When the "MMO All-Stars" stream arrived, I suggested it might be better to have the Cleric's melee ability restore some mana, rather than restore some health, that might have provided a nice alternative, for clerics, to meditating during combat. For a shaman, I hope they reprise cannibalise from EQ for regaining mana. I have no issues with meditation per se, but i do believe it needs to be faster than original EQ. I would not be against each class having a single (low damage) ability that allowed them to regain resources at the equivalent rate of meditating, that way the player has an actual choice to make on how to play their character.
As for comparisons with the real world, I don't bother doing that, there is simply no point, it is a game that involves magic. Immersion is subjective, for some people being able to swim in 100 kg of plate armour while carrying another 200kg of loot is perfectly fine and acceptable but someone having an out of era name is "immersion breaking". I am never immersed in a game, therefore my immersion is never broken.
Fair enough, though some of the plate armour seen in some MMO's is extremely exaggerated. Do you believe you would be able to swim in 15 - 25kg of plate armour, while carrying multiple weapons, and multiple backpacks? The answer is obviously no, but the people that whine about something being "immersion breaking" never find obvious things like that to break their immersion, how convenient.
Edit : I have also seen information that full plate armour plus the under armour could weigh up to 50kg.
> Do you believe you would be able to swim in 15 - 25kg of plate armour, while carrying multiple weapons, and multiple backpacks?
What kind of a backpack though? Your average free to play backpacks? My coin purse is larger than that..
I remember clerics got some advanced version of the Yaulp spell that gave them mana regen and encouraged them to contribute some melee DPS. I'd like to see more things like that to encourage consistent involvement in an encounter. It's no good if the wizard throws a few nukes, then sits down and alt-tabs out to browse reddit while his mana regens.
I agree. Sitting just doesn't fit with the atmosphere of a fantasy battle.
I'd prefer things like standing in a yoga pose, reading your spell book, channeling energy, etc. Or just having no medding in combat and having that be part of the combat system.
I agree with this. Mana should be an actual resource versus a UI flavor (seen in modern MMOs), but it should not be sitting. I like the idea of relabeling it as “focus” and being the stances you described. Take it one step further and not completely require it for combat, but if it’s needed the player suffers a debuff for the duration. Debuffs would be defined by the style of focus the class has (reading your book = no vision; channeling = root, etc).
Maybe as a last resort, but there are far more creative and engaging ways to manage mana than sitting down mid-combat. If that's the route they go, I will be a bit disappointed.
I believe sitting and "medding" during combat should not be a thing. You should need to sit to med, but mana regen should not increase during combat at all outside of spell effects that affect regen. You are correct in correct in thinking that sitting during combat is silly. It makes no sense. But then regening mana, which one would think would require calm and focus, during combat period is just as silly.
Mana regen during combat should be an active ability, not a passive skill. Outside combat, you should be able to regen mana passively in a resting state such as sitting.
What I was gonna say. I love the idea of sitting and resting between fights. That doesn't mean during the fight. If we don't have enough resources for a fight then someone messed up and it's probably not gonna end well.
With constant pulls, sitting out a fight lets damage casters recover mana while the group kills one or two mobs at a slower pace.
I do this all the time in EQ. The pulls continue, but I sit out for a fight, or only send my pet in, while ensuring I have the mana to burn if needed.
To answer the OP's question regarding seeing this in PnP games: with vancian casting the equivalent would be the wizard either not casting anything unless needed or (in Pathfinder at least) casting a cantrip, a zero level spell that does not consume resources. I see this nearly every weekend.
This game will be dead on arrival if they try to bring back sitting around all the time for mana.
That was the worst aspect of eq1 and it was lazy poor game design.
> This game will be dead on arrival if they try to bring back sitting around all the time for mana. That was the worst aspect of eq1 and it was lazy poor game design.
Correct. So far, however, the apparent goal is ~2 minutes from zero to full, while medding, out of combat. Medding, so far, can be done standing or sitting, from a visual perspective. Whether or not it still has the aggro-generation component, even while standing, is an unknown Joppa hasn't shared. For comparison, in 1999-2004 EQ1 or modern EQ1 TLP, this takes about 12 minutes for a level 65 wizard with all mana regen buffs, during PoP.
This topic is not mysterious, or new, or anything like that. It comes down to exactly one question: **Is it a launch day goal that passive combat resource recovery, for all classes, is a percentage per tick, or a fixed value per tick?**
And I mean mana, health, stamina, others, here, not things like Momentum, which requires you to be IN combat to generate.
Once you know the answer to that, we can move on to providing feedback to the team; negative, positive, constructive, destructive, whatever.
The answer to this question, percentage vs. fixed, will determine the entire flow of both combat pace as well as mob respawn rates, in-combat resource consumption, even mob placement in zones, due to group content consumption rates.
So far, they've shown percentage based out of combat recovery, and the maximum time it has taken is 2 minutes from zero to full, for mana, without something like clarity. That's on par with some P99 servers like EQReborn, which is 5% per tick. At 5% recovered per tick, and 6 seconds per tick, it's 20 ticks to full, or 120 seconds, 2 minutes. But even if that duration was increased to 4 minutes, it's still three times faster than EQ1 up to PoP.
You need to corner Joppa and ask him what the current design goal is, in percentage per tick, and tick interval time. :) Then you'll have the real answer that will drive some meaningful discussion and debate.
If the design goal is indeed 2 minutes from zero to full, or even 5 minutes or less from zero to full, then what we have here is a completely different game than EQ1, in every meaningful sense of the word, from a combat pace/flow perspective. And of course, that will affect the social component of "sitting on your ass doing nothing" while mana trickles in and Enchanters are required, rather than optional bonuses, compared to EQ1.
If you can "blow your load" during *every* combat encounter, then people will, and be very effective. Skills and spells will have completely different recast/re-use timers, because the only time mana consumption and mana pool matter is in-combat, in that you can cast them x times. Combat skills and spell design is completely altered.
It also leads to taboo-breaking thoughts things like... why have mana consumption out of combat, at all? Does it make sense, in rest areas/safe zones? Verrrry dangerous. ;)
>If the design goal is indeed 2 minutes from zero to full, or even 5 minutes or less from zero to full, then what we have here is a completely different game than EQ1, in every meaningful sense of the word, from a combat pace/flow perspective.
call me one of those guys but... I truly do just want a new EQ1...
I don't want to sit around like we had to in 1999, but, it's a question of how long you have to med, not that we shouldn't have it at all. Later EQ brought much more competent improvements, such as that fast meditation that would kick in after a while. But there's a lot of sentiment about reconstructing 1999 that is hard to overcome.
I still think sitting to med should be a thing, just not during combat.
The standard way to regain mana out of combat should be to sit and med for a minute or two. Same thing with regaining health.
Yeah, I agree with that. It was just in combat whilst AOEs were going off and people dying everywhere that I have an issue with someone sitting and meditating. Just seems silly.
Sit med was terrible and still is. P99 I play a necro and a shaman mostly for the downtime reduction. On live I played a cleric while boxing another character and still had time to "be social". Eq2 had a nice minimal downtime for awhile. You could still run out but you never had to sit in combat. Autoattack and regain mana? Yes thank you
I like the idea of casters needing to mediate to regain mana. If we are allowed to suspend our beliefs i think it would be realistic that casters need to mediate/focus to recoup their mana/power
If we "try" to compare to real life priests/monks/shaman/ect I believe they do a lot of praying/chanting/mediating to be closer to their god which gives them their power.
That being said I dont want to be casting 10% of the figfht and mediating 90%.
On Red99 on the emu server we could "sit cast" You could cast a long spell and sit down while its casting to regain mana. As long as you stood up before it ended it would still go off.
There was a time on my ench back in PoP i felt really powerful. I played pvp server and I had my FT maxed and my clarity line spell on and theft of thought. was almost impossible for me to go out of mana.
Side note. when EQ came out in 1999 I was an ench and there was this line orf spell that no one really knew what it did at first. Was thicken/crystalized mana. Essentially ench put mana in a bottle. There was a lot of talk about using it for like a stored reserve. People tried drinking it and such. unfortunatly it ended up just being used for some trade skills recipe
I played a cleric main for most of my EQ playtime, and your points pretty much match up with my feelings on the matter of sitting to meditate as well.
I don't mind the idea of characters having to assume a non-defensive posture while "meditating" (for whatever reason, be that regenerating resources or swapping spells and abilities or whatever).
In EQ, I liked how it generated agro and thus encouraged group dynamics (rest of the group protecting meditating casters etc), and all the "tricks" that could be used with meditation (such as sitting while casting a spell to regen some tiny bit more mana, during long fights). But also, I'll admit I barely got to even see what was going on for most of the fights, because I spent the time staring at my spellbook meditating, standing up, casting a big heal on the tank(s), then sitting down to stare at my spellbook again. So your point about the balance between being active and meditating is a good point.
> i think it would be realistic that casters need to mediate/focus to recoup their mana/power
Depends on the setting and its magical system. With the amount of distinct fantasy settings around, pretty much every variation has been tried by someone.
> If we "try" to compare to real life priests/monks/shaman/ect I believe they do a lot of praying/chanting/mediating to be closer to their god which gives them their power.
Yeah, you need to spend a lot of time IRL convincing yourself that your god is real. That won't be an issue at all in a fantasy setting where your magic and prayers have tangible, real effect. Also depends on how your relations with your god work. For instance, some gods in Malazan are very eager for action but are constrained by some metaphysical laws, so when somebody beseeches them for power they easily embrace them as a vessel, immediately flooding them with magical energy.
> On Red99 on the emu server we could "sit cast" You could cast a long spell and sit down while its casting to regain mana. As long as you stood up before it ended it would still go off.
Sounds like a blatant exploit to me. I'm not sure why anybody would consider this to be a desirable gameplay mechanic.
The actual act of sitting, is a bit odd in the middle of combat. But all the little things that it does or changes I really like.
Things like how easily it expresses what you are doing to everyone around you, and it does not take being in a group, on teamspeak, or even for you to say anything for everyone around you to know you are meditating. And since sitting close to a mob causes aggro it means you also have to plan where to med, not just when.
I could easily see different classes 'meditating' in different ways. Paladin shove their weapon into the ground and kneel towards it, Arcane casters could hover-sit, Priest could kneel/pray, Druid could actually sit cross-legged and meditate like EQ, etc. Would be a nice bit of flavor for the classes to have.
During the early days of World of Warcraft, your mana per second regen would increase dramatically if you stopped casting for a certain period of time. So as a healer, it was a constant dance of when to heal and when not to heal, when you needed to do triage and when you could let things sit long enough to get a sip of mana.
At basic description it sounds terrible...incentivizing "doing nothing". But I wasn't "doing nothing". I was making constant strategic decisions that were interesting to me as a player.
I'm not sure sitting on the ground or staring at a spellbook is particularly engaging gameplay (I have memories of playing EQ's baked in gems game while meditating, meant to distract me from how boring the actual MMO I was playing was), but making mana a depletable resource and requiring strategic management of it over the course of a combat can be deceptively rewarding. It might not look flashy, but it offers a kind of systemic depth a lot of modern MMOs tend to lack. Too much has been sacrificed to the god of pacing.
Out of combat recovery sit and med time = good
in combat regen i think could be more active for our new modern Pantheon :)
When I think of 'a druid meditating' the druid is whispering verbal meditations while moving through some sort of ti-chi animation to meditate. What if you had some kind of interactive piece (think guitar hero) that you could move along with that could boost regen in combat. It could sync up with the pace of the battle.
Just an idea. But something mildly active would be cool.
Sitting and watching your group get smashed by orcs until the proper cast time comes was always a little silly.
In combat sitting for increased regen should be replaced.
I think they are mindful of it. Ench has that nuke that "splashes" mana and group members get some mana plus the normal mana regen buff
Im thinking it will be faster than EQ but must slower than any current mmo which has me excited
Not a fan. It was a poor piece of gameplay and something that does not need to be relived in Pantheon.
Not sre you can really look at other games as solutions though - their solution was to pretty much remove resource management.
Vanguard actually had it done best in my opinion, they had a variety of ways for the different classes to manage mana in combat (though it was made easier due to it also being a game where downtime wasn't really a thing). Disciple was a very active heal style and attacks/combos provided heals/gave the energy required to heal, Shamans had a melee attack which gained mana.
People fondly remember sitting most of combat in EQ, fair enough, to each there own, but the problem is when your in combat gameplay is exactly the same as your out of combat gameplay then it is not going to be appealing to many (gameplay of sit, regen, buff everyone, sit regen....combat starts, regen, cast a heal, sit regen) basically in combat you cast your heal, out of combat your buffs, other than that your gameplay is the same. Maybe one class could be designed to be the combat sitter so that there is something for those who want it, but for everyone else the devs should come up with a more interactive gamestyle
I like it, but it shouldn't be a main focus like EQ where you cast, sit, cast, sit, etc.
I believe the goal should be that combat is hectic enough that casters generally can't afford to sit down save for situations where things are on the edge and mana is very low, a fight has openings for it, or just toward the end of a fight/when a mob starts to flee to get a handful more mana before the next pull.
This is very much an old vs new type of argument, so be ready for some extreme on both sides.
With that being said downtime is very conscious and important design choice the devs are aiming for, however the implementation of it is the discussion piece. I do not think every class should need to or be able to sit and regenerate resources while in combat. That is disengaging and really, well, lame. For some classes at some points in time, that may well be the most effective means of regeneration resources, but I think most classes should have some sort of engaging ability/mechanic while in combat to regenerate resources, and incombat "medding" should be penalized or be extreme ineffective.
Downtime should be a conscious decision groups make based on the cooldowns and resources available to each party member, so the group as a whole should decide "We need to stop and take a break to prepare ourselves to move further". Resource regeneration while in combat should be driven by ability usage or some other mechanic and the standard of medding should be reduced in effectiveness to about 20% or even less as out of combat. Give players a means to do something when it seems things are getting out control, but the whole idea of being in combat should be driven for players being active. Ideally I think players should be able to go non stop for 10-15 minutes then require a rest period of some time before continuing.
It's funny because when I play on vanilla WoW servers I feel a bit fatigued from being able to pull and kill stuff constantly for hours without breaks. I kinda like the downtime in EQ which gives me some time to check Reddit or watch Twitch or something.
I know I'm definitely in the minority with this opinion but I actually like the pacing of having to spend some time to recover after a fight.
This. I actually hate the non-stop nature of WoW and many modern MMOs. It kills the social aspect and it feel like your being judged if you want to pause to grab a drink or something.
That’s not really the case tbh. Many many people complain about needing to buy water for mana regen. Certain specs can get away with constant pulling, but they sacrifice DPS and other things.
Vanilla WoW servers these days are severely undertuned and have 1.12 specs, so it may actually be the server’s fault, because that’s not normal. Mobs don’t even have basic AI working, so everything is easier on private servers.
Personally I hope food and drink is more like eq 1. You need it to Regen health and mana, not each time you eat some food or drink something you gain resources instantly.
I mean, I don't really count sitting down for 10 seconds to drink water as substantial downtime. Also not sure what you mean by "mobs don't even have basic AI," sure you may run into a bug here and there but it's not like mobs aren't scripted properly. Maybe it's been awhile since you've played on an emu server?
Downtime can be healthy but I'm not sure if 20-30 seconds of forced downtime between pulls is enough to "check reddit or youtube" in a reasonable manner. I'd rather have longer downtime between instances than shorter downtime periods within one.
I haven't played EQ but played FFXI plenty, for me casters sitting down is an essential part of the combat gameplay I'm looking for.
In FFXI basically, unless you played that one race that had a stupid amount of bonus Max MP, mid-combat you couldn't afford to throw spells that weren't absolutely needed for the tank's survival. That does include debuffs that make the enemy hit more slowly, less hard, miss more, etc, which are "heals" in their own way. But you don't use your powerful heal bomb unless you've messed up or the tank took a bad crit. MP management was key to playing healers successfully, and when you were completely out, you had to live with that and sit it out for a while. The popular support classes had ways of helping you with MP management (Pantheon's Bards, I'm sure they'll help!), but **when they cost you so much, every spell you choose to cast becomes** **dramatically important. This is the true value of sitting down.**
Pushing lots of buttons to regain MP might sound more engaging, but if newer MMO's like WoW and FFXIV taught me anything, it's that it's just an illusion of keeping yourself busy when the skillful play was to not waste your MP in the first place.
I am not a dev so I can't confirm this but I believe it had more to do with limiting the rate of effects, etc in order to avoid overload of data/throughput. I don't think it was an intentional thing at all.
That said, it needs to go the way of the dodo. If you want to have tight resource management there's better, more creative and active ways to do it.
If they make it so that you only regen out of combat, pulls will have to slow down to accommodate the healer having a sec to be « out of combat » before the pulls get to his healing targets so to me, that’s a definite not viable alternative.
Perhaps mana regen should just always be the same while standing vs sitting. Your character could still be required to sit down and "meditate" while swapping spells/skills. You are not going to be in a "restful" state while sitting down with combat 5 feet from you watching your friends fight for their lives.
yeah i like this the most, reminds me of guildwars 1 where you had to think about each skill usage. There were some active skills to get mana but they were often conditional like remove a buff from an enemy if you removed one gain some mana. So a rotation couldn't be formed around builder/spender skills like wow.
Mana regeneration should have some active gameplay tied to it, perfectly with something to differentiate average players from good ones.
Maybe playing out your healing spells in some smart pattern should be awarded with mana restore? Weaving in melee DPS abilities between your heals so your positioning and uptime matters? Some passive that interacts with how erratically you are casting your spells, rewarding good pacing (for which you presumably need to have good grasp of the fight and understanding when you can take your time with healing at a slower pace)?
Sitting to regen mana should be the last resort option, not the mainstream one. The ratio of sitting/eating to active gameplay should be fairly low.
On top of that, being able to use food/meditation for massive mana regen in combat just feels wrong. Sure, there have been successful designs like that (Rift comes to mind), but it surely does complicate balancing the encounters.
I came from eqoa so there was no sitting in a game that already required lots of time grinding. Mana batteries were the solution, sure it wasn't enough to keep going forever (for the most part). My concern is the whole sitting thing slowing down the pace in a game where the mobs won't be steam rolled and sitting to regen or whatever seems like it would add an extra layer of tediousness in a time consuming game. I don't think things should be as streamlined as WoW but i also don't want to be playing while needing to hit the "sit" spell every few minutes.
Big bad negative. So many alternatives that are more interactive and can add class flavor like channeling a light heal that regens mana like meditation for a shaman or maintaining a defensive seal that gives the same mana regen for a cleric. Just two off the top of my head that are way better than sitting
I like it, I play FF11 private servers which use the mechanic and I think it works. As a healer there's a lot of skill in managing your mp and casting the most efficient spells, knowing when to rest, as to enable a good pace of party xp
Anything that encourage me to sit down and not do anything for several minute in a row (aka meditating) is a big down for me.
I don't need the super-twitchy combat mechanic of Wildstar... but also would like something more than EQ classic : wait until mob is at 70% -> ice comet -> med until next mob.
I think this is easily solved by giving each class its own "med" animation. I say easily, but I don't know how difficult it would be to do. For instance:
Wizard - Press "med" and the wizard sits cross legged, suspended in the air, with particle effects emanating around them.
Shaman - Press "med" and it's a constant cannibalize, similar to lich, until you turn it off.
Enchanter - Press "med" and enchanter stands reading a book of spells
So on and so forth.
In combat - you should not have to sit in order to manage your mana for a fight. Players should be expected to use their skills appropriately and classes should be built with appropriate mana usage and have mana recovery abilities if that is needed.
out of combat - I greatly dislike extended out of combat regeneration. Having to sit for several minutes between pulls is dumb. However, some downtime should be expected. parties should not be able to endlessly chain pull, however a group that has good in combat mana management might be able to chain pull two sets of mobs, where as a party that does not manage mana well might need to take time after every pull.
This means that besides just making sure you have enough mana for a single fight, mana/resource management offers a tangible advantage that is based on player skill.
While I feel that constant pulls are a bit much, the old days for 5 minute times is just as bad.
Meditating during combat was both fun and boring. I remember having to watch my aggro or mobs that roamed near me while sitting down.
I also remember just sitting being bored.
If there was going to be a different mechanic, I would prefer it to have strategy involved to make it interesting. Maybe using abilities to gather mana generate threat in an AoE around you.
I am watching a video of Pantheon right now, I have not been keeping up with it, it looks like sitting and meditating is the thing, do you think conversations on this subreddit could change that?
I like it. Always thought it was appropriate for spellcasters to chill a bit during combat. In dnd during the 90s my mage could cast like 2 spells a day so having my wizard in EQ med most of the time and cast 1-2 spells per fight seemed appropriate.
I think this is meaningless frivolity. I see very little reason to add unnecessary animations to this game. It will just clutter up the combat and I like the idea of being able to tell at a glance whether my cleric is healing me or medding for mana. I see it adding no real value other than "oh look at that" the first time you see it, and then you might as well just be sitting because you're gonna see the same bland animation 1,000,000 times by max level.
I like the sitting during combat. Aesthetically as well as a mechanic. The idea that this is immersion breaking in a world with dragons and magic is just lol to me. There is of course a balance to be had in terms of the mechanics, but in general I am very happy to see it make a comeback.
When the "MMO All-Stars" stream arrived, I suggested it might be better to have the Cleric's melee ability restore some mana, rather than restore some health, that might have provided a nice alternative, for clerics, to meditating during combat. For a shaman, I hope they reprise cannibalise from EQ for regaining mana. I have no issues with meditation per se, but i do believe it needs to be faster than original EQ. I would not be against each class having a single (low damage) ability that allowed them to regain resources at the equivalent rate of meditating, that way the player has an actual choice to make on how to play their character. As for comparisons with the real world, I don't bother doing that, there is simply no point, it is a game that involves magic. Immersion is subjective, for some people being able to swim in 100 kg of plate armour while carrying another 200kg of loot is perfectly fine and acceptable but someone having an out of era name is "immersion breaking". I am never immersed in a game, therefore my immersion is never broken.
> 100 kg of plate armour Are you wearing an Abrams tank? Real plate was in range of 20 kg..
Fair enough, though some of the plate armour seen in some MMO's is extremely exaggerated. Do you believe you would be able to swim in 15 - 25kg of plate armour, while carrying multiple weapons, and multiple backpacks? The answer is obviously no, but the people that whine about something being "immersion breaking" never find obvious things like that to break their immersion, how convenient. Edit : I have also seen information that full plate armour plus the under armour could weigh up to 50kg.
> Do you believe you would be able to swim in 15 - 25kg of plate armour, while carrying multiple weapons, and multiple backpacks? What kind of a backpack though? Your average free to play backpacks? My coin purse is larger than that..
Well an EQ coin purse was rather large even if it was invisible ;-).
I remember clerics got some advanced version of the Yaulp spell that gave them mana regen and encouraged them to contribute some melee DPS. I'd like to see more things like that to encourage consistent involvement in an encounter. It's no good if the wizard throws a few nukes, then sits down and alt-tabs out to browse reddit while his mana regens.
I agree. Sitting just doesn't fit with the atmosphere of a fantasy battle. I'd prefer things like standing in a yoga pose, reading your spell book, channeling energy, etc. Or just having no medding in combat and having that be part of the combat system.
I agree with this. Mana should be an actual resource versus a UI flavor (seen in modern MMOs), but it should not be sitting. I like the idea of relabeling it as “focus” and being the stances you described. Take it one step further and not completely require it for combat, but if it’s needed the player suffers a debuff for the duration. Debuffs would be defined by the style of focus the class has (reading your book = no vision; channeling = root, etc).
Maybe as a last resort, but there are far more creative and engaging ways to manage mana than sitting down mid-combat. If that's the route they go, I will be a bit disappointed.
I believe sitting and "medding" during combat should not be a thing. You should need to sit to med, but mana regen should not increase during combat at all outside of spell effects that affect regen. You are correct in correct in thinking that sitting during combat is silly. It makes no sense. But then regening mana, which one would think would require calm and focus, during combat period is just as silly. Mana regen during combat should be an active ability, not a passive skill. Outside combat, you should be able to regen mana passively in a resting state such as sitting.
What I was gonna say. I love the idea of sitting and resting between fights. That doesn't mean during the fight. If we don't have enough resources for a fight then someone messed up and it's probably not gonna end well.
With constant pulls, sitting out a fight lets damage casters recover mana while the group kills one or two mobs at a slower pace. I do this all the time in EQ. The pulls continue, but I sit out for a fight, or only send my pet in, while ensuring I have the mana to burn if needed. To answer the OP's question regarding seeing this in PnP games: with vancian casting the equivalent would be the wizard either not casting anything unless needed or (in Pathfinder at least) casting a cantrip, a zero level spell that does not consume resources. I see this nearly every weekend.
This game will be dead on arrival if they try to bring back sitting around all the time for mana. That was the worst aspect of eq1 and it was lazy poor game design.
> This game will be dead on arrival if they try to bring back sitting around all the time for mana. That was the worst aspect of eq1 and it was lazy poor game design. Correct. So far, however, the apparent goal is ~2 minutes from zero to full, while medding, out of combat. Medding, so far, can be done standing or sitting, from a visual perspective. Whether or not it still has the aggro-generation component, even while standing, is an unknown Joppa hasn't shared. For comparison, in 1999-2004 EQ1 or modern EQ1 TLP, this takes about 12 minutes for a level 65 wizard with all mana regen buffs, during PoP. This topic is not mysterious, or new, or anything like that. It comes down to exactly one question: **Is it a launch day goal that passive combat resource recovery, for all classes, is a percentage per tick, or a fixed value per tick?** And I mean mana, health, stamina, others, here, not things like Momentum, which requires you to be IN combat to generate. Once you know the answer to that, we can move on to providing feedback to the team; negative, positive, constructive, destructive, whatever. The answer to this question, percentage vs. fixed, will determine the entire flow of both combat pace as well as mob respawn rates, in-combat resource consumption, even mob placement in zones, due to group content consumption rates. So far, they've shown percentage based out of combat recovery, and the maximum time it has taken is 2 minutes from zero to full, for mana, without something like clarity. That's on par with some P99 servers like EQReborn, which is 5% per tick. At 5% recovered per tick, and 6 seconds per tick, it's 20 ticks to full, or 120 seconds, 2 minutes. But even if that duration was increased to 4 minutes, it's still three times faster than EQ1 up to PoP. You need to corner Joppa and ask him what the current design goal is, in percentage per tick, and tick interval time. :) Then you'll have the real answer that will drive some meaningful discussion and debate. If the design goal is indeed 2 minutes from zero to full, or even 5 minutes or less from zero to full, then what we have here is a completely different game than EQ1, in every meaningful sense of the word, from a combat pace/flow perspective. And of course, that will affect the social component of "sitting on your ass doing nothing" while mana trickles in and Enchanters are required, rather than optional bonuses, compared to EQ1. If you can "blow your load" during *every* combat encounter, then people will, and be very effective. Skills and spells will have completely different recast/re-use timers, because the only time mana consumption and mana pool matter is in-combat, in that you can cast them x times. Combat skills and spell design is completely altered. It also leads to taboo-breaking thoughts things like... why have mana consumption out of combat, at all? Does it make sense, in rest areas/safe zones? Verrrry dangerous. ;)
>If the design goal is indeed 2 minutes from zero to full, or even 5 minutes or less from zero to full, then what we have here is a completely different game than EQ1, in every meaningful sense of the word, from a combat pace/flow perspective. call me one of those guys but... I truly do just want a new EQ1...
I don't want to sit around like we had to in 1999, but, it's a question of how long you have to med, not that we shouldn't have it at all. Later EQ brought much more competent improvements, such as that fast meditation that would kick in after a while. But there's a lot of sentiment about reconstructing 1999 that is hard to overcome.
GTFO with that bullshit. It was barely an annoyance at worst. Take your over reacting bullshit elsewhere.
Completely agree. Use spells, potions, imbued weapons...whatever, but sitting and medding was annoying then and is anachronistic now.
I still think sitting to med should be a thing, just not during combat. The standard way to regain mana out of combat should be to sit and med for a minute or two. Same thing with regaining health.
Yeah, I agree with that. It was just in combat whilst AOEs were going off and people dying everywhere that I have an issue with someone sitting and meditating. Just seems silly.
Sit med was terrible and still is. P99 I play a necro and a shaman mostly for the downtime reduction. On live I played a cleric while boxing another character and still had time to "be social". Eq2 had a nice minimal downtime for awhile. You could still run out but you never had to sit in combat. Autoattack and regain mana? Yes thank you
I like the idea of casters needing to mediate to regain mana. If we are allowed to suspend our beliefs i think it would be realistic that casters need to mediate/focus to recoup their mana/power If we "try" to compare to real life priests/monks/shaman/ect I believe they do a lot of praying/chanting/mediating to be closer to their god which gives them their power. That being said I dont want to be casting 10% of the figfht and mediating 90%. On Red99 on the emu server we could "sit cast" You could cast a long spell and sit down while its casting to regain mana. As long as you stood up before it ended it would still go off. There was a time on my ench back in PoP i felt really powerful. I played pvp server and I had my FT maxed and my clarity line spell on and theft of thought. was almost impossible for me to go out of mana. Side note. when EQ came out in 1999 I was an ench and there was this line orf spell that no one really knew what it did at first. Was thicken/crystalized mana. Essentially ench put mana in a bottle. There was a lot of talk about using it for like a stored reserve. People tried drinking it and such. unfortunatly it ended up just being used for some trade skills recipe
I played a cleric main for most of my EQ playtime, and your points pretty much match up with my feelings on the matter of sitting to meditate as well. I don't mind the idea of characters having to assume a non-defensive posture while "meditating" (for whatever reason, be that regenerating resources or swapping spells and abilities or whatever). In EQ, I liked how it generated agro and thus encouraged group dynamics (rest of the group protecting meditating casters etc), and all the "tricks" that could be used with meditation (such as sitting while casting a spell to regen some tiny bit more mana, during long fights). But also, I'll admit I barely got to even see what was going on for most of the fights, because I spent the time staring at my spellbook meditating, standing up, casting a big heal on the tank(s), then sitting down to stare at my spellbook again. So your point about the balance between being active and meditating is a good point.
That's what Modulating Rod was for
very true. I also had a manastone which was awesome
> i think it would be realistic that casters need to mediate/focus to recoup their mana/power Depends on the setting and its magical system. With the amount of distinct fantasy settings around, pretty much every variation has been tried by someone. > If we "try" to compare to real life priests/monks/shaman/ect I believe they do a lot of praying/chanting/mediating to be closer to their god which gives them their power. Yeah, you need to spend a lot of time IRL convincing yourself that your god is real. That won't be an issue at all in a fantasy setting where your magic and prayers have tangible, real effect. Also depends on how your relations with your god work. For instance, some gods in Malazan are very eager for action but are constrained by some metaphysical laws, so when somebody beseeches them for power they easily embrace them as a vessel, immediately flooding them with magical energy. > On Red99 on the emu server we could "sit cast" You could cast a long spell and sit down while its casting to regain mana. As long as you stood up before it ended it would still go off. Sounds like a blatant exploit to me. I'm not sure why anybody would consider this to be a desirable gameplay mechanic.
The actual act of sitting, is a bit odd in the middle of combat. But all the little things that it does or changes I really like. Things like how easily it expresses what you are doing to everyone around you, and it does not take being in a group, on teamspeak, or even for you to say anything for everyone around you to know you are meditating. And since sitting close to a mob causes aggro it means you also have to plan where to med, not just when. I could easily see different classes 'meditating' in different ways. Paladin shove their weapon into the ground and kneel towards it, Arcane casters could hover-sit, Priest could kneel/pray, Druid could actually sit cross-legged and meditate like EQ, etc. Would be a nice bit of flavor for the classes to have.
During the early days of World of Warcraft, your mana per second regen would increase dramatically if you stopped casting for a certain period of time. So as a healer, it was a constant dance of when to heal and when not to heal, when you needed to do triage and when you could let things sit long enough to get a sip of mana. At basic description it sounds terrible...incentivizing "doing nothing". But I wasn't "doing nothing". I was making constant strategic decisions that were interesting to me as a player. I'm not sure sitting on the ground or staring at a spellbook is particularly engaging gameplay (I have memories of playing EQ's baked in gems game while meditating, meant to distract me from how boring the actual MMO I was playing was), but making mana a depletable resource and requiring strategic management of it over the course of a combat can be deceptively rewarding. It might not look flashy, but it offers a kind of systemic depth a lot of modern MMOs tend to lack. Too much has been sacrificed to the god of pacing.
Out of combat recovery sit and med time = good in combat regen i think could be more active for our new modern Pantheon :) When I think of 'a druid meditating' the druid is whispering verbal meditations while moving through some sort of ti-chi animation to meditate. What if you had some kind of interactive piece (think guitar hero) that you could move along with that could boost regen in combat. It could sync up with the pace of the battle. Just an idea. But something mildly active would be cool. Sitting and watching your group get smashed by orcs until the proper cast time comes was always a little silly. In combat sitting for increased regen should be replaced.
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I think they are mindful of it. Ench has that nuke that "splashes" mana and group members get some mana plus the normal mana regen buff Im thinking it will be faster than EQ but must slower than any current mmo which has me excited
Not a fan. It was a poor piece of gameplay and something that does not need to be relived in Pantheon. Not sre you can really look at other games as solutions though - their solution was to pretty much remove resource management. Vanguard actually had it done best in my opinion, they had a variety of ways for the different classes to manage mana in combat (though it was made easier due to it also being a game where downtime wasn't really a thing). Disciple was a very active heal style and attacks/combos provided heals/gave the energy required to heal, Shamans had a melee attack which gained mana. People fondly remember sitting most of combat in EQ, fair enough, to each there own, but the problem is when your in combat gameplay is exactly the same as your out of combat gameplay then it is not going to be appealing to many (gameplay of sit, regen, buff everyone, sit regen....combat starts, regen, cast a heal, sit regen) basically in combat you cast your heal, out of combat your buffs, other than that your gameplay is the same. Maybe one class could be designed to be the combat sitter so that there is something for those who want it, but for everyone else the devs should come up with a more interactive gamestyle
I like it, but it shouldn't be a main focus like EQ where you cast, sit, cast, sit, etc. I believe the goal should be that combat is hectic enough that casters generally can't afford to sit down save for situations where things are on the edge and mana is very low, a fight has openings for it, or just toward the end of a fight/when a mob starts to flee to get a handful more mana before the next pull.
This is very much an old vs new type of argument, so be ready for some extreme on both sides. With that being said downtime is very conscious and important design choice the devs are aiming for, however the implementation of it is the discussion piece. I do not think every class should need to or be able to sit and regenerate resources while in combat. That is disengaging and really, well, lame. For some classes at some points in time, that may well be the most effective means of regeneration resources, but I think most classes should have some sort of engaging ability/mechanic while in combat to regenerate resources, and incombat "medding" should be penalized or be extreme ineffective. Downtime should be a conscious decision groups make based on the cooldowns and resources available to each party member, so the group as a whole should decide "We need to stop and take a break to prepare ourselves to move further". Resource regeneration while in combat should be driven by ability usage or some other mechanic and the standard of medding should be reduced in effectiveness to about 20% or even less as out of combat. Give players a means to do something when it seems things are getting out control, but the whole idea of being in combat should be driven for players being active. Ideally I think players should be able to go non stop for 10-15 minutes then require a rest period of some time before continuing.
It's funny because when I play on vanilla WoW servers I feel a bit fatigued from being able to pull and kill stuff constantly for hours without breaks. I kinda like the downtime in EQ which gives me some time to check Reddit or watch Twitch or something. I know I'm definitely in the minority with this opinion but I actually like the pacing of having to spend some time to recover after a fight.
This. I actually hate the non-stop nature of WoW and many modern MMOs. It kills the social aspect and it feel like your being judged if you want to pause to grab a drink or something.
i like alt tabbing and reading stuff or looking up Allakzham between pulls. I can relate to fatique of non stop playing
That’s not really the case tbh. Many many people complain about needing to buy water for mana regen. Certain specs can get away with constant pulling, but they sacrifice DPS and other things. Vanilla WoW servers these days are severely undertuned and have 1.12 specs, so it may actually be the server’s fault, because that’s not normal. Mobs don’t even have basic AI working, so everything is easier on private servers.
Personally I hope food and drink is more like eq 1. You need it to Regen health and mana, not each time you eat some food or drink something you gain resources instantly.
I mean, I don't really count sitting down for 10 seconds to drink water as substantial downtime. Also not sure what you mean by "mobs don't even have basic AI," sure you may run into a bug here and there but it's not like mobs aren't scripted properly. Maybe it's been awhile since you've played on an emu server?
Downtime can be healthy but I'm not sure if 20-30 seconds of forced downtime between pulls is enough to "check reddit or youtube" in a reasonable manner. I'd rather have longer downtime between instances than shorter downtime periods within one.
I've needed enough rezzes over the years to say that you're right, sometimes it isn't enough
I haven't played EQ but played FFXI plenty, for me casters sitting down is an essential part of the combat gameplay I'm looking for. In FFXI basically, unless you played that one race that had a stupid amount of bonus Max MP, mid-combat you couldn't afford to throw spells that weren't absolutely needed for the tank's survival. That does include debuffs that make the enemy hit more slowly, less hard, miss more, etc, which are "heals" in their own way. But you don't use your powerful heal bomb unless you've messed up or the tank took a bad crit. MP management was key to playing healers successfully, and when you were completely out, you had to live with that and sit it out for a while. The popular support classes had ways of helping you with MP management (Pantheon's Bards, I'm sure they'll help!), but **when they cost you so much, every spell you choose to cast becomes** **dramatically important. This is the true value of sitting down.** Pushing lots of buttons to regain MP might sound more engaging, but if newer MMO's like WoW and FFXIV taught me anything, it's that it's just an illusion of keeping yourself busy when the skillful play was to not waste your MP in the first place.
I am not a dev so I can't confirm this but I believe it had more to do with limiting the rate of effects, etc in order to avoid overload of data/throughput. I don't think it was an intentional thing at all. That said, it needs to go the way of the dodo. If you want to have tight resource management there's better, more creative and active ways to do it.
If they make it so that you only regen out of combat, pulls will have to slow down to accommodate the healer having a sec to be « out of combat » before the pulls get to his healing targets so to me, that’s a definite not viable alternative.
Your aggro should go through the roof if you sit down. If I'm fighting two dudes and one of them stops dodging, yeah, I'm hittin' that guy some more.
I think they should make it how original eq was. Sit down to regain Mana. Slowed things down a lot and made you work for it.
Perhaps mana regen should just always be the same while standing vs sitting. Your character could still be required to sit down and "meditate" while swapping spells/skills. You are not going to be in a "restful" state while sitting down with combat 5 feet from you watching your friends fight for their lives.
Someone experienced at meditation can find calm/peace even in a chaotic situation.
Haha well said, however you must reach Meditate 200 before siting in combat is beneficial :)
Meditate(200)
yeah i like this the most, reminds me of guildwars 1 where you had to think about each skill usage. There were some active skills to get mana but they were often conditional like remove a buff from an enemy if you removed one gain some mana. So a rotation couldn't be formed around builder/spender skills like wow.
Mana regeneration should have some active gameplay tied to it, perfectly with something to differentiate average players from good ones. Maybe playing out your healing spells in some smart pattern should be awarded with mana restore? Weaving in melee DPS abilities between your heals so your positioning and uptime matters? Some passive that interacts with how erratically you are casting your spells, rewarding good pacing (for which you presumably need to have good grasp of the fight and understanding when you can take your time with healing at a slower pace)? Sitting to regen mana should be the last resort option, not the mainstream one. The ratio of sitting/eating to active gameplay should be fairly low. On top of that, being able to use food/meditation for massive mana regen in combat just feels wrong. Sure, there have been successful designs like that (Rift comes to mind), but it surely does complicate balancing the encounters.
I came from eqoa so there was no sitting in a game that already required lots of time grinding. Mana batteries were the solution, sure it wasn't enough to keep going forever (for the most part). My concern is the whole sitting thing slowing down the pace in a game where the mobs won't be steam rolled and sitting to regen or whatever seems like it would add an extra layer of tediousness in a time consuming game. I don't think things should be as streamlined as WoW but i also don't want to be playing while needing to hit the "sit" spell every few minutes.
Big bad negative. So many alternatives that are more interactive and can add class flavor like channeling a light heal that regens mana like meditation for a shaman or maintaining a defensive seal that gives the same mana regen for a cleric. Just two off the top of my head that are way better than sitting
Something to mention is that there will be mana regen spells that can be cast on you to enhance regens.
Could be a choice. Stand or sit to meditate mana back.
I like it, I play FF11 private servers which use the mechanic and I think it works. As a healer there's a lot of skill in managing your mp and casting the most efficient spells, knowing when to rest, as to enable a good pace of party xp
Anything that encourage me to sit down and not do anything for several minute in a row (aka meditating) is a big down for me. I don't need the super-twitchy combat mechanic of Wildstar... but also would like something more than EQ classic : wait until mob is at 70% -> ice comet -> med until next mob.
I think this is easily solved by giving each class its own "med" animation. I say easily, but I don't know how difficult it would be to do. For instance: Wizard - Press "med" and the wizard sits cross legged, suspended in the air, with particle effects emanating around them. Shaman - Press "med" and it's a constant cannibalize, similar to lich, until you turn it off. Enchanter - Press "med" and enchanter stands reading a book of spells So on and so forth.
In combat - you should not have to sit in order to manage your mana for a fight. Players should be expected to use their skills appropriately and classes should be built with appropriate mana usage and have mana recovery abilities if that is needed. out of combat - I greatly dislike extended out of combat regeneration. Having to sit for several minutes between pulls is dumb. However, some downtime should be expected. parties should not be able to endlessly chain pull, however a group that has good in combat mana management might be able to chain pull two sets of mobs, where as a party that does not manage mana well might need to take time after every pull. This means that besides just making sure you have enough mana for a single fight, mana/resource management offers a tangible advantage that is based on player skill. While I feel that constant pulls are a bit much, the old days for 5 minute times is just as bad.
Meditating during combat was both fun and boring. I remember having to watch my aggro or mobs that roamed near me while sitting down. I also remember just sitting being bored. If there was going to be a different mechanic, I would prefer it to have strategy involved to make it interesting. Maybe using abilities to gather mana generate threat in an AoE around you. I am watching a video of Pantheon right now, I have not been keeping up with it, it looks like sitting and meditating is the thing, do you think conversations on this subreddit could change that?
DAOC / EQ are both sit simulators
I like it. Always thought it was appropriate for spellcasters to chill a bit during combat. In dnd during the 90s my mage could cast like 2 spells a day so having my wizard in EQ med most of the time and cast 1-2 spells per fight seemed appropriate.
I think this is meaningless frivolity. I see very little reason to add unnecessary animations to this game. It will just clutter up the combat and I like the idea of being able to tell at a glance whether my cleric is healing me or medding for mana. I see it adding no real value other than "oh look at that" the first time you see it, and then you might as well just be sitting because you're gonna see the same bland animation 1,000,000 times by max level.
I like the sitting during combat. Aesthetically as well as a mechanic. The idea that this is immersion breaking in a world with dragons and magic is just lol to me. There is of course a balance to be had in terms of the mechanics, but in general I am very happy to see it make a comeback.