jpedrote said:So the "standing" meditate animation has been dropped? 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.
I'd like to know the answer to this as well.
If it has, it would indicate a trend that is .. not entirely positive, on the innovation front. :)
I mentioned it in the other thread, but med time apparently (possibly, not sure when this changed?) has also been slightly increased from 2 minutes to 3 minutes to recover 100% mana, which is, depending on how far they slide down that particular slope, a bit worrying. Not too worrying right now, but these things rarely stop at the first negative adjustment, when tuning is headed in that direction.
vjek said:jpedrote said:So the "standing" meditate animation has been dropped? 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.
I'd like to know the answer to this as well.
If it has, it would indicate a trend that is .. not entirely positive, on the innovation front. :)
I mentioned it in the other thread, but med time apparently (possibly, not sure when this changed?) has also been slightly increased from 2 minutes to 3 minutes to recover 100% mana, which is, depending on how far they slide down that particular slope, a bit worrying. Not too worrying right now, but these things rarely stop at the first negative adjustment, when tuning is headed in that direction.
Easing back on the "quality of life" "advances" made to the game is worrying? I thought the whole reason we're here and not on Classic WoW or other MMO forums is because we'd be worried if they REDUCED the time to fill mana!
I'm more concerned about how much such changes affect the target demographic, and thus, sustainability of the title, over the long term.
Whether it's 1,2,3,4, or 5+ minutes has a direct impact to these numbers. It's one of the core design decisions that has a ripple effect , directly, on the financial sustainability of the game. Highly unlike, for example, if a particular armor shade should be chestnut brown versus medium brown.
There are many of these "big deal" design decisions, and down time is one of them. I completely understand and am on-board with some down time. But, overly punitive or particularly onerous down time might be a gut shot or knee strike to combat, overall. That would be unfortunate. Strongly encouraging mana consumers to spend an inordinate amount of time sitting is part of this, and is seen by a negative to a portion of the potential target demographic. If it is still in the game, then there's no issue. Maybe the streamers simply didn't know how to do it?
They started at an out-of-combat mana-regen-percentage value in the past, and, for whatever reason they have not shared, recently they've chosen to extend that value in the punitive direction. Just a little. No big deal. So far. :)
I agree that sitting does not need to be a part of meditation. Merely having the character close their eyes and put a hand to their temple would be enough of an animation to show a party member went into meditation. Or at least something similar to that...maybe clasped hands or a prayer position of some sort. Or there could be multiple modes of meditation (like real life) multiple stages. People do not only meditate in a cross legged sitting position!
You could have In combat - standing meditation : out of combat - sitting meditation. There could even be special abilities that enhance the meditation with chakras, auras or something. Since it looks like Pantheon is going the old EQ route this is going to be a very important part of the game and therefore you want to make sure it flows nicely instead of characters randomly sitting and standing (especially next to hostiles, it looks ridiculous). To go even further with this some classes may be able to conceal themselves or phase into another dimension briefly to allow them to go into a deep sitting meditation even in the midst of a battle.
Ye to me the meditation times are not a worry, I expect in combat meditation to not be the focus of combat, just something you do as a healer when you have some low damage periods during figts or as a caster when the fights dont require damage (i.e killing just one easy mob, the caster would be meditating since his high damage is not required to succed)
Something I would like to see in the innovation front is making mana regeneration a bit more engaging or "impactful" in the middle of combat, to me mana regeneration represents a "break" in the main role of the player, healer stop healing to meditate and Casters stop casting to meditate, essentially making their damage and healing output come to a full stop.
But that can also be accomplished with an "active" role in the battle, instead of meditation, a healer could cast a channel spell (no mana cost) on a party member that heals for a very low ammount but increases their mana regeneration, this serves the exact same pourpouse of the meditation, it makes the healers healing output very low, but it does not break their role (healing) making it fell like the healer is still part of the action and not "taking" a break to regain mana. but in the end it serves the same pourpouse and works the same way, except the healers keep being engaged in the action.
The same can be aplied to casters, they can have a channell spell with no mana cost that deals very low damage, and increases their mana regeneration , so instead of completly stoping combat and doing nothing but meditating, the casters can keep doing very trivial damage, and regain their mana in an active way.
I would compare this idea to the auto-attacks that melee have, when they're waiting for their resources they keep auto-attacking they don't fully stop, just have a period of lower damage output.
I was thinking of something like a passive ability where druids would sprout up flora around them that would dispawn in 5-10 seconds. If the druid walked over the flora they would gain % amount of mana and maybe secondary effects like a small aoe heal around them, spell cost reduction on their next ability, a short party-wide buff, etc. The sprouting of flora could even be a passive effect that only happened while in the meditative state - but it encourages you to ocassionally stand up and interact/react/move while meditating.
I like this design because it would reward the players who are actively paying attention and reacting to something around them. I think a lot of the complaints about the current cast/sit/cast/sit gameplay is that someone multiboxing could perform just as well as someone actively playing their class. I don't think downtime is at the heart of the complaints at all. In fact I see people stating that they are not arguing against downtime, a slower more strategic pace to combat, and giving space to socialization. They're arguing that it's BORING gameplay that could easily be multiboxed. Casters want immersive action-packed gameplay too - and it doesn't need to be something where we're mashing keys to regain mana. Involve casters in the movement, immersive and reaction based combat stated as design goals ont he FAQ/Tenants page.
Of course this could be extended to shamans with their spirit ancestors and to clerics with desperate prayers/pleas to their gods. Wizards could have interactions with their familiars, mages the more traditional summoning gems for mana, enchanters with offensive mana drains/rewarding sucessful counter spells with mana return, etc.
Also I think skill chains that aren't easily macroed would help a great deal - also proc chances like casting spells has X chance to make Y spell cost 50% less with a 1sec reduced cast time. Give casters something to react and respond to that will engage them and set good players apart from multiboxers/people still working to learn the class. Something of an easy to pick-up and play but hard to master design philosophy.
One of the things to remember is that a 'standing' meditate is still going to be activated. So you press a hotkey to 'activate' your meditation and whatever animation they want for it. Or they could just have you press your 'sit' hotkey and this triggers the Mediation. Either way you do it, it's going to be the same level of interaction from the player, and you still will be still (not moving) while you do it. This is all just a question of animation. Do you stand there in a trance, or sit there in a trance.
One reason EQ1 made you 'sit' in order to meditate, is because it adds a vulnerability. In EQ1 sitting would often agro enemies if they were within a short range, so sometimes sitting to meditate caused you to get hit. Also, while sitting your defenses were lower and enemies wouldn't miss you (and you couldn't dodge or parry) and their attacks did max damage. Of course they could always add these vulnerability to standing 'meditation' as well.
As for the people who suggest casters should need to play a mini game of pressing keys in order to maintain meditation, I really doubt they would do something like that as it would take players focus away from the combat and make things more complicated.
This is a no-brainer. Chestnut brown. All the way.
(edited because I chose medium brown first)
Porygon said:vjek said:I'm more concerned about how much such changes affect the target demographic, and thus, sustainability of the title, over the long term.
Your concern, is that by making the downtime faster, the game is going to attract more unscrupulous players?
...what?
I think what he is getting at is making the downtime too short leads to the speedrun mentality. There is an abundance of evidence in multiple MMOs now that short down times lead to a very different style of play. From what I've seen so far of Pantheon I don't think they are aiming for the speedrun style of gameplay and that means they are not competing for the exact same audience as WoW, FF14, ESO, etc.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:One of the things to remember is that a 'standing' meditate is still going to be activated. So you press a hotkey to 'activate' your meditation and whatever animation they want for it. Or they could just have you press your 'sit' hotkey and this triggers the Mediation. Either way you do it, it's going to be the same level of interaction from the player, and you still will be still (not moving) while you do it. This is all just a question of animation. Do you stand there in a trance, or sit there in a trance.
One reason EQ1 made you 'sit' in order to meditate, is because it adds a vulnerability. In EQ1 sitting would often agro enemies if they were within a short range, so sometimes sitting to meditate caused you to get hit. Also, while sitting your defenses were lower and enemies wouldn't miss you (and you couldn't dodge or parry) and their attacks did max damage. Of course they could always add these vulnerability to standing 'meditation' as well.
As for the people who suggest casters should need to play a mini game of pressing keys in order to maintain meditation, I really doubt they would do something like that as it would take players focus away from the combat and make things more complicated.
Yep, I agree Goofy. Really no difference except PC animation. Would it be cool to have Clerics 'levitate' as they med? Sure, some people would love that but again it's not a requirement to sitting if the result is the same.
Your second point hits the mark though and we see that in the most current stream (12/2/18) where casters sit to med and pull agro for doing so. It clearly adds that 'risk' element to gameplay VR is looking for and demands that players decide wisely on when and where to meditate. This is neccessary in terms of fulfilling some of the game tenets.
jpedrote said:Something I would like to see in the innovation front is making mana regeneration a bit more engaging or "impactful" in the middle of combat, to me mana regeneration represents a "break" in the main role of the player, healer stop healing to meditate and Casters stop casting to meditate, essentially making their damage and healing output come to a full stop.But that can also be accomplished with an "active" role in the battle, instead of meditation, a healer could cast a channel spell (no mana cost) on a party member that heals for a very low ammount but increases their mana regeneration, this serves the exact same pourpouse of the meditation, it makes the healers healing output very low, but it does not break their role (healing) making it fell like the healer is still part of the action and not "taking" a break to regain mana. but in the end it serves the same pourpouse and works the same way, except the healers keep being engaged in the action.
The same can be aplied to casters, they can have a channell spell with no mana cost that deals very low damage, and increases their mana regeneration , so instead of completly stoping combat and doing nothing but meditating, the casters can keep doing very trivial damage, and regain their mana in an active way.
Yes, this is exactly what I was saying earlier. Honestly, I find active resource management FAR more engaging than just sitting around waiting for resources to come back.
Naunet said:jpedrote said:Something I would like to see in the innovation front is making mana regeneration a bit more engaging or "impactful" in the middle of combat, to me mana regeneration represents a "break" in the main role of the player, healer stop healing to meditate and Casters stop casting to meditate, essentially making their damage and healing output come to a full stop.But that can also be accomplished with an "active" role in the battle, instead of meditation, a healer could cast a channel spell (no mana cost) on a party member that heals for a very low ammount but increases their mana regeneration, this serves the exact same pourpouse of the meditation, it makes the healers healing output very low, but it does not break their role (healing) making it fell like the healer is still part of the action and not "taking" a break to regain mana. but in the end it serves the same pourpouse and works the same way, except the healers keep being engaged in the action.
The same can be aplied to casters, they can have a channell spell with no mana cost that deals very low damage, and increases their mana regeneration , so instead of completly stoping combat and doing nothing but meditating, the casters can keep doing very trivial damage, and regain their mana in an active way.
Yes, this is exactly what I was saying earlier. Honestly, I find active resource management FAR more engaging than just sitting around waiting for resources to come back.
I think the Wizard already has something like this in the form of their Arcane abilities. They have to down-regulate their DPS fire line to gain bonus mana regen as they utilize the Arcane line and then re-engage their DPS.
The question I have is if all caster classes have a similar mechanism, is there downtime reduced to null? Could these abilities, in conjunction with other classes' abilities and other buffs (food & drink), negate downtime to be nearly absent?
I think downtime is needed to some degree (it would be nice to see melee and tanks have some sort of downtime as well tbh). I just done't want to play a game like ESO where groups breeze through dungeon content and you never have a moment to chat or get to know your teamates. Once the dungeon is over, people just seem to disappear into the game. I really despise game mechanics that contribute to a minimum of player engagement.
OakKnower said:Naunet said:jpedrote said:Something I would like to see in the innovation front is making mana regeneration a bit more engaging or "impactful" in the middle of combat, to me mana regeneration represents a "break" in the main role of the player, healer stop healing to meditate and Casters stop casting to meditate, essentially making their damage and healing output come to a full stop.But that can also be accomplished with an "active" role in the battle, instead of meditation, a healer could cast a channel spell (no mana cost) on a party member that heals for a very low ammount but increases their mana regeneration, this serves the exact same pourpouse of the meditation, it makes the healers healing output very low, but it does not break their role (healing) making it fell like the healer is still part of the action and not "taking" a break to regain mana. but in the end it serves the same pourpouse and works the same way, except the healers keep being engaged in the action.
The same can be aplied to casters, they can have a channell spell with no mana cost that deals very low damage, and increases their mana regeneration , so instead of completly stoping combat and doing nothing but meditating, the casters can keep doing very trivial damage, and regain their mana in an active way.
Yes, this is exactly what I was saying earlier. Honestly, I find active resource management FAR more engaging than just sitting around waiting for resources to come back.
I think the Wizard already has something like this in the form of their Arcane abilities. They have to down-regulate their DPS fire line to gain bonus mana regen as they utilize the Arcane line and then re-engage their DPS.
The question I have is if all caster classes have a similar mechanism, is there downtime reduced to null? Could these abilities, in conjunction with other classes' abilities and other buffs (food & drink), negate downtime to be nearly absent?
I think downtime is needed to some degree (it would be nice to see melee and tanks have some sort of downtime as well tbh). I just done't want to play a game like ESO where groups breeze through dungeon content and you never have a moment to chat or get to know your teamates. Once the dungeon is over, people just seem to disappear into the game. I really despise game mechanics that contribute to a minimum of player engagement.
Probably what concerns me the most about Wizard currently. If there is no downtime, why is there an option to burst, and does every other mage works the same to some extent ? Especially : If none of the DPS need a pause of some sort, won't class with limitations (healers ?) be perceived as brakes ?
The issue with sit-to-med in combat is more about a perceived lack of engagement for many people. Ideally, medding during combat would also actually be engaging, but I think it's fair to say that sitting down while people are fighting should just be an unacceptable thing when designing a compelling combat system. Let's put EQ aside for a moment and pretend it never happened. Now let's imagine a scenario where we have game devs who've stated the following as a key tenant of their goals for designing their game:
A commitment to a style of play that focuses on immersive combat, and engaging group mechanics.
Then they go to their community and show off a video of the combat, and during combat one of the players just sits down while others are fighting, and stays there for a long time. Keep in mind, this is after casting only a few spells. Can anyone really say that this would be positively received by that community? I think one of the bigger issues we're facing in this discussion is that people are married to EQ in an almost unhealthy way, where they're incapable of admitting that EQ had its flaws (despite having its amazing positives as well that we admire). If EQ had a different mana management system for in combat regeneration, people wouldn't be defending this version of mana management. And we were told that this game isn't supposed to be a blatant EQ clone, it's supposed to have its own identity while taking inspiration from the positive things EQ gave us.
There is more than one way of accomplishing the effects of the sit-to-med-during-combat mechanic that doesn't require actually sitting to meditate. The player should be engaged, the player's character should be standing and participating in the battle. Sitting isn't immersive. It isn't engaging. Can anyone really deny that people when sitting just ended up doing /gems or walking away for a bit or did some reading while their mana recovered even in combat? At the worst people just ended up multiboxing their healers since the gameplay was basically the same as what we've seen so far in Pantheon for them- cast a few healing spells and then sit down.
I'm not even asking for a change in mana recovery rates, but I am asking for an engaging mana management system in combat that isn't sitting on your ass while your friends are being beaten up. People shouldn't be sitting down (except for outside of combat, in which case that's fine). People shouldn't be able to multibox their healers. If they are, then I'll say that the devs have failed to create an immersive combat system with engaging group mechanics.
TLDR:
Mana recovery rates = fine
Sit-to-med outside of combat = fine
Sit-to-med during combat = bad game design
MauvaisOeil said:OakKnower said:Naunet said:jpedrote said:Something I would like to see in the innovation front is making mana regeneration a bit more engaging or "impactful" in the middle of combat, to me mana regeneration represents a "break" in the main role of the player, healer stop healing to meditate and Casters stop casting to meditate, essentially making their damage and healing output come to a full stop.But that can also be accomplished with an "active" role in the battle, instead of meditation, a healer could cast a channel spell (no mana cost) on a party member that heals for a very low ammount but increases their mana regeneration, this serves the exact same pourpouse of the meditation, it makes the healers healing output very low, but it does not break their role (healing) making it fell like the healer is still part of the action and not "taking" a break to regain mana. but in the end it serves the same pourpouse and works the same way, except the healers keep being engaged in the action.
The same can be aplied to casters, they can have a channell spell with no mana cost that deals very low damage, and increases their mana regeneration , so instead of completly stoping combat and doing nothing but meditating, the casters can keep doing very trivial damage, and regain their mana in an active way.
Yes, this is exactly what I was saying earlier. Honestly, I find active resource management FAR more engaging than just sitting around waiting for resources to come back.
I think the Wizard already has something like this in the form of their Arcane abilities. They have to down-regulate their DPS fire line to gain bonus mana regen as they utilize the Arcane line and then re-engage their DPS.
The question I have is if all caster classes have a similar mechanism, is there downtime reduced to null? Could these abilities, in conjunction with other classes' abilities and other buffs (food & drink), negate downtime to be nearly absent?
I think downtime is needed to some degree (it would be nice to see melee and tanks have some sort of downtime as well tbh). I just done't want to play a game like ESO where groups breeze through dungeon content and you never have a moment to chat or get to know your teamates. Once the dungeon is over, people just seem to disappear into the game. I really despise game mechanics that contribute to a minimum of player engagement.
Probably what concerns me the most about Wizard currently. If there is no downtime, why is there an option to burst, and does every other mage works the same to some extent ? Especially : If none of the DPS need a pause of some sort, won't class with limitations (healers ?) be perceived as brakes ?
Well, it would be a shame to boil it all down to healers being THE brakes to group content in the crucible of time spent clearing game content. That should not be the case.
Ideally, I want to see resource management be meaningful not meaningless. And meaningful for all classes which is why I would like to see all classes have some sort of downtime. I imagine in game development this can become very, very challenging to manage in the best way for all. I mean, the difference between clearing low level content to get to level appropriate content is going to be a very different experience that resource management at the 24 person raid level.
I was just thinkng how a healer must sit to meditate because of the strain healing causes on the healer's mana pool. Only the healer (perhaps other casters) are really required to take time out to med. The tanks and melee-focused DPS, on the other hand have tremendous reserves of stamina and endurance; they keep fighting and tanking throughout.
It seems strange that each indivual suffers independently in the group milieu but the group doesn't suffer as it's own entity. I had this idea that there might me a group endurance reserve that must be met. Think of it as the cumulative group endurance factor. When it's depleted, the whole group must rest before continuing on.
I know, something we may not see at this point in development. Just an idea that came to me in this convo.
As a long time wizard player who started out in EQ beta and release...I do remember an ability that came along much later than release, it was a spell called "Harvest" a spell a caster could use to help speed up mana retrieval...hoping that Pantheon allows for this some time.
Cana
CanadinaXegony said:As a long time wizard player who started out in EQ beta and release...I do remember an ability that came along much later than release, it was a spell called "Harvest" a spell a caster could use to help speed up mana retrieval...hoping that Pantheon allows for this some time.
I think even something as simple as this would be much better than sit-to-med combat (although something a little more expanded would be ideal). It's a tool that has to be used skillfully since it has a trade-off: increased mana-regen at the cost of being stunned for a certain amount of time. Can't just spam sit-stand up-cast heal-sit down-stand up-cast heal over and over again.
I can think of one solution for better or worse that has been used in previous games. If you are that close to a mob, you are "in combat" and there is nill values on meditation. Hence, no purpose to sit.
Now sure, you can take a previously mentioned ability that gave me a visual mental impression of WoW mages arcane ability (some bar of channeled light) that does minor damage but allows meditation above nill. Or you can implement an ability where any caster (not just healer) pushes a button that does NOT take a spot on the hotbar and it grows berries and you can sit (maybe crouch or stoopis better) and pick and eat berries to get the mana back. This also gives a visual effect and can be a 1 button system or 1 button push=1 berry picked system.
Add or do not add, aggro or a debuff on dodge mechanics as you wish while you are berry picking.
This is a little off topic but really successful groups in games like Pantheon think about healing differently. It's not only the healer that thinks about his mana pool but the entire group has it on their mind and the best possible way to maximize it. Every group member is responsible for how much your character is feeding on the healer's mana resource. Think of yourself as a tether to the healer and how your playstyle can affect the pace of the group. Are you standing in fire? Should everyone be spread apart? Should you not be in melee range? Are you aware how each NPC reacts? Are you slower to mez?
The more the group is aware of how to mitigate incoming damage the better your healer is going to perform. Yes, healers are brakes in a group but the gas pedal is completely group driven.
Back on topic--as a healer in MMO's all my life since the mid-90's, I vote for no sitting during combat!
Sicario said:TLDR:
Mana recovery rates = fine
Sit-to-med outside of combat = fine
Sit-to-med during combat = bad game design
I tend to disagree, unless you will never introduce in-combat regen at all, with no exceptions, so healers will have no other choice rather than auto attack. but then you balance you fights solemnly on the healers mana pool. as long as you have mana, you can fight, then long downtime.
when you allow for sit-to-med mechanic you balance the fight more around tank mitigation, so if the tank mitigation is good enough the meditation time re-fills the mana that was used to heal the tank.
and the downtime after the fight is shorter.
from WOW experience, introduction of Mp5 (Mana Per 5 seconds) gear not only broke spirit as stat and made it obsolete, but also changed the combat meta and made Mp5 stacking the meta for all healers.
MyNegation said:I tend to disagree, unless you will never introduce in-combat regen at all, with no exceptions, so healers will have no other choice rather than auto attack. but then you balance you fights solemnly on the healers mana pool. as long as you have mana, you can fight, then long downtime.
when you allow for sit-to-med mechanic you balance the fight more around tank mitigation, so if the tank mitigation is good enough the meditation time re-fills the mana that was used to heal the tank.
and the downtime after the fight is shorter.from WOW experience, introduction of Mp5 (Mana Per 5 seconds) gear not only broke spirit as stat and made it obsolete, but also changed the combat meta and made Mp5 stacking the meta for all healers.
Okay, I want to reduce this down as much as possible, since I'm not asking for an overall change in the mana recovery numbers during combat, I'm asking for us to find a more engaging way to get there.
Given the choice between meditation being a skill where you sit down vs being a skill where you stand (both going into a meditation animation), and otherwise are no different, which do you think is a more immersive form of regaining mana during combat?
Everyone here is forgetting about the 4th role of the quaternity... Bring an Enchanter and your CC/Medding problems are over (Hopefully bard when we get more news will help with this as well). Just look over their spell list. The last 2 streams with Alexensual and Sarcoth only had a 5 man group and no Enchanter so of course they are going to have more medding and downtime.
Sicario said:Harvest wasn't spammable..it had a cooldown of a few minutes...don't recall how long the cool down was. :)CanadinaXegony said:As a long time wizard player who started out in EQ beta and release...I do remember an ability that came along much later than release, it was a spell called "Harvest" a spell a caster could use to help speed up mana retrieval...hoping that Pantheon allows for this some time.
I think even something as simple as this would be much better than sit-to-med combat (although something a little more expanded would be ideal). It's a tool that has to be used skillfully since it has a trade-off: increased mana-regen at the cost of being stunned for a certain amount of time. Can't just spam sit-stand up-cast heal-sit down-stand up-cast heal over and over again.
Cana