With it looking like this game will be centered around early EQ1-style gameplay, i'm wondering if this Quality Of Life addition will be added?
For those unaware, the EQ1 early game had people med back their mana via a static amount of mana enhanced by mana regen and various mana regen buffs. In turn, they spent an inordinate amount of time doing well... nothing but sitting in game.
This issue only exacerbated itself given that mana regen and a mana pool tend to scale at far different rates. In short, as expansions get added, your mana pool would always outstrip the ability to accumulate mana regen through gear. A solution was found. When combat ends and you lose agro, a timer starts. 30 seconds for group zones, 5 minutes for raid zones. At the end of that timer your sitting regen would become fast regen, and grow at a certain % per tick. This, in turn, put a hard cap on the amount of time that would be needed to ever med to full. You still had downtime, but there wasn't the tendency to fall into so much downtime it made the game unfun. At the same time, while mana regen was by and large trivialized for medding, it was still highly critical for mana pool management, keeping the modifier relevant. To be able to last longer between full and empty, mana regen was quite useful.
At the same time, by providing a hard indicator of when you had lost agro, the classes that have the ability to drop agro could have an instanteous indicator when their skill ability cleared the agro, or if it succeeded. That, in turn, made them a lot more fun to play. Watching Cohh on one of those streams hit stealth and go 'i don't know if that worked'... is concerning.
I really, really...really hope not! Adding in this "quality of life" change is completely contrary to the idea of planned downtime. I miss the slower, methodical pace of EQ and hope it returns. I never looked at it as doing nothing. Spend some time talking to your groupmates and getting to know them. Tell some jokes. Learn a language. Who says you have to med to full for every encounter? Some of the best experiences were when the group just took a chance at 40m, realized they pulled more than they intended but still squeaked by.
ArchMageSalamar said:I really, really...really hope not! Adding in this "quality of life" change is completely contrary to the idea of planned downtime. I miss the slower, methodical pace of EQ and hope it returns. I never looked at it as doing nothing. Spend some time talking to your groupmates and getting to know them. Tell some jokes. Learn a language. Who says you have to med to full for every encounter? Some of the best experiences were when the group just took a chance at 40m, realized they pulled more than they intended but still squeaked by.
Actually.. its the pure definition of planned downtime.
Old EQ downtime was not planned, it was enforced. And could take inordinate amounts of time that grew as each expansion was released and mana pools continued to outstrip mana regen.
All this does is put a cap on that downtime, so it doesn't grow out of control. Want more downtime? Go 45 seconds on the OOC timer. Or 60 seconds. You can tune it any way you want. But having people sit around for 3-5+ minutes is garbage. People play the game to play their characters, not to NOT play their characters. Nobody minds a little downtime, so long as its manageable by the user and fairly short. Groups still had to take times to med. That didn't change. Trust me, anyone who has ever played EQ1 in the past 15 years would laugh at someone even suggesting the use of mana regen to med again. Mana Pools grow by expansion, and if the game is around any significant length of time they can get huge. It would take like 30 minutes to med lolz.
And there is no reason to rest on something that never worked just on principle or nostalgia. It wasn't a good mechanic then, and we have a far better one for managing downtime to get full. Use what works. Its like saying we should remake a Model T but not use things like modern brakes or airbags, and then stick it on the open road. It won't turn out well.
Yeah, I enjoyed the downtime too. Especially since it often would balance out once the camp was broken in with the time between each respawn/pull.
If growing mana pools is the concern then they can always tweak the numbers of regained mana by meditation to be some combination of various thresholds using maximum mana pool and meditate skill level.
The downtime of classic EQ is way too extreme. A full minute of downtime, to me, is rapidly approaching excessive territory.
I'd like to just see percent-based regeneration for all expendable pools that is obviously infinitely scalable. If you get clarity, enjoy your extra 10% of mana regeneration. If the base rate is 5%/6s or something, then that's an extra 1% every 12 seconds.
Regardless of how it's implemented, 5 minutes of downtime is atrocious.
My desire is a system where you get either X% or X number (whichever is greater) of your total mana pool regen per tick as a base based on your Meditate skill (i.e. 2% or 5 points at 50 skill, 2% or 8 points at 100 etc), so it scales with your total mana, then + any buffs like Breeze, etc. I do NOT want a fast regen system where you charge up fully after 30 seconds, etc. I also do NOT want a system where you get 6 points per tick when you have 100 total mana and when you have 800 mana.
Hypothetical example...at level 20 with 100 meditate skill, you get back say either 2% of your pool or 12 mana per tick, whichever is greater to a CAP. You are a mana heavy class with tons of + mana gear, so your mana is a base of 800 + 200 from gear/buffs. You get back say, 18 per tick (2% capped at 2% of your base plus 1% of your added mana). If you are a mana weak class without buffs, and you have say 500 mana with the same meditate skill, you get back 12 per tick. Plus any bonus from gear/buffs, so say you have Breeze which adds 20% to your base regen rate, so you get 2.4% or 14.4 per tick. So, it scales as you level...12 becomes 15 at a certain skill, etc so as your base mana pool increases, the regen stays RELATIVELY constant. So, at level 40, you still get 2% or 24 per tick etc. I just don't want a system where it takes 7 ticks to regen at level 5 and 500 ticks at 50. I want the regen rate capped softly so that you can still regen fully at level 5 very quickly and at 50 it SHOULD take longer, but not absurdly more. Regen at 50 should not be a system like...at level 5 you have 100 mana and regen 10 a tick, and at 50 you have 2000 mana and regen 12 per tick.
I would like to see the balance tuned in the testing phase and I'm fairly confident that's the plan anyways. It would be nice for the planned downtime to be long enough to say "Whoa, that was a tough fight, did you get your XX spell off? The repops are creeping up on us, we should try and sneak into a corner of the next room if possible." However, if a conversation of that level can occur and then is still followed by an extended awkward silence, then the balance would seem off to me. I would guess that I'm looking for average combat downtime to be on the order of a minute or so, with empty to full taking probably 1.5 minutes, but I'm not sure if those times are accurate. If you have 3+ minutes to wait, then you better only group with your best friends, because that's a lot of conversation time to be filled.
I don't really mind either way but I do enjoy being able to talk to people in between pulls and stuff so I'd like to see some downtime. I get bored being in groups where I don't get to know the people I am playing with. On the other hand if the down times is too long I get bored of waiting for pulls so there is certainly a middle ground between the two. Hopefully during testing the optimal levels of down time will be discovered and it will be set at the right level.
You have to look at the context of 5 minutes+ minutes of downtime.
I've discussed downtime before on these boards, but 5 minutes of downtime isn't a detriment to gameplay, it is actually beneficial to promote grouping. You should never have been in a group in EQ and had 5 minutes of downtime (unless it was after a wipe, etc.). When you are in a "good" group, you could have nearly constant pulls, mobs willing (being spawned). Where you may have experienced 5 minutes of downtime is with soloing, and that is why it's so important that the "Forced downtime" still exists - to promote grouping, and not allow soloing to be a viable alternative with fast out of combat regeneration. It still wouldn't make soloing impossible, but, it would be much less viable and attractive than seeking out groups for progression.
But I'd argue, even more important than that, resource management becomes much less important with fast out of combat regeneration as you can spam combat abilities with little fear as you can /med to full quickly after combat again.
After watching the dev livestreams, it seems like it is in a pretty good spot. They were moving along at a decent pace, and there wasn't any point where I felt like I was waiting for them to get to the next group due to long mana regen. Being a Q&A stream, they were moving slower in general too. The topic did come up at one point, and discussion was had around being able to utilize downtime for other in-game tasks, such as crafting, etc. There will be so many things you can take advantage of doing in this game, that the downtime should be well received. I think this is going to be such an exciting aspect of the game, especially when grouped with guild members, or new friends.
Lots of opinions here, but overall I can't stand games that you don't have to worry about managing your mana/stamina or have any risk of running out of fire power it becomes a zerg fest and boring.
if you have perma pulls for 30 to 60 minutes I think 5 minutes of down time is appropriate, you also don't need to be full mana / stamina to keep going...finding that creative balance between oh S@#$ or burst dmg and sustained dps/heals/cc is what allows you to know when a player is great at their class and not just a button masher.
>not allow soloing to be a viable alternative with fast out of combat regeneration. It still wouldn't make soloing impossible, but, it would be much less viable and attractive than seeking out groups for progression.<
Predictably, I strongly disagree.
Soloing will be hard enough with a fairly small amount of content that is intended to be soloable. When we do want to solo (too many afks to group, feeling antisocial that day, whatever reason) there shouldn't be yet another obstacle put in deliberately to discourage soloing. Pull a mob, wait 5 minutes, pull a mob? I know that isn't what you said but I may not be exaggerating too much. You might as well turn all the solo content into group content instead of making it *that* painful to solo - and a purely group game will fail. Even the groupies (which is almost all of us or we wouldn't be here) need an outlet that isn't excruciatingly boring.
dorotea said:>not allow soloing to be a viable alternative with fast out of combat regeneration. It still wouldn't make soloing impossible, but, it would be much less viable and attractive than seeking out groups for progression.<
Predictably, I strongly disagree.
Soloing will be hard enough with a fairly small amount of content that is intended to be soloable. When we do want to solo (too many afks to group, feeling antisocial that day, whatever reason) there shouldn't be yet another obstacle put in deliberately to discourage soloing. Pull a mob, wait 5 minutes, pull a mob? I know that isn't what you said but I may not be exaggerating too much. You might as well turn all the solo content into group content instead of making it *that* painful to solo - and a purely group game will fail. Even the groupies (which is almost all of us or we wouldn't be here) need an outlet that isn't excruciatingly boring.
I agree, ALL solo content should be turned into group content. There are a million and one solofest mmos out there.
Beefcake said:There are several topics on both of these, but I am too tired to post links on my phone.
There will me medding that takes time and there will not be an agro meter.
However, everything is subject to change.
Thats because your endurance is too low to post :)
You need to rest!!!
HAHAH i just couldnt help myself.
Sevens said:dorotea said:>not allow soloing to be a viable alternative with fast out of combat regeneration. It still wouldn't make soloing impossible, but, it would be much less viable and attractive than seeking out groups for progression.<
Predictably, I strongly disagree.
Soloing will be hard enough with a fairly small amount of content that is intended to be soloable. When we do want to solo (too many afks to group, feeling antisocial that day, whatever reason) there shouldn't be yet another obstacle put in deliberately to discourage soloing. Pull a mob, wait 5 minutes, pull a mob? I know that isn't what you said but I may not be exaggerating too much. You might as well turn all the solo content into group content instead of making it *that* painful to solo - and a purely group game will fail. Even the groupies (which is almost all of us or we wouldn't be here) need an outlet that isn't excruciatingly boring.
I agree, ALL solo content should be turned into group content. There are a million and one solofest mmos out there.
That would pretty much destroy our player base and any chance of revenue to support the game for years to come, so luckily we won't be going with that option ;)
If EQ had been made "group only" the game would have never made it this far, there have to be things to do solo for any game to survive as not everyone wants to group 100% of the time especially in huge social worlds, players are human and it's not like you would like to not be able to walk out your front door in the morning without a full group of six friends, modern games just take it way to far and end up being RPGs in an MMO world, we have no intention of doing that, so to exaggerate like that helps no one, Sevens and only serves to start arguments.
Kilsin said:Sevens said:dorotea said:>not allow soloing to be a viable alternative with fast out of combat regeneration. It still wouldn't make soloing impossible, but, it would be much less viable and attractive than seeking out groups for progression.<
Predictably, I strongly disagree.
Soloing will be hard enough with a fairly small amount of content that is intended to be soloable. When we do want to solo (too many afks to group, feeling antisocial that day, whatever reason) there shouldn't be yet another obstacle put in deliberately to discourage soloing. Pull a mob, wait 5 minutes, pull a mob? I know that isn't what you said but I may not be exaggerating too much. You might as well turn all the solo content into group content instead of making it *that* painful to solo - and a purely group game will fail. Even the groupies (which is almost all of us or we wouldn't be here) need an outlet that isn't excruciatingly boring.
I agree, ALL solo content should be turned into group content. There are a million and one solofest mmos out there.
That would pretty much destroy our player base and any chance of revenue to support the game for years to come, so luckily we won't be going with that option ;)
If EQ had been made "group only" the game would have never made it this far, there have to be things to do solo for any game to survive as not everyone wants to group 100% of the time especially in huge social worlds, players are human and it's not like you would like to not be able to walk out your front door in the morning without a full group of six friends, modern games just take it way to far and end up being RPGs in an MMO world, we have no intention of doing that, so to exaggerate like that helps no one, Sevens and only serves to start arguments.
But EQ didnt have solo content...the PLAYERS made the solo content by figuring out how to play their toon to the best of their ability and doing what the devs didnt think they could. If you have ever read any of my other post you will see that I am NOT against solo content but am against content designed to be solo. Huge difference.
Since I love maths and enjoy statistics occasionally, I would be remiss if I didn't point out a few issues:
1. 'Accelerated' regen out of combat merely encourages a flurry of mass pulls followed by an extended 'med to max'.
Groups would pull like crazy to burn through their mana pools while expending all clickies etc. This is then followed by the entire group taking an extended AFK for the duration of the 'max regen cap' time. This also means solo becomes more viable compared to grouping for many classes since you can afford to throw all your mana at the mobs and know that you have precisely the same downtime that for if you had instead only used 60% of your mana. Mana regen in combat becomes a non-issue - you just don't do it. For the same reason, Enchanter and other mana regen buffs are immaterial.
2. 'Scaled' regen rates, i.e. med 2% per tick means an exclusive emphasis on the depth of a mana pool.
If you mana regen rates are tied to a % of your mana pool, then depth of that mana pool is king. It takes, say, 5 mins (at 2% per tick) to fully regen your mana regardless of how much mana you have. While mana regen buffs would still be important, they will become increasingly less important as casters level up. This is because the depth of your mana pool rises faster than the cost of your spells does. Thus at low level medding for 8 ticks may only generate enough mana for 2 max level spells while at high level it may be sufficient for 4-5 spells or more - particularly since higher level casters often have lower level utility/CC spells that they still use.
Option #1 leads to extended AFKs once all group members are OOM. This does not lead to socialising, but AFKs and bored tanks.
Option #2 leads to mana pool size at the expense of all else. Mana regen skills/stats/gear is always a poor second to more mana.
Option #3 ....
... This needs to be fixed mana per tick based on stat, 'med' skill levels and buffs.
... The mana regen rate needs to rise though skill/stat/gear slightly behind mana pool rises.
... These need to be tuned to encourage mana breaks into the pull cycle,
not one big extended AFK after a flurry of work
... This kind of thing leads to new tactics, changes in CC'er, new fighting innovations etc
PS: If you have all burnt down to OOM, then perhaps you should be rethinking your strategy rather than bemoaning your 5-8 min med?
Evoras, also recalls mod-rods a.k.a 'death sticks'
Kilsin said:Sevens said:dorotea said:>not allow soloing to be a viable alternative with fast out of combat regeneration. It still wouldn't make soloing impossible, but, it would be much less viable and attractive than seeking out groups for progression.<
Predictably, I strongly disagree.
Soloing will be hard enough with a fairly small amount of content that is intended to be soloable. When we do want to solo (too many afks to group, feeling antisocial that day, whatever reason) there shouldn't be yet another obstacle put in deliberately to discourage soloing. Pull a mob, wait 5 minutes, pull a mob? I know that isn't what you said but I may not be exaggerating too much. You might as well turn all the solo content into group content instead of making it *that* painful to solo - and a purely group game will fail. Even the groupies (which is almost all of us or we wouldn't be here) need an outlet that isn't excruciatingly boring.
I agree, ALL solo content should be turned into group content. There are a million and one solofest mmos out there.
That would pretty much destroy our player base and any chance of revenue to support the game for years to come, so luckily we won't be going with that option ;)
If EQ had been made "group only" the game would have never made it this far, there have to be things to do solo for any game to survive as not everyone wants to group 100% of the time especially in huge social worlds, players are human and it's not like you would like to not be able to walk out your front door in the morning without a full group of six friends, modern games just take it way to far and end up being RPGs in an MMO world, we have no intention of doing that, so to exaggerate like that helps no one, Sevens and only serves to start arguments.
People act like someone occasionally soloing with destroy everyone's game. If the XP and loot meets the challenge, it's all good.