Pyye said:From what I have read on website, I was thinking that fights would come down to proper skills prepared. This would imply that not all of your skills or abilities can be ready at one time. I like this very much and am looking forward to this. I really think this will allow players to be unique in their class or stand apart from others if prepped properly given the varying conditions.
This is not a PvP game where key binds are critical to all your skills and abilities or how fast you can use them.
Yup, I like the limited abilities for certain and am in no way a PVP'r I just know with the PvE in EQ and what has been mentioned in the forum and videos that fighting will be intense and feel that the setup I mentioned was the most comfortable for me in any game I've played.
It got so that I didn't ever need to look at my util bar while fighting and was immersive and satisfying.
I'm just asking as to get more info not looking too add my two cents or anything and realize it just might be to early to say for certain, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Boulda said:Zandil said:
I prefer the VG style of having all my skills avalible, but thats just me
I prefer the EQ style where you have to pick carefully/tactically the spells you wish to use for the comming situations. But thats just me :)
I agree, please no more then 8 to 10.
Silvanoshi said:Aradune said:
Hey guys, I have to be kind of vague here, apologies in advance, because this is the sort of thing we're implementing and tweaking as we speak. But I can speak to it in a general, more philosophical manner.
Pantheon has several types of what we internally call Abilities. Abilities can be prayers, spells, actions, stances, etc. Some Abilities will require you to 'mem' them, some requiring re-memming them after you use them, e.g. more like EQ or even MUDs. We like this because it requires thought and preparation prior to battle. And, honestly, we're not super keen on wall of buttons for people to just be mashing (e.g. the screenshot that was posted). BUT, some abilities, like stances and certain actions, will not require memorization.
What you are seeing in the screenshots with the UI is work-in-progress, but I can generally explain it: The side bar of icons are spells/prayers that have been memorized. The bottom bar is a general purpose bar where you can place memmed spells, other abilities, simple macros, etc. So it could conceivably grow large even though memorized spells/prayers are limited.
Let me know if that was helpful or if I just added to the confusion :)
I love the variety. Old EQ1 style of memorization.. and something new (memorization after use).
Perhaps this is something you can't answer yet ---- But will we be able to rememorize spells in combat?
I can reveal what we are generally trying to accomplish and the vision and thinking behind it, but it's too early to set number of slots or anything else in stone, specifics and the like.
Fundamentally, what we're shooting for here is needing to plan for that next encounter, especially significant encounters (boss mobs and the like). There should be a noticeable reward for prepping for an encounter properly vs. just running into combat without any forethought or tactics.
There ideally shouldn't be a set of abilities that is always optimal. It should change depending on where you are and what you are going up against.
We don't want it to be so key that you are messing with your character's configuration all of the time (needlessly tedious). Also any type of reconfiguration of your character, or anything really that you may end up doing relatively frequently needs to be supported by an intuitive and easy to use UI and interface. But on the opposite extreme we do want people to learn about encounters, figure out tactics, etc. again the more so the more significant the mob. As you learn a dungeon and master its significant or special encounters a big part of that process should be learning what kind of defensive and offensive capabilities these mobs have. Also, their disposition and behaviors. Running in blind or with minimal planning should put you at a disadvantage vs. the party that *did* plan.
Of course, this extends beyond spells that you mem. Situational gear should play a part as well. Relics and artifacts should play an important role in the big fights. Your group composition and how you work with others and not just individually should matter too. The buffs you apply to yourself and party should matter. Group positioning (both initial positioning and then re-positioning either based on a plan or in reaction to something the mob did or is about to do), depending on class, DPS, ability to tank or off-tank, etc. should be very important. What we're trying to implement and reward are real tactics that give you an advantage over the party who just rushes in blindly with little to no thoughtful preparation. In MMOs your characters abilities, items, etc. generally matter a lot. Then comes buffs. Then eventually actual tactics.
I personally don't see one necessarily always being more important than the other. Certainly, the items you are using, how you are buffed, etc. should matter a *lot*. Pantheon will always be an item-centric and 'ability important' game. But that by no means is a scenario where, at any given level, there's one optimal configuration and as long as you adhere to it, you'll be in good shape. Items, stats, buffs, etc. will always be extremely important. Having that optimal configuration vary depending on who you are, where you are, who you are with, etc. is very important to us -- no 'one size fits all'.
But then there's actually how you play the game once you start the encounter battle. The last thing we want is just button mashing... auto-attack and rescue if you're a tank. Hold back and then mana dump a bunch of damage spells at the right time if you're a caster.... All of this is fine to a degree, but I think it's devolved over time and the optimal use of tactics once in the battle seems to have had less and less importance over the years. It's hard to see all of this in a text description of it, or by watching a twitch stream, but a lot of it is there already, at least the genesis of it. Ideally as these systems mature and as we get more people into the game, we'll figure out clear and obvious ways to communicate that to the viewer. Especially the younger gamer who many not have ever experienced this style of MMO combat done right. Somehow we need to convey this visually -- we need to make it apparent in a video or stream that our combat is not brainless button mashing -- unfortunately, unless your combat system is all action-oriented (say, for example, Destiny) people who've never experienced such a system watch the video and conclude (wrongly) that the combat is simplistic or brainless. Quite the opposite is true, of course. In fact I'd say that both the preparation and execution of combat, both doing what you were planning as well as responding to your allies *and* your enemies decisions creates a situation that is much more complex and involved than what we've often seen as of late. Our intent is to take the 'tab targeting' combat system rarely seen anymore and to turn it up to 11, so to speak. You need to be paying attention. You need to have counterspells and defensive reactions and you need to use them at the optimal times. As mentioned, you need to correctly prep for the next encounter and then execute upon your plan during that encounter. What we're assembling here is about as far away from, and as different and distinct from, the excessively frequent and mindless button mashing and triple jumping all over the map in an MMO as you can get.
I'd also like to see Mana and other resource management mean more in Pantheon than what we've experienced in recent times. I remember in MUDs and MMOs I used to play that this resource management was very important. Some systems made you take up a slot with the spell/ability you were memming. Sometimes you'd mem both your best healing spell (just as an example) but you'd also fill up a slot with a lesser powerful healing spell as well. Why? Because often times it wasn't simply true that using your latest and greatest spell was always the best strategy. Sometimes it was more mana efficient to use your lesser heals and you'd hold back and only use your latest and greatest when the situation truly called for it.
At this point, as I mentioned right away at the beginning, it's still too early to commit to specifics. Pre-alpha, alpha, and even the earlier phases of beta is where not only you guys but the dev team too will learn sooo much about Pantheon (if I've learned anything, it's that how your MMO plays with the dev team and a few testers in-game vs. how it plays when properly populated couldn't be more fundamentally different). Right now exactly how spells are memmed, number of slots, re-memorizing, etc. is still something we're tweaking as needed... but, fair warning, once we have enough people regularly playing we will zero in on the details. The precise implementation depends not just on our grand ideas but on how all of you react to different variations on the theme we will experiment with during our very important closed and then later open testing. Until then instead of explaining exactly how it does work today and then posting an update if we change anything, etc. doesn't really make a lot of sense -- too early for quite a few things, especially when it comes to specific areas that we will undoubtedly tweak, alter and change. And this is one of those areas where I foresee a lot of 'back and forth' -- in fact it's because of the importance of issues like this that we do purposely hold back on the details until it makes sense to 'dig deep', instead focusing now on and having a dialog with you all about the vision, the high-level goals, and the philosophy behind what we're trying to accomplish. Waiting until the timing is right to dig deeper and have these conversations with our testers is definitely the right call -- it's not putting anything off by any means; rather it's waiting until putting time and energy into something is both productive and healthy.
Much better at this point to try to effectively communicate to you all our ideas, our intent, what we'd like aspects of the game to feel like and play through. Listing our goals and vision for the game I think serves us both a lot better than to try to nail something down now, this area and the specifics of how it works. Plenty of time to get into specifics later -- far better to get dialogs going between the devs and the community about higher level goals and the feel and experience we're trying to capture.
Let me know if that made any sense :) And in the meantime, if it did make sense, help spread the word. Not just in general, although you know we always appreciate that, but specifically regarding this issue: just about every time we show off combat in a stream or video there are always some comments asserting that, from what they could see anyway, combat looks simple or boring or both. If from what I’ve written here and the countless other times we’ve either shown combat, described it, or both, you can figure out how to convey that quite the opposite is in reality true… if you can help us in this area, we would all be tremendously grateful. As always, thanks for listening and we look forward to hearing from you.
-Brad
I think that really sums up the ideals that you're going for well and in a very straight forward way. It's hard to talk about any of this stuff in great detail before it's been tested and tweaked a bit to find what works even though it's what people are generally most interested in when talking about new games. I know it's a long way until release but I can't wait to see how things are going to turn out and evolve as this game goes through the various phases of testing.
Well said though and it's good to have something we can fall back to and pass on to anyone curious about the game.
Aradune said:Aradune said:
Hey guys, I have to be kind of vague here.
Let me know if that was helpful or if I just added to the confusion :)
I just want one ability
Aradune said:Aradune said:
And in the meantime, if it did make sense, help spread the word. Not just in general, although you know we always appreciate that, but specifically regarding this issue: just about every time we show off combat in a stream or video there are always some comments asserting that, from what they could see anyway, combat looks simple or boring or both. If from what I’ve written here and the countless other times we’ve either shown combat, described it, or both, you can figure out how to convey that quite the opposite is in reality true… if you can help us in this area, we would all be tremendously grateful. As always, thanks for listening and we look forward to hearing from you.
-Brad
This is something I have encountered time and time again when searching out other sites or watching videos about Pantheon. It would be nice to get beyond this bump as anyone who has taken the time to watch all the streams, listened to what the devs have said during them, and researched the game a little more in depth knows... this just isnt the fact. I hope you clarifying it here even more makes your intent in these regards perfectly clear.
This post was edited by Aatu at July 11, 2017 8:03 AM PDT
Aradune (people don't use your name enough!); thank you for taking the time to put together a resolute, informative perspective of what's going on behind the scenes. The explanations and PR in general has been so much friendlier and descriptive than it was in the past. Anxious to see the next phase commence thank you for the continued hard work
Zandil said:I know this has been discussed before, but from the new screen shots it looks like I can see around 25-35 skill slots ? This looks more in line with VG combat style rather than EQ1.
Are we going for more skill slots rather than the lesser like EQ1 ?
Ummm, my friend is asking where you are seeing new screenshots?
I'm like a lot of people here, in that I've played MMOs since UO in 1997. I've played most of the major titles, liked some, didn't like others. EQ was my favorite in many ways, even though it wasn't as sand box as UO. I do not have the encyclopedic knowledge of any game like many of you do. I played with smaller guilds with people who didn't have the time or inclination to be an uber raid guild. But I had fun, and got to know some guildies real well. With Aradunes last post, for the first time I wonder if there is any role for a more casual gamer in Pantheon. Six different climates with five levels each, multiple mana colors, very gear dependent mobs, where you need multiple gear sets and to know ahead of time what the mobs weaknesses are. Say you need the level 25 Shaman slow and it drops off mob "x" in dungeon "y" and you need resist gear set beta, gamma or delta to handle atmosphere 3B, and I need two tanks, two dps, a chanter and me. Do I have any shot of ever getting that drop? I'm definitely seeing a game for that 5,000 hard core top tier subs in raiding guilds, but I'm not as sure about the other 245,000 casual gamers. I still look forward to pre-alpha and on further, I'm just less certain now than I was before.
@Questaar
It's not going to be as difficult as that in reality.
Most mechanics will probably become more necessary later in the game than earlier. Acclimation will probably be easier to achieve in early levels than the higher acclimation levels that might be required at 50.
Colored mana will probably be a lot simpler in practice than on paper.
Resist gear is usually only relevant at higher content levels.
It's not like you'll need extensive knowledge of these mechanics the moment you create your character. It'll be learned, just like the concepts of buffing, medding, aggro, CC, zoning, etc. that people had to learn back in EQ.
You can make the simplest thing seem complicated on paper. Very seldom does it live up to those expectations in practice. You could write a 1000 page document on the mechanics of tennis but that is all heavily distilled into muscle memory and superficial knowledge when you're physically playing the game.
Aradune said:We don't want it to be so key that you are messing with your character's configuration all of the time (needlessly tedious).
-Brad
Well.......
I know once I'm accomplished in the game, this part of the game is the most fun. Even at low levels seeing new abilities show up availabel to me is a wonderful feeling. Get to high levels and then you start to see a "wall of abilities" as someone mentioned. So. At high levels, we know the game, we've seen almost all of it, so the "needlessly tedious" part of configuring and rearranging our abilities is the fun part.
There have been many times in games, I've played for years, yet I'll still fiddle around with moving my abilities around to different hot bar slots, jsut to see if I can min/max a little bit better.
Your needlessly tedious activties is sometimes all we have left to do, and it's what we enjoy doing from the beginning.
Questaar said:I'm like a lot of people here, in that I've played MMOs since UO in 1997. I've played most of the major titles, liked some, didn't like others. EQ was my favorite in many ways, even though it wasn't as sand box as UO. I do not have the encyclopedic knowledge of any game like many of you do. I played with smaller guilds with people who didn't have the time or inclination to be an uber raid guild. But I had fun, and got to know some guildies real well. With Aradunes last post, for the first time I wonder if there is any role for a more casual gamer in Pantheon. Six different climates with five levels each, multiple mana colors, very gear dependent mobs, where you need multiple gear sets and to know ahead of time what the mobs weaknesses are. Say you need the level 25 Shaman slow and it drops off mob "x" in dungeon "y" and you need resist gear set beta, gamma or delta to handle atmosphere 3B, and I need two tanks, two dps, a chanter and me. Do I have any shot of ever getting that drop? I'm definitely seeing a game for that 5,000 hard core top tier subs in raiding guilds, but I'm not as sure about the other 245,000 casual gamers. I still look forward to pre-alpha and on further, I'm just less certain now than I was before.
As long as its all built upon from low levels and slowly ramps up as you play your character I embrace the complexity.
If it takes a long time to attain high levels then you will have a while to adjust to depth as it's added in.
I want to still be trying to figure out how to spawn some boss mobs years after launch just like in EQ1 and Vanguard.
Hopefully with situational gear and abilities coming to the forefront there will be less cookie cutter players running around.
Thanks in advance,
Kiz~
Questaar said:I'm like a lot of people here, in that I've played MMOs since UO in 1997. I've played most of the major titles, liked some, didn't like others. EQ was my favorite in many ways, even though it wasn't as sand box as UO. I do not have the encyclopedic knowledge of any game like many of you do. I played with smaller guilds with people who didn't have the time or inclination to be an uber raid guild. But I had fun, and got to know some guildies real well. With Aradunes last post, for the first time I wonder if there is any role for a more casual gamer in Pantheon. Six different climates with five levels each, multiple mana colors, very gear dependent mobs, where you need multiple gear sets and to know ahead of time what the mobs weaknesses are. Say you need the level 25 Shaman slow and it drops off mob "x" in dungeon "y" and you need resist gear set beta, gamma or delta to handle atmosphere 3B, and I need two tanks, two dps, a chanter and me. Do I have any shot of ever getting that drop? I'm definitely seeing a game for that 5,000 hard core top tier subs in raiding guilds, but I'm not as sure about the other 245,000 casual gamers. I still look forward to pre-alpha and on further, I'm just less certain now than I was before.
I think you might be too focused on the min-maxing aspect. I feel like the goal is a system that is easy to learn and understand but difficult to master if not impossible to master under all conditions. I'm sure you could run with a generic, all around balanced setup with minor tweaks here and there to keep it simple but I think the point is that you won't clear content as fast, as effiencently and will probably die a lot more than someone who's min-maxing their abilities, gear and strategies whenever a new condition arises and on only on the extreme high end where these "hard core" folks are expected to be seeking their challenges will you find the difficulty perhaps a tad to much for you to manage since the focus in these areas will be on getting every last ounce of potential out of your character and if you don't invest the time or effort to figure out how to do that you probably won't succeed there.
I'm fully expecting this game to be something everyone can get themselves into and feel comfortable and thrive in but also something that those who truely seek a challenge of squeezing the maximum out of their characters under all conditions will find the challenges they seek in almost limitless ways.
I wouldn't mind sort of a compromise. Limited spell slots but extended length on buffs so that you didn't have to go back and forth between them so often. Playing a lot of buff classes in EQ1, it was always monotonous having to just unmem spells to load up buffs, cast them, then unmem and reload the other spells.
zazabar said:I wouldn't mind sort of a compromise. Limited spell slots but extended length on buffs so that you didn't have to go back and forth between them so often. Playing a lot of buff classes in EQ1, it was always monotonous having to just unmem spells to load up buffs, cast them, then unmem and reload the other spells.
This reminds me of how me and a friend would always wait until the other switch out their spells to request specific buffs even tho we would regularly ask if anyone needed it before doing so... Ahh good times. One time I even bet him what a raid mob would drop that if I won he had to always provide me with Symbol (because I liked druid HP buffs) instead of the typical cleric HP/AC buff.. he hated doing that because it wasn't a spell he ever really mem'd. I won... and he gave me the lowest level version because I didn't specify which one Lol
Good memories =)... I still always made him cast that low level symbol on me out of spite =P
Aradune said:Hey guys, I have to be kind of vague here, apologies in advance, because this is the sort of thing we're implementing and tweaking as we speak. But I can speak to it in a general, more philosophical manner.
Pantheon has several types of what we internally call Abilities. Abilities can be prayers, spells, actions, stances, etc. Some Abilities will require you to 'mem' them, some requiring re-memming them after you use them, e.g. more like EQ or even MUDs. We like this because it requires thought and preparation prior to battle. And, honestly, we're not super keen on wall of buttons for people to just be mashing (e.g. the screenshot that was posted). BUT, some abilities, like stances and certain actions, will not require memorization.
What you are seeing in the screenshots with the UI is work-in-progress, but I can generally explain it: The side bar of icons are spells/prayers that have been memorized. The bottom bar is a general purpose bar where you can place memmed spells, other abilities, simple macros, etc. So it could conceivably grow large even though memorized spells/prayers are limited.
Let me know if that was helpful or if I just added to the confusion :)
Hey Brad,
I had an idea that I wanted to express that I think would add some value while maintaining the strategy element of limited skill available.
Basically, I suggest having various skill bars with a limit for each that may or may not be increased with level/questing. Passives/Long Duration Buffs/Combat Abilities (spells or physical) and any others that may be needed upon research.
The new aspect is that one can create a "wall of abilities" that are usable all the time. But all abilities have some added value that is only available if it is "memorized". For example, Sprint is runs extra fast and uses stamina where normal running does not. But if it takes an ability slot, it uses half stamina or goes 1.5 times as fast (or both with choices to be made on that). Another example might be a class specific ability like Headshot. Works the same on or off the bar, but on the bar, it cooldown is significantly lessened. Other abilities might have a passive associated with it that is only active if on the main bar. Passives can have "bonuses" for being on the passive bar, or simply aren't as potent if off the bar.
I think it gives the best of both options and allows for some interesting juggling of abilities.
All abilities one has are available to one, but it similates that sort of "I didn't think of that" aspect of life.