Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

A different angle to the debate: How many spells on the hot bar?

    • 226 posts
    April 14, 2021 9:11 AM PDT

     

     Accidental duplicate post.

     


    This post was edited by Sweety at April 14, 2021 9:14 AM PDT
    • 226 posts
    April 14, 2021 9:13 AM PDT

    Hoiyay said:

    Joppa has stated we should be okay with dying. I agree with him about this. However, I will die on this hill that we should not simply just die randomly because we haven't died in awhile. We should ONLY die because we were not CAPABLE of defeating our enemies. And I mean Capable in regards to our gear being weak, our levels being low, or our skill just not being there. All of those are things I can change and they should be a reason to die. But simply dying because I was arbitrarily forced to have my hands tied behind my back for for this notion of LAS is a terrible feeling. Yea sure, I could change it and come back...but I still died that first time for no reason other than bad game design that I wouldn't have died to otherwise without LAS. 

    This pretty much sums up how I see things as well. 

    Hoiyay said:

    If you dont want everybody to be able to do everything....then dont let classes do everything. Simple. 

    If you want the game to be challenging....Make the game hard with open bars. Theres no noticeable different designing a difficult game with LAS or open bars. 

    IF you want people to make friendships and communicate....let them talk about themselves and to each other about family, and life, etc...not spending 15min at each new group to do a boring briefing of who has which abilities, what everybody's role is, etc etc. 

    This was the crux of my opening post. Classes are very different in Pantheon. We all support this notion. That solves the problem with leaving spells behind becuase as a Tank I should not have ANY heals. None. So in this way, I won’t even have the option to bring a heal into the next battle. That's what my healer is for. Likewise, the healer won't even have an option to Sap the enemy, that's what the rogue is for. That in itself is LAS. 


    This post was edited by Sweety at April 14, 2021 9:14 AM PDT
    • 888 posts
    April 14, 2021 9:55 AM PDT
    LAS does not mean 15 minutes of discussion to coordinate--it will mostly be players spending only a couple seconds to swap between saved configurations or spending a little longer to manually swap a slot or two.

    It also allows for more options, not fewer, because it allows the designers to be less limited by class balance. Obviously, you have fewer choices at any one time. But each class can be given more powerful and a wider variety of abilities because each ability is now also balanced by taking up a slot.

    The game is being designed for LAS so it's not as if it's an arbitrary restriction that's whole purpose is to generate lengthy forum threads. If you want to see what real ridiculous limitations do in gaming, go watch the hilarious Day9 StarCraft Team Monobattles.
    • 2756 posts
    April 14, 2021 10:32 AM PDT

    GoofyWarriorGuy said:

    ...

    One other thing that I'd like to mention is in regards to players always saying "If I learn how to use a Spell, why can't I always use that spell?" or some such similar comment. It isn't really that much different than back in D&D with Memory slots.

    ...

    I loved D&D and played a lot back in the day.  Spell memorisation is one of the first things a lot of DMs throw out and make their own rules for.  It was horrible that warriors, etc, got to swing, swing, swing doing 1d8 damage per round when the casters got to cast a few times per day...

    I believe in the more recent D&D rules, spell slots isn't a thing?

    Anyway, the point is, that the idea, even back then, wasn't fun.

    • 144 posts
    April 14, 2021 10:34 AM PDT

    Counterfleche said: LAS does not mean 15 minutes of discussion to coordinate--it will mostly be players spending only a couple seconds to swap between saved configurations or spending a little longer to manually swap a slot or two. It also allows for more options, not fewer, because it allows the designers to be less limited by class balance. Obviously, you have fewer choices at any one time. But each class can be given more powerful and a wider variety of abilities because each ability is now also balanced by taking up a slot. The game is being designed for LAS so it's not as if it's an arbitrary restriction that's whole purpose is to generate lengthy forum threads. If you want to see what real ridiculous limitations do in gaming, go watch the hilarious Day9 StarCraft Team Monobattles.


    Depends. I know people that will spend a lot of time making sure they have the "perfect" set up and others that will just Leroy it. So I can see havin to wait some decent time before we actually start pulling. To be fair, this could be done during travel time sure. But its still tedious and a time killer. Especially when you do that repeatedly over and over and over again for each new group and each boss pull. TIME SINK. 

    I strongly disagree it allows for more options. I mean, if you're counting the different ways you can take 30 abilities and divide them all up by 8...yea, sure but at the end of the day...its still a pool of the same 30 individual options. So you will have to explain that one a little bit more in depth. At the end of the day, class balance will RULE over everything else. And It really restricts players and limits their options. IE: Rogues death from above isn't even an option AT ALL for LAS as it will be used so rarely. At least with open bars that once a week moment I could use it...I can. 

    Ok, so the game is arbitrarily being designed for LAS....it is stil arbitrary when it wasn't a MUST that they design the game for that. Same exact meaning just different ways of saying it. So I still stand by what I said. 

    • 2756 posts
    April 14, 2021 11:09 AM PDT

    Counterfleche said: LAS does not mean 15 minutes of discussion to coordinate--it will mostly be players spending only a couple seconds to swap between saved configurations or spending a little longer to manually swap a slot or two. It also allows for more options, not fewer, because it allows the designers to be less limited by class balance. Obviously, you have fewer choices at any one time. But each class can be given more powerful and a wider variety of abilities because each ability is now also balanced by taking up a slot. The game is being designed for LAS so it's not as if it's an arbitrary restriction that's whole purpose is to generate lengthy forum threads. If you want to see what real ridiculous limitations do in gaming, go watch the hilarious Day9 StarCraft Team Monobattles.

    If LAS is meaningful and impactful it should require serious tactical consideration and the time to do that.

    If it isn't meaningful and impactful enough to require time to organise, why bother?

    Sure, it might not regularly require the whole group to spends minutes at it very often, but it must require some time in every change of situation.

    As I said before, if VR balance for non-optimal choices, the encounters will be too easy for optimal choices.  If they balance for optimal it will be too hard for non-optimal.  If LAS means players can be given more powerful skills than UAS then surely it also means encounters will be even harder to balance well.

    Also as I've said before, I'm willing to try it.  I know it's not arbitrarily chosen.  The question is not "can it work?", the question is "is it better?"  Is what you lose (dynamism and flexibility) worth what you gain (planning challenge).

    • 520 posts
    August 7, 2021 6:47 AM PDT

    I'm somewhere in a middle on this - I dont like near infinite number of skill bars, but limiting our skill choice to only couple of options is bad imho - the 3 (or more widely 2-4) bars (0-9) is a sweet spot for me.

    • 1273 posts
    August 10, 2021 2:20 PM PDT

    The interesting thing to me about all of this is that the game is going to be designed a specific way.  If we have 8 buttons, encounters will be designed with the understanding that we have 8 buttons.  If we have 100 buttons, encounters will be designed with that in mind.  I have no problem with either way, but I do lean toward the limitations. 

    If I were to go into battle I'd choose my weapons ahead of time, I wouldn't bring everything I own onto the battlefield and then choose which weapons to use when my opponent starts to attack.  I'd grab what I think would be best, then go out and do my best.  Now bring magic and abilities into the equation and you've got even more "weapons" to choose from.  As you prepare for a battle, which of those magicall abilities are you going to refresh yourself on ahead of time?  Which will be fresh in your mind?