It sounds like this is a thread about being against downtime, which is one of the tenets of the game: "A mindset that some degree of downtime should be part of a game, ensuring players have time to form important social bonds."
The caster downtime is the group's downtime; it's time to chat with your party, go to the bathroom, get some water/food, check your favorite websites, rearrange your inventory, return some text messages, or whatever else floats your boat. Downtime is only as dull as you make it. It's part of the way the group interdependence works: a solo warrior has tons of downtime waiting for HP to regen between fights but in a group the buck gets passed to the healer who can keep things moving longer (longer still if the group has some form of clarity), but at some point the need to rest catches up.
@Iksar - What extends this discussion past just downtime is the question of when your downtime should be. I think all those who are on board with Pantheon's tenets agree that you should have some time to be a real person playing a game and do all the normal things that you mentioned, but there should also be times when you are in the thick of it. I believe that the whole group should be encouraged through the mechanics of the game to take a downtime break after strenuous fights, just as casters were in EQ. I agree with the majority of what Dispoalist has said in this thread.
What downtime-uptime flow would you like to see in a game? Using EQ as an example and assuming that meditation time is downtime, my experience was approximately as follows...
Melee puller: In combat was 100% uptime. Out of combat was waiting for group to regen, pulling, or choice of downtime.
Caster: In combat was 0-75% uptime. Out of combat was 90-100% downtime with some buffing/healing.
Non-pulling melee: In combat was 100% uptime. Out of combat was 100% downtime.
I personally think that non-pulling melee had a great flow between downtime and uptime, casters had too much downtime, and pullers had too much uptime. That's an just opinion. If Pantheon gave a bit more for casters to do in combat, then I think that would help my enjoyment of caster classes. Likewise, if Pantheon forced some downtime onto melee pullers, then I would like that too.
disposalist said: Snipped for space
I get what you're saying and I'll try to respond best I can to convey what I meant.
The only real assumption that we can make is to compare Pantheon to both EQ and Vanguard. Those are the games Brad made and it's what every person on this forum can realistically look at to see how Pantheon will be. In both of these games, tanks were not a solo class. Warriors even more so. Clerics could, albeit not incredibly easy, solo. They mostly solo'd undead due to increased dmg and such but if they had to they could. Warriors could not unless the mob was signifigantly lower level and with much more downtime. Regening health always took longer than mana.
The entire stamina debate in this thread is whether or not warriors should have to regen stamina. Except that you are thinking that this would only pertain to 1 class. That isn't the case. If there was a change to stamina recovery it would affect all stamina based classes. That means rogues, monks, etc.
I get that casters want things to become a little more "equal" in terms of activity and honestly I would love to see it. I've proposed a number of different ways on these forums that could do just that in other threads and there are countless more ways they could handle things. I just do not in any way believe that basically making stamina classes suffer the same downtime is in any way a benefit. It's the complete opposite. Not only would they have to completely start over with those classes to reevaluate all of the formulas but they would have to find ways to make them equal to casters which means the introduction of stamina regen gear/stats, a reformulation of all of the stats for these classes, and damage increases across the entire class to keep them on their current level. It would significantly increase the amount of downtime in the game which also decreases the XP/hr which means an adjustment of xp game wide. The entire game would feel slow. They would also have to add in stamina recovery abilities just like they mana recovery abilities. They would have to tweak needed dps in raid fights to adjust for the need of more tanks since you would have to rotate tanks when one ran out of stamina.
I could keep going listing off all of the reasons it's a bad idea but I won't. Either you get the picture or you don't. Bottom line is, you don't nerf others to fix a problem with one. You fix the initial issue.
I have not read the entire thread (I know I'm violating one of my own pet peevs) but I thought I would throw another idea into the mix.
What if physical damage characters did have to deal with exhaustion? Running, jumping and Auto attacking very slowly drains a physical characters stamina. All special powers and attacks expend combat energy above and beyond what Auto Attack does. Once a melee hits 50% exhausted they start to drop in power level or lose access to special attacks. Once they hit 0% exhausted they become slowed and snared but can keep going with auto attack.
Each of the physical classes will have a rest/recover skill that can be used when not attack and not being attacked to erase part of their exhaustion. If they use the skill above 50% it works quickly. Any points below 50% take much longer to regenerate, maybe 10 times longer, and 0%-10% takes 10 times longer than 11-50%.
In raid encounters you will literally need to be switching teams like in football to allow the physical players to rest while still preventing agro blowouts. This will also set more or less hard timers on all encounters with solo tanks as an exhausted tank is lunch.
Just a thought,
Trasak
Ainadak said:@Iksar - What extends this discussion past just downtime is the question of when your downtime should be. I think all those who are on board with Pantheon's tenets agree that you should have some time to be a real person playing a game and do all the normal things that you mentioned, but there should also be times when you are in the thick of it. I believe that the whole group should be encouraged through the mechanics of the game to take a downtime break after strenuous fights, just as casters were in EQ. I agree with the majority of what Dispoalist has said in this thread.
What downtime-uptime flow would you like to see in a game? Using EQ as an example and assuming that meditation time is downtime, my experience was approximately as follows...
Melee puller: In combat was 100% uptime. Out of combat was waiting for group to regen, pulling, or choice of downtime.
Caster: In combat was 0-75% uptime. Out of combat was 90-100% downtime with some buffing/healing.
Non-pulling melee: In combat was 100% uptime. Out of combat was 100% downtime.I personally think that non-pulling melee had a great flow between downtime and uptime, casters had too much downtime, and pullers had too much uptime. That's an just opinion. If Pantheon gave a bit more for casters to do in combat, then I think that would help my enjoyment of caster classes. Likewise, if Pantheon forced some downtime onto melee pullers, then I would like that too.
The whole group is encouraged to take downtime when the casters are low on mana/oom. Just because a melee doesn't personally require rest for their own class needs doesn't mean they aren't encouraged to take a breather for the sake of everyone else.
I've never minded the 0-75% uptime in combat as a caster, I liked waiting until the mob was down to 70-80% hp so I don't take aggro before dropping a small helping of big damage nukes (hard to call it a "nuke" in most modern MMOs) in a fight and don't feel the need to keep pressing buttons over and over and over fight to fight. When I feel like that I load up a melee alt. Honestly I'd be fine with similar downtime-uptime to EQ and don't think melee need anything that requires them to also have to rest as they already have to wait for casters, the only thing I'd change is having it take 3-4 minutes to meditate to full instead of 7-10.
CanadinaXegony said:You can't "always" grab a bard or an enchanter.
Unless you have a hangout where people are throwing out buffs ..like in the Plane of Knowledge, not all groups are composed of enchanters or bards as members either. I don't have a problem tempering my nukes or managing my mana, but if the puller comes back with more mobs than we can handle..what with root and other spells cast by the caster with the nukes, mana bar doesn't hold up for long.
Meanwhile the melee are still merrily whacking away with no downtime and no drawbacks.
Again the fizzles and resists that also eat mana, also reduce your mana no matter how good you are at managing. The reason I am in this thread is I "want" to be a useful member of the group...not having to constantly sit on my fanny because its some Dev's conviction that I must be punished because I am a caster.
There has to be a better way than what was invented 18 years ago, at least we don't have the meditation spell book taking up our whole screen, while we med.
I acquired some acute hearing for the pitter patter of large feet coming to punish me because I was sitting down to med.
Let's hope VR has better balancing..and better ideas.
Mana ratio to resists and fizzles, SHOULD be examined, yes I still expect to "manage" my mana, but I don't expect to get 3 or 4 large fizzles in a row ...that eat my whole mana bar.
If we are going to give feedback...this is the opportune time. The Devs can mull it over and decide what they want to do with that right? Just because we say something or feedback something...doesn't mean the Dev team is there to fulfill our every wish and dream. But it doesn't hurt to bring it up. :)
Cana
No downtime and no drawbacks? That's beyond ignorant.
I don't understand why you keep posting about pulling. If your puller sucks, what does that have to do with having to meditate?
Trasak said:I have not read the entire thread (I know I'm violating one of my own pet peevs) but I thought I would throw another idea into the mix.
What if physical damage characters did have to deal with exhaustion? Running, jumping and Auto attacking very slowly drains a physical characters stamina. All special powers and attacks expend combat energy above and beyond what Auto Attack does. Once a melee hits 50% exhausted they start to drop in power level or lose access to special attacks. Once they hit 0% exhausted they become slowed and snared but can keep going with auto attack.
Each of the physical classes will have a rest/recover skill that can be used when not attack and not being attacked to erase part of their exhaustion. If they use the skill above 50% it works quickly. Any points below 50% take much longer to regenerate, maybe 10 times longer, and 0%-10% takes 10 times longer than 11-50%.
In raid encounters you will literally need to be switching teams like in football to allow the physical players to rest while still preventing agro blowouts. This will also set more or less hard timers on all encounters with solo tanks as an exhausted tank is lunch.
Just a thought,
Trasak
How does that solve anything? It does NOTHING for the arugment that people hate having to meditate. The solution people keep putitng forward is to make melee classes ALSO have to "med" because casters hate having to do it? It sucks that casters have to med, let's give more down time to melee classes too! What? Do people not realize that all this is going to do is HURT EVERYONE. Why in the world would a caster want to make the monk pulling loot and exp for them less efficient?
Just for clarification, there are 2 very different trains of thought in this thread that both want to amend medding.
Some are against sitting to med and want to alleviate that or offer other solutions.
Myself and others are for medding. We want to make sure that the down time caused by medding is weighted sufficiently as far as balance, in relation to other classes who don't normallly med. That down time of taking 0 actions is often not weighted heavily enough in other games.
Krixus said:Trasak said:I have not read the entire thread (I know I'm violating one of my own pet peevs) but I thought I would throw another idea into the mix.
*snip*
How does that solve anything? It does NOTHING for the arugment that people hate having to meditate. The solution people keep putitng forward is to make melee classes ALSO have to "med" because casters hate having to do it? It sucks that casters have to med, let's give more down time to melee classes too! What? Do people not realize that all this is going to do is HURT EVERYONE. Why in the world would a caster want to make the monk pulling loot and exp for them less efficient?
Might have avoided the thread if I realized it was an "I hate meditating" thread. As a primarily melee character player I like the idea of having a limited action pool that is not constantly regenerating. It opens up the option for high powered burst moves that are on par with spells as well as making tank switching a thing. As someone who at times is a real outdoorsman and has spent many an afternoon in armor at SCA events overall exhaustion and the need to take a break from the shield wall is a real thing.
The key is less to make melee need to meditate than to make casters and physical combatants operate at the same pace. This may require giving casters some form of auto attack, possibly selectable “minor spells” that cost little to no mana, to give them something to do while they wait for the right time to use their bigger spells. Then part of a good group is knowing when to play it cool and steady, when to alpha strike, when to blow your load on a botched pull, and when to run.
Sociologically anything that is irritating is having an impact on game play that’s limits what a player wants to do. The key is deciding which irritations are quality of life issues that should be fixed and which are intended irritations that contribute to the game complexity and feelings of accomplishment.
Have a good day,
Trasak
A couple things I didn't communicate in my last post:
1. Making physical classes sit down inbetween fights (and rarely/flavorfully within fights),naturally deals with the issue of casters feeling less efficient/associated with their groups.
Everyone resting at more or less the same time means everyone is at least somewhat ready for each fight. In addition, even if some classes sit down more often, everyone having a universal sit down time further pushes communication within groups.
2. I simply don't believe health bars are very comparable to mana bars:
Basically, someone is going to end up meditating for their mana bar at some point. This may not be true for all health bars. Thus, if we truly feel that meditation is beneficial for Pantheon, than all players should have a slow-regening resource besides health.
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Krixus said:How does that solve anything? It does NOTHING for the arugment that people hate having to meditate. The solution people keep putitng forward is to make melee classes ALSO have to "med" because casters hate having to do it? It sucks that casters have to med, let's give more down time to melee classes too! What? Do people not realize that all this is going to do is HURT EVERYONE. Why in the world would a caster want to make the monk pulling loot and exp for them less efficient?
Meditation provides time for players to communicate with each other. It also provides a need to manage resources efficiently, making the game more challenging. I'm sure there's other benefits too I haven't thought of.
I appreciate that you don't like meditation, but please understand that other people DO like it. Some don't even want their groups to be constantly fighting (like me).
VR also has several goals regarding greater challenge and opportunities for socialization in Pantheon. As far as I'm aware, they plan on including meditation.
Iksar said:It sounds like this is a thread about being against downtime, which is one of the tenets of the game: "A mindset that some degree of downtime should be part of a game, ensuring players have time to form important social bonds."
The caster downtime is the group's downtime; it's time to chat with your party, go to the bathroom, get some water/food, check your favorite websites, rearrange your inventory, return some text messages, or whatever else floats your boat. Downtime is only as dull as you make it. It's part of the way the group interdependence works: a solo warrior has tons of downtime waiting for HP to regen between fights but in a group the buck gets passed to the healer who can keep things moving longer (longer still if the group has some form of clarity), but at some point the need to rest catches up.
I'm not against downtime and, yeah, you can do all sorts in it, but there's only so much peeing and chatting needs to be done. Melee types get to craft, gather, scout, etc. Casters get to sit on their bum stationery. I don't want balance or downtime to be removed, I want casters to not be forced to spend it (and most of the actually combat) on their arse.
Enitzu said:you don't nerf others to fix a problem with one. You fix the initial issue.
Of course not and, aside from my perhaps mis-chosen subject line, I never suggested it.
If warriors did have a similar medding mechinc it absolutely couldn't be made in isolation and would require a lot of differenced from the way EQ and Vanguard worked. I appreciate that Pantheon probably has gone down similar lines and would need considerable re-work for warriors to work anything like casters. I still find it interesting to talk about, though, but some appear to see it as some kind of 'attack' on all warrior-kind :/ (not you, Enitzu)
Making medding for casters less dull wouldn't take much though...
disposalist said:Iksar said:It sounds like this is a thread about being against downtime, which is one of the tenets of the game: "A mindset that some degree of downtime should be part of a game, ensuring players have time to form important social bonds."
The caster downtime is the group's downtime; it's time to chat with your party, go to the bathroom, get some water/food, check your favorite websites, rearrange your inventory, return some text messages, or whatever else floats your boat. Downtime is only as dull as you make it. It's part of the way the group interdependence works: a solo warrior has tons of downtime waiting for HP to regen between fights but in a group the buck gets passed to the healer who can keep things moving longer (longer still if the group has some form of clarity), but at some point the need to rest catches up.I'm not against downtime and, yeah, you can do all sorts in it, but there's only so much peeing and chatting needs to be done. Melee types get to craft, gather, scout, etc. Casters get to sit on their bum stationery. I don't want balance or downtime to be removed, I want casters to not be forced to spend it (and most of the actually combat) on their arse.
Some casters enjoy being forced to sit on their arse. Hopefully Pantheon will balance the down time well enough that it isn't too much of an issue.
In the meantime, there will likely be caster classes, such as summoner, which may not require as much downtime as others. I just don't think all classes should be made to have less downtime, when there is no actual reason for every class to remain constantly engaged in every fight. Both playstyles can be represented while still allowing us all several classes to choose from.
Trasak said:...The key is less to make melee need to meditate than to make casters and physical combatants operate at the same pace.
Absolutely and it doesn't even have to be 'the same' pace, just not the zero pace of sitting still. I like that casters aren't frantic, but enforced inaction is way different.
Trasak said:This may require giving casters some form of auto attack, possibly selectable “minor spells” that cost little to no mana, to give them something to do while they wait for the right time to use their bigger spells. Then part of a good group is knowing when to play it cool and steady, when to alpha strike, when to blow your load on a botched pull, and when to run.
Oh! The idea of having a selection of minor abilities you can do without interrupting medding is great. Minor utility functions that you wouldn't want to waste time with mid-combat ordinarily, like, summoning food and badages for after the fight. Also, what if you could use the down time to cue up the spells you are going to cast when you stop medding to make things faster when you do rejoin the action?
Of course it would also be handy to do stuff like that when between encounters also. Crafting, gathering, fishing hehe.
I also quite like the idea of a 'mini-game' type of thing that might make meditation more efficient. What game was it that had abilities you could use in response to events when you were crafting that produced better or worse results depending on how good you were? You could just let it run and get 'standard' results or do something to try and get better.
Trasak said:Sociologically anything that is irritating is having an impact on game play that’s limits what a player wants to do. The key is deciding which irritations are quality of life issues that should be fixed and which are intended irritations that contribute to the game complexity and feelings of accomplishment.
Exactly. You get it. Thankyou ;)
disposalist said:I'm not against downtime and, yeah, you can do all sorts in it, but there's only so much peeing and chatting needs to be done. Melee types get to craft, gather, scout, etc. Casters get to sit on their bum stationery. I don't want balance or downtime to be removed, I want casters to not be forced to spend it (and most of the actually combat) on their arse.
I'm not sure how much crafting players will be doing while in a group (especially without a crafting station, but IIRC you could do crafting combines with the inventory storage kits while meditating in EQ), nor gathering while sitting in a room camp in a dungeon, or scouting when the zone is known that non-casters will do. Everyone sits in camp just chilling except for the puller for the most part. If a group/caster has to spend their time doing *something* then is it really downtime at all?
disposalist said:Trasak said:...The key is less to make melee need to meditate than to make casters and physical combatants operate at the same pace.
Absolutely and it doesn't even have to be 'the same' pace, just not the zero pace of sitting still. I like that casters aren't frantic, but enforced inaction is way different.
Trasak said:This may require giving casters some form of auto attack, possibly selectable “minor spells” that cost little to no mana, to give them something to do while they wait for the right time to use their bigger spells. Then part of a good group is knowing when to play it cool and steady, when to alpha strike, when to blow your load on a botched pull, and when to run.Oh! The idea of having a selection of minor abilities you can do without interrupting medding is great. Minor utility functions that you wouldn't want to waste time with mid-combat ordinarily, like, summoning food and badages for after the fight. Also, what if you could use the down time to cue up the spells you are going to cast when you stop medding to make things faster when you do rejoin the action?
Why can't the pace just be different? Why is it a key to make casters operate at a same pace (or shift closer to melee)? Some casters might be more active and mana efficient and others more traditionally bursty with more bouts of "inaction" between dropping big hits. Adding minor spells sounds like trying to give casters an "auto attack" like filler to do just so the person at the computer can keep pressing more buttons, which would be sad to me.
Iksar said:
Why can't the pace just be different? Why is it a key to make casters operate at a same pace (or shift closer to melee)? Some casters might be more active and mana efficient and others more traditionally bursty with more bouts of "inaction" between dropping big hits. Adding minor spells sounds like trying to give casters an "auto attack" like filler to do just so the person at the computer can keep pressing more buttons, which would be sad to me.
A group will run at the pace of the slowest pace in the group unless that player is expected to sit out x number of pulls out of 10. I personally will gravitate to group with other players who maximize their classes potential and tend to look down on players who go afk at the drop of a hat while I am actively pulling.
I also do think that every class should have an auto action while in combat, one that does not require clicking repetitively, that contributes to the group. I suggested minor spells rather than wands so that like a physical character can switch weapons a caster can choose which of a few options works best for the current situation. It may play out similar to a single bard song being active.
Very low damage wands that could be used to auto attack isn't a bad idea.
In most cases it would probably be more efficient to med instead of using the wand...but in situations where sitting pulls aggro they could be a nice alternative. Unsure how useful they would actually be?
They could be expendable and be craftable. We do have a "sigil" slot they could go in...or the ammo slot.
That doesn't really solve the balance issue I mentioned before (that was evident in early EQ and other games), but I like the idea in and of itself.
I thought one of the things many of us were so excited about, was that VR wouldn't try to "balance" classes? Isn't this, the lack of homogenization between classes, exactly what we want?
And doesn't forcing melee to med go against that?
Really kinda seeing this as a non-issue. Or at least an issue that doesn't belong in what VR is trying to accomplish.
This whole idea of intentionally adding downtime to combat so folks "have time to chat and get to know each other" is another perfect example of folks mis-remembering what made EQ great.
This is 2018, not 1998. Folks are going to be chatting using VOIP, not typing into group chat at 6 words per minute like we did 20 years ago. Humans are perfectly capable of talking to each other while executing MMO combat.
I sincerely hope these ideas aren't really what the devs are basing the game around.
nscheffel said:This whole idea of intentionally adding downtime to combat so folks "have time to chat and get to know each other" is another perfect example of folks mis-remembering what made EQ great.
I sincerely hope these ideas aren't really what the devs are basing the game around.
Rather, say it's not what made EQ great for you. For many of us, it's exactly the "chat to get to know each other" that made EQ stand out from the rest.
Tralyan said:nscheffel said:This whole idea of intentionally adding downtime to combat so folks "have time to chat and get to know each other" is another perfect example of folks mis-remembering what made EQ great.
I sincerely hope these ideas aren't really what the devs are basing the game around.
Rather, say it's not what made EQ great for you. For many of us, it's exactly the "chat to get to know each other" that made EQ stand out from the rest.
And that was done during downtime in combat? I must have been playing a completely different game...
Slow combat made it stand out from the rest? All MMOs back then had slow combat and group chat. That argument makes zero sense haha.
If anyone thinks that kind of game is going to succeed in 2018...well...that's an interesting opinion.
Trasak said:A group will run at the pace of the slowest pace in the group unless that player is expected to sit out x number of pulls out of 10. I personally will gravitate to group with other players who maximize their classes potential and tend to look down on players who go afk at the drop of a hat while I am actively pulling.
I also do think that every class should have an auto action while in combat, one that does not require clicking repetitively, that contributes to the group. I suggested minor spells rather than wands so that like a physical character can switch weapons a caster can choose which of a few options works best for the current situation. It may play out similar to a single bard song being active.
Naturally people will gravitate toward those more skilled at managing resources. The best groups in EQ weren't often waiting on mana but rather waiting on repops as they'd skirt by constantly from pull to pull around 20% mana.
Having some kind of auto action in combat for casters, be it minor spells or wands, homogenizes the experience next to melee. Additionally that is power/damage balance that then has to be removed from the "real" spells of the class, again further shifting casters toward melee.
Maybe I am out of touch or something but I don't see the thrill of continuously pressing buttons. I'm tired of the idea that it's more engaging, skillful, or fun to need to press a button every time the global cooldown refreshes. I'd much rather feel powerful as a wizard (glass cannon) than mediocre, as a very basic example ignoring other combat mechanics: I'd rather press 2 twice for 50 damage each than press 2 ten times for 10 damage each.
I think a fundamental design flaw of EQ was the single-mindedness of casters. You couldn't med unless you were sitting. There was very little you could do while medding, except sit there and wait for your mana to refill. This meant players would go often AFK in some form or another (play gems, go to the fridge, window out to MS Hearts...) There was little expectation from the group for wizards other than to stand up and drop the hammer towards the end of each fight.
Mana should regen without meditation. There should be other activities which you can do to benefit the group in some way, without necessarily impacting your mana regen. It should be obvious if someone is doing a stealth AFK in your group. The expectation should be that they are constantly contributing in some way and not through auto-anything. Perhaps mana regen is accomplished by a proactive ability (like shaman canni) rather than simply waiting for the clock? Perhaps two casters amplify their mana regen by focusing on each other and building a mana pool in the air between them. The point is we don't have to simply recycle what we knew in EQ.
Warriors or monks shouldn't need to med. Their health and buffs are largely gated by the mana pool of the healers and support classes. If they have special abilities, those can be gated by a resource such as stamina or simply through ability cooldown timers, but give us some way in the UI to know when the ability is next available.
Celandor said:I think a fundamental design flaw of EQ was the single-mindedness of casters. You couldn't med unless you were sitting. There was very little you could do while medding, except sit there and wait for your mana to refill. This meant players would go often AFK in some form or another (play gems, go to the fridge, window out to MS Hearts...) There was little expectation from the group for wizards other than to stand up and drop the hammer towards the end of each fight.
Mana should regen without meditation. There should be other activities which you can do to benefit the group in some way, without necessarily impacting your mana regen. It should be obvious if someone is doing a stealth AFK in your group. The expectation should be that they are constantly contributing in some way and not through auto-anything. Perhaps mana regen is accomplished by a proactive ability (like shaman canni) rather than simply waiting for the clock? Perhaps two casters amplify their mana regen by focusing on each other and building a mana pool in the air between them. The point is we don't have to simply recycle what we knew in EQ.
Warriors or monks shouldn't need to med. Their health and buffs are largely gated by the mana pool of the healers and support classes. If they have special abilities, those can be gated by a resource such as stamina or simply through ability cooldown timers, but give us some way in the UI to know when the ability is next available.