disposalist said:There are ways to give clues and cues to that info without pushing UI indicators in people's faces. I'd much rather learn a monster's strengths and weaknesses without it being handed me on a plate by putting a glowing icon above the monster's head.
If every now-and-again then combat text says "The monster grows hot" and the next 30 seconds every time I hit it it says "You take fire damage" and I can't work out it can summon a fire shield and then look out for that "monster grow hot" message, then I'm not going to do well in any kind of challenging RPG.
I don't want the equivalent of a "THIS MONSTER HAS A FIRE SHIELD STOP HITTING IT" icon to be thrust in front of my eyes.
As for group members' buffs, sure, you should see those - that's different. The info is freely available - you could just ask - but of course that would be tedious, so, yeah, icons. But I don't think it should be the same for monsters any more than you should know their resistance scores, mana pool, health points, etc.
I am pleased (genuinely, no joke) to say that you and I are in total agreement on this topic. Figuring out mob strengths and weaknesses is part of the game, and I don't think it has to be some glaring mechanic. If the tank is hitting a mob and sees "you are burned. You take 27 dmg from fire" every single time they hit, that should be a clue. If the mob stops swinging to cast and you see a message that says "badmob_01 is covered in thorns/fire/ickiness" maybe the debuff casters should drop a dispel? Does this activity need more than that? Do we need BossMods to shriek all this at us in the center of the screen?
I'd be happy to have less info and just know my mobs. Think Old Seb and knowing each level range of froglok by their dar/ilis/krup/jin/bok titles. We all just knew. And then think the gating wizard frogs - "A froglok reet wizard begins casting a spell...." meant enchanter, stun that sucker!! Watching text in combat ftw.
Venjenz said:disposalist said:There are ways to give clues and cues to that info without pushing UI indicators in people's faces. I'd much rather learn a monster's strengths and weaknesses without it being handed me on a plate by putting a glowing icon above the monster's head.
If every now-and-again then combat text says "The monster grows hot" and the next 30 seconds every time I hit it it says "You take fire damage" and I can't work out it can summon a fire shield and then look out for that "monster grow hot" message, then I'm not going to do well in any kind of challenging RPG.
I don't want the equivalent of a "THIS MONSTER HAS A FIRE SHIELD STOP HITTING IT" icon to be thrust in front of my eyes.
As for group members' buffs, sure, you should see those - that's different. The info is freely available - you could just ask - but of course that would be tedious, so, yeah, icons. But I don't think it should be the same for monsters any more than you should know their resistance scores, mana pool, health points, etc.
I am pleased (genuinely, no joke) to say that you and I are in total agreement on this topic. Figuring out mob strengths and weaknesses is part of the game, and I don't think it has to be some glaring mechanic. If the tank is hitting a mob and sees "you are burned. You take 27 dmg from fire" every single time they hit, that should be a clue. If the mob stops swinging to cast and you see a message that says "badmob_01 is covered in thorns/fire/ickiness" maybe the debuff casters should drop a dispel? Does this activity need more than that? Do we need BossMods to shriek all this at us in the center of the screen?
I'd be happy to have less info and just know my mobs. Think Old Seb and knowing each level range of froglok by their dar/ilis/krup/jin/bok titles. We all just knew. And then think the gating wizard frogs - "A froglok reet wizard begins casting a spell...." meant enchanter, stun that sucker!! Watching text in combat ftw.
Hehe it had to happen eventually! Seriously, I don't think we actually 'disagree' on much, I just like to discuss things that I think aren't perfect. Let's hug it out!
Heck, I'm playing EQ P1999 right now (meditating that mana back) because it's better in many ways than modern MMORPGs... but not in every way.
Yeah getting to know monsters by dying *shrug* it's hard, but it works.
In a related issue though, I just realised you can't even see in P1999 EQ the buffs you've placed on your group members... unless I'm missing something... that's not great.
I hope that Pantheon doesn't rely on the text box as the means of communicating real-time information. Think of why the text box is used in the first place - as a narrative tool for information that cannot be conveyed through our other senses. If we were actually there, then we would be able to feel, see, hear, and maybe smell that "the monster grows hot". Pantheon certainly can't convey the feeling of heat or the smell of the monster heating up (thank god), but I hope they lean more heavily on the see and hear side. I would far prefer seeing the monster changing its hue to be reddish, or maybe some of the campfire effects that we saw in the Lassiz stream could be borrowed and put on the mob (I think there was even heat based air distortions), or maybe there is a sound like crackling that you can hear when you're near the enemy.
As with anything the level to which the information is obscured is subjective and up to the developers, but I lean towards being heavy handed on obscuring the information. I think that information about combat specific things should be subtle enough that you can ignore them or miss them if you're not paying attention, but clear enough that you can discern them if you know what to look for and are paying attention. I know that I'm asking a lot and just writing a line of text is by far the easier approach, but I would not enjoy fighting a mob and being told that I have to watch my text box like a hawk for specific messages.
Ainadak said:I hope that Pantheon doesn't rely on the text box as the means of communicating real-time information. Think of why the text box is used in the first place - as a narrative tool for information that cannot be conveyed through our other senses. If we were actually there, then we would be able to feel, see, hear, and maybe smell that "the monster grows hot". Pantheon certainly can't convey the feeling of heat or the smell of the monster heating up (thank god), but I hope they lean more heavily on the see and hear side. I would far prefer seeing the monster changing its hue to be reddish, or maybe some of the campfire effects that we saw in the Lassiz stream could be borrowed and put on the mob (I think there was even heat based air distortions), or maybe there is a sound like crackling that you can hear when you're near the enemy.
As with anything the level to which the information is obscured is subjective and up to the developers, but I lean towards being heavy handed on obscuring the information. I think that information about combat specific things should be subtle enough that you can ignore them or miss them if you're not paying attention, but clear enough that you can discern them if you know what to look for and are paying attention. I know that I'm asking a lot and just writing a line of text is by far the easier approach, but I would not enjoy fighting a mob and being told that I have to watch my text box like a hawk for specific messages.
Doing things via sight/sound exclusively presents some very real problems for some players. Those with impaired vision/certain color blindness and/or those hard of hearing/deaf can easily be left high and dry with such a system. The text/event or "thought" box is therefore used as a means of relating your characters perceptions to the player, so "the monster grows hot" is just a look into the mind of the character.
When it comes to mob spells & buffs though, I'd actually prefer A) not knowing what buffs a mob has (unless there is some kind of identify/sense magic spell used) and B) not knowing the name of what a mob is casting (except to classes that also have said spell or perhaps are specialized in that class of magic ie. divination/conjuration/etc).
Easy-Mode = When the mob you're fighting casts Fire Shield, you see a prominently displayed icon indicating the Fire Shield is up, and if you have an ability that can dispel it then that ability lights up on your hotbar.
Hard-Mode = When the mob you're fighting casts Fire Shield, there might or might not be some visual change to the mob in-world, and there's a somewhat cryptic message in the combat log that you might not notice until you're reviewing the combat log to understand why the party wiped. The next time you fight the mob, you look for the visual change or the message in the combat log and then start experimenting with different abilities to try to figure out what, if anything, can be done about it.
I recoil from Easy-Mode, and hope I'm not completely misunderstanding what VR intends for Pantheon.
Iksar said:Ainadak said:I hope that Pantheon doesn't rely on the text box as the means of communicating real-time information. Think of why the text box is used in the first place - as a narrative tool for information that cannot be conveyed through our other senses. If we were actually there, then we would be able to feel, see, hear, and maybe smell that "the monster grows hot". Pantheon certainly can't convey the feeling of heat or the smell of the monster heating up (thank god), but I hope they lean more heavily on the see and hear side. I would far prefer seeing the monster changing its hue to be reddish, or maybe some of the campfire effects that we saw in the Lassiz stream could be borrowed and put on the mob (I think there was even heat based air distortions), or maybe there is a sound like crackling that you can hear when you're near the enemy.
As with anything the level to which the information is obscured is subjective and up to the developers, but I lean towards being heavy handed on obscuring the information. I think that information about combat specific things should be subtle enough that you can ignore them or miss them if you're not paying attention, but clear enough that you can discern them if you know what to look for and are paying attention. I know that I'm asking a lot and just writing a line of text is by far the easier approach, but I would not enjoy fighting a mob and being told that I have to watch my text box like a hawk for specific messages.
Doing things via sight/sound exclusively presents some very real problems for some players. Those with impaired vision/certain color blindness and/or those hard of hearing/deaf can easily be left high and dry with such a system. The text/event or "thought" box is therefore used as a means of relating your characters perceptions to the player, so "the monster grows hot" is just a look into the mind of the character.
When it comes to mob spells & buffs though, I'd actually prefer A) not knowing what buffs a mob has (unless there is some kind of identify/sense magic spell used) and B) not knowing the name of what a mob is casting (except to classes that also have said spell or perhaps are specialized in that class of magic ie. divination/conjuration/etc).
Agreed.
I think in theory, the idea of being able to see visual cues and hear auditory cues is great. In practice, not quite. Too many folks out there are unable to have their volume up (wife/kids sleeping in the next room?), or have visual impairments/color blindness. Realistic is great - but realistic to match clientele limitations is better.
I'm all for hearkening back to the days of yore, when text boxes gave us those cues.
@Iksar and Tralyan - I hear your argument about those with impairments or restrictions and I appreciate that. However, I don't believe games should be designed to the most impaired client, but rather accomodations should be made for those clients. If the developers believed that subtle visual and auditory cues were a good way to convey status effects, then they could simply also include an obscure notifier in the text box. Those who cannot discern the effects (and those who simply choose to) would be able to read it while the rest of us wouldn't be stuck watching a text stream instead of the beautiful visuals they've already put in.
Iksar said:Doing things via sight/sound exclusively presents some very real problems for some players. Those with impaired vision/certain color blindness and/or those hard of hearing/deaf can easily be left high and dry with such a system. The text/event or "thought" box is therefore used as a means of relating your characters perceptions to the player, so "the monster grows hot" is just a look into the mind of the character.
When it comes to mob spells & buffs though, I'd actually prefer A) not knowing what buffs a mob has (unless there is some kind of identify/sense magic spell used) and B) not knowing the name of what a mob is casting (except to classes that also have said spell or perhaps are specialized in that class of magic ie. divination/conjuration/etc).
The best option is to have all 3 queues, audio, visual and text, that way everyone is pleased and even if some can't pick up on audio or visual they can resort to the chat box.
jpedrote said:The best option is to have all 3 queues, audio, visual and text, that way everyone is pleased and even if some can't pick up on audio or visual they can resort to the chat box.
And now we are back to screaming at the player - "Don't stand in the fire. Look, the fire is there. Do not stand in the fire. Get out of the fire. Fire fire fire!!"
I blame Curse and all the WoW mods for people having this expectation.
Can we stop it with the WoW fear mongering? Extending people's opinions based on your assumptions to the worst possible case and then blaming them for the outcome does not make for a sound argument. A subtle visual or audio cue is what has been suggested, which is far from "screaming" at the player.
Venjenz said:jpedrote said:The best option is to have all 3 queues, audio, visual and text, that way everyone is pleased and even if some can't pick up on audio or visual they can resort to the chat box.
And now we are back to screaming at the player - "Don't stand in the fire. Look, the fire is there. Do not stand in the fire. Get out of the fire. Fire fire fire!!"
I blame Curse and all the WoW mods for people having this expectation.
I wasn't even talking about ground telephade boss abilities, i was talking about enemy NPC's having visual/audio/text queues for when they cast a buff on themselves, taking as an example the thorns shield from the stream, instead of having to stare at chat and look for a flavor text message, the player can look at the enemy NPC model, notice a glowing red shield of thorns and realize he's taking reflective dmg because of the shield.
But since you brought up ground telegraphed effects such as "fire", what's the problem with these types of telegraphs? If they're done properly and not overused they're an amazing adition to the boss fights, specially when it comes to position, spreading the party, and "predicting" where it's gonna land.
But as I said, the ground telegraphs such as fire need to be done properly and not oversued, or else the game could turn into Dance Dance revolution like WoW did, where you have to "dodge the bad circles or wipe". from another post "Telegraphed abilities/attacks (aka the red circles and squares of bad stuff you need to dodge) – This, to me, is one of the most disheartening things that happened to videogames in recent years. I remember when you had to look at the enemies animation to see if he was casting a spell or doing a melee attack, you had to pay attention to your environment to determine where the AoE spells or attacks would land, now there’s just a red circle that perfectly outlines the “area of death”, removing completely the need for positional awareness" Currently WoW and pretty much every other game does a terrible job with Telegraphed abilities/attacks because they're way to obvious and basically revolve around getting out of the "bad circle" in time, for telegraphed abilities/attacks to work properly they need to happen wihtout these "bad circles", instead the player need to pay attention to what the boss is doing, learn and fight and be alert when the boss casts and ability, because that ability might be a ground AoE spells, like fire, so instead of the player getting a pre-warning of where the fire will land, he will need to look at the boss, notice he's cating an ability, and if the ground fire AoE landed on the spot the player was he needs to move (after taking some dmg) to avoid dying.
My take on this is, given the desired interdependence of classes and grouping, why not give one class the ability to cast a detect magic group buff that would allow everyone to see what buffs a mob has up while allowing a different class then to have the ability to dispell those mob buffs. Perhaps stick with the Everquest framework and allow a couple of classes to have these abilities but at different levels of effectiveness. Example being an enchanter could strip 2 buffs with one cast but perhaps a druid or summoner could only strip 1 at a time. Perhaps you also allow one or two crafting classes the ability to sell consumables such as a detect magic potion or detect magic scroll.
vjek said:disposalist said: ... You shouldn't be able to see an icon for the buffs a monster has.While that's certainly an approach designers can take, it's ultimately very frustrating to players. Especially if there is any chance players would be able to debuff, remove, cancel, strip, or otherwise react, exploit, adjust, plan, or perceive such a buff, status, or effect.
I hate this sentiment. "In EQ" you can watch a cleric mob spawn and sit there and see it buffing itself. What happened to learing the enemies and learning the game? People want to be told exactly what buffs a mob has so they can choose excactly when or if they want to counter them? That's awful. People talk about being able to "perceive" and yet want it spelled out for them? Ugh. As if players would have NO chance to counter a buff if they weren't explicitly notified with a huge flashing icon. That's nonsense. Is there a shaman mob around? A cleric? Then there's a good chance the mobs around have buffs. Can't tell the difference between a hasted mob and non hasted mob? Too bad, other people can and they should be rewarded for their ability to PERCEIVE. Is it worth the 60 mana to dispel buffs c & d from a mob and not worth 60 mana to dispel buffs a & c? Play the game, learn and figure it out. We're going to spend hundreds of hours with these mobs and encounters, we don't need everything just spelled out from the very beginning. That flies in the face of what a game like this is all about.
MyNegation said:In the stream we see that during combat there are some active effects on the enemy mobs, you get a certain "square" icon under the enemy HP bar.
but it is not evident from both of the streams whether this effect is buff or debuff.
is it possible to make changes so it is possible to distinguish between buffs and debuffs by their location?
if the effect is under the HP bar, then it is a debuff put by players, if the effect is above the HP bar, then it is a buff for the mob.
simple and elegant.
what do you think?
I'd argue that there shouldn't be icons like this of any kind. What happened to communcation? If you're trying to slow a mob and it gets resisted, you say so. RESIST...SLOWED(finally!). Or if you're debuffing magic resist so someone else CAN slow "Okay it's tashed". If there are 2 necros in the group, they can figure out which one will be doing which. NecroA, you snare, NecroB you drain strength. Oh hey, NecroB, I'm low on mana, can you please take over snare duties while I take a break?
Why do you need a counter to tell you when your debuff expires? Why reward the lazy, inattentive and ignorant when you can reward the players who actually learn the classes and encounters? Slow wore off and your tank died? You should have known better. But no, people want a text message remininding them when it's time to cast another spell.
I think, whatever they change, that the icons take up waaaaay too much space on the screen.
Krixus said:MyNegation said:In the stream we see that during combat there are some active effects on the enemy mobs, you get a certain "square" icon under the enemy HP bar.
but it is not evident from both of the streams whether this effect is buff or debuff.
is it possible to make changes so it is possible to distinguish between buffs and debuffs by their location?
if the effect is under the HP bar, then it is a debuff put by players, if the effect is above the HP bar, then it is a buff for the mob.
simple and elegant.
what do you think?
I'd argue that there shouldn't be icons like this of any kind. What happened to communcation? If you're trying to slow a mob and it gets resisted, you say so. RESIST...SLOWED(finally!). Or if you're debuffing magic resist so someone else CAN slow "Okay it's tashed". If there are 2 necros in the group, they can figure out which one will be doing which. NecroA, you snare, NecroB you drain strength. Oh hey, NecroB, I'm low on mana, can you please take over snare duties while I take a break?
Why do you need a counter to tell you when your debuff expires? Why reward the lazy, inattentive and ignorant when you can reward the players who actually learn the classes and encounters? Slow wore off and your tank died? You should have known better. But no, people want a text message remininding them when it's time to cast another spell.
I think, whatever they change, that the icons take up waaaaay too much space on the screen.
I think this is definitely one of those QoL issues where there is a middle ground.
Some things (knowing what your own magic is doing) would absolutely make sense in game terms and RP terms (you should intrinsically be sensitive to even very subtle indications of your own magics effects) but some things are negative in both ways.
I think not easily knowing when your own buffs are expiring and debuffs are resisted/expiring can be irritating and aren't really an opportunity to be a 'pro player' as much as be forced to watch the scrolling text instead of enjoy the combat.
However, knowing stuff you shouldn't necessarily know, like what other party members' buffs and debuffs are doing, especially since it pretty much requires multiple floating glowing icons, is not good.
As Krixus says, they can tell you the important stuff, even using macros. You can simply trust them to do their jobs.
And knowing what the monster is doing to itself? Nah. You should have to really have to pay attention to have any idea of that. Sure, have visual, audio and text prompts, but make them subtle.
I like ^
In eq there ws a spell called "Identify" that,in the beginning of eq, could be used to Identify or reveal lore on certain items. (there was a quest with a ring with that too something staff of the wheel? maybe?)
Like if cast on the necklaces of the 4 bandit sisters Nybright, you could determine whose necklace you had or still needed.
A spell similar to that for someone to cast or have a ring with the effect of knowing what buffs are on some mob would be nice.
Perhaps a combination ... for QOL, you could see your own buffs but if you want to see someone else's as well as the mobs own buffs, you need an enchanter or an item/potion to identify them.
I mean why would a warrior know what damage shield a mob had other than that they're thorns and that they hurt? The warrior would tell the chanter to dispell the damage shield if the chanter wasn't paying attention. But the chanter would only know exactly what buffs there were by seeing by identifying the buffs. (like some spells effects you would see in chat, like damage shield, but a speed buff (movement or damage) would not be seen till it was too late)
I personally just want to see where the damage is being done/taken. I don't need to see a buff icon, but i do need to see that i am taking damage from a DS. Mysterious/unknown damage just makes me scream WHAT AM I MISSING?! It could be a nuke or any other plethora of spells, and unless we are accounting for it then it shouldnt exist. This goes for traps or any other AOE spells as well, I want to see the spell effect and the damage numbers. Or at least a spell effect saying i am burned or frost burns me or thorns stab at my eyes.
Keep it simple. You are burned by Frost for 50 dmg!
This tells you many things: Mob has a DS, DS is Cold based, It's a powerful DS so you need to stop attacking
I'd very much prefer not to see icons in the game-world area (specifically, underneath nameplates).
I think it makes sense for casters to have an "Identify" skill which is checked to see if they can detect buffs on their offensive target. I don't think there's anything wrong with having small icons below the offensive target plate (currently, directly above the hotbars) to indicate the buffs/debuffs the caster is aware of. I also think it makes sense for the caster to see their own debuffs.
Full disclosure: part of what I like about this is that it values situational awareness over twitch reflexes. I'm 47 years old, so my twitch reflexes will **never** be able to compete with someone like Ninja on Fortnite (though that's not the only reason I don't care for games like Fortnite). But I am fairly effective at situational awareness, and avoiding tunnel vision where I'm only looking to hit "1" as soon as it's no longer on cooldown. In short, I recognize and acknowledge that part of my support for these mechanics is selfish. But I think putting a heavier load on a player's situational awareness in order to increase the "challenge" level is also just generally more fulfilling. I think it's pretty clear that human nature loves earned success. And I think players will respond well to systems that require them to stretch themselves to excel.
kreed99 said:I personally just want to see where the damage is being done/taken. I don't need to see a buff icon, but i do need to see that i am taking damage from a DS. Mysterious/unknown damage just makes me scream WHAT AM I MISSING?! It could be a nuke or any other plethora of spells, and unless we are accounting for it then it shouldnt exist. This goes for traps or any other AOE spells as well, I want to see the spell effect and the damage numbers. Or at least a spell effect saying i am burned or frost burns me or thorns stab at my eyes.
Keep it simple. You are burned by Frost for 50 dmg!
This tells you many things: Mob has a DS, DS is Cold based, It's a powerful DS so you need to stop attacking
Kinda gotta agree with this here. It never made sense to me that the chat box in EQ would specifically tell you how much damage you took by a fireball, but not display the damage you receive via damage shield.
Pardon the quick response. I never have time these days. When I hear requests for additional quality of life features I seem to always think 'oh, this could be an ability a class has and can use to help their group.'
cant see targets far away? Ranger could see farther and see health pool numbers
Too slow? Teleports from mages and SoW from shaman
And even this topic an enchanter could be the eyes for groups.
Kind of a fun excercise
-Todd