Pantheon Community,
It is with great pleasure that we release Part 2 of our Developer Round Table!
I had the honour of speaking with the team and asking them your questions, we had really good discussions on multiple topics that I think you will all enjoy a lot. We had a few extra members of the team join us for the Developer Round Table this time around so I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed putting it together for you all!
You can check out the 35 minute long audio here: Developer Round Table 2.28.15 – Part 2
Speakers in order of appearance:
Ben (Kilsin) Walters (reading/asking the questions)
Brad (Aradune) McQuaid
Chris (Joppa) Perkins
Justin (Istuulamae) Gerhart
Regards,
Pantheon Team
SPOILERS!
Great Listen with a lot of information. What I really take away is that specializations function more as stances than class evolution. I am very interested to see what the dropped abilities are and how they function.. They have to be strong enough to be of worth, but can't break a classes identity.
Sevens said:
Joppa mentioned that the off tank cleric (cant remember what he called it) would be front line heavy armor, what about the other style..what armor am I going to be wearing? Not a dress I hope (though I would totally rock a Kilt)
The Resolute Cleric is on the front lines of combat in the Heavy-Plate Armor.
The Devout Cleric would have options between Light-Plate Armor and Plate-Woven Raiment.
Thanks for the question Sevens!
Joppa said:
Sevens said:
Joppa mentioned that the off tank cleric (cant remember what he called it) would be front line heavy armor, what about the other style..what armor am I going to be wearing? Not a dress I hope (though I would totally rock a Kilt)
The Resolute Cleric is on the front lines of combat in the Heavy-Plate Armor.
The Devout Cleric would have options between Light-Plate Armor and Plate-Woven Raiment.
Thanks for the question Sevens!
Oh Light and heavy plate...I like that
Thanks for the reply Joppa
P.S. I still want to rock a Kilt in PROTF
Joppa said:
Sevens said:
Joppa mentioned that the off tank cleric (cant remember what he called it) would be front line heavy armor, what about the other style..what armor am I going to be wearing? Not a dress I hope (though I would totally rock a Kilt)
The Resolute Cleric is on the front lines of combat in the Heavy-Plate Armor.
The Devout Cleric would have options between Light-Plate Armor and Plate-Woven Raiment.
Thanks for the question Sevens!
I'm a bit concerned about the way this is being handled, on one hand you say you don't want to break classes identities but on the other hand you say you want the cleric to be able to wear light plate, or heavy plate whenever he so chooses to switch between roles. You even said that there will be no UI restriction or decision that will be made to be one or the other, you will effectively be able to change between both whenever you feel like it.
So now I have a cleric in my group who heals me and keeps my group alive but then if we need a 2nd tank he can switch to a diff set of gear and now hes tanking, CCing, putting up shields on us and healing minorly. Sounds to me like that cleric is now both a cleric and a paladin(crusader).
By trying to diversify what a class can do it sounds to me like you're going down the road of "I'll never need an alt or another character because I can do it all if I have the right set of gear around" ala Guild Wars 2...
The holy trinity is the holy trinity ONLY if it is unbroken.. a cleric being able to tank heal cc and dps is breaking it something fierce. And while you say these abilities won't be that powerful, how can they not be if they are changing a cleric to be able to wear heavy plate armor instead of light, and allowing them to tank.
It's a bit like a black mage in FF11 taking white mage as his second class, while he can only level it up to half the level of his main, it is still gamebreaking because simply giving a black mage a heal, however weak.. is still overpowered.
Right now I'm envisioning having a max level cleric a year into the game with an entire set of gear for both builds and being able to tank heal cc and dps in whichever combination i want whenever i want. Say it isn't so.
Rallyd said:
Joppa said:
Sevens said:
Joppa mentioned that the off tank cleric (cant remember what he called it) would be front line heavy armor, what about the other style..what armor am I going to be wearing? Not a dress I hope (though I would totally rock a Kilt)
The Resolute Cleric is on the front lines of combat in the Heavy-Plate Armor.
The Devout Cleric would have options between Light-Plate Armor and Plate-Woven Raiment.
Thanks for the question Sevens!
I'm a bit concerned about the way this is being handled, on one hand you say you don't want to break classes identities but on the other hand you say you want the cleric to be able to wear light plate, or heavy plate whenever he so chooses to switch between roles. You even said that there will be no UI restriction or decision that will be made to be one or the other, you will effectively be able to change between both whenever you feel like it.
So now I have a cleric in my group who heals me and keeps my group alive but then if we need a 2nd tank he can switch to a diff set of gear and now hes tanking, CCing, putting up shields on us and healing minorly. Sounds to me like that cleric is now both a cleric and a paladin(crusader).
By trying to diversify what a class can do it sounds to me like you're going down the road of "I'll never need an alt or another character because I can do it all if I have the right set of gear around" ala Guild Wars 2...
The holy trinity is the holy trinity ONLY if it is unbroken.. a cleric being able to tank heal cc and dps is breaking it something fierce. And while you say these abilities won't be that powerful, how can they not be if they are changing a cleric to be able to wear heavy plate armor instead of light, and allowing them to tank.
It's a bit like a black mage in FF11 taking white mage as his second class, while he can only level it up to half the level of his main, it is still gamebreaking because simply giving a black mage a heal, however weak.. is still overpowered.
Right now I'm envisioning having a max level cleric a year into the game with an entire set of gear for both builds and being able to tank heal cc and dps in whichever combination i want whenever i want. Say it isn't so.
Ok So where does an enchanter and bard fall within a holy trinity ? fact is supports weren't part of the trinity so there is that. Its much simpler to say you want classes identified with clear roles.
I'm pretty sure the point of the other style of cleric is to put up shields and act as a front line cleric, not a tank. Just because he can throw up a pillar that mobs have to fight through doesn't mean he's a tank. If this system even remotely sounds like GW2 to you then I'm simply amazed and I'm at an utter lack of words. This is one of the more unique class systems ive ever heard of because it factors in items, spell drops, and the ability to choose a variation based off of the situation.
I think you're really far off the mark with what they are saying tho. A cleric is a healer. One stands back and throws huge heals and the other uses front line shields and heals. That doesn't mean your class will be a tank and dps as well. simply two ways of damage subtraction from an encounter. The real question is does a warrior have a tank and dps spec because then I have a big issue with the class design. Having multiple roles on a class is gimmicky and removes class identity.
How do you not translate a change from wearing light plate to wearing heavy plate and donning a massive shield, while being on the front lines to not tanking. Also, what stops the heavy plate massive shield bearing cleric from shifting back to healing in between fights to top his group off then back to tank dps for more fights.. he claimed there would be no UI restriction or decision that you'd have to make at 25 or 50, you would have access to both at all times if you had the gear.
If I make the choice to be a Resolute Cleric, I should lose the ability to be a Devout Cleric, or at the very least, it should be an arduous task to change between them. Having the ability to be both diminishes them both to basically being irrelevant and not actually a specialization. Basically these are stances that can be changed at will simply by changing gear, so technically neither is a specialization, but more simply an evolution of your class. At max level you won't be a devout cleric or a resolute cleric, you'll just simply be a cleric.
I have to agree with the concerns voiced by Rallyd.
A cleric in heavy armor is a Pally :)
I am a member of the "define the class with a clear role" advocates. I loved the Holy Trinity in EQ and the fact that each class had a clear defined role to play.
While it's true that my Necromancer in vanilla EQ did not get invited into groups often because the 6 member groups were pretty tightly tied down, my Wizard always found a place. My Necro. fulfilled my need for solitude and offered me great times exploring and soloing.
It's true that it is still pretty early. So I must contain myself, and wait and see just what transpires.
Agree Zandil, Come on Alpha.
The video is spectacular, such progress is wonderful.
Graysilk said:
I have to agree with the concerns voiced by Rallyd.
A cleric in heavy armor is a Pally :)
I am a member of the "define the class with a clear role" advocates. I loved the Holy Trinity in EQ and the fact that each class had a clear defined role to play.
While it's true that my Necromancer in vanilla EQ did not get invited into groups often because the 6 member groups were pretty tightly tied down, my Wizard always found a place. My Necro. fulfilled my need for solitude and offered me great times exploring and soloing.
It's true that it is still pretty early. So I must contain myself, and wait and see just what transpires.
Agree Zandil, Come on Alpha.
The video is spectacular, such progress is wonderful.
i think in old school D&D clerics were conceived to be heavy armored holy knights all up in the front lines healing and inspiring
I have a question about the colored mana system.
say i have 800 white mana on my cleric, i find an item that lets me generate dark mana.
do i have another mana bar for dark mana? will the item give me a set mount of space to generate dark mana?
if so and it lets me generate 50 dark mana do i have a total of 800 mana still? or do i have 850 mana?
so i guess in short does the extra type of mana generated get added to your total pool, or replace part of it?
Gawd said:
I have a question about the colored mana system.
say i have 800 white mana on my cleric, i find an item that lets me generate dark mana.
do i have another mana bar for dark mana? will the item give me a set mount of space to generate dark mana?
if so and it lets me generate 50 dark mana do i have a total of 800 mana still? or do i have 850 mana?
so i guess in short does the extra type of mana generated get added to your total pool, or replace part of it?
You get another bar or some kind of UI graphic to depict your new mana color ( not set in stone how it will be displayed )
The separate mana color has it's own amount and doesn't add to your normal mana from what the podcast says. Sounds like your new color generates slower and only has a small max amount to let you pull off special skills that are associated to that mana color.
The thing i'm concerned about is that its going to far away from traditional class systems and falls into the realm of just another gimmick. I'm not saying its bad or good, but your trying to put emphasis that class identity is important than you muddle it with stances. The more i listen to it your basically saying you can play an enhanced cleric or another class that started as a cleric. You can switch these at will you just need the gear.
When did it become a bad thing to be a class in a game and stay that class. You're trying to spin it that basically your unlocking the full potential of your class, but in reality you created sub classes that can be hot swapped.
Graysilk said:
I have to agree with the concerns voiced by Rallyd.
A cleric in heavy armor is a Pally :)
I am a member of the "define the class with a clear role" advocates. I loved the Holy Trinity in EQ and the fact that each class had a clear defined role to play.
While it's true that my Necromancer in vanilla EQ did not get invited into groups often because the 6 member groups were pretty tightly tied down, my Wizard always found a place. My Necro. fulfilled my need for solitude and offered me great times exploring and soloing.
It's true that it is still pretty early. So I must contain myself, and wait and see just what transpires.
Agree Zandil, Come on Alpha.
The video is spectacular, such progress is wonderful.
need i remind everyone that the cleric in EQ1 had plate armor? having plate armor doesnt make you a tank.
also as was stated the resolute cleric is still a healer, but the real power of his healing magic is damage absorbing. picture the runes from late eq1, that would absorb 800 damage then fade when mobs hit for 1100+. now think about what if those same runes had absorbed 5000 damage? its the same basic effect as reactive heals.
as for the thought of a cleric CCing clerics in eq1 could use Root to CC. that did not make them the premier CC class. while summoning a giant shield and standing in front of a tunnel could be called CC, it is extremely situational and i doubt every encounter will be in tombs or tunnels small enough to block with this method. honestly i think i rather prefer root...
also i would like to say that i do not think i like the idea of being able to switch specializations by switching gear. i had thought that choices were supposed to matter? while i dont agree with classes being locked into one choice it should be difficult to change specs, maybe another questline.
Gawd said:
Graysilk said:
I have to agree with the concerns voiced by Rallyd.
A cleric in heavy armor is a Pally :)
I am a member of the "define the class with a clear role" advocates. I loved the Holy Trinity in EQ and the fact that each class had a clear defined role to play.
While it's true that my Necromancer in vanilla EQ did not get invited into groups often because the 6 member groups were pretty tightly tied down, my Wizard always found a place. My Necro. fulfilled my need for solitude and offered me great times exploring and soloing.
It's true that it is still pretty early. So I must contain myself, and wait and see just what transpires.
Agree Zandil, Come on Alpha.
The video is spectacular, such progress is wonderful.
need i remind everyone that the cleric in EQ1 had plate armor? having plate armor doesnt make you a tank.
also as was stated the resolute cleric is still a healer, but the real power of his healing magic is damage absorbing. picture the runes from late eq1, that would absorb 800 damage then fade when mobs hit for 1100+. now think about what if those same runes had absorbed 5000 damage? its the same basic effect as reactive heals.
as for the thought of a cleric CCing clerics in eq1 could use Root to CC. that did not make them the premier CC class. while summoning a giant shield and standing in front of a tunnel could be called CC, it is extremely situational and i doubt every encounter will be in tombs or tunnels small enough to block with this method. honestly i think i rather prefer root...
Yeah the problem is that balance wise a bubble healer will always be 100% effective therefore always better than any other healer. In the last expansion of WoW it got so bad that raids were bringing almost nothing but disc priest.
DJay said:
Gawd said:
Graysilk said:
I have to agree with the concerns voiced by Rallyd.
A cleric in heavy armor is a Pally :)
I am a member of the "define the class with a clear role" advocates. I loved the Holy Trinity in EQ and the fact that each class had a clear defined role to play.
While it's true that my Necromancer in vanilla EQ did not get invited into groups often because the 6 member groups were pretty tightly tied down, my Wizard always found a place. My Necro. fulfilled my need for solitude and offered me great times exploring and soloing.
It's true that it is still pretty early. So I must contain myself, and wait and see just what transpires.
Agree Zandil, Come on Alpha.
The video is spectacular, such progress is wonderful.
need i remind everyone that the cleric in EQ1 had plate armor? having plate armor doesnt make you a tank.
also as was stated the resolute cleric is still a healer, but the real power of his healing magic is damage absorbing. picture the runes from late eq1, that would absorb 800 damage then fade when mobs hit for 1100+. now think about what if those same runes had absorbed 5000 damage? its the same basic effect as reactive heals.
as for the thought of a cleric CCing clerics in eq1 could use Root to CC. that did not make them the premier CC class. while summoning a giant shield and standing in front of a tunnel could be called CC, it is extremely situational and i doubt every encounter will be in tombs or tunnels small enough to block with this method. honestly i think i rather prefer root...
Yeah the problem is that balance wise a bubble healer will always be 100% effective therefore always better than any other healer. In the last expansion of WoW it got so bad that raids were bringing almost nothing but disc priest.
if you make it so that the bubbles do not stack then you limit things like that. also direct heals on my cleric have always been 100% effective. i have never had a heal fire off in any game and get the system message: "The gods did not answer your call the lines are busy catering to bubble healers"
heals are 100% effective by nature, if you die its because you had a crappy cleric that didnt know how to time heals, not because the heals were resisted or blocked somehow. and if in wow the heals are interfered with by a debuff or something, its the devs fault for not coding in something of the like to be the bane of bubble healers as well.
also i do think that those in charge of pantheon are smarter than anyone who worked on WoW EVER!!!
I'm for a little spice to the old system. I hope you are just taking the traditional classes and adding a little seasoning. What did catch my attention - when the two points of divergence occurr, 25 and 50. Two points. First, I thought the original plan was to have dramatically less levels with more horizontal advancement that would keep "mid level" content viable for longer periods of time. The other thing is that the second point of divergence is to take place at 50. What are your thoughts about lowering this so that we can play through the levels after the second divergence point. With all that being said, I was really excited about less levels with horizontal content. Just would like to hear the team's thoughts.
Gawd said:
DJay said:
Gawd said:
Graysilk said:
I have to agree with the concerns voiced by Rallyd.
A cleric in heavy armor is a Pally :)
I am a member of the "define the class with a clear role" advocates. I loved the Holy Trinity in EQ and the fact that each class had a clear defined role to play.
While it's true that my Necromancer in vanilla EQ did not get invited into groups often because the 6 member groups were pretty tightly tied down, my Wizard always found a place. My Necro. fulfilled my need for solitude and offered me great times exploring and soloing.
It's true that it is still pretty early. So I must contain myself, and wait and see just what transpires.
Agree Zandil, Come on Alpha.
The video is spectacular, such progress is wonderful.
need i remind everyone that the cleric in EQ1 had plate armor? having plate armor doesnt make you a tank.
also as was stated the resolute cleric is still a healer, but the real power of his healing magic is damage absorbing. picture the runes from late eq1, that would absorb 800 damage then fade when mobs hit for 1100+. now think about what if those same runes had absorbed 5000 damage? its the same basic effect as reactive heals.
as for the thought of a cleric CCing clerics in eq1 could use Root to CC. that did not make them the premier CC class. while summoning a giant shield and standing in front of a tunnel could be called CC, it is extremely situational and i doubt every encounter will be in tombs or tunnels small enough to block with this method. honestly i think i rather prefer root...
Yeah the problem is that balance wise a bubble healer will always be 100% effective therefore always better than any other healer. In the last expansion of WoW it got so bad that raids were bringing almost nothing but disc priest.
if you make it so that the bubbles do not stack then you limit things like that. also direct heals on my cleric have always been 100% effective. i have never had a heal fire off in any game and get the system message: "The gods did not answer your call the lines are busy catering to bubble healers"
heals are 100% effective by nature, if you die its because you had a crappy cleric that didnt know how to time heals, not because the heals were resisted or blocked somehow. and if in wow the heals are interfered with by a debuff or something, its the devs fault for not coding in something of the like to be the bane of bubble healers as well.
also i do think that those in charge of pantheon are smarter than anyone who worked on WoW EVER!!!
Yeah obviously you didn't like the game so they must have a company full of moron's. Regardless of how I feel about their game I wouldn't use blanket statements about the intelligence of people that I don't know. As far as healing goes; Overhealing is a real thing especially in raids so to say that its 100% effective is another false statement. If you don't allow bubbles to stack than you limit a raid group to only having viability for one of that particular spec which is bad design.
Balancing will always be a concern when it comes to splitting a class into two because one will typically always be more superior than the other. I will however not respond to anything else you have to say because frankly you have poor social skills.
I am a little over halfway through listening to the round table discussion, and I haven't read through the other responses yet...
But I just wanted to pop in and say that I really really like the decision to let players develop down both paths of mastery, and not artificially locking you into just one specialization. So awesome!
Okay, now back to listening to the rest of the discussion :)
Hey everyone - I just made this post over on MMORPG.com in light of similar questions/concerns being asked there. Hopefully this helps to clarify things a bit:
"This is a somewhat complicated system to describe and I'm not surprised it has raised some questions (and ultimately I'm glad it has, I'm excited to see discussion about Pantheon's classes picking up across the various communities).
But I want to clarify this concern: one of the main goals of this system is to preserve Class Identity and to bring back clearly defined Class Roles. So Dullahan, what you took from the round table is definitely not what we intend, though listening back I can see where it could come across that way.
Let me address a few things specifically:
1) There are only two paths available to each Core Class and neither of those paths deviate from the Class' core role. In the case of the Cleric, both the Devout and Resolute Mastery produce a Primary Healer, and just like in EQ1, Pantheon's Cleric (either Devout or Resolute) will be the only class that can fulfill the Primary Healer role, especially later in the game. The difference is in the play style, the appearance and the tertiary utility abilities (like the Pillar Shields, for example, vs. the Tomes for Devout Cleric, which I didn't even get into!).
2) Defining 'on-the-fly': Once the Mastery paths have been unlocked, Mastery is developed and maintained purely through rare equipment and abilities that will be difficult to find and acquire. But yes, both mastery lines will be open to the player to develop. So, it is feasible for someone to slowly (we will make sure it is slowly) piece together a full set of equipment and abilities to fill-out both Mastery lines. However, while you have access to both, switching from one to the other will not be an instantaneous event by any means.
Remember, we love downtime and we love strategy - ideally, we love when downtime and strategy work together.
So let's use the example I used in the podcast. You play a Cleric and a year or two into Pantheon, you've acquired full Mastery gear and abilities for the Devout and Resolute paths. Let's say you are in a full group moving through a dungeon with your Devout Mastery active (Devout gear on, using your Devout abilities and play style). Then you come to those 3 corridors. Thankfully you have a skilled Enchanter with you, but you know you're going to have to take on your Resolute Mastery so you can block off one of those corridors.
How quickly does this happen? Well, first you have to take off all of your Devout gear and replace it with your Resolute gear. We don't want to make exchanging armor tedious, so that's not what's going to take time. What will take time is that by doing this, you effectively wipe your current mana pool completely. As you equip your Resolute gear, you will begin regenerating new mana, as your core White mana merges with the Grey mana of the Resolute gear.
You also have to memorize an entirely new set of abilities (a la EQ 1). The point is, meaningful and strategic downtime is being designed into this system to keep it from ever being 'on-the-fly'. And if we have to take additional measures, we absolutely will.
3) The overall premise of this system is that as you master what it means to be a Cleric, you are not becoming something new when you specialize. That's why I lean more towards calling it a system of Mastery, because you are essentially mastering the full expression of the Cleric class and are able to embody those expressions at will (though, not on the fly ;) )"
I really appreciate all of the feedback so far guys - I hope these clarifications are helpful!