Hmm Sith Cat vs Tim Curry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaTA3YLVNeI the battle begins....
(just joking ofcourse)
I say we start with 20-25 minutes worth of downtime between each single pull. That way I can work and play at the same time. It would also slow leveling down to a grinding halt and everyone would get to know everyone since everyone would be hunting in the same areas for years! :)
Angrykiz said:Name a game that has low downtime and a good economy ?
If downtime is too short there is no push and pull between how you should be spending your resources you just empty out and regen it back.
If you have to weigh out that you may not want to dump all your mana into this tank mob because next pull is 3 casters and I'm gonna need to blast them.
If downtime is too short then the value of time played is less... If it represents a 10minute med comittment to kill something then that will have more value than something you can chain kill.
If downtime is too short then why wouldnt I just spam my most expensive spells and med it back... Like AoE spells.
If downtime is too short then there is less room for really efficient groups to shine.
All just opinion of course,
Kiz~
Garmr - My tone may come off as anger but it's really just passion for our great hobby. I'm never actually mad ;)
Your original post was spot on. 10 minutes is probably twice as long as it should take, but otherwise, you have no need to defend your opinions because you're absolutely right.
Late to the party, but, this is an important one for me which is why I brought it up in Brad's latest Blog annoucement.
I'm 100% for significant downtime. Downtime is necessary for strategy within combat and to promote grouping. It makes Resource Management necessary. Without it, you get the spammy, button mashing combat. To your point Liav on the first page regarding VG being a social game despite vast regeneration, I don't disagree, but I think VG combat was worse due to having fast regeneration. VG still had many aspects that required groups, but, I'd still argue the combat could have been improved. I would have much preferred the EQesque system where I would have to weigh using my skills/abilities/spells each fight versus mashing every button, counterspell, counter, etc. as it popped.
Also, what many are overlooking in this thread (I might have missed a few posts) is I had 10 minutes of downtime in EQ while soloing as a warrior and using /bind wound to 50% (soloing as a warrior in EQ is a joke in and of itself), but I never had close to that downtime while grouping in Vanilla EQ. I prided myself on constant pulls and keeping the exp flowing. If you had a good group in EQ, downtime was very minimal. If solo, yes, it was brutal, but that's the point - it promoted grouping. The problem with no or minimal downtime is players will take the path of least resistance and solo. 10 minutes seems excessive (and I laughed at that Taco Bell example), but it only seems that way if you're trying to solo your way through an MMORPG.
If you gave me EQ's dangerous immersive world + resource management + downtime meshed with VG's unique class design and skillsets, I'd be in MMO heaven.
You are all lookin at this completely wrong. 0% to 100% isn't a meaningful statistic because you don't need to be at 100% to be effective. What we need to be more concerned about is this:
If it is a straight line (meaning you get X mana per tick no matter where you are from 0% to 100%) then this game is dead before delivery.
If, however it is parabolic (mana regen start off low, then goes higher, then tapers off again) you can really work with that, provided you think about it a bit.
If you know all that, you can figure out the most efficient killing pace that will keep you within that peak mana regen spread. That pace determines how many NPCs you can kill in a given period of time. It determines how quickly you will level. That is what you should be concerned about, not some meaningless 0-100% time because if you're finding yourself at 0% too often you're doing it all wrong.
Vandraad said:If you know all that, you can figure out the most efficient killing pace that will keep you within that peak mana regen spread. That pace determines how many NPCs you can kill in a given period of time. It determines how quickly you will level. That is what you should be concerned about, not some meaningless 0-100% time because if you're finding yourself at 0% too often you're doing it all wrong.
You more eloquently described my grouping point, but that's what I was meaning in describing the benefits of grouping vs. solo play. In EQ, downtime was mainly only an issue while solo An effective group could find that sweet spot that you described. If they didn't, as you stated, the group was doing something wrong, or was a terrible make-up.
However, I disagree when you say everyone is looking at it all wrong though - I still don't think you can overlook assigning a number to downtime, not so much for grouping purposes, but to discourage soloing so people will want to group to be more efficient with their time. As with EQ, if soloing isn't designed, and features don't promote it, people will still find ways to solo, just maybe not all classes as effectively.
I don't know about the EQ progression server, but on a regular server it still takes about three minutes to med/heal from 0 to 100% (I think its 3% health/mana every 6 seconds when out of combat). IMO that's plenty long...have you actually tried playing this way? The 10 minutes time floating around here is WAY excessive IMO. I don't want/need long breaks every quarter hour or so! That'll lead to people losing focus, and intentionally being "afk" (= watching TV next to the computer) as was mentioned above already.
I think Vandraad is wrong with the assumption that a game with flat regen will fail (many successful games have it), but I still like the idea of a logarithmic curve for regen: rising quickly at lower levels, and slowing down when nearing full. That'd add strategic depth: You can pull constantly and remain in the low mana range, thus having the best regen, but you risk running OOM when you get adds or repops. Or you can med to full between pulls, but it will take a bit longer.
I've been playing a bit of FFXI lately on an emu server, and even with the downtime being half of what EQ was, there has still been more than a fair share of meaningful communication and interaction. Easily more in the last week than a month in any modern MMO I've tried in the last 5 years.
It really seems to boil down to creating a need for players to work together more than how many minutes exactly players should rest in between fights. Sure, there should be downtime, but as soon as you find you need other people to progress, interacting begins to take place naturally.
I also believe the overall pace of the game is even more important in this area than merely extending the downtime. When everything is faster especially in a more linear design, I believe it creates a sense of urgency to follow that golden path resulting in less socialization or even desire to play with others because its more of an inconvenience than a worthwhile use of your time.
I think these are the real issues, not whether downtime should be greater than X minutes.
If you start out at a higher med time then you have the ability to make the buffs that affect med time to be more powerful.
This creates group synergy and also drives the sales of player made mana potions.
On phinny right now I buy stack after stack of potions that only increase my mana regen by 3 points per tick... If I could regain mana faster I wouldn't bother buying these.
On the other hand It would be nice if you could have faster regen in town at the Inn or possibly near a campfire that a ranger placed.
Say you are a Cleric and you see a Warrior at 30% health and binding wounds, you toss him a heal and he is grateful so he sends you a nice tell and then you link up and go on an adventure.
This would have never happened if the Warrior could just regen his HPs back in 2 minutes.
It creates a resource management meta game above and beyond I have X amount of mana what can I kill... It makes you look ahead a few steps like any good game does.
Thanks for reading,
Kiz~
Liav said:I understand that a longer downtime promotes grouping...
Thats another thing, it may promote grouping, but there are better ways of doing it (tougher mobs, less soloable content, and/or more efficient xp/gold gain). As for the socializing, Im all for requiring players to regroup and catch their breath after a few chain pulls (or a large pull) but 10 minutes, even 5, can feel like a really long time when all youre doing is staring at the next pull, listening to the usual guild socialites talk about their day or what ever. Id rather socialize while playing TBH. There are better venues available for just chatting. If its a strategy thats needed (and I hope they are necessary) players will take the time to explain it with or without downtime, plus, 10 minutes is still way more than has ever been required. What if youre in a PUG? People you dont know, no VoIP, take a minute or two (tops) to mark CC, kill order, or what have you... what will they do? Play a trivia game? Take turns telling the 'class' a little about themselves? That kind of artificial delay will just be seen as some lazy and uncreative ways to slow content consumption IMO. Turning off more players than itll attract.
Angrykiz said:Say you are a Cleric and you see a Warrior at 30% health and binding wounds, you toss him a heal and he is grateful so he sends you a nice tell and then you link up and go on an adventure.
This would have never happened if the Warrior could just regen his HPs back in 2 minutes.
It creates a resource management meta game above and beyond I have X amount of mana what can I kill... It makes you look ahead a few steps like any good game does.
Thanks for reading,
Kiz~
/agree
People will always try to solo. But, hopefully, the game will reward the grouping dynamic. Most recent MMOs have promoted solo play, and I have a feeling that early on in Pantheon, there will be a HUGE resistance to grouping by people that aren’t familiar with the concept. I just hope they get this right and make the rewards for grouping obvious and apparent early on.
Kayo said:Liav said:I understand that a longer downtime promotes grouping...
Thats another thing, it may promote grouping, but there are better ways of doing it (tougher mobs, less soloable content, and/or more efficient xp/gold gain). As for the socializing, Im all for requiring players to regroup and catch their breath after a few chain pulls (or a large pull) but 10 minutes, even 5, can feel like a really long time when all youre doing is staring at the next pull, listening to the usual guild socialites talk about their day or what ever. Id rather socialize while playing TBH. There are better venues available for just chatting. If its a strategy thats needed (and I hope they are necessary) players will take the time to explain it with or without downtime, plus, 10 minutes is still way more than has ever been required. What if youre in a PUG? People you dont know, no VoIP, take a minute or two (tops) to mark CC, kill order, or what have you... what will they do? Play a trivia game? Take turns telling the 'class' a little about themselves? That kind of artificial delay will just be seen as some lazy and uncreative ways to slow content consumption IMO. Turning off more players than itll attract.
Please understand that the 10 mins was just an arbritary number that was mentioned...the actual time will vary depending on test run in alpha beta...but also remember that the unbuffed (clarity style spells) regen time must be quite formidable so that the buffs actually serve a purpose
Food for thought - for as much as some folks spout the idea that there was too much downtime in EQ - I recall WAY more than a few times playing the game deep down in a dungeon feeling like there wasn't enough down time because the end of the down time meant danger...
What do I mean by that?
Well, today if you need to get up for something in the middle of a dungeon - you largely can. Respawn times, etc... (if respawns even happen) are such that if you need to stop - you can. Getting your group to stop might be an issue, but game mechanic wise - you CAN. In EQ, the "game with too much down time" - you COULDN'T.
I find it sort of odd that EQ gets a rap for too much downtime any time some of us older players seek to go back to the model to some extent... when a legitimate argument can be made that it had LESS downtime than any MMO out today.
The difference was that EQ had moments of FORCED downtime... AND "hard stops" on down time. Today's MMO's have none of that.
So the argument could best be centered around that FORCED downtime and the concept of the hard stop (when the mobs respawn, you are there, or you are dead).
I would also point out that the combination of forced downtime with hard stops sometimes had its own excitement:
1) Forced stop because your healer needs mana and your group has a lot of low health people
2) All of that needs to be taken care of in your forced down time
3) The game doesn't care about you not being ready... your down time has a hard stop when the game decides your down time is over
4) Be ready to go when the game makes that decision, or hope there is a "kiss your arse goodbye" emote in the game
You ever notice in EQ, it seemed as if the game knew when you walked away from your pc..lol I would have a camp clear as well as roamers and as soon as i thought i had time for a bio break, something would spawn and just happen to walk by.... yup you guessed it.. 100p for 90 % rez.
Wandidar said:
Well, today if you need to get up for something in the middle of a dungeon - you largely can. Respawn times, etc... (if respawns even happen) are such that if you need to stop - you can. Getting your group to stop might be an issue, but game mechanic wise - you CAN. In EQ, the "game with too much down time" - you COULDN'T.
I find it sort of odd that EQ gets a rap for too much downtime any time some of us older players seek to go back to the model to some extent... when a legitimate argument can be made that it had LESS downtime than any MMO out today.
The difference was that EQ had moments of FORCED downtime... AND "hard stops" on down time. Today's MMO's have none of that.
So the argument could best be centered around that FORCED downtime and the concept of the hard stop (when the mobs respawn, you are there, or you are dead).
I would also point out that the combination of forced downtime with hard stops sometimes had its own excitement:
1) Forced stop because your healer needs mana and your group has a lot of low health people
2) All of that needs to be taken care of in your forced down time
3) The game doesn't care about you not being ready... your down time has a hard stop when the game decides your down time is over
4) Be ready to go when the game makes that decision, or hope there is a "kiss your arse goodbye" emote in the game
Hell yeah. I remember trying to explain to someone that when I was deep-down in a dungeon run that the rest of my group couldn't just take 10 minutes out whenever we wanted. Pulling trash to the zonewall in The Overthere is a much different situation than fighting ice spiders or being down in Guk or Sol.
Honestly, I'm ok with both situations. If you want a dungeon run - be prepared to spend "X" amount of time with the group. If you want a more casual beer-drinking, bio-filled evening, pull trash to the zonewall with your buddies.
Can't have a "social" game without social responsibility.
To hell with the economy (relative to making combat fun) - surely money drops can be tweaked more easily by varying amounts and spawn rate (and a thousand other economic controls) rather than altering combat mechanics to accomodate. Sure everything is connected, but I wouldn't want to alter something as fundamental as combat mechanics to adjust the economy.
Games that regen mana/health quickly use this mechanic to attempt to make every encounter a risk. They expect you to use a lot and to an extent the size and management of your power resource determines which encounters you can and cannot attempt. All or nothing - do or die.
A pretty good mechanic no? But, leaves 'chat' time (for whatever reason - tactics - social - quest-related - etc) as 'elective' and, yes, often ignored. Group with friends who will chat? *shrug* You can't always I suppose.
Go for slow power regen and you have chat time, BUT surely if you are not regularly needing to use say half a mana bar in one encounter that means you could have handled twice what you pulled before getting into any danger. Is that challenging? Wouldn't you exchange enforced down time for more challenging combat?
Also, sure it's nice to have time to chat, but is it still nice the when you've been grouped an hour, you've been through tactics and small-talk and you can handle your camp blindfolded (especially when there wasn't much danger in the first place). Is it nice that you can't speed things up even if you wanted to? Do a double-pull - that's more exciting! But then you have to double-wait for mana...
To be clear I'm posing these questions when I am not sure of the 'right' answer, though I think you can tell I lean toward having faster regen and more danger - certainly not 10 minutes for a full regen cycle.
I think if you find you regularly start to discuss tactics and someone starts pulling then it's a bad group, not a bad mana regen rate.
This is no doubt something our experienced devs will have put much cleverer metrics against than I could so I'll stop rambling and guessing. Suffice it to say I wouldn't want to spend minutes medding after every few pulls and if I want to chat and the players keep pulling I'll just find a more chatty group. I'd rather be economical with limited downtime than have boring combat.
Some related thoughts: -
Potions! I cannot remember if I used them in EQ I really can't. Perhaps regen rate could be slower if potions were nicely balanced? Potions throw in some more flexibility (and complexity)
Food/Drink! Similar to potions but increasing regen rate rather than a chunk 'heal' of mana. More balancing headaches!
Medding! How about needing regen time but not needing to be bored sitting on your arse? Stop casting sure, but get out your wand (ooer) until your mana is back!
Wow this issue is actually way more than just "I'd like time to chat" isn't it?
disposalist said:
Games that regen mana/health quickly use this mechanic to attempt to make every encounter a risk. They expect you to use a lot and to an extent the size and management of your power resource determines which encounters you can and cannot attempt. All or nothing - do or die.
A pretty good mechanic no? But, leaves 'chat' time (for whatever reason - tactics - social - quest-related - etc) as 'elective' and, yes, often ignored. Group with friends who will chat? *shrug* You can't always I suppose.
Go for slow power regen and you have chat time, BUT surely if you are not regularly needing to use say half a mana bar in one encounter that means you could have handled twice what you pulled before getting into any danger. Is that challenging? Wouldn't you exchange enforced down time for more challenging combat?
I guess I don't appreciate this point. Generally speaking, the games where you rip through mana and regen it faster are the games in which each individual encounter is relatively easier, not more difficult. Individual encounters in ESO/ GW2, NWN are not more difficult than EQ. If I can use all my mana up fast it's because I'm blowing through content and all I have to do is sit down for 30 seconds and I'm back to full. I guess I'm not quite understanding how that translates to more challenge? The longer an encouter takes, the more opportunity there is for something to go wrong.
In a game like EQ, there were repercutions and consequences. If you misuse your resourcers, you will be at risk, or at least be subejct to increased downtime compared to someone who was better at the game.
Which of these games, compared to EQ, are "all or nothing, do or die?" In all of these games, very few encounters are ones in which you don't know the outcome before it starts. But at least in a game like EQ there was more risk because combat was slower. I've just never heard anyone say modern MMOs have more "risk" than EQ. That's the complete opposite of how I feel.
I didn't say I knew a game that did it better. I presented my thoughts that there is a balancing act that no game has yet mastered.
Difficult concepts I probably didn't express well *shrug*
You kinda lept to the defence of EQ when it wasn't under attack there hehe.
I'll quote myself: "I am not sure of the 'right' answer, though I think you can tell I lean toward having faster regen and more danger - certainly not 10 minutes for a full regen cycle"
By "lean toward faster" I didn't mean "like GW2 not like EQ" :)
disposalist said:I didn't say I knew a game that did it better. I presented my thoughts that there is a balancing act that no game has yet mastered.
Difficult concepts I probably didn't express well *shrug*
You kinda lept to the defence of EQ when it wasn't under attack there hehe.
I'll quote myself: "I am not sure of the 'right' answer, though I think you can tell I lean toward having faster regen and more danger - certainly not 10 minutes for a full regen cycle"
By "lean toward faster" I didn't mean "like GW2 not like EQ" :)
What does faster regen have to do with more danger? If you're OOM or low on HP in a game like EQ, you're more vulnerable for a longer period of time.
You said "Games that regen mana/health quickly use this mechanic to attempt to make every encounter a risk."
What is an example of one of those games that was riskier than EQ?
As I said I wasn't presenting a perfect solution.
By "faster regen" I'm implying "smaller mana pool" I guess - sorry that wasn't clear - I'll have a stab at making my thoughts clearer, but I'm not saying "I'm right".
Faster mana regen means you can/should have a smaller mana pool = less reserves = more danger.
Slower regen necessitates larger mana pool which gives a larger reserve which reduces pull-by-pull risk.
Again, I'm not a professional dev, just putting my thoughts up in a forum for discussion.
Again, I never mentioned EQ but I suppose, since EQ games have tended to reduce downtime, so if I suggest *not* making downtime really long I *must* be slagging off EQ?
I suppose the faster regen / smaller mana pool has had a fundamental problem in other games because the devs perhaps feel they "have to" artificially reduce the danger by making things just 'easier'. So perhaps the large mana pool / slow regen way *is* perfect because *you* get to control your reserve level and, hence, the risk.
Perhaps somewhere in the middle might be good - it must be a very important area for developers. As I say, though, 10 minutes to completely regen mana seems extreme.