Jimmayus said:Not to be super antagonistic, but I feel like the idea that 'you shouldn't have outside medding support' from, well, support jobs (enchanter/bard/??? (pls summoner) because that adds a basically required class is pretty arbitrary. Literally the exact same thing could be said about tanking, healing and cc, and that justification is one of the reasons that lead to cc and support jobs being removed from modern games.
I would prefer solutions that foster class interdependence. To tackle balance issues I would prefer to see classes that synergize uniquely, not just with each other but also versus particular types of environs. I figure as long as there are a variety of types of monsters at a given level range for which there are varieties of jobs considered 'ideal' then you are solid.
Unfortunately everything in this discussion is pretty arbitrary given that Pantheon is already throwing out the status quo of the trinity. There is a great appeal for class interdependence, but when it comes to grouping there are real limitations. The devs could increase the quaternity to a heptinity if they wanted to (maybe by making pullers, support, and debuffers all pillars) or beyond, which would produce awesome class interdependence. However, the flip side is that it that would result in a burden on group formation. It's just a design choice and the devs have to seek a sweet spot. There's no strict right or wrong.
It is simply my opinion that having a support class be a pillar would be too much of a burden for a 6 man group size. You can absolutely disagree if you would like. I would be very happy if the devs instituted a quintinity or greater for an alpha phase to see if it fits well. They have already stated that they've been playing with group sizes and interdependence internally though.
If the quaternity sticks, I would like to see an interesting mechanic for in-combat mana regeneration. Those long fights where you are hanging on by a thread and doing everything you can to survive are something that I love. If mana regeneration only comes by long cooldowns, then at some point in a battle you will still eventually be sitting around in-combat with nothing to do but swing your staff helplessly (unless they develop a robust mana-free action set for casters). It is entirely valid to say that is a punishment for taking on more than you can chew, but it is my opinion that in-combat meditation yields more interesting gameplay.
Beefcake: Have a happy holiday, man.
Also keep in mind most if not all classes will at least have a secondary role. They might not be as good as a class that had that role as its main role. But it should be doable in most situations. So even if we do make support roles a 5th role in a 6 man party, likely you will have classes like Enchanter than can both CC and do various buffs like a mana regen. Bard isnt out yet but Im guessing other classes aside from Enchanter will have a mana regen buff.
Just a reminder they did mention "potions" in that stream..where you could chug a mana potion methinks. Probably have a timer on that, so you'd have to be careful with timing of drinking that potion.
Rezing this thread since I haven't seen the topic mentioned much in the stream recap yet...or maybe it isn't actually new and I missed this in the older streams.
I'm talking about the meditation animation we saw in the new stream: When the casters were sitting down, you could see beams of light streaming towards them (like they were "gathering mana"). I think I also saw this working for a standing character, so it may be that meditation is an activated skill now?
This would definitely adress the concerns raised in this thread! Maybe I have been imagining things though. Would like to hear a confirmation if meditation is now an active skill that works while standing too.
I'd like to bring up that while it's awesome to see a unique, cool meditation animation (thanks devs!!), all the blue light streaming toward the meditator could be disabled. I really, really like the distorted air look around the meditator - I think if it were just that without the light streaming in, the meditation would look even cooler by being more subtle. Maybe reserve the blue light streaming in for a more advanced or higher level meditation?
In conclusion: Anyone else think it'd be cooler to just see the distorted air effect around the meditator?
Also - thank you VR for giving the graphic a lot of your love! You all ROCK!
Alexander said:I'd like to bring up that while it's awesome to see a unique, cool meditation animation (thanks devs!!), all the blue light streaming toward the meditator could be disabled. I really, really like the distorted air look around the meditator - I think if it were just that without the light streaming in, the meditation would look even cooler by being more subtle. Maybe reserve the blue light streaming in for a more advanced or higher level meditation?
In conclusion: Anyone else think it'd be cooler to just see the distorted air effect around the meditator?
Also - thank you VR for giving the graphic a lot of your love! You all ROCK!
On that note, I think it would be cool if the meditation animation evolves as the character/skill level goes up. So it starts out in lower levels with no animation, then hints of distorted air growing much more visable, then maybe those light rays streaming in, and finally maybe adding glowing runes floating in front of the caster's face.
Am I the only one that read through this thread and thought of this?
Meditation is a mental state and is done in and with the mind and helps to regain or restore lost energy/mana by reflecting on experiences of the past, present and or even focusing looking into future or what may come to pass. Depending on the depth in meditation of a person. They can become oblivious to sounds or movments that may be near and immediately around them with physical sight closed only then can the minds eye allow the greatest gain of insight and energy.
Standing with eyes open. X mana per tic
Sitting with eyes closed or on spell book. XxY mana per tic after afew tics perhaps sound deafens and vision fades and the cosmos comes out into your mind or whatever you could do or want graphically getting you XxYxZ mana per tic. Still able to speak telepathically to the group or whoever. The skill system could be used well with this to make things work in whatever time frame you have for down time to socialize. Whatever seems right to med a bar of mana will be fine with me. I dont want it so I never run out of mana and I dont want to be out of mana after medding so long ether, happy medium is somewhere in there.
Monks might do tai chi to enhance their regen
Alexander said:I'd like to bring up that while it's awesome to see a unique, cool meditation animation (thanks devs!!), all the blue light streaming toward the meditator could be disabled. I really, really like the distorted air look around the meditator - I think if it were just that without the light streaming in, the meditation would look even cooler by being more subtle. Maybe reserve the blue light streaming in for a more advanced or higher level meditation?
In conclusion: Anyone else think it'd be cooler to just see the distorted air effect around the meditator?
Also - thank you VR for giving the graphic a lot of your love! You all ROCK!
I actually just noticed that this meditation effect was actually activated while standing in the recent stream. Someone pointed it out on mmorpg.com forums. Looks like someone was listening.
For all the discussion the sitting in combat incited in December, I'm surprised this topic hasn't been rekindled.
Sarim said:Rezing this thread since I haven't seen the topic mentioned much in the stream recap yet...or maybe it isn't actually new and I missed this in the older streams.
I'm talking about the meditation animation we saw in the new stream: When the casters were sitting down, you could see beams of light streaming towards them (like they were "gathering mana"). I think I also saw this working for a standing character, so it may be that meditation is an activated skill now?
This would definitely adress the concerns raised in this thread! Maybe I have been imagining things though. Would like to hear a confirmation if meditation is now an active skill that works while standing too.
Yes, the standing meditation animation we saw is for in-combat medding and sitting is for out of combat. I'm also pretty sure that in-combat medding regens less mana than out of combat.
I will add this to the recap.
Hmm, what if you had concentration points that could be moved around a bit on the fly between a few areas like:
Meditation
Combat
Maintaining Certain Buffs
Controlling Pets
That way if you are concentrating on Meditation you would not be able to fight as well or maintain certain spells or buffs.
Fully developed this kind of a system could add some strategy to how you play your character.
Just my quick thought on this topic...
Thanks again,
Kiz~
Beefcake said:Sevens said:The meditation time is what is used for the community building time in a group...its downtime that you use to BS with other group members, a chance to catch your breath. I dont care if you change the animation (I liked the planted staff with bowed head as an example) but please dont change the system.
Exactly.
I thought someone burried in this thread had a great suggestion: two mana pools.
Have one mana pool that acts as your primary "go-to" short-term, action/combat pool.
Then have another "WTF" emergency mana pool. The difference being that the secondary pool 1) only recharges when your primary pool reaches 100%, and 2)regenerates at 1/10th or (even slower) the speed of your regular mana pool - and only recharges during meditation. This would allow for some flexibility during emergencies, but, after you use the "WTF" pool it takes a VERY long time to regenerate it. Tapping the pool could even have an emote tied to it: "Soandso performs an amazing feat of strength" or something along those lines.
The two pools would still allow for the mana-based time sink, but would also promote squeezing in some dedicated meditation time when available (think LFG/LFM time). In that way, acutally having some down-time becomes a positive event in the grouping dynamic. Wouldn't it be cool to see some characters meditating by the side of the path or in the class guild/special area before or after grouping (charging the secondary pool)?
And, yeah, I'm all for some nifty new blue floatie particle effect for meditaion. :)
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/game_tenets/
Leowna said:Meditation is a mental state and is done in and with the mind and helps to regain or restore lost energy/mana by reflecting on experiences of the past, present and or even focusing looking into future or what may come to pass. Depending on the depth in meditation of a person. They can become oblivious to sounds or movments that may be near and immediately around them with physical sight closed only then can the minds eye allow the greatest gain of insight and energy.
Standing with eyes open. X mana per tic
Sitting with eyes closed or on spell book. XxY mana per tic after afew tics perhaps sound deafens and vision fades and the cosmos comes out into your mind or whatever you could do or want graphically getting you XxYxZ mana per tic. Still able to speak telepathically to the group or whoever. The skill system could be used well with this to make things work in whatever time frame you have for down time to socialize. Whatever seems right to med a bar of mana will be fine with me. I dont want it so I never run out of mana and I dont want to be out of mana after medding so long ether, happy medium is somewhere in there.
Monks might do tai chi to enhance their regen
This is more along the lines of where I am at with this topic. I'm more of an EQ traditionalist here.
I like the thought of simply keeping the EQ med mechanics, but simply updating the animation if people don't want to see a character sitting during a fight. That's the simplest to design and simplest to understand process.
If it's decided that more "complexity" is needed then add maybe one more simple layer on top of it, such as while medding you can activate a channeling ability that increases regen but cannot be canceled for at least x number of seconds so you take a gamble when you use it.
I'm not in favor of any idea that says you cannot meditate at all during combat or while on an aggro list.
I was a 2-boxer of cleric and enchanter in EQ.
Angrykiz said:Hmm, what if you had concentration points that could be moved around a bit on the fly between a few areas like:
Meditation
Combat
Maintaining Certain Buffs
Controlling Pets
That way if you are concentrating on Meditation you would not be able to fight as well or maintain certain spells or buffs.
Fully developed this kind of a system could add some strategy to how you play your character.
Just my quick thought on this topic...
Thanks again,
Kiz~
This is a very interesting idea. Reminds me of Elite:Dangerous, where you can divert your ships energy to the three main systems: weapons, engines or shields. You have six "power points" (pips) which you can assign. In neutral setting, each area is assigned two pips, but you can assign up to four pips max to each area (by taking away from the other systems). This way, you can strengthen one area while weaking others. I like that system very much, it adds a lot to combat!
The thing about meditation is it is always boring. At least from my experience. Melee has been more interactive.
So is there a way to redsign it to also be interactive? Can you make it so that you can cast spells in quick succession for maximum speed and dps in a raid(similar to hung spells in dnd maybe), however in a group make it so that you cast spells by selecting runes in order to properly cast, thus slowing down the speed and dps but maximizing the use of mana by making them cost less the more accurate you are with them?
So you cast a spell and have a new window open up, like a pet window, if you wish to select the rune order while the cast bar activates or something, for each rune you select it increases the cast time a little and in the long run it ends up costing half the mana and maybe ends up doubling the time or something but makes it so you can perform longer and more actively.
As for meditation time can you make it so you can sit down and meditate and walk away or do something else, but for those that want to remain focused on the game make it a game like simon or something that require input and thus speeds up the time.
I would personally love to see it where a wizard or other caster is able to actually participate effectively in the group without having to sit down for the back to back pulls and such.
PS. It would be nice also if you could make it so that a variety of spells cast in a certain order add additional effects. Ex reduce piercing or slashing resistance, thus contributing to a group benefit on a whole and making it so that you want to use other spells rather than just the single best suited spells and such in group situations. This adds the bonus of casting some lower cost spells in conjunction with the higher dps mana cost spells.
This is kind of similar to other mmos that lately add bonus effects when chaining skills together like FFIV. :)
So the "standing" meditate animation has been droped? in the new stream the druid didn't use the "standing up" meditate animation a single time. is it just a problem with implementing the animations with the new models, because we've already seen the animation working on Humans and gnomes.
jpedrote said:So the "standing" meditate animation has been droped? in the new stream the druid didn't use the "standing up" meditate animation a single time. is it just a problem with implementing the animations with the new models, because we've already seen the animation working on Humans and gnomes.
Hmm I hope it wasn’t dropped?
How about this: while medding, a few abiliities/buttons go active and an easy mini-game-like activity occurs.
A few different outcomes are possible:
1. player doesn't take part in the game, and they recieve say, 70% of the max amount of regen possible for their meditation session.
2. They can choose to "bend the light" or "combine their spirits" and attempt to complete a little task for a mana regen bonus on top of the 70%, and/or perhaps a different effect on conclusion of the meditation. Make it tied to a lightshow/glowy whisp animation so that the group can see they are grouped with a boss caster player.
For more flavor, incorporate a mechanic that makes being "greedy", risky - If the player goes for that last 5% they must be perfect or risk the bonus entirely and even forfeit some of the base 70%... "mana desease.." Perhaps some ultra rare gear would make the mini game a bit easier or trivial in the late-late-late end-game...
Achieve this while not making "being good at it" too too game-breaking, but noticable when tracking uptime of a group, and it becomes a neat way to excel, but not game-breaking if you "fail at it" or are a lazy medder and wish to not participate.
sinbound said:The thing about meditation is it is always boring. At least from my experience. Melee has been more interactive.So is there a way to redsign it to also be interactive?
I don't think it should be anything like QTEs, but simply having some spells to press to go through a "mana recovery" phase of combat would go a long way. There's definitely nothing fun about just standing/sitting there doing nothing and waiting for mana to regen. But if you have direct control over your regen through careful spell selection and use - then that becomes far more engaging.