Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

lower spells swapping - Cast from your spell book

    • 441 posts
    July 12, 2017 6:30 AM PDT

    Just a small idea here. I get that we get limited slots to use and its set this way for many reasons. Let be honest, swapping spells in and out of your memorization slots to buff or do any other number of things in teams down time is a small pain. What I am suggesting is out of combat. Any spell that’s not an attack spell. Like buffs, res, illusions could be cast from your spell book. Removing allot of the need for the tedious spell swapping. What do you think?

    EDIT: Also lore wise, when a caster didnt have a spell memorized they would cast it from a book.


    This post was edited by Nanfoodle at July 12, 2017 7:03 AM PDT
    • 422 posts
    July 12, 2017 8:36 AM PDT

    Honestly this depends on how many abilities classes get I think. No one class should be able to use ALL of their tricks ALL of the time.

    What I mean is this:

    If a druid can root, snare, DD, DoT, Heal, Buff they should not be able to do ALL of their combat tricks in any given situation. This ties into being prepared to perform your assigned role. If the druid is support, like heals and buffs, they should not be able to CC and DPS at the drop of a hat as well. Allowing buffs to be cast without meming spells means that they would have more open slots available for heals, dd, dots, cc allowing them greater ability. 

    I think this is a bad thing.

    Every class should be required to pick and choose wisely before engagment on what they may need to do the most and rely on others in the group to fill in the gaps. Allowing buffs to be done without changing out spells would lessen that I think. Making the swapping out of spells tedious and annoying is a preventative measure to coax people into keeping those spells memorized, limiting their "ability range".

    And lore wise, where are you getting this lore? I don't recall anything about how magic works within the lore of Terminus. Traditionally in DnD, which is where VR has said they are drawing a lot of their ideals from, didn't often if ever allow a caster to cast a spell they had not studied and prepared the night before. Once you exhausted your memorized spells the cast was mostly useless until he could again prepare his spells. The exception being magical scrolls that were prepared ahead of time and could be used by anyone.

    We need to limit what one person can do at any one time to keep a nice balance and group interdependance. Without it you might be able to perform multiple roles well enough that you would need only a healer that can CC, a tank, and then load down on DPS. This would change the entire group dynamic for the negative IMO.


    This post was edited by kellindil at July 12, 2017 8:36 AM PDT
    • 2752 posts
    July 12, 2017 8:53 AM PDT

    kellindil said:

    Allowing buffs to be cast without meming spells means that they would have more open slots available for heals, dd, dots, cc allowing them greater ability. 

    I think this is a bad thing.

    Every class should be required to pick and choose wisely before engagment on what they may need to do the most and rely on others in the group to fill in the gaps. Allowing buffs to be done without changing out spells would lessen that I think. Making the swapping out of spells tedious and annoying is a preventative measure to coax people into keeping those spells memorized, limiting their "ability range".

     

    This is going to happen anyway. I highly doubt *most* buffs will last less than 30 minutes or so and the whole being prepared before a fight with the right abilities on the bar doesn't (90+% of the time) apply since you will swap buffs off anyway. People will load up all their buffs, buff the group, then swap abilities. This is about getting rid of that extra step, the needless tedium. 


    This post was edited by Iksar at July 12, 2017 8:55 AM PDT
    • 422 posts
    July 12, 2017 9:02 AM PDT

    I would hope that isn't true, that buffs will last that long. I can see some specific buffs lasting that long, sure, but thing like haste or damage shields and the like I think should be much shorter duration. These buffs should need to be reapplied often as they lend a LOT to the group and having them last a very long time would be a mistake IMO. The same with buffs like mana/hp regen. These should be fairly short duration buffs. 10-15 minutes tops. Something like a Cleric's HP/AC buff I could go for being 30 minutes, but those longer duration buffs should be few.

    • 2752 posts
    July 12, 2017 9:11 AM PDT

    Damage shields, hastes, hp regens, endurance regens are of the few I'd say should have 5-10 minute durations just due to how strong they could be when you fire and forget them on random players and how helpful/powerful they tend to be for lower level characters. But a majority of buffs are hp/ac/resists/mana regen/movespeed/stat buffs and those should be long duration that won't be kept on the bar. 

     

    That said, even those lower duration buffs either won't be kept on the bar if combat requires a full set of in-combat abilities or they will be left on the bar because there is nothing else of need anyway. So I don't see the harm on letting them be cast from the spellbook *strictly out of combat*. It just eliminates the swap, cast, swap back. 

    • 1281 posts
    July 12, 2017 9:56 AM PDT

    Nanfoodle said:

    Just a small idea here. I get that we get limited slots to use and its set this way for many reasons. Let be honest, swapping spells in and out of your memorization slots to buff or do any other number of things in teams down time is a small pain. What I am suggesting is out of combat. Any spell that’s not an attack spell. Like buffs, res, illusions could be cast from your spell book. Removing allot of the need for the tedious spell swapping. What do you think?

    EDIT: Also lore wise, when a caster didnt have a spell memorized they would cast it from a book.

    From what we know, having to select your spell set is intentional. Casting from spell book wouldn't be any different than allowing you to have a screen full of hotbars.

    • 441 posts
    July 12, 2017 10:36 AM PDT

    bigdogchris said:

    Nanfoodle said:

    Just a small idea here. I get that we get limited slots to use and its set this way for many reasons. Let be honest, swapping spells in and out of your memorization slots to buff or do any other number of things in teams down time is a small pain. What I am suggesting is out of combat. Any spell that’s not an attack spell. Like buffs, res, illusions could be cast from your spell book. Removing allot of the need for the tedious spell swapping. What do you think?

    EDIT: Also lore wise, when a caster didnt have a spell memorized they would cast it from a book.

    From what we know, having to select your spell set is intentional. Casting from spell book wouldn't be any different than allowing you to have a screen full of hotbars.

     

    Not talking about combat skills. Im playing P99 right now and when I enter combat I have all my combat skills I will need for this situation memed. Few rounds of pulling and medding my buffs start to drop. So I need to pop out 2 or 3 spells in my memed slots and mem my buffs. Stand up and buff, sit down and re-mem my combat spells. I talking about when out of combat, when my non-combat spells are needed. As a caster I could out of combat just click from my spell book my buffs. Sit and med and get back to fun. This adds very little advantage. Does not make it so all spells are available. Just your non combat spells, when you are not in combat. 

    Lets faces it, its the repetitive actions that have little meaning get tedious in a game. I find picking the spells I need for combat fun, I would just like to see them not be constantly needing to swap things around when Im not in combat. Like I said, buff, illusions and anything else VR would deem as not combat type spells. 


    This post was edited by Nanfoodle at July 12, 2017 10:37 AM PDT
    • 483 posts
    July 12, 2017 11:42 AM PDT

    Iksar said:

    This is going to happen anyway. I highly doubt *most* buffs will last less than 30 minutes or so and the whole being prepared before a fight with the right abilities on the bar doesn't (90+% of the time) apply since you will swap buffs off anyway. People will load up all their buffs, buff the group, then swap abilities. This is about getting rid of that extra step, the needless tedium. 

    If the buffs wear off when they're taken out of the mem bar then what you're saying won't happen. My suggestion is an extra buff mem bar with 2-3 slots where you can only mem long duration buffs (30 mins +), if you wan't to have extra long duration buffs available you'll have to use up your regular mem bar to go byeond the 2-3 available buff slots.


    This post was edited by jpedrote at July 12, 2017 11:44 AM PDT
    • 441 posts
    July 12, 2017 12:38 PM PDT

    jpedrote said:

    Iksar said:

    This is going to happen anyway. I highly doubt *most* buffs will last less than 30 minutes or so and the whole being prepared before a fight with the right abilities on the bar doesn't (90+% of the time) apply since you will swap buffs off anyway. People will load up all their buffs, buff the group, then swap abilities. This is about getting rid of that extra step, the needless tedium. 

    If the buffs wear off when they're taken out of the mem bar then what you're saying won't happen. My suggestion is an extra buff mem bar with 2-3 slots where you can only mem long duration buffs (30 mins +), if you wan't to have extra long duration buffs available you'll have to use up your regular mem bar to go byeond the 2-3 available buff slots.

    That would be a good work around as well. Spells flagged as non-combat could have a separate spell bar you could mem 3-8 spells on. Buffs, illusions, summon bread etc. Looking to get away from the un-needed constant between fights meming and unmeming spells. 

    • 422 posts
    July 12, 2017 12:57 PM PDT

    Call me stubburn but I just don't agree. NOT having the ability to access things readily, I think, is an important concept. I also think memming a spell should take enough time that if you tried to do it mid fight it would be a huge pain. I wouldn't mind it if the spell slots were lessened over say what EQ has (8 default). I want to see a HEAVY penalty for not being prepared. I would like to see buffs last 2-3 fights (like 2-5 minutes tops). You should have almost no time at all during a fight to sit or stand still. Combat should be involved. Not just stand, cast a heal, sit and med. I want to see a cleric up and getting in the middle of it. Healing, casting shields, temp buffs like a targeted yaulp type thing castable on others. Give that enchanter a reason to drain their mana bar.

    This should not be a game where you casually click a button every few minutes while watching netflix and chatting during combat. You should need to be entirely focused on the fight to the point that if you aren't paying complete attention and rolling the spells your role calls for you will wipe. Casual chatting is what down time is for. Those 5 minutes between 2-3 fights that you have to recover. which is when the support class would mem their ONE buff that might last 30 minutes and refresh. Since all the other buffs are super short duration and NEED to be memmed for combat use.

    Thats what I would like to see.

    • 2752 posts
    July 12, 2017 1:05 PM PDT

    jpedrote said:

    If the buffs wear off when they're taken out of the mem bar then what you're saying won't happen. My suggestion is an extra buff mem bar with 2-3 slots where you can only mem long duration buffs (30 mins +), if you wan't to have extra long duration buffs available you'll have to use up your regular mem bar to go byeond the 2-3 available buff slots.

     

    I pray they don't do that. Few things worse than having to have passive or otherwise "dead" spells stuck on a limited bar.

     

    I abhor the idea of buff spells being some kind of concentrated ongoing effort to maintain, as if while the caster is slinging heals/debuffs/dots he is also actively focusing on blessing his group with shielding, increased constitution, strength, and whatever else. But buffs have always seemed much more like magic drugs to me, once they are in your system they stay for the duration unless drawn out of you by some other magic. 

    • 125 posts
    July 12, 2017 1:12 PM PDT

    I agree with Iksar. I just cant see buffs dropping when taken off the bar happening.

    • 2419 posts
    July 12, 2017 6:35 PM PDT

    I hate to say it yet again, but EQ1 had a very good mechanic in place for number of spell slots and for swapping spells.  Think back now to when you first starting playing and had to memorize a spell.  Took forever didn't it, but as a particular skill went up that time was reduced.  Thus as you leveled the lower the level spell the faster you could memorize it while current spells still took at least a few seconds if not slightly more.  The key factor was by sitting down to memorize spells what happened?  NPCs would turn and attack you. All your defenses were gone and even an Orc Pawn could smack a lvl 60 if it was sitting down.  That is all you need.  Sitting down lowers your perceived AC, negates all your defensive abilities making you a very attractive target.  You had to make sure the tank had really good aggro, than there weren't aggressive wanderes around, that you knew exactly where in your spell book was the spell you were needing.  It was risky to do and that is the point.

    Now as for buff durations, I gotta say that having buffs last 30+ minutes especially when at or near the end levels of the game is a minimum duration.  Stat buffs, resist buffs, AC/HP buffs and even regen should all be long duration.  Shorter should be those situational spells like haste, damage shields, HoTs, levitates, see invis.  Then lets have some buffs have random durations like invis and invis undead.  Sure it was frustrating as hell to have invis drop just when you come up to that one NPC you really wanted to get past or having it drop 2 seconds after you cast it but you dealt with it.

    • 131 posts
    July 13, 2017 4:27 AM PDT

    Personally I would love to see the ability to cast buffs from our books.  For classes with a ton of buffs it becomes so tedious to constantly be having to stop and swap out in order to do a good job for your group.  I am 100% behind the idea of having to choose the spells you bring into combat, but don't see the benefit of adding tedium to buffing.

    The exceptions to this would be short term buffs such as haste or damage shield - those I feel it makes sense to make them occupy a spell slot and would be too much of an advantage if they didn't.....but i am not a fan of tedium for tedium's sake.  Besides, a full rebuff on your group is going to eat through a good amount of mana anyway and will enforce some downtime without the constant swapping that goes with it.

    Also it would lend itself to seeing more of the vertical dependancy that Brad was talking about in the Newsletter.  I am much more apt to stop and toss a buff out on a passing random if I don't have to make my whole group wait up while I sit, swap, cast, sit, swap.  Blech.

     

    MINX

    • 319 posts
    July 13, 2017 12:43 PM PDT

    I like the idea of casting buffs from your book instead of having to memorize them to a slot. But it should be limited to buffs and only out of combat entirely. No casting a buff on a character in combat that is not in your group either. i would consider that a cheat.  Just buffs out of combat gets my vote.

    • 219 posts
    July 13, 2017 1:12 PM PDT
    I agree with the OP.

    I think the problem is that people are confusing short-term, "active" buffs with long-term "passive" buffs.

    For example, maybe there's a haste buff that boosts movement/skill/spell speed for 30-60 seconds. This is more a "combat" buff as there's lite reason in using it outside of combat except maybe for crafting(?)

    Then you have the generic armor/magic resist/stat buffs. The "+5% Strength" buffs, the "+200 Armor" buffs and the like. These buffs are "boring" and not sexy, but they're nice to have in game for the communal aspect (e.g. Higher level Clerics budding lowbies leaving town). If you're casting these in combat, you're kind of stupid, as the only reason to do so is if someone died and was combat resed, which shouldn't be happening often. These spells usually have longer durations (30-60 MINUTES).

    It makes sense to me for those long, "boring" buffs to be cast able from your spell book without you having to shift your bars. In fact, I'd even be in favor of them NOT being cast able in combat at all.

    Likewise, utility spells - why should you EVER have to put portal or conjur bread/water spells on your bar? Really? You shouldn't be using them in combat!
    • 441 posts
    July 17, 2017 6:11 AM PDT

    Renathras said: I agree with the OP. I think the problem is that people are confusing short-term, "active" buffs with long-term "passive" buffs. For example, maybe there's a haste buff that boosts movement/skill/spell speed for 30-60 seconds. This is more a "combat" buff as there's lite reason in using it outside of combat except maybe for crafting(?) Then you have the generic armor/magic resist/stat buffs. The "+5% Strength" buffs, the "+200 Armor" buffs and the like. These buffs are "boring" and not sexy, but they're nice to have in game for the communal aspect (e.g. Higher level Clerics budding lowbies leaving town). If you're casting these in combat, you're kind of stupid, as the only reason to do so is if someone died and was combat resed, which shouldn't be happening often. These spells usually have longer durations (30-60 MINUTES). It makes sense to me for those long, "boring" buffs to be cast able from your spell book without you having to shift your bars. In fact, I'd even be in favor of them NOT being cast able in combat at all. Likewise, utility spells - why should you EVER have to put portal or conjur bread/water spells on your bar? Really? You shouldn't be using them in combat!

    I think people who have played a buffing/support class will get this. People whos mains are DPS (maybe had a support alt, not the same thing) wont get this.

    • 1584 posts
    July 17, 2017 8:25 AM PDT

    kellindil said:

    Honestly this depends on how many abilities classes get I think. No one class should be able to use ALL of their tricks ALL of the time.

    What I mean is this:

    If a druid can root, snare, DD, DoT, Heal, Buff they should not be able to do ALL of their combat tricks in any given situation. This ties into being prepared to perform your assigned role. If the druid is support, like heals and buffs, they should not be able to CC and DPS at the drop of a hat as well. Allowing buffs to be cast without meming spells means that they would have more open slots available for heals, dd, dots, cc allowing them greater ability. 

    I think this is a bad thing.

    Every class should be required to pick and choose wisely before engagment on what they may need to do the most and rely on others in the group to fill in the gaps. Allowing buffs to be done without changing out spells would lessen that I think. Making the swapping out of spells tedious and annoying is a preventative measure to coax people into keeping those spells memorized, limiting their "ability range".

    And lore wise, where are you getting this lore? I don't recall anything about how magic works within the lore of Terminus. Traditionally in DnD, which is where VR has said they are drawing a lot of their ideals from, didn't often if ever allow a caster to cast a spell they had not studied and prepared the night before. Once you exhausted your memorized spells the cast was mostly useless until he could again prepare his spells. The exception being magical scrolls that were prepared ahead of time and could be used by anyone.

    We need to limit what one person can do at any one time to keep a nice balance and group interdependance. Without it you might be able to perform multiple roles well enough that you would need only a healer that can CC, a tank, and then load down on DPS. This would change the entire group dynamic for the negative IMO.

    Actually what he is saying makes sense, it might not happen but i like the idea, plus a out of what you were saying are IN COMBAT situations which is the opposite of what the OP was mentioning, if I'm a shaman and im the healer and buffer/debuffer and i need to make sure i have my slow/heals/and hp buffs and such but theres certain buffs you can give but dont have enough spell slots to put them there than casting them in an out of combat situation, doesn't do anything but save time and the swapping of spells and such, it just makes thing more convenient for the spell user, which with this being said obv this thing would have no benefit to a lot of caster users like wizards and such, becuase you can get the in combat senario to happen once a mob gets within a certain radius of you to trigger it automatically as being in combat so when that happens there is no more out of combat buffing or swapping of spells in the middle of combat.  

    • 441 posts
    July 17, 2017 8:49 AM PDT

    Riahuf22 said:

    kellindil said:

    Honestly this depends on how many abilities classes get I think. No one class should be able to use ALL of their tricks ALL of the time.

    What I mean is this:

    If a druid can root, snare, DD, DoT, Heal, Buff they should not be able to do ALL of their combat tricks in any given situation. This ties into being prepared to perform your assigned role. If the druid is support, like heals and buffs, they should not be able to CC and DPS at the drop of a hat as well. Allowing buffs to be cast without meming spells means that they would have more open slots available for heals, dd, dots, cc allowing them greater ability. 

    I think this is a bad thing.

    Every class should be required to pick and choose wisely before engagment on what they may need to do the most and rely on others in the group to fill in the gaps. Allowing buffs to be done without changing out spells would lessen that I think. Making the swapping out of spells tedious and annoying is a preventative measure to coax people into keeping those spells memorized, limiting their "ability range".

    And lore wise, where are you getting this lore? I don't recall anything about how magic works within the lore of Terminus. Traditionally in DnD, which is where VR has said they are drawing a lot of their ideals from, didn't often if ever allow a caster to cast a spell they had not studied and prepared the night before. Once you exhausted your memorized spells the cast was mostly useless until he could again prepare his spells. The exception being magical scrolls that were prepared ahead of time and could be used by anyone.

    We need to limit what one person can do at any one time to keep a nice balance and group interdependance. Without it you might be able to perform multiple roles well enough that you would need only a healer that can CC, a tank, and then load down on DPS. This would change the entire group dynamic for the negative IMO.

    Actually what he is saying makes sense, it might not happen but i like the idea, plus a out of what you were saying are IN COMBAT situations which is the opposite of what the OP was mentioning, if I'm a shaman and im the healer and buffer/debuffer and i need to make sure i have my slow/heals/and hp buffs and such but theres certain buffs you can give but dont have enough spell slots to put them there than casting them in an out of combat situation, doesn't do anything but save time and the swapping of spells and such, it just makes thing more convenient for the spell user, which with this being said obv this thing would have no benefit to a lot of caster users like wizards and such, becuase you can get the in combat senario to happen once a mob gets within a certain radius of you to trigger it automatically as being in combat so when that happens there is no more out of combat buffing or swapping of spells in the middle of combat.  

    IMO this will also increase the amount of high level players that interact with low level players. Easier it is to buff someone, the more likely you will do just that. So this would also be a social addition. 

    • 18 posts
    July 18, 2017 11:08 AM PDT
    i fully agree with kellindil.. mostly short buffs and bussy casters to refresh buffs of the group will be absolutly nessecary to have interesting and good combats. On buffs watch my posted videos here... these are good fights and the Way to go...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJuAc4iInAw /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCHTZDMZTpU /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AwlBgAbWfw />