty was armor degradation to the point of breaking and needing a town blacksmith to fix then carrying another set of gear (with implied weight penalty) would be a balancing act to keep the dungeon run going before a return to town occurs. Would not need to be a static x% broken but could be more variable on the armor pieces if practical.
Ugh I sure hope there is not armor degradation. Nothing is worse than having to bleed gold to keep gear repaired or getting to a group only to find that one of your bagged pieces that you need is in need of repair. As extreme as I hope the death penalty will be (EQ style I hope), nothing would be worse than having to repair gear all the time.
Retsof said:I can only think of one situation where changing gear during combat is acceptable:
Mob punches you in the nose
/con "would wipe the floor with you"
/change underwear
Other than that it can probably wait until the fight is over.
Come into the fight prepared or die. Failure is a great teaching tool. Next time, be prepared and slay the beastie.
I don't mind having presets for gear. What I do NOT want to see is something like FFXI where you were swapping gear per attack. That is way too much. Allow weapon swaps, instraments, and maybe charms/trinkets depending on how powerful they are during combat. All armor has to be swapped when out of combat.
HemlockReaper said:I’d prefer no armor switching unless in a safe spot, meaning town or campsite, and no weapon switching unless out of combat.
agreeing with that. they said you choose/switch abilities before the fight and put some thoughts into this decision. so for me this would also count for gear/weapons. also i admit, i would prefer focusing on the fight and my positioning/movement instead of gear swaping (i get lazy on my old days...)
A lot of similar beliefs it seems...
I do not want to have to switch gear set-ups around, multiple times during combat. I think you take in your evnironment intel, then adjust before the fight / combat starts. As you change your gear sets prior to combat, I would not mind seeing a couple cool animations showing as such, so that it is not instantaneous.
I agree during combat, you should have the ability to swap weapons on the fly, depending on what is most effective for the situation. They will certainly have to account for all the gear / weapons we would be required to haul around to be most effective. I am sure as we test we can gage if this is out of whack.
Vangaurd allowed for insta gear switches in macros, and you could even have your spell or ability fire in the same macro button. Hated that and it was immersion breaking. So people would carry around a whole bag of (forget what all the foci were called, lets say +alteration gear) alteration gear and with one click they would switch into max alteration gear, fire off a alteration spell, and then hit their next "all in one" macro button and switch to full (lets call it evocation gear) and launch their fireball or whatever.
Now switching gear manually, great, have at it. But do not bring back the old "one click does it all" macros of vanguard.
Nanfoodle said: I do want a UI window for preloaded gear sets I can make. This IMO is a must have with all the situational gear this game sounds like it's gonna have. From atmospheres to situational weapons and mana color gear. I really hope they nail down bag space as we are going to need lots lol
Agreed.
And the responses to this topic are why I said in the past:
Players need to be able to determine weaknesses, susceptibilities and immunities, ideally, PRIOR to combat starting.
Otherwise you need gear switching in combat, even if it's only just weapons. What's next? You can't memorize spells during combat? Oh, all of these creatures? They have random immunities. But you can't switch gear in combat nor can you memorize new spells in combat, and you will never know what those immunities are until you can't damage it. And as the game progresses, certain classes will NEVER be able to harm those random creatures. You get to sit on your hands and do nothing.
The logical extension of such a design philosophy is random wipes and RNG class exclusion. Yay?
Presuming someone is NOT arguing for that... which I would hope is the more reasonable audience, then it's just impementation details and there will be spell swapping in combat, and/or gear swapping in combat, and designers will have the flexibility to have random (and/or determinable) immunities and weaknesses to damage types, both melee and non-melee. This is a good thing. This makes designers happy.
To those asking for "you can't change anything (not spells, not gear, NOTHING) unless you're one HOUR from a combat zone, and have been sitting still for 10 minutes" ? Remember that paying for entertainment, that's supposed to be fun, not a punitive tedious nightmare of pain. There has to be enough people attracted to this game to keep the lights on. If the entire combat system is a bait and switch to ensure you die, they're not gonna have any players, never mind tens of thousands. :(
I agree we should have simple gear switches that we can carry but have some concerns.
Weight system-Warrior wants to run faster so switches to full cloth set for travel, is it ok?
Death Penalty, if all your gear isnt left on your corpse then it hurts alot less to die. I would prefer its all left on the corpse
Also, Repair should probably only effect whatever you die in, so long as you can't switch in battle.
with banks, mules, etc, we probably shouldnt need more than 2-3 available gear switches.
Dullahan said:Gear switch macros are cool, but I think each piece should take time to equip (at least as long as a global cooldown). Don't mind there being a queue but I really don't like the idea of someone donning a whole different set of gear in 1 second.
If Gear switch macros are in - agreed with this completely. Make the decision for when/where to switch gear matter.
Pyye said:A lot of similar beliefs it seems...
I do not want to have to switch gear set-ups around, multiple times during combat. I think you take in your evnironment intel, then adjust before the fight / combat starts.
Perhaps the whole point is to make environment matter,urging players to adapt their style of travel in each of these harsh environments.
With each climates new challenges would present themselves,but also new needs.Think about the needs when people are faced with droughts or extreme winters.
This whole introduction of climates will boost the economy enormously,give greater purpose to ingame things like crafting
Part of me doesn't like the idea of gear swapping because it might defeat the whole purpose of situational gear;spending more meaningful time in areas.
Could we say that this request for on-the-move gear swapping is out of desire to be at max proficiency in any situation?
Us wanting things for the wrong reasons like convenience and power again ?
Unable to see that learning to adapt to an environment and try new tactics to survive with what you've got is what it is all about. Considering how others might help us in dire situation too.
Easy gear swapping might be supporting too much self-sufficiency again,that min/max and endgame mentality that players should be above nature.
As I said in another topic ,nature can defeat the strongest of us.So environment and nature should always be stronger than the players