I recently played Pillars of Eternity and a mechanic they have for Wizards made me think of Pantheon, and how it could work very nicely in this game.
In PoE they have something called Grimoires, they’re essentially books/tomes where you scribe your spells to use in battle, just like in EQ and Pantheon, the number of spells you can scribe is limited and they cannot be scribed again in battle, so what you scribed before the battle is what you have, but there’s a twist, you can have an extra grimoire with a different spell setup, but it takes up 1 usable combat item slot ( there’s only 4 slots normally used for battle potions), and if you want to change a grimoire mid battle you waste 1 or 2 turns and become vulnerable to attacks, so there’s a trade-off for switching your spells.
I think this system, with a few tweaks would fit Pantheon perfectly. So you would essentially have 1 “main” grimoire/tome/stance whatever you want to call it, where you can scribe/setup your 12 spells/skills/abilities, and another one that you can scribe/setup with different spells/skills/abilities. When you switch your “tomes” all the abilities/spells from the main tome become unusable, but you gain access to the abilities/spells in the “secondary” tome.
Changing your ability/spell setup in combat would come with a heavy penalty to mana/energy regen, a loss of 25%-50% of the current mana and it would take a few seconds for the switch to happen (maybe 4-6 secs cast time), this action has a relatively long cooldown (10-30 mins?).
Just to reiterate there would never be more than 12 abilities/spells/skills on your screen, you simply have a “quick change action” that comes with a heavy penalty attached.
This can also be applied to melee/non caster classes, for them instead of changing tomes, they can change “stances”, gaining access to a different skill/ability setup. Note that skills are not assigned to specific stance, stances are simple another “class themed flavour word” for tomes/grimoires.
Im not a fan of swapping armour/weapons/skills during combat, it takes the Stratergy out of the equasion if your able to do that. The Devs have said that they want us to "Think" about each battle / Encounter, to think about what spells or armour or even weapons to equip before each encounter. If we are able to Swap spells, armour or weapons in combat that kinda nullifys that.
Example: Lets say your a Hybrid class, lets say a druid and you have all your attack focused Spells and abilitys all set up in your Tome/Grimoire your all ready for your dungeon, you goin and start fighting, things are getting Hairy as you get a couple more adds, Now if you are allowed to Swap tomes/Grimoire in Mid Battle during combat to Another setup Lets say your second tome is a Healing Setup, you change to that and become basicly a second healer allowing your group to now Easly survive that encounter and totally Negate the Stratergy focus that the devs are wanting us to use.
The Devs are wanting us to use our brains and Think about what skills/spells to mem/Equip, what gear to wear, what weapon to use, be it Magic, blunt, sharp etc before going to a new dungeon/encounter Etc If we are able to just swap out a spellbook/tome/Grimoire Etc etc and basicly Equip a totally different set of 12 Spells/Abilitys/Skills then there really wouldnt be any point in Strategizing about what spells Etc to Equip since you have a second lot you can change to in combat if needed.. it kinda takes the Stratergy part out of it.
This is however only my opinion :) I do like the Idea, but not for a game like Pantheon, i personally feel it is contrary to what the Devs are trying to get us to do, Which is Think and use our brains, and not just have a whole load of spells/abilitys/skills we can just swap out and have a totaly different set.
The devs want us to think and prepare, but it's damned annoying to realise at the start of a big fight you are utterly doomed because you forgot one essential spell, so you may as well just let the monsters pound you to death or train the zone line.
It would be nice to allow some kind of emergency swap out even if it left the character really vulnerable and needing protection for a while.
I'm not sure allowing such a thing would work out given the desire for tactical combat and planning ahead. I understand the desire, but I feel that even with penalties it wouldn't work out as the penalties would either be too steep or not enough to matter. I don't think there is a sweet spot.
Tiberius said:Im not a fan of swapping armour/weapons/skills during combat, it takes the Stratergy out of the equasion if your able to do that. The Devs have said that they want us to "Think" about each battle / Encounter, to think about what spells or armour or even weapons to equip before each encounter. If we are able to Swap spells, armour or weapons in combat that kinda nullifys that.
Weapons are the only one that should have an exception. Yes players need to think about the battle(s) ahead of them but it would be a detriment to both melee classes and encounter design if physical DPS couldn't change weapons in combat. Casters can have any number of different damage types ready to go on their bar at any given time but melee (for the most part) only have whatever damage type their equipped weapon(s) allows. It would be better to allow melee to swap weapons in combat, even if it's just changing between two sets. If they can change weapons then encounters can have phases where bosses change resistance types, such as a heavily armored boss that eventually has its armor broken changing it's weakness from blunt to slashing/piercing/whatever.
I would be alright with a system that lets you swap out abilities/weapons/armor with a penalty. I think the penalty for weapon swapping should be small though. For abilities I could see having a penalty of those swapped abilities requiring double (or whatever multiplier) the resources to use, having double the cooldown, and having reduced power. Something to illustrate that you weren't prepared to use that ability specifically. I think the feeling of helplessness that disposalist described would be very unfortunate. If you are an enchanter who got caught off guard by a low level mob that you can easily mez, but the "in combat" state prevents you from memming a gate spell, does that make sense? For armor I would like to see a hefty penalty if allowed at all. In many mmos the swapping of gear happens with a click because waiting around for your character to change would be unnecessarily tedious. However, in battle it should at least take you a somewhat realistic length of time to swap your armor as a penalty for doing it. Swapping out earrings could happen in a few seconds, but a whole wardrobe should have a very hefty penalty. Besides, I don't think you would really get much of that helpless feeling from having the wrong armor on in battle. It would less often result in the feeling of "alright, I guess I just have to wait to die".
This sort of mechanic has always rubbed me wrong. When rolling into a dungeon you seemed to have 6 different armor sets and an arsenal of weapons. Unless you have some guy running behind you smacking coconut shells together to carry the gear its immersion breaking. The planning or look before you leap angle is the best way to approach this. I can remember the disarm features in EQ and that really made you fell like you were in trouble. The shift on the fly is lazy gaming imo. Just an opinion but IA m a bit old school.
Ox
Iksar said: ... Weapons are the only one that should have an exception. Yes players need to think about the battle(s) ahead of them but it would be a detriment to both melee classes and encounter design if physical DPS couldn't change weapons in combat. Casters can have any number of different damage types ready to go on their bar at any given time but melee (for the most part) only have whatever damage type their equipped weapon(s) allows. It would be better to allow melee to swap weapons in combat, even if it's just changing between two sets. If they can change weapons then encounters can have phases where bosses change resistance types, such as a heavily armored boss that eventually has its armor broken changing it's weakness from blunt to slashing/piercing/whatever.
Hm. I think if I was playing a caster, I would like to have the ability to dynamically react to a dynamic encounter, just like a melee player. By effectively choosing to do the same thing a melee player can.
Or, I guess I could just sit down and die, as a caster, that works too. ;) j/k, I'd rather contribute to the success of my team, just like a melee player.
If there are phases to combat where resistances change, then all classes need the ability to react to those changes, not just pure melee. That means casters need to be able to change spells in combat, not just for damage types, but for any aspect of the encounter that is dynamic. Same goes for melee. If you want dynamic encounters, give everyone the ability to react dynamically, with all the tools they have. And really, just Warrior, Rogue, and Monk get to react? What about the other 75% of classes? ( or 84%, if you count necro and bard as "casters". )
Or just don't have dynamic encounters. It's pretty straightforward.
vjek said:Hm. I think if I was playing a caster, I would like to have the ability to dynamically react to a dynamic encounter, just like a melee player. By effectively choosing to do the same thing a melee player can.
Or, I guess I could just sit down and die, as a caster, that works too. ;) j/k, I'd rather contribute to the success of my team, just like a melee player.
If there are phases to combat where resistances change, then all classes need the ability to react to those changes, not just pure melee. That means casters need to be able to change spells in combat, not just for damage types, but for any aspect of the encounter that is dynamic. Same goes for melee. If you want dynamic encounters, give everyone the ability to react dynamically, with all the tools they have. And really, just Warrior, Rogue, and Monk get to react? What about the other 75% of classes? ( or 84%, if you count necro and bard as "casters". )
Or just don't have dynamic encounters. It's pretty straightforward.
But you already can as a caster...and that's a big part of the whole planning thing they have talked about. As a caster you can have any number of different magic damage types loaded on the bar at one time, so if a battle is ahead with known shifting resitances then as a caster you'd bring a variety of damage types via spells while melee would bring a variety of different weapons (and possibly skills if some have weapon type dependencies).
I can see both sides of how this will all work out. I played a utility rogue for years. I had a dagger for everything. Slow, snare, dd, dot, haste, hate reduction, pet. So i know how handy a bandolier can be, but i usually switched them out the old way - slot by slot. So i feel for both sides. I just don't want to see 100 rows of hotbuttons. Keep it simple, keep it sane. And make choices matter.
Iksar said: ... But you already can as a caster...and that's a big part of the whole planning thing they have talked about. As a caster you can have any number of different magic damage types loaded on the bar at one time, so if a battle is ahead with known shifting resitances then as a caster you'd bring a variety of damage types via spells while melee would bring a variety of different weapons (and possibly skills if some have weapon type dependencies).
Then the melee should plan for the same. Either you allow everyone to do it, or you allow no-one to do it. If you allow melee to do it, and not casters, all you're going to get is a bunch of pissed of casters. Your exact argument could be used to say "then melee should plan ahead".
Also, it's not just damage types. It's resistances, in your own example. What about lure type spells, to use an EQ1 example? So you're supposed to load lures and non lures and ae's and non ae's, and dot's, for 3 different damage types? And evac, ST root, AE root, and who knows what else? Sure... that sounds fun.
Casters are more than just two damage types. And they're more than just damage. What about cures for healers? or Varying types of damage they're expected to heal with/via or cure? What about pets? Wards? Charms, mez's, and more? Tell all the summoners, oh, welp, too bad, you must have all your pets mem'd for this fight, you don't get to do anything else. yaaaaaay.
Either the encounters are dynamic, and everyone gets to react dynamically, or they aren't and no-one can. To do otherwise is just intentionally failing.
vjek said:Then the melee should plan for the same. Either you allow everyone to do it, or you allow no-one to do it. If you allow melee to do it, and not casters, all you're going to get is a bunch of pissed of casters. Your exact argument could be used to say "then melee should plan ahead".
Also, it's not just damage types. It's resistances, in your own example. What about lure type spells, to use an EQ1 example? So you're supposed to load lures and non lures and ae's and non ae's, and dot's, for 3 different damage types? And evac, ST root, AE root, and who knows what else? Sure... that sounds fun.
Casters are more than just two damage types. And they're more than just damage. What about cures for healers? or Varying types of damage they're expected to heal with/via or cure? What about pets? Wards? Charms, mez's, and more? Tell all the summoners, oh, welp, too bad, you must have all your pets mem'd for this fight, you don't get to do anything else. yaaaaaay.
Either the encounters are dynamic, and everyone gets to react dynamically, or they aren't and no-one can. To do otherwise is just intentionally failing.
...Melee do plan for the same by lugging around multiple weapons (and presumeably some skills, i.e. backstab limited to piercing/thrust damage and possibly daggers) to do various damage types. No you aren't supposed to load every kind of spell you have, you load what you might need for the fight. As a wizard you could bring 3 fire/frost/energy spells and still have 3 slots for any added utility, two spells for 4 damage types with 4 slots leftover, or you could even just bring two damage types that cover bases that would make it so no matter what the resistance the mob changes to you would at least be doing neutral damage instead of trying to attack to a direct weakness. It's whatever the player feels they can get by with. Healers can generally manage far easier as their targets are most often players so the individual fights would tend to alter their skill choices the least.
With the current 12 slots there is a ton of room to get creative and to make sure you have your bases covered for most any fight.
Iksar said: ... or you could even just bring two damage types that cover bases that would make it so no matter what the resistance the mob changes to you would at least be doing neutral damage instead of trying to attack to a direct weakness. It's whatever the player feels they can get by with. Healers can generally manage far easier as their targets are most often players so the individual fights would tend to alter their skill choices the least. ...
Sounds good, the exact moment melee can have two weapons equipped, and never switch. It's two damage types, right? At least they would be doing neutral damage instead of trying to attack to a direct weakness.
From what i can tell they will be relying on skills for melee. And those look to be the ones you cant switch during combat. But who is to say that wont be different. I dont imagine they will get super crazy with the proc feature like EQ1 was...
I like the idea of having a main spellbook and a secondary spellbook that allows you to cast weaker versions of a greater variety of spells (lower damage, longer cast time, longer cooldown, higher mana cost, etc). I like having a larger repertoire of spells available including fluff and niche spells, so this would be a nice middle ground that also makes the strategy of managing your spellbook and thinking about the encounter a significant part of the game.
I think a cool feature that was added to EQ was the ability to save groups of spells. As a SHD I had just a couple... a fear/kite, buff, CR and tank. In EQ you could change spells during combat, but if you could only change spells/skills when out of combat I think having this feature would keep everyone happy. A great compromise for casters needing to be able to change during a raid or something that kept them in combat for an extended period would be to gate out or maybe have a high level spell with a long CD that took the player out of combat for x seconds... like some time stasis or those divine intervention type spells that made you immune to everything but you also couldn’t attack or cast.