Between the info on the website and what we saw on the gameplay stream we've been told a bit about the Climate and Colored Mana systems. They showed a basic example during the stream of how Relics would work to capture the colored mana to influence your character's abilities. In case you missed it, a very simple overview: Relics are an equipable item that a player can wear to take advantage of a particular mana climate. For example, charge a red Relic in a climate that has the same mana color and you will draw upon that red mana and it can influence some of your spells. Pretty cool.
What I haven't seen discussed is the possibility of a Relic being attached to something other than a character. For example, inlayed into a weapon or armor.
How about having rare weapons that are inlayed with a particular color of relic and as they charge, in the appropriate mana climate, they would proc a particular effect. That Sword of North Tusk that is inlayed with a red Relic, once charged, would become a flaming sword and add fire damage, or proc a burn effect or however they decide to do it, point being if you have the weapon with an inlayed relic in the right mana climate the weapon itself is effected. Might be possible that the weapon (or armor) even fills with mana that could have a detrimental effect but it's able to do more damage. So that sword with the red Relic does more damage but also burns you for a little bit as well. Perhaps you could have a jewelcrafter remove the inlay and replace it with something you like better. I don't know, there are tons of combinations. The many possibilities with the climate and relic system is pretty exciting I think. Can't wait to see what they come up with. :)
If I missed where this was discussed previously please let me know I'd love to read it. Any ideas you have of your own related to this, please post them. :)
The options are really endless for what they can do with climates and relics. I don't think they have divulged that level of detail yet. There was an article on mmorpg.com that spoke a little bit about mana climates just a few days ago.
The biggest question I have about mana climates is where colored mana from relics and climates ends and colored mana from equipment and class specialization begins. In the roundtable (part 2), one example was how a cleric could choose a particular path (specialization) and go from using white mana to using grey mana permitted they have the necessary gear and abilities to do so. I was under the distinct impression that specializing and having certain items would enable you to generate a different color mana, without needing to be within a mana climate.
We definitely need some more info. I didn't really see anything new in that article. Thanks for linking it though its a great overview.
I remember that part of the roundtable, not all the specifics but that sounds right to me. I wonder if any of that has changed. Like the ability to generate a new mana color through specialization or items as an alternative to obtaining it from the environment. Hmmm
Lizelle said:I really hope there won't be a bunch of armor/items to swap around as you explore and adventure... that would get tedious and monopolize bag space.
Gear swapping is likely an even bigger part of Pantheon than it was in EQ and Vanguard.
From the Pantheon difference:
In Pantheon, there often won't simply be a weapon or piece of gear that is the absolute best item for your character’s class and level. Instead, many items will be more situational, and the player will need to ask himself, 'where am I?', 'what am I going to fight next?', and 'who in my group is what class, and what items do they have that may help defeat the next encounter?' Items that protect against climates/atmospheres (areas of extreme heat or cold, or disease, or absolute darkness) will often be important. So also will 'bane' items that are especially effective against certain types of mobs (for example, the Undead, or Dragonkind).
Our desire to bring back the value and personality of items drives our item design. This means that the frequency of upgrades will be slower and when you do get a new piece of gear not only will the experience be memorable but so will the item. We want you to collect your items and be able to remember their names. When you get that epic item or rare drop after an incredible dungeon crawl, we want you to be in awe of what you have accomplished and the reward that came from it. Items will be memorable, deserved, cherished, and desired.
There will also be many ‘situational’ items.
I think we will have to approach Pantheon with different expectations than other MMOs. There will be real environmental and survival elements involved in PvE. In most games having to rest or worry about having enough light or food would seem like nothing more than an inconvenience, yet in recent years a whole new genre has evolved out of that sort of gameplay (survival).
I think some of that will be involved in Pantheon as well, and as such we will gain a respect for environment and the preparation and strategy involved in overcoming it.
sounds great about being required to have the proper equipment and supplies when going into an arctic, desert, or even swamp area (ointment to ward off disease bearing swarms of insects!). will help make it feel like we're going on an adventure, not just going out 'killiing'.
side note on bane weapons. i really hope its no just Orc Bane sword does 15-30 dmg, +5 vs orcs, in which case a regular Sword that does 20-40 dmg would still be better. i want that Bane to really be noticable, to the point where the first weapon would do far more damage to orcs than the second. like double its regular damage, or greater crit chance, etc. same with resists, attuning to the mana climate, etc. make it all really matter and significantly effect our chances of success.
Great post Malsirian! I was wonding how the environment will impact game play. The relic portion is an intersting idea for sure. The concept opens a ton of doors for class and character develpoment.
Amsai stated:
That mmorpg.com article seems to be exploding with people misunderstanding and jumping to conclusions. But cant wait myself for even more clarification on this.
Agreed. I have also been seeing a ton of articles but the facts seem to get scewed from one to another.
As we get closer to Alpha I thin more news will come out that is correct based on the VRD and then we can really spin up the conversations on this.
Ox
Yup, we'll have to wait and see. Personally, I dislike survival games so I hope Pantheon doesn't end up being like one. Survival just ends up feeling like "Chores the game" to me and not fun at all. My primary complaint is that it keeps you looking at your UI and inventory and not interacting with your group. It's an MMO, there should be personal expertise as a player of your class and specific skill there but the focus should be on group strategy to deal with encounters. Game mechanics should reinforce this not detract from it, in my opinion.
Amsai said: That mmorpg.com article seems to be exploding with people misunderstanding and jumping to conclusions. But cant wait myself for even more clarification on this.
This was my impression too. I opened the comments with the intention of asking a question for the devs to answer on the next article but quickly moved on when I saw the amount of people bashing the system.
Generally speaking I like to reserve judgement on things like this so early in development, regardless of which side of the discussion I land. But I personally really like the system at its core and agree with the OP that there are endless iterations that can be explored. In fact, I've been excited for the system since VR first revealed it during the roundtable discussion. I’m really looking forward to testing it in alpha/beta but also getting some more definitive information on the system in the coming months. It appears that it’s going to play a major role in how players interact with the world so it will be very interesting to see how the system evolves over the next several months.
Lizelle said:Yup, we'll have to wait and see. Personally, I dislike survival games so I hope Pantheon doesn't end up being like one. Survival just ends up feeling like "Chores the game" to me and not fun at all. My primary complaint is that it keeps you looking at your UI and inventory and not interacting with your group. It's an MMO, there should be personal expertise as a player of your class and specific skill there but the focus should be on group strategy to deal with encounters. Game mechanics should reinforce this not detract from it, in my opinion.
Agreed! I thinkg the VR team is doing just that. I think they know that the environment and how we interact in it is very import to us. The concept Malsirian points out really opens the doors a bit. you can't just jump on a mob in the rain and start popping of lightning bolts and expect everything to go well. The relics can count or add to the abilities.
Ox
Oxillion said:Agreed! I thinkg the VR team is doing just that. I think they know that the environment and how we interact in it is very import to us. ....... The relics can count or add to the abilities.
Ox
I picture the relics kinda like the chained or responsive attacks in Vanguard - they added a little bit of damage if you paid attention and used them but you were still fine without it. EQ2 was the same way with their system - that wheel/icon symbol thing - it added damage and you were able to kill something faster but if you completely ignored it you still performed ok.
But as you get higher level (according to what was discussed on the roundtable podcast) you'll be able to take better advantage of different colors of mana and even blend them with your own starting mana color to form a totally new color of mana and open up new spells that use that color.
At the least the colored mana and atmosphere systems open up kinds of interesting new interactions between the player and the mobs and the environment and possibly our equipment. There are ton's of possibililties.
internalprime8 said:I just don't want the relic system to become a tedious grind but until we know more about it, I will reserve judgement and hope for the best.
Nothing they have shown leads me to believe that will happen. Take a look at Brad's post on grinding to get an idea of the direction Pantheon should go. :)
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2666/grinding-in-mmorpgs/view/post_id/38397
Malsirian stated:
I picture the relics kinda like the chained or responsive attacks in Vanguard - they added a little bit of damage if you paid attention and used them but you were still fine without it. EQ2 was the same way with their system - that wheel/icon symbol thing - it added damage and you were able to kill something faster but if you completely ignored it you still performed ok.
But as you get higher level (according to what was discussed on the roundtable podcast) you'll be able to take better advantage of different colors of mana and even blend them with your own starting mana color to form a totally new color of mana and open up new spells that use that color.
At the least the colored mana and atmosphere systems open up kinds of interesting new interactions between the player and the mobs and the environment and possibly our equipment. There are ton's of possibililties.
I remember them being a very little boost. I guess in my book it was more power and I never turn away from that. I can see them actually being incredibly powerful. Heck, quest chains to get them or craft them too. Lots of different options here.
Ox
Thanks for the update Joppa.
I wondered if you could address my question as to where colored mana from climates ends and colored mana from specializations and non-relic equipment begins. It seemed like these were two different things in the roundtable.
Oxillion said:I remember them being a very little boost. I guess in my book it was more power and I never turn away from that. I can see them actually being incredibly powerful. Heck, quest chains to get them or craft them too. Lots of different options here.
Ox
Yeah you could definitely be right about that. It does sound like the relics will be pretty rare and limited so it would make sense their benefit would be greater.
I wonder if you can tell what color mana climate you are in without the correct color relic with you to absorb the mana. If not I can imagine some mana climates that correspond to rare mana colors and relics going undiscovered for a long time. That would be an interesting discovery when someone accidentally figured one out.
Edit: Forgot to mention. The idea of encounter control abilities sounds very cool! Adds another dimension to encounters on top of crowd control. I wonder what classes will get those abilities. :)
a quote from the mmorpg interview with Chris:
Chris: In general, Relics will be somewhat rare. Basic Relics will be generally obtainable through adventuring and questing, but the more powerful Relics will be obtainable only through very challenging group and raid content, highly skilled and specialized crafters, and via certain epic-type quests.
Here is my question about Relics: what are they going to do to combat this:
"Group LF Cleric. If you don't have your Raid level, White mana Relic, do not ask to join group"
or "Group LF Cleric with raid level white mana relic"
a little concerned about this type of thing happening.
Like a lot of others I am still not sure what to think about this. My first thoughts are I dont think I will like having to constantly check the weather of the portion of the zone I am in to figure out what spells to use while I am trying to CC/buff. I do think its interesting so I guess its a wait and see until I can actually play the game. I also am not into the whole spell chain system where you have to cast certain spells in sync with other group members to land some kind of effect. Still hoping for simple not overly complex gameplay in a new world where the focus is on survival without having to constantly click items and swap out gear etc.
Medjai said:a quote from the mmorpg interview with Chris:
Chris: In general, Relics will be somewhat rare. Basic Relics will be generally obtainable through adventuring and questing, but the more powerful Relics will be obtainable only through very challenging group and raid content, highly skilled and specialized crafters, and via certain epic-type quests.
Here is my question about Relics: what are they going to do to combat this:
"Group LF Cleric. If you don't have your Raid level, White mana Relic, do not ask to join group"
or "Group LF Cleric with raid level white mana relic"
a little concerned about this type of thing happening.
To be fair people *could* say the same thing about an epic weapon or certain types of armor. You always see group requests for a particular class or level.
If there is a particular raid that *really* needs a cleric to with his white mana relic to make it manageable then you'd probably see a request like that. Sounds pretty extreme and unlikely to me but I suppose it's possible. But you are going to see LFM Healer lvl 20-25 for orc camp 1, or whatever the case may be, all the time. Not everyone will be able to be included in everything everytime.
Relics should be rare and should be helpful and could get you into a group over someone else. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't see the problem. :)
Xaleban said:Like a lot of others I am still not sure what to think about this. My first thoughts are I dont think I will like having to constantly check the weather of the portion of the zone I am in to figure out what spells to use while I am trying to CC/buff. I do think its interesting so I guess its a wait and see until I can actually play the game. I also am not into the whole spell chain system where you have to cast certain spells in sync with other group members to land some kind of effect. Still hoping for simple not overly complex gameplay in a new world where the focus is on survival without having to constantly click items and swap out gear etc.
I understand where you're coming from about the overly complex combat. I agree.... To an extent. I am hoping for combat that is complex and challenging but not fiddley. Combat that has depth and lets a more skilled player who really gets into their class and learns it will be a better player than someone who is not as dedicated.
That's something that Brads past games have always done very well. You can be a decent player of most classes but those who really understand their class, and the other classes they're playing with, will be better. I'm not concerned, at this point, that pantheon will be overly complex such that it's annoying.
To be fair people *could* say the same thing about an epic weapon or certain types of armor. You always see group requests for a particular class or level.
If there is a particular raid that *really* needs a cleric to with his white mana relic to make it manageable then you'd probably see a request like that. Sounds pretty extreme and unlikely to me but I suppose it's possible. But you are going to see LFM Healer lvl 20-25 for orc camp 1, or whatever the case may be, all the time. Not everyone will be able to be included in everything everytime.
Relics should be rare and should be helpful and could get you into a group over someone else. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't see the problem. :)
I get that people 'could' ask for anything they want. What I DON'T want to see is the epeen elitism crap that you see in WoW.
"if you can't do 6 million DPS, go away"