I like how EQ did it. It was an easy way to have a visual cue as to whether your groupmates were attempting to maximize mana efficiency. Plus, it added a fun dynamic as sitting was a significant aggro magnet, thus you had to weigh trying to get a bit more mana versus pulling the mob off the tank. It made you more aware of your nuking and heals as you needed to master aggro control. If you want to turn it into a kneel or lotus animation, that's fine with me. It's going to be the same outcome in the end. As for immersion, it might not be the most realistic method, but I found due to the aggro dynamics, it pulled me into the game and made me focus more, so it was immersive in that sense.
I liked the discussion, and am not unhappy about different animations etc... but then a dim, distant memory resurfaced.
Am I imagining things.... or with the original UI in EQ, medding made you look at your book, and *nothing* else! Mega sensory deprivation. It could be that I didn't know, in the early days, that there was a way to med without opening your book. My memory is a tad fuzzy n the details!
Can anyone remember?
As an EQ vet, I am OK removing the sitting requirement, as long as the mechanics of such are still present. Here is my checklist:
1. Meditation must have a visual queue.
2. Meditiation must still increase aggro level, similar to sitting.
3. Defenses reduced while meditating - EQ did this very well.
4. Cancelable by hotkey or movement.
As long as these criteria are met, I would be OK with an alternative to sitting.
Evoras said:I liked the discussion, and am not unhappy about different animations etc... but then a dim, distant memory resurfaced.
Am I imagining things.... or with the original UI in EQ, medding made you look at your book, and *nothing* else! Mega sensory deprivation. It could be that I didn't know, in the early days, that there was a way to med without opening your book. My memory is a tad fuzzy n the details!
Can anyone remember?
You're correct. For a long time you had to look at your book. I can't remember if you got to a certain level and didn't have to any more, but eventually they removed it all together obviously. Couldn't we play gems while the book was open?
Sparks said:I agree. I thought it a bit odd that a character would sit down while the other team members were engaged in combat. Then I realized it was for regeneration.
It would be nice to see an animation that during the regen cast the character is slightly suspended above the ground (maybe even spin slowly) or have arms out stretched towards the sky (cleric). Would also be nice if mobs saw that activity they would try for an interrupt (forcing a recast). Just some ideas.
This would keep things more like EQ in that respect. I'm sure many of you remember the "book". You sat to med, and your whole screen was a book. You had no idea if a mob was coming. Also, even a grey con wimpy mob would run up and hit someone sitting on the ground. There needs to be the chance of that even if you're standing up doing some animation. I didn't like the "I can't see because I'm medding" aspect of EQ. I mean come on. You're sitting there relaxing clearing your mind. Why would that make you blind? :p i.e. If you see a mob coming up to whack you, you can quickly stand. In EQ if you got hit sitting, it was an automatic crit hit.
And yes, after like level 29 or so, the book went away. Eventually they did away with it completely.
That EQ book thing can go anytime. It was removed later on, as it was no use to anyone.
I understood the concept, but it did make sence to remove it later on. I still think regen is possible while in combat but at a slower rate so it keeps the group moving forward.
Pulling non stop without any mana breaks is not a good idea, because some people wish to go for a smoke break -Pee Beak while medding :)
Not like these kilsin people who just keep on trucking along with those dual weilded swords HAHA
Grimix said:Maybe have different tiers of medding? I like the idea of a kneeling animation for deeper reflection for faster and larger recovery amounts, but what if we had lesser medding form where the player stands still in a recovery pose with a quicker recovery rate with significantly less mana recovered? I think it would add an extra dynamic to battle for desperate situations or perhaps for melee casters or those constantly on the move. As someone who enjoyed hybrid classes I always hated running low on mana and having no way to recover until the end of the fight...
Also I think sitting should be a totally separate thing from medding, sitting is something I do to look cool lol
As with others and the original poster, sitting is just weird.
I was thinking about this the other day (and made another thread not knowing this existed) but I had the same thought with different levels of meditation. My thought was something like Meditate being your normal 'kneeling' or other animation just pure regen increase. Then a second option of say 'enlightenment' where you charge for 5s at say half the extra rate that meditate gives, but if you finish the 5s you get a burst for an overall larger gain. Basically a superior option if you can be sure you'll finish it. Gives a little bit of flavor to that dead time that is medding.
In early EQ where CC was important, and if we didn't have a mezzer, I would sit to get mobs to come to me. the MT would be on one mob, I would move slightly away from the group and take a seat. The add would beeline for me, at which point I would get up and root it in place, then go join the combat, every once in a while re-rooting the add. Point of my story being, mobs already targeted you if you sat down/medded, so that would absolutely be a great thing to have in Pantheon as well.
I also like the idea of "tiered" meditation where when begin to meditate and gain +1 regen, then 5 seconds into it, it's +3, +5, +7 or whatever number make sense (the numbers aren't as important at this point as the principle itself). If you wanted to get creative, you could add a damge multiplier as well, e.g. the "deeper" into your meditation, if you got whacked you would take more damage. This makes you have to decide to break your meditation early knowing you'd have to start over at tier 1, vs. risk taking a hit at 300% damage to keep medding, and hope your tank holds aggro (again I'm making up numbers, it's the principle that matters).
I am against out of combat regen rates, HOWEVER i think this system would be a great compromise. Out of combat, you are guaranteed to reach the highest tier of meditation. In combat, you may or may not.
The whole tiered system had been used sucessfully in other stuff I think. I know a simple version is for a healing item in TF2 (yes it's not an mmo, but whatever) where if you get hit the rate starts over at 1hp/s and gets up to 4hp/s if you haven't been hit in a while. As for out of combat mana regen, either starting mid-top regen rate could work. Pretty sure in the streams that they have the "standard" method, but the game is still a long way from release of course.
I honestly really like the sit / kneel to regen. If the character sits and prays (priest) or goes all Zen (Int Caster) thats fine and all, but I'd like to see them sitting and vulnerable. Keep situational awareness, but if you do get hit before you can react it should hurt. I'd like to even see that for physical fighters as well. You cannot regen HP at full out of combat rate unless you sit down.
kellindil said:I honestly really like the sit / kneel to regen. If the character sits and prays (priest) or goes all Zen (Int Caster) thats fine and all, but I'd like to see them sitting and vulnerable. Keep situational awareness, but if you do get hit before you can react it should hurt. I'd like to even see that for physical fighters as well. You cannot regen HP at full out of combat rate unless you sit down.
I like the idea of piety based spellcasters kneeling and int based spellcasters sitting/zen like tranced out.
I was so used to this from EverQuest that I didn't think anything about it during the streams. In fact, it actually pissed me off when they were complaining about it on the Voices of Terminus show. Eventually, though, I looked at it from another point of view, and I do see how strange it could look to people who aren't familiar with EverQuest. I pretty much agree with this guy here:
Dekaden said:
As an EQ vet, I am OK removing the sitting requirement, as long as the mechanics of such are still present. Here is my checklist:
1. Meditation must have a visual queue.
2. Meditiation must still increase aggro level, similar to sitting.
3. Defenses reduced while meditating - EQ did this very well.
4. Cancelable by hotkey or movement.
As long as these criteria are met, I would be OK with an alternative to sitting.
Quintra said:In early EQ where CC was important, and if we didn't have a mezzer, I would sit to get mobs to come to me. the MT would be on one mob, I would move slightly away from the group and take a seat. The add would beeline for me, at which point I would get up and root it in place, then go join the combat, every once in a while re-rooting the add. Point of my story being, mobs already targeted you if you sat down/medded, so that would absolutely be a great thing to have in Pantheon as well.
I also like the idea of "tiered" meditation where when begin to meditate and gain +1 regen, then 5 seconds into it, it's +3, +5, +7 or whatever number make sense (the numbers aren't as important at this point as the principle itself). If you wanted to get creative, you could add a damge multiplier as well, e.g. the "deeper" into your meditation, if you got whacked you would take more damage. This makes you have to decide to break your meditation early knowing you'd have to start over at tier 1, vs. risk taking a hit at 300% damage to keep medding, and hope your tank holds aggro (again I'm making up numbers, it's the principle that matters).
I am against out of combat regen rates, HOWEVER i think this system would be a great compromise. Out of combat, you are guaranteed to reach the highest tier of meditation. In combat, you may or may not.
I remember sitting being a useful tool for parking mobs as well. I'm fine Quintra's plan where the mana recovery ramps up, also. Definitely don't want any in combat or out of combat nonsense. Listen game, I'll decide when I'm in combat, okay?
Sitting was there for a reason. It also increase health regen as well.
Brad would know better, but I'm sure sitting was something intended to be done between fights while "resting", and that initially they didn't expect it to be someting someone could or would do during combat.
Does that mean the system of regen should not be looked at? No, but it adds some context to it's intent, versus the idea of "Who would be stupid enough to sit while your group is fighting?"
I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of regen progression as being discussed here, with a deep sitting meditation being max regen.
I feel like they were attempting to make a compromise trying to implement the D&D system of having to memorize your spells once per day in an MMO. Since that makes little sense in a persistent world we ended up with meditate and that was kind of neat, but as mentioned it isn't always fun to be medding so much. I feel like healing classes had the abilities to jump in and melee a bit, but never could because they were meditating to recover mana for the next heal. I'm not sure what to think of when it comes to pure casters. I suppose they could melee a bit, but it would likely be too risky for them. Perhaps certain classes should have a major mana regen for combat to reduce downtime for casters or perhaps casters should regenerate mana a fair amount faster. I feel like regenerating mana is a bit to fast in today’s games, but perhaps it was a bit to slow in EQ.
Quintra said:In early EQ where CC was important, and if we didn't have a mezzer, I would sit to get mobs to come to me. the MT would be on one mob, I would move slightly away from the group and take a seat. The add would beeline for me, at which point I would get up and root it in place, then go join the combat, every once in a while re-rooting the add. Point of my story being, mobs already targeted you if you sat down/medded, so that would absolutely be a great thing to have in Pantheon as well.
I also like the idea of "tiered" meditation where when begin to meditate and gain +1 regen, then 5 seconds into it, it's +3, +5, +7 or whatever number make sense (the numbers aren't as important at this point as the principle itself). If you wanted to get creative, you could add a damge multiplier as well, e.g. the "deeper" into your meditation, if you got whacked you would take more damage. This makes you have to decide to break your meditation early knowing you'd have to start over at tier 1, vs. risk taking a hit at 300% damage to keep medding, and hope your tank holds aggro (again I'm making up numbers, it's the principle that matters).
I am against out of combat regen rates, HOWEVER i think this system would be a great compromise. Out of combat, you are guaranteed to reach the highest tier of meditation. In combat, you may or may not.
I'm 100% on your side in this Quintra. Actually, I suggested exactly the same thing in another meditation thread, lol. My impression was that this thread was more intended to be focused specifically on the animation side of things.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4678/meditation
Ainadak said:Quintra said:In early EQ where CC was important, and if we didn't have a mezzer, I would sit to get mobs to come to me. the MT would be on one mob, I would move slightly away from the group and take a seat. The add would beeline for me, at which point I would get up and root it in place, then go join the combat, every once in a while re-rooting the add. Point of my story being, mobs already targeted you if you sat down/medded, so that would absolutely be a great thing to have in Pantheon as well.
I also like the idea of "tiered" meditation where when begin to meditate and gain +1 regen, then 5 seconds into it, it's +3, +5, +7 or whatever number make sense (the numbers aren't as important at this point as the principle itself). If you wanted to get creative, you could add a damge multiplier as well, e.g. the "deeper" into your meditation, if you got whacked you would take more damage. This makes you have to decide to break your meditation early knowing you'd have to start over at tier 1, vs. risk taking a hit at 300% damage to keep medding, and hope your tank holds aggro (again I'm making up numbers, it's the principle that matters).
I am against out of combat regen rates, HOWEVER i think this system would be a great compromise. Out of combat, you are guaranteed to reach the highest tier of meditation. In combat, you may or may not.
I'm 100% on your side in this Quintra. Actually, I suggested exactly the same thing in another meditation thread, lol. My impression was that this thread was more intended to be focused specifically on the animation side of things.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4678/meditation
Great minds, I guess. Sorry I missed your post :)
Anyway as far as animations, I really don't care. Sitting never bothered me. STARING AT MY BOOK on the other hand did. I was glad when they did away with that. Sitting, kneeling, praying, it's all good to me!
I have a serious question , why does meditation even have to be a "action" ?
Why , not just tie it into the base in or out of combat mana regen . IE base regen in combat is 10 with a modifier based on the ranking of meditation ? So if you have meditation of 2 it equals = 12 .. I played eq so yes , I understand the history behind some of the previous posts.
I just want to say this is not eq so just throwing out a diffrent view point .
There are lots of systems based on hp/mana regen out there ... regen being based on food/drink comes to mind. This coupled with positives and negatives based on the level of said food and drink (tied into crafting) and also are you thirsty or hungry to use as examples.
Also this brings me to another aspect that needs to be considered ... is it active action or passive ability . There is a huge diffrence between the two, why I am asking.
I do not see the need for a animation in fact it breaks immersion.
Hold on guys! Keep swing at it , I need to sit down for 3 seconds. I just do not see it being realistic IMO.
I am going to use some previous posts and ask straight forward questions.
1. Meditation must have a visual queue.
- I can agree with this , how about a blue outline or something to indicate you are using meditation if passive?
Why , does it need a straight forward animation , this goes more towards the is it a action or a passive ability. If it is deemed a action, I understand the need for a animation.
If not , I do not see a reason. Perhaps the meditation and the blue outline does not start for 1-2 ticks with zero actions.
2. Meditiation must still increase aggro level, similar to sitting.
- Why ? I think the guy throwing fireballs , might be a bigger concern compared to the guy doing nothing.
If it must increase aggro , then that number might need to be tied to the "amount" being regained ? Even if this amount is only 12 aggro per tic using the above concept.
3. Defenses reduced while meditating.
- I agree , but only if it is considered a action. If its passive , to the point of I just need to stay still to regain my witts and get zen. I will still see the orc charging me. I will break meditation and defend myself, this same concept is used if someone is swinging a sword at my head. I do not see it being zen like to have my skull smashed in or even the ability to keep meditating.
4. Cancelable by hotkey or movement.
- Agree 100 %
Moving on :)
Definitely don't want any in combat or out of combat nonsense. Listen game, I'll decide when I'm in combat, okay?
- This makes no sense IMO. The big orc is swinging his sword at you , and you are over here like STOP ! I am trying to talk to Tunare!
I think if you are the active target , you need to be considered in combat. The option , for being outside of combat being based on hate... If you are not the active target of said orc , then by all means talk with Tunare.
Xxar said:I have a serious question , why does meditation even have to be a "action" ?
Why , not just tie it into the base in or out of combat mana regen . IE base regen in combat is 10 with a modifier based on the ranking of meditation ? So if you have meditation of 2 it equals = 12 .. I played eq so yes , I understand the history behind some of the previous posts.
I just want to say this is not eq so just throwing out a diffrent view point .
There are lots of systems based on hp/mana regen out there ... regen being based on food/drink comes to mind. This coupled with positives and negatives based on the level of said food and drink (tied into crafting) and also are you thirsty or hungry to use as examples.
Also this brings me to another aspect that needs to be considered ... is it active action or passive ability . There is a huge diffrence between the two, why I am asking.
I do not see the need for a animation in fact it breaks immersion.
Hold on guys! Keep swing at it , I need to sit down for 3 seconds. I just do not see it being realistic IMO.
I am going to use some previous posts and ask straight forward questions.
1. Meditation must have a visual queue.
- I can agree with this , how about a blue outline or something to indicate you are using meditation if passive?
Why , does it need a straight forward animation , this goes more towards the is it a action or a passive ability. If it is deemed a action, I understand the need for a animation.
If not , I do not see a reason. Perhaps the meditation and the blue outline does not start for 1-2 ticks with zero actions.
2. Meditiation must still increase aggro level, similar to sitting.
- Why ? I think the guy throwing fireballs , might be a bigger concern compared to the guy doing nothing.
If it must increase aggro , then that number might need to be tied to the "amount" being regained ? Even if this amount is only 12 aggro per tic using the above concept.
3. Defenses reduced while meditating.
- I agree , but only if it is considered a action. If its passive , to the point of I just need to stay still to regain my witts and get zen. I will still see the orc charging me. I will break meditation and defend myself, this same concept is used if someone is swinging a sword at my head. I do not see it being zen like to have my skull smashed in or even the ability to keep meditating.
4. Cancelable by hotkey or movement.
- Agree 100 %
Moving on :)
Definitely don't want any in combat or out of combat nonsense. Listen game, I'll decide when I'm in combat, okay?
- This makes no sense IMO. The big orc is swinging his sword at you , and you are over here like STOP ! I am trying to talk to Tunare!
I think if you are the active target , you need to be considered in combat. The option , for being outside of combat being based on hate... If you are not the active target of said orc , then by all means talk Tunare.
I like you thinking on this.
This could actually work out quite nicely.
Pure casters have the highest meditate so they would constantly be able to cast damage spells.
Healers and hybrids could melee while regenerating mana since their meditate would be slightly slower.
In addition, perhaps there would be a bonus to meditation regeneration for sitting and resting so you could recover more quickly once the battle was over. Maybe sitting during combat would not give the bonus effect since you were concentrating on the battle. Either that or as mentioned by others mobs should beeline to players that are meditating during combat.
Whatever ends up happening isn't going to break my back, but I'd prefer to not have in/out of combat states and regen rates etc. I don't like the idea of sitting and eating food/drink to expedite downtime. I'd like mana management to be a real thing and downtime to be downtime so you have to work with your group and figure out if you can handle a pull or not, sometimes really pushing the limit and maybe having to sit/kneel in a fight to med. Even if they make it an active ability that when pressed works as an AoE taunt, as long as your group knows it is coming you'd likely be fine.
Do not get me wrong , I am fine with either system.
I just see more options and game interactions with the system I described.
As for food/drink being used to expedite downtime , this can be modified based on level of food and amount gained per tick based on quality.
Not to mention , player interaction and a realistic plat sink.
Also mana mangement will still be a real thing , the post is more in the mindset of how its managed passive vs action based.
Look, we are coming at this from the wrong angle. I think instead of having different meditation animations, that makes more sense in battle, the casters just need to be busy during battle. This could be accomplished in a number of interesting ways such as; having "concentration" spells (where the caster needs to be focused on the spell after casting), having longer casting times for more powerful spells, having touch spells (requiring the caster to move around and engage the targets), having spells that allow for "auto attacking" (like a wizards hands go up in flames and they can strike the mob), short term buff or shield spells, or just give them a better attack (cleric/shaman classes). The goal here is that when in combat the casters need to be actively participating at all times and then after combat they need to rest and recharge their mana before getting back in there. This would work perfect with the already mentioned meditation build up idea.
Just a thought, let me know what you think.
Xxar said:As for food/drink being used to expedite downtime , this can be modified based on level of food and amount gained per tick based on quality.
I still think that food/drink should be used to ensure you still CAN regen mana/stamina/hp not so much that it helps any of those go faster. Then we can continue to be crack heads looking for clarity and regen etc and interact with one another. Food/drink can still give stats or effects when consumed to promote spending plat on better foods if looking for a plat sink.
Xxar said:
(Shucklighter said:)
Definitely don't want any in combat or out of combat nonsense. Listen game, I'll decide when I'm in combat, okay?
(Xxar said:)
- This makes no sense IMO. The big orc is swinging his sword at you , and you are over here like STOP ! I am trying to talk to Tunare!
I think if you are the active target , you need to be considered in combat. The option , for being outside of combat being based on hate... If you are not the active target of said orc , then by all means talk with Tunare.
EDIT #2:
hammerton said:
Look, we are coming at this from the wrong angle. I think instead of having different meditation animations, that makes more sense in battle, the casters just need to be busy during battle. This could be accomplished in a number of interesting ways such as; having "concentration" spells (where the caster needs to be focused on the spell after casting), having longer casting times for more powerful spells, having touch spells (requiring the caster to move around and engage the targets), having spells that allow for "auto attacking" (like a wizards hands go up in flames and they can strike the mob), short term buff or shield spells, or just give them a better attack (cleric/shaman classes). The goal here is that when in combat the casters need to be actively participating at all times and then after combat they need to rest and recharge their mana before getting back in there. This would work perfect with the already mentioned meditation build up idea.
Just a thought, let me know what you think.
I'm okay with some spells having long cast times or needing to be channeled, but I'd rather not just find ways to be busy so we can be busy. WoW had the whole wand thing for caster autoattacks, but it wasn't very popular. Some people (myself included) just don't mind a few seconds to sit and watch what's the fight or reply to guild chat or send a tell while waiting to cast the next spell. Definitely still prefer the old mechanics (or something similar to those mechanics, at least), but with a different animation.
All classes could have other animations
wizard or enchanters
Rogue could have a relaxing posture,sharpening knives
Cleric medding
Druid medding
Bard medding carried away by songs while tuning instrument
Paladin medding
