The reasoning that EQ2 had abilities that were useless and not pressed is totally wrong.It basically all came down to reading comprehension, once you got that bit you then placed your attacks/spells down on the hotbars in an order to how you play. Take assassin for an example. You had stealth attacks that you could chain together and at the end hit an ability called Fatal Follow Up which was a damage multiplier timesd by the stealth attacks you used in the previous 10 seconds. Considering you had 8 stealth attacks (maybe more, I haven't mained an assassin for 6 years ) So that there alone is 8 stealth one finisher and one you click first to make you go into stealth after every attack.
Now you have those attacks on varying timers. So you use pre buffs on the pull, there were 5 I think and then use assassins mark and your other attacks 7 I believe, after this your stealth attacks (depending on AA set up) should be up and you can do that again. You also have 4 ranged attacks you can fire on the move for jousting in raids and as your running back into melee. An offensive and defensive stance. Apply poison buff for another player or group /raid depending on AA.There are more too but hard to remember,then all the crappy ascension started with Rise of Kunark.
Anyway I just have to defend EQ2 combat as I played it for many years and it really annoys me when it is claimed that most abilities are useless and you end up using 8, it is just false information. Most classes use most of thier abilities.
splitpawthanos said:The reasoning that EQ2 had abilities that were useless and not pressed is totally wrong.It basically all came down to reading comprehension, once you got that bit you then placed your attacks/spells down on the hotbars in an order to how you play. Take assassin for an example. You had stealth attacks that you could chain together and at the end hit an ability called Fatal Follow Up which was a damage multiplier timesd by the stealth attacks you used in the previous 10 seconds. Considering you had 8 stealth attacks (maybe more, I haven't mained an assassin for 6 years ) So that there alone is 8 stealth one finisher and one you click first to make you go into stealth after every attack.
Now you have those attacks on varying timers. So you use pre buffs on the pull, there were 5 I think and then use assassins mark and your other attacks 7 I believe, after this your stealth attacks (depending on AA set up) should be up and you can do that again. You also have 4 ranged attacks you can fire on the move for jousting in raids and as your running back into melee. An offensive and defensive stance. Apply poison buff for another player or group /raid depending on AA.There are more too but hard to remember,then all the crappy ascension started with Rise of Kunark.
Anyway I just have to defend EQ2 combat as I played it for many years and it really annoys me when it is claimed that most abilities are useless and you end up using 8, it is just false information. Most classes use most of thier abilities.
Well im sure the guys at VR will do a great job with whatever they go with. It's nice to read other peoples pros and cons with the different hotbar setups.
12 skills on the hotbar dosen't seem that bad with another for buffs and pots now i'v had time to think about it as it gives more scope for future expansions too. I Just like to have plenty of options available to be adaptable in a situation with interrupts, short positional stuns, debuffs etc. I do love to play the support role but i think this time i will be going rogue. Bit of stealth, backstabbery, pickpocket (hopefully) and alchemy for throwing potions hinted at in the stream :D
LeonSanborn said:splitpawthanos said:The reasoning that EQ2 had abilities that were useless and not pressed is totally wrong.It basically all came down to reading comprehension, once you got that bit you then placed your attacks/spells down on the hotbars in an order to how you play. Take assassin for an example. You had stealth attacks that you could chain together and at the end hit an ability called Fatal Follow Up which was a damage multiplier timesd by the stealth attacks you used in the previous 10 seconds. Considering you had 8 stealth attacks (maybe more, I haven't mained an assassin for 6 years ) So that there alone is 8 stealth one finisher and one you click first to make you go into stealth after every attack.
Now you have those attacks on varying timers. So you use pre buffs on the pull, there were 5 I think and then use assassins mark and your other attacks 7 I believe, after this your stealth attacks (depending on AA set up) should be up and you can do that again. You also have 4 ranged attacks you can fire on the move for jousting in raids and as your running back into melee. An offensive and defensive stance. Apply poison buff for another player or group /raid depending on AA.There are more too but hard to remember,then all the crappy ascension started with Rise of Kunark.
Anyway I just have to defend EQ2 combat as I played it for many years and it really annoys me when it is claimed that most abilities are useless and you end up using 8, it is just false information. Most classes use most of thier abilities.
Buddy, I have also played EQ2 for quite a while also, and most of the time, you generally rotated between the 5-10 spells as you have just stated. Therefore making the remaining unused abilities are useless and really not needed as you only use it when your main rotation is down and you dont actually count on it for your main rotation or damage.
But you want to defend this as a die-hard fan, what is 1 way they could have optimized this and make it more "complex" than just letting a player fill his entire monitor with hotbars and hotkeys filled with every damn spell and item in the game? 1 thing they could have straight up done was just increase the damage on some abilities here and there and limit how many you could use. THAT would create a challenge on how you should optimize your space efficiently and still get the same results of you using this ability to combo into this ability. The core reason for the sheer amount of "abilities" is to make a "faster paced" game where there is little to no idle time what so ever so that players can spam their abilities and run through a dungeon without a care in the world.
You also talk about pre-buffs... Soooo for some reason you need buffs that should last HOURS (depending on the spell, your level etcetc) on your hotbar and memorized at all times? as I have stated before, its because they wanted a "faster paced" game so they dumbed it down and gave players everything they wanted. spells that pretty much cast instantly, every spell and ability on their hot bars so they don't actually have to think about which abilities to bring into the fight with them, and such a large mana pool you hardly ran out of mana even without an enchanter in the party.
I spent far more time thinking about what abilities I would use in EQ2 compared to any other MMO I have played and a large part of that was because you had access to your entire kit at any given time. I also have experience playing the majority of classes in that game so I know it isn't a matter of what class I was playing. I agree with Splitpawthanos' assertion because assassin is one of the classes I had experience with. While I will admit that there were "ability rotations" there was also a large variety of situational abilities that you would squeeze in. There were so many different things to prioritize. As a Guardian, I had at least 5-6 defensive abilities that could be used at clutch times. I had another 6-7 aggro abilities that each served a unique purpose. I had a variety of intercept abilities, damage abilities, debuffs, etc. EQ2 was a very challenging and mechanical game. That said, it was probably more fast paced and "reactionary" than a lot of players might feel comfortable with. Personally, I never felt overwhelmed, at least not in a way that didn't make the game fun or exciting. I enjoyed having access to abilities that worked as a perfect opener, counter, or follow-up in a given situation.
At the same time, I'm happy to try something different ... but all of the talk I have seen that suggests most abilities in EQ2 were useless or how the combat was dumbed down seems like fallacy to me. Ability rotations aren't necessarily a bad thing because you have to "break the rotation" if you need to use something outside of it. There is risk vs reward every time you make that decision and balancing the risk vs reward of hundreds of decisions over the course of a single fight is what separated top tier players from those who did nothing but spam the same 5-10 abilities. You had to pay attention from the beginning to the end of a fight ... and if you made a mistake, timed your buffs/debuffs incorrectly, got caught out of position, or missed a situational ability ... you were punished for it. The less abilities you have available to you, the less potential mistakes you can make with what you prioritize. That same logic is why I feel group content could never be made as difficult as raid content unless the developer goes out of their way to make it happen. The "ceiling" for difficulty is always higher when there are more things that can go wrong.
i am just the opposite. I literally Hate EQ2 because they have over 9000 abilities and 87 hot bars. I want to play a Game, not a UI.
There is no way to memorize 3-8 abilities PER SPELL and have 9000 spells... that's not fun. That's just Terrible in my opinion.
I think there needs to be One more bar for /commands (hot buttons) maybe, (without increasing the number of spells/abilities you can have mem'd at one time) if there isn't a better way to do that.
Naim I hear you but you may be aiming at the wrong target.
You can have a limited number of abilities but still allow 4 or 8 or 10 or even more hotbars if a player wants to clutter his or her screen with all of those.
Quite a few hotbar spaces can be taken up with chat macros, for example, if the game allows such. In a large guild quite a few people use macros where the game allows for things like hello or goodbye or congratulations, for example.
Other people like relatively uncrowded hotbard where abilities they use quite often are separated from other abilities by blank spaces to make them more obvious.
Some people put the same ability in multiple places so it is maximally likely to be close to the mouse cursor if it is urgently needed.
I can see very reasonable arguments for limiting - even drastically limiting - the number of combat abilities. I may agree I may not but I see the arguments. I am having trouble identifying a good argument for limiting hotbar room.
dorotea said:Naim I hear you but you may be aiming at the wrong target.
You can have a limited number of abilities but still allow 4 or 8 or 10 or even more hotbars if a player wants to clutter his or her screen with all of those.
Quite a few hotbar spaces can be taken up with chat macros, for example, if the game allows such. In a large guild quite a few people use macros where the game allows for things like hello or goodbye or congratulations, for example.
Other people like relatively uncrowded hotbard where abilities they use quite often are separated from other abilities by blank spaces to make them more obvious.
Some people put the same ability in multiple places so it is maximally likely to be close to the mouse cursor if it is urgently needed.
I can see very reasonable arguments for limiting - even drastically limiting - the number of combat abilities. I may agree I may not but I see the arguments. I am having trouble identifying a good argument for limiting hotbar room.
I just want to be able to hide all additional hotbars for macros/items/etc behind a button like this as I like a minimal UI and I am tired of hotbar clutter: https://www.imgur.com/Lst5ecA.gif
It's a little bit off topic but I'd like to throw in I'd like the UI option to turn on/off npc names and health bars in different categories. Okay, back to topic of hotbars: I prefered EQ1 the most, Vanguard second (because of the dual targeting system), and Guild Wars 2 coming in third. I hated EQ2's skills. They felt cheap, redundant, and cluttered my screen. In EQ1 I could choose to clutter my screen with a ton of hotbar commands if I wanted to but it was MY CHOICE. The skills/ spells I had memorized I had to plan ahead with my group (which encouraged communication with the group). And thank the great coffee bean in the sky that VR is not doing spell ranks /ugh.
I completely agree that those that do not want extra hotbars shouldn't have them. Ideally, and this is "normal" in many MMOs, there will be a reasonable number of available hotbars and we will be able to choose precisely which ones we want. With an option to hide them all to enjoy the scenery or take a screenshot.
I like the limited skill set like EQ1 - I want to have to pick my spells before combat, and switching spells in combat takes time to do if you're even allowed to do it at all.
What people aren't realizing is they already have an extra hotbar for macros and mounts and stuff. Its on the right side.
Extra bars for utility and whatnot, sorry but no. If you want utility easy accessible put it on your main bar.
EQ2 was fun. I enjoyed myself (mained an assassin, as well), but the hotbars were definitely out of control. I didn't like having to keep up 3+ hotbars just to make myself a viable player.
What I do like is, in EQ1, having to make decisions with my limited hotbar space. That's fun, and challenging, to me.
Dhampir said:I like the limited skill set like EQ1 - I want to have to pick my spells before combat, and switching spells in combat takes time to do if you're even allowed to do it at all. ...
Spell gems and hotbar slots aren't the same thing in EQ1. I can have as many hotbars and as many hotbar slots as I want. If I want 100, I could have 100.
As far as in-combat spell switching, I can switch out spells any time I want, in-combat or not, provided I'm not actively being hit. For example, if I nuke a creature, then root it, I can sit down 4 meters away from it and med for 2 minutes while the root ticks away, then stand up, snare it, nuke it again, root it again, sit down, and mem or re-mem as many different spells as I wish during this entire encounter, while in-combat. I am not limited in any way in that regard, provided a creature isn't actually hitting me at that exact moment.
This is a completely different thing versus Pantheon. Currently, as far as the most recent comments from Joppa in the videos, in Pantheon, you're not only artificially prevented from re-mem'ing spells in combat, (being hit does not enter into the equation, you simply CAN'T), but you have exactly 12 hotbar slots for ALL in-combat actions, regardless of class.
It's like if EQ1 made all classes use spell gems, removed the ability to change abilities or spells, and artificially locked the spell gems during combat. It's considerably more restrictive and punitive than EQ1, in the current implementation.
Those who view the world as a glass half full would argue that LAS design is awesome, as it promotes planning and strategy. Except for one small problem. You don't know the plan or strategy until you've failed, repeatedly, and if history is any indication, died, repeatedly. Then, once you know the plan and strategy, you load exactly the spells you need and win 100% of the time.
Now, if encounters were dynamic, and players were allowed to react dynamically, you would need to be on your toes for every encounter. It would be challenging, within a range, because the encounter would vary, within a range. Rather than, eventually, simply looking up the strategy on public web sites because after the first set of players has documented the plan & strategy, everything is known and fixed.
Personally, I would prefer a dynamically varying encounter, within a range, with the ability, just like EQ1, to dynamically react to that encounter as required. This also permits a much greater variety in encounter design, rather than static scripts from 1999.
vjek said:Dhampir said:I like the limited skill set like EQ1 - I want to have to pick my spells before combat, and switching spells in combat takes time to do if you're even allowed to do it at all. ...
Spell gems and hotbar slots aren't the same thing in EQ1. I can have as many hotbars and as many hotbar slots as I want. If I want 100, I could have 100.
As far as in-combat spell switching, I can switch out spells any time I want, in-combat or not, provided I'm not actively being hit. For example, if I nuke a creature, then root it, I can sit down 4 meters away from it and med for 2 minutes while the root ticks away, then stand up, snare it, nuke it again, root it again, sit down, and mem or re-mem as many different spells as I wish during this entire encounter, while in-combat. I am not limited in any way in that regard, provided a creature isn't actually hitting me at that exact moment.
This is a completely different thing versus Pantheon. Currently, as far as the most recent comments from Joppa in the videos, in Pantheon, you're not only artificially prevented from re-mem'ing spells in combat, (being hit does not enter into the equation, you simply CAN'T), but you have exactly 12 hotbar slots for ALL in-combat actions, regardless of class.
It's like if EQ1 made all classes use spell gems, removed the ability to change abilities or spells, and artificially locked the spell gems during combat. It's considerably more restrictive and punitive than EQ1, in the current implementation.
Those who view the world as a glass half full would argue that LAS design is awesome, as it promotes planning and strategy. Except for one small problem. You don't know the plan or strategy until you've failed, repeatedly, and if history is any indication, died, repeatedly. Then, once you know the plan and strategy, you load exactly the spells you need and win 100% of the time.
Now, if encounters were dynamic, and players were allowed to react dynamically, you would need to be on your toes for every encounter. It would be challenging, within a range, because the encounter would vary, within a range. Rather than, eventually, simply looking up the strategy on public web sites because after the first set of players has documented the plan & strategy, everything is known and fixed.
Personally, I would prefer a dynamically varying encounter, within a range, with the ability, just like EQ1, to dynamically react to that encounter as required. This also permits a much greater variety in encounter design, rather than static scripts from 1999.
Never seen EQ with infinite hotkeys, and clearly not in an era it could even be related to VR's current work. EQ's interface was invasive and poorly done for current standards, and couldn't be changed of an inch before PoP era.
MauvaisOeil said:What the hell is LAS ?
LAS means Limited Action Set and sometimes Limited Action Slots.
It's basically the way to describe a game where you can only 'bring' so many spells/abilities with you into combat. It's what Brad means when he talks about preparing ahead of time. You will have to change out your abilities between combat if you want to switch due to changing encounters.
Pantheon will not be like other games where you have a half dozen hotbars of abilities on screen. Pantheon will be more tacitical meaning you have to plan a head of time and use trial and error.
One hotbar seems pretty good to me. 14 skills should offer plenty of variety and having to decide between what abilities (much like gear) to bring into any given situation should be a challenge as well.
I've been playing some other mmos in the meantime and I'm just pretty over an absurd number of skills on the screen at once. Most of the time it's just end up being a bunch of redundant or very similar skills in any case. 10-14 well thought out skills is much preferred.
Bonechip said:
BeaverBiscuit said:There are plenty of games which have very good combat systems, and only really allow you to have a few abilities. For example, many extremely popular and engaging FPS games have "run" "attack" "switch weapon", "throw grenade" and "use bandage/use radar beacon/semtex/etc.", which is really just 5 abilities with changes on the fifth depending on your loadout.
I think it's alot more about how much you need to actually react to the game and exactly what your opponent is doing. An enemy predictably swinging is plain boring, an enemy making red circles of death or something is ok, an enemy who actually makes you need to dodge, block, and time your attacks/special abilities (or take a lot of damage you don't need to take) is fantastic.
That may be fine for Melee characters, but what about casters? Just stand in the back of the fight and spam the same 5 keys over and over?
You might find as a caster that managing your mana..is the smarter way to go, so that you don't run out and have to sit often to med. Dps races won't be a "thing" here far as I know, instead smart kills, smart nukes..no stealing aggro from main tank and off tank, and yes casters standing back at range, they won't be tanking. :P Strategically placed nukes..plus any CC abilities you may have. Tactical, strategic will be a part of Pantheon's game world. A thinking gamer's game.
I like the idea of having a balance of enough abilities to keep combat exciting and allowing for some amount of adjustment to the situation in terms of what abilities you choose. 12 is probably a decent place to start, leaving room for expansion down the line. Maybe after a couple years we'll have more abilities available and get another half bar or something.
In most games I've played with lots of abilities is there is usually quite a bit of redundancy and most of them just collect dust and clutter your UI. Whats the point of having 10 different snares but only use one, or having 10 fire based spells but only 3 are actually usefull for your playstyle? IMO if the game puts you into a position where you NEED to have instant access to 50 different abilities, its not designed very well. Even WoW has realized this and has been gradually shrinking it over the years. 12 to me seems sufficient to have a handfull of primary and secondary abilities and as long as you can remain effective in your role I don't think there will be an issue.
The real challange to me should be less in selecting that one obscure skill at a particular time, and more about how you are coordinating your efforts with the team to be more effective.
I think one thing that is being misunderstood by some people in this discussion is the difference between:
1) Actions that require a button to activate.
2) Active skills. (Abilities and spells)
People are worried that without lots of hotbars they will constantly need to switch out buttons to do non-ability or other type non-combat stuff (ie Buffs, Potions, Macros, etc). In my opinion it wouldn't be very difficult for VR to do both: Lots of Hotbars and Limited Active skills.
If they have a set 12 slot action bar that represents your "active" skills. This is similar to the Spell Gems from EQ1.
Then, in your UI you can setup multiple other Hotbars and place any or ALL your non skill based actions in any button and on any bar and assign whatever keybinding to those buttons you want.
VR then can specify which actions are considered 'Active' and need to be placed on your 'Active Skills' bar and which actions are 'Non-Active' and can be used any time from any hotbar. They would also be able to change this on a per-action basis. So for example, they may decide that most buffs are 'non-active', but then decide that a specific buff is labled 'Active' and thus restricted to only being cast if it is assigned as an 'Active' skill on that bar.
eg.
Stamina Buff is 'non-active' and lasts 1 hour and can be cast at any time without putting it on active bar.
Resist Poison is 'active' and lasts 40 seconds and is used pro-actively within the fight to keep people alive during encounters that require it. This needs to be on active bar in order to cast.
This means that you could potentially tip the friendly shaman in the group down the hall to give you a stamina buff (thus maybe making a new friend), but if you don't have a shaman in your group with Resist Poison on his active bar, your Boss fight might be more difficult. The Shaman would maybe need to sacrific his Slow Enemy ability in order to have Resist Poison available for that encounter. Thus the enemy boss might not be physically slowed thus making the Tank take more overall damage through the fight, but the rest of the group won't get pulverized when the boss does his 'Poisonous Fart' ability at 50% health.
Second eg. Non-Spell caster
Monks Feign Death ability is 'non-active' and can be cast at any time (it seems to me that this ability is too 'must have in all situations', thus no monk would ever NOT have it. If it was an 'active' skill, this would mean Monks would only ever have 11 other buttons they could swap out and be at a disadvantage to other classes that could swap all 12 actives.)
Hang time (Monk jumps in the air and hovers for 8 seconds) is an 'Active' skill and might be needed for when the 'FLOOR IS LAVA'.
Monks Eagle Claw is considered a "Peircing" damage type, and thus does more damage on squishy Goo monster.
Monks Dragon Punch is considered a "Blunt" damage type, and thus does less damage on squishy Goo monster who absorbs 50% of "Blunt" damage.
If the monk chooses the wrong active ability when "Blubber the Great" spawns he will be doing 50% less damage.
But since "Blubber the Great" barfs up 3 Rock elementals (50% less Peircing dmg) every 20 seconds the Monk might need to have both Eagle Claw and Dragon Punch on active skills. So he sacrifices his 'Hang Time' ability so he can have both usable. But when the Rock elementals cast 'FLOOR IS LAVA' the monk can't avoid it and needs to be healed up with all the other grounded classes when he gets his toes burned off.
I think this is the spirit of what VR has tried to explain about making choices that effect the difficulty of encounters.
I agree with everything you're saying @GoofyWarriorGuy except the idea that Feign Death shouldn't take up a slot on the hotbar. It's an iconic ability and if that type of abilitiy takes up a slot for any other class, it should require a slot from monks as well.
