As a healer, I appreciate being able to see when another healer in my group is casting a heal so I can cancel mine to prevent wasted mana and unneeded overhealing.
As for mobs, I don't think the group needs to see cast bars unless there is an instant wipe ability that will instantly kill the party. Interrupts are a natural part of DPS and tanking rotations in this day in age to the point that most will see a spell being cast and try to interrupt it. However, in cases of instant wipe mechanics sometimes these abilities need to drawn out for as long as possible to allow interrupts for other players to reset depending on group comp.
IMO:
If it goes into the combat log, an overlay UI can be created that mirrors this feature. Just like anything else that exists in the working set of the client process, withOUT a combat log.
Put another way, if someone was inclined, this could be added to any game that doesn't show casting name & time graphically, provided you measured the casting time at least once, and had to (worst case) place the values in a table, array, database, or similar structure, manually. A ~real time combat log of any kind makes this extremely trivial. I say this as someone who can write such an overlay without too much trouble, personally.
I get the desire to keep the players ignorant. I don't agree with it, but I understand the perspective. Personally I think there are better ways to introduce challenge to combat rather than keeping players ignorant of things like casting time and what's being cast. Ultimately, with or without a graphical view of this information, players will have the information, eventually.
If the target demographic has casual players within it, allowing those casual players to learn the features of combat quickly would seem to be a reasonable public design goal.
Consider; if you want to have many players to group up with, all the time, wouldn't it be better that the barrier to entry is lower, rather than higher? You still need to co-operate. The players still need to execute abilities and actions in synergy with their group mates. Having them know when and what to interrupt or respond to will make them a better combat partner, a better player of a role, faster. Their skill would then be in the timing, and group success would be possible sooner, rather than being frustrated by ignorance longer.
vjek said:
Consider; if you want to have many players to group up with, all the time, wouldn't it be better that the barrier to entry is lower, rather than higher? You still need to co-operate. The players still need to execute abilities and actions in synergy with their group mates. Having them know when and what to interrupt or respond to will make them a better combat partner, a better player of a role, faster. Their skill would then be in the timing, and group success would be possible sooner, rather than being frustrated by ignorance longer.
If your game has to hold the hands of players, new or vetern, the entire time...the development of that game has been a failure. Part of the game should be you, the player, learning the game. Those "barriers" you mention should be introduced early and as learning opportunities. So then, when the character gets to high level, the player has spent time learning the game and then the player(s) know how to deal with the more difficult content. But hey, if they wanna dumb it down and make it easy for everyone to be great right away and all the time go for it. It's clearly not a game designed to be challenging. Giving someone a puzzle with four peices and all four peices are labled with where they go, it won't be a very fun puzzle for very long.
I have to agree that the player info bars are useful AND that players as a whole will default to the easiest thing. I think this leads to a poorer game experience though
I no longer can count how many times I've been in PUG groups without a single word of communication running a chore-like dungeon...Even trying to start a convo doesn't often work in these mmos
Not having the player bars encourages communication needed for survival...so what if it's more challenging? The team must communicate effectively to play well or IMO, if Ijust want to hang out, I can go craft in the general chat discord and watch zone chat window
personally, I want PRotF to foster group comms for the group I'm in..Perhaps that's how to make social interactions build by default
I have played with in groups with a single leader hollering STUN and with groups that sound like 5 Leroy Jenkins yelling at the same time....with groups that have played so long together that the comms are down cold and they're just having fun cracking jokes..and with groups that hang out for an hour mostly just figuring out what to do next. Fun part, they all talk!
There remain many other ways to tune challenge levels (which the devs have said will not be done for some time) after all the mechanics are decided
For group members, I think it's fine if spells being cast are shown in the group members window. The cast bar doesn't have to be repeated on the players however (maybe as toggle, but I wouldn't use that). And the info in the group member window could really be condensed a bit. I like how it's done in FFXIV for example (class icon, next to that a narrow cast bar, and under that a line with hp bar and mana bar. Sure we have endurance in Pantheon too so that would have to be added...but as it is now, the player info and below that, the big cast bar takes way too much space IMO).
I definitely want cast bars for the NPCs. Sorry, but having to rely on chat window hints is pretty much the worst idea. And I don't expect (nor want) the devs to add visual cues for every single spell they ever produce. Cast bars are a good compromise. I could definitely get on board for having to learn a spell (by seeing it in action a few times) before its name is being shown though.
Sarim said:For group members, I think it's fine if spells being cast are shown in the group members window. The cast bar doesn't have to be repeated on the players however (maybe as toggle, but I wouldn't use that). And the info in the group member window could really be condensed a bit. I like how it's done in FFXIV for example (class icon, next to that a narrow cast bar, and under that a line with hp bar and mana bar. Sure we have endurance in Pantheon too so that would have to be added...but as it is now, the player info and below that, the big cast bar takes way too much space IMO).
I definitely want cast bars for the NPCs. Sorry, but having to rely on chat window hints is pretty much the worst idea. And I don't expect (nor want) the devs to add visual cues for every single spell they ever produce. Cast bars are a good compromise. I could definitely get on board for having to learn a spell (by seeing it in action a few times) before its name is being shown though.
I agree 100%.
