Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Spell/Ability Ranks and their 'look'

    • 432 posts
    June 29, 2016 9:14 PM PDT

    Hello forums,

     

    I wanted to hear your opinion on something.

     

    Wouldn’t it be nice if…

     

    Spells increased in graphical detail and size as you got higher ranks of them?

    It also would be swell if lower ranks of spells could still be useful.

     

    I also would love it if they also had the same thing for Melee classes. A monks spinning kick could gain a shadow image of the attack later on, or perhaps different sound effects and spell effects added. Heck, they could double the speed of the animation so instead of one round-house you do two in the same time it took to previously do one.

     

    my appologies if this was already posted elsewhere.

     

    -Todd

    • 839 posts
    June 29, 2016 9:19 PM PDT

    Hey hey, there is a post going on somewhere, there is lots of reminiscing about how much we all loved the exact graphical progression your talking about in this post! Its not in general discussion though, i am sure there are lots of people who missed the conversation and will be wanting to chime in on how great it was!

    I was so looking forward to hitting that 1st lvl 24 tier of spell graphics in EQ1 gave me even more reason to find people to buff lol! :p

    Edit: Just in case you didnt realise.. i am all for this concept with gusto!


    This post was edited by Hokanu at June 29, 2016 9:23 PM PDT
    • 18 posts
    June 29, 2016 9:23 PM PDT

    I think that'd be a great idea. Shows progression, which makes the player want to continue and eventually reach max and see how beautifully desctructive they are. Im rather new to MMOs so i dont really know to much.

    • 62 posts
    June 29, 2016 9:34 PM PDT

    Sounds awesome! Would this require much more budget / Resources? I really like the idea

    • 839 posts
    June 29, 2016 9:40 PM PDT

    https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2864/spell-effects-particle-graphics

    this was the original one, lots  of love for it to be brought in to pantheon like was in EQ

    • 23 posts
    June 29, 2016 11:53 PM PDT

    Absolutely, and I love the idea for melee'ers too. Would be nice to toggle other people's effects on and off as well, for those of us with older systems. 

    It would be cool if the spell or ability "gems" also gained more detail as you increase in rank, tho adding roman numerals to a corner would help too.

    • 432 posts
    June 30, 2016 7:22 PM PDT

    You know when I think about it ... there is a budget friendly way of doing things here.

    So instead of programing more animations for further ranks of a spell you could do this

     

    1) Make one animation in 3 parts and have the full animation play at the highest rank

    Rank one of Pheonix strike looks like a PUNCH in horse stance

    Rank two of Pheonix strike is the second punch from the second hand

    Rank thre of Pheonix strike is a third combination hadoken pose strike.

     

    Progressively the animation gets faster so all the team would have to do is play with delaying or lengthening frames as they see fit and choosing where the cut-off of the frame is. 

     

    2) Add spell effects to the same animation which progressively get better

    Rank 1 of Death Touch looks like an open-palm strike with slightly clawed finger-tips

    Rank 2 of Death Touch looks exactly the same but particles of red and black energy sparkle from the colision 

    Rank 3 of Death Touch looks the same but a sharp spray of bright energy comes out fromthe back of the enemy and there is a dark menacing shadow rising from the caster of the ability

     

    If we consider the spell effects are just in-game props (such as shadow/smoke/energy) then just arranging these in a pattern with delay timers seems reasonable.  I guess all it comes down to is which of these two methods is cheapest or are they both pretty darn cheap and both can be used? Wish I knew the program they were using and how many man hours it would take to pull something like that off. Some of us players wouldn't mind doing this stuff in our free time. *sigh* I miss Everquest Next and their focus on player creations.

     

    -Todd