EQ Never

Lyrical_sl said:

Somehow, I think on raids you are going to want a Cleric with CH or tank with defensive skills on raids, regardless of what they said in the above post.

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It just depends. I think people need to alter their view on what 'Tanking' and Healing' are going to be.

The mobs will no longer just mindlessly beat on you and ignore everyone else - but I think there will definitely be ways to protect your allies, but it won't be a necessary mechanic - and may be able to be mitigated in other ways.

For example, some telegraphs by the enemy may be unavoidable - as in no matter where the player moves to, the telegraph moves and a Fireball is homing in on them. However, a Guardian may be able to step into the line of sight and in harms way and use a Spell Reflect utility spell, which shoots the Fireball back at the mob and protects their ally from being hit. Or, the person gets hit because it can't be prevented by any of the group's abilities, so a Cleric is able to Heal it back up.

Now perhaps the spell could have also been interrupted, or spell warded, etc. But it's one method to allow a active defensive tanking style or reactionary healing, without making it required to have one or detrimental to bring one along.

To me, this sounds pretty damn fun. Imagine having to actively defend your allies instead of just standing still and having the enemy reliably attack you at all times.

tad10_sl said:

There are some shared skills. They said as much at the panel. Just not a lot.

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Okay, so a Rogue and Assain, if they both use Daggers (And aren't modded by the player) might have 8 unique skills between them and 8 "shared" skills. So whenever you find a new class, you're not going to be getting 12 new skills (2 sets of 4 from weapons), some of them will be copies. Which is fine, with me, because the skills are only one set of variables--even just the "make up" of a class (M/O/O/U vs D/O/U/M) will be a dramatic difference, even if you don't add any skills to your skill pool.

So I could even see classes that give no unique skills, but instead give very unique combos of slots (Like Sword/Shield with all offensive class slots)--and finding those classes would still be valuable, even if they don't grow your skill library, just because they give more freedom to plug in variables.

Lithose_sl said:

And, as much as they say it, I don't buy that every skill or weapon ability will be unique. I think you're going to see a lot of clones, with one unique skill. So if a Rogue and Assassin both use daggers, their daggers will probably have 2 skills the same, and the assassin will have 2 additional skills that are different on the dagger. I'll bet some class skills will even be shared, so the rogue or assassin might have two of the same class skills, but again, 2 separate ones.

Maybe they will ALL by unique, but I seriously doubt we're going to see 1200+ skills (8 from two weapons per class, and 4 from the class) in the game at launch and an 12 skill increase every class that's shoved in. Either we're going to see some actually copies of skills OR we're going to see just some redundant skills, like "Blink vs Shazzam!" Which both essentially teleport you forward twelve feet, but Blink gives you 10 armor for 20 seconds, while Shazzam heals you for 1% of your health.

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Weapon abilities aren't necessarily tired to the weapon itself though. Their example was a Warrior gaining a Heroic Leap ability with a Sword+Board weapon set. As I said before, imagine if a Cleric's Heal is their Flail Weapon Ability?

Just because it's a weapon skill doesn't mean it has to be an attack directly related to that weapon (ie: Daggers = Backstab, Sword = Chop).

So really, it's about creating 12 iconic abilities per class. That really doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Teekey_sl said:

It just depends. I think people need to alter their view on what 'Tanking' and Healing' are going to be..

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Mage groups in EQ could be pretty fun. No such thing as all mage raids. People are going to have to take on semi-dedicated roles to be effective at the high end, if the high end is any good. Again, see Ukerric's post, I think he is spot on. The average MMO player hasn't a chance of being a pro level LOL player which is what your example seems to require. If they're going to partake in raids they'll have to be given a role and told what to do: Your primary task is to heal Tee'Kay if his health gest low, use your teleport to get away from the mob when it goes after you, and dps a little when Mob starts to get low on health.

That's my guess at least.

Teekey_sl said:

For example, some telegraphs by the enemy may be unavoidable - as in no matter where the player moves to, the telegraph moves and a Fireball is homing in on them.

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In DCUO right now, some of the bosses target everyone. So in a way, everyone is responsible for their own survival. In one of the t5 alerts, the lieutenants of Lex Luthor target everyone with reticles (followed by a missile strike that one shots the player). Or in the t4 raid, Gates of Themyscira, the mobs attack whoever the hell they want. So tanking and healing is still there, but some NPC's will avoid the tank and go after the rest of the team.

Lenas_sl said:

Surprise!

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I think the only comment that riled me up was when Butler (I believe) said that if a cleric leaves then it doesn't kill the group. I'm paraphrasing of course. However, to me that was saying that anyone else can be "good enough" and the group can keep going. I like the thought of breaking away from that dependency of any one class but I don't like that it seems that classes are going to be diluted. As long as it's balanced and, as others have said, the AI is not moronic, it should be fine and possibly even interesting.

I'm willing to be open-minded but I don't like a world of grey areas.

Teekey_sl said:

Weapon abilities aren't necessarily tired to the weapon itself though. Their example was a Warrior gaining a Heroic Leap ability with a Sword+Board weapon set. As I said before, imagine if a Cleric's Heal is their Flail Weapon Ability?

Just because it's a weapon skill doesn't mean it has to be an attack directly related to that weapon (ie: Daggers = Backstab, Sword = Chop).

So really, it's about creating 12 iconic abilities per class. That really doesn't seem so far-fetched.

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It does when you have 40 classes. 480 unique skills? I'm thinking you'll see a lot of pooled skills among similar classes. So if say, a cleric and Paladin both used flails (lets say they are two handed, for simplicity)..Then they both might get Basic Heal, Anti-undead nuke on their flail...but then the cleric might get better heal and a general (ranged) nuke on hers, while the Paladin gets a strong melee attack and maybe a mob debuffing strike on his.

So two shared, two different.

Maybe, who knows though--maybe they will just have the same abilities with very small changes. Like the clerics Flail based Anti-undead nuke gives mana back, while the Paladins gives him life back. So technically two different skills butvery similar. It would essentially be like a less modular diablo rune system--where abilities are pooled, but they are different by small changes induced by runes (So Whirlwind is the same but one gives life back, the other makes you move faster). That, however, goes back again to having hundreds of abilities--even for a hardcore player, that's a lot to track (Which sounds good to me). But I can see where it would be worrisome from a development stand point, how many is overwhelming? When you're making classes, is having hundreds of unique skills to build up manageable?

Lots of questions, I wish we knew more. (Though, personally, since I'm kind of an organization/strategy buff, I'd love having 400+ skills with endless variables to mix and match.)

This game will be a steaming pile of garbage. I am sad.

Muligan_sl said:

I think the only comment that riled me up was when Butler (I believe) said that if a cleric leaves then it doesn't kill the group. I'm paraphrasing of course. However, to me that was saying that anyone else can be "good enough" and the group can keep going. I like the thought of breaking away from that dependency of any one class but I don't like that it seems that classes are going to be diluted. As long as it's balanced and, as others have said, the AI is not moronic, it should be fine and possibly even interesting.

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This could mean any number of things, though... it could mean switching from a tank/heal lineup to kiting, or rotating pet tanks or whatever else is possible... so much information was worded so ambiguously that it could be interpreted however you want.

Lithose_sl said:

It does when you have 40 classes. 480 unique skills? I'm thinking you'll see a lot of pooled skills among simmilar classes, with a few unique ones. So if say, a cleric and Paladin both used flails (lets say they are two handed, for simplicity)..Then they both might get Basic Heal, Anti-undead nuke on their flail...but then the cleric might get better heal and a general nuke on hers, while the Paladin gets a strong melee attack and maybe a mob debuffing strike on his.

So two shared, two different.

Maybe, who knows though--maybe they will just have the same abilities with very small changes. Like the clerics Anti-undead nuke gives mana back, while the Paladins gives him life back. So technically two different skills but very similar. It would essentially be like a less modular diablo rune system--where abilities are pooled, but they are different by small changes. That, however, goes back again to having hundreds of abilities--even for a hardcore player, that's a lot to track (Which sounds good to me).

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I could see shared in some situation. As Tad said, it could require a Tier 5 Rogue to unlock the Assassin class. Because the Assassin is an off-shoot of a Rogue, it may not change EVERY weapon ability. An Assassin should certainly still be able to Backstab with Daggers. But an Assassin could add more specialized Class Abilities, through Poison-based abilities, perhaps.

Teekey_sl said:

I could see shared in some situation. As Tad said, it could require a Tier 5 Rogue to unlock the Assassin class. Because the Assassin is an off-shoot of a Rogue, it may not change EVERY weapon ability. An Assassin should certainly still be able to Backstab with Daggers. But an Assassin could add more specialized Class Abilities, through Poison-based abilities, perhaps.

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Yeah, I think this is what we will see--kind of branches where abilities are pooled, but each class will give you some unique ones. So going from Rogue and unlocking assassin, won't give you 24 skills, but maybe like 18, the assassin having 6 unique skills between his weapons and character. BUT the assasin ALSO had a different slot variable (So maybe O/O/U/U vs O/O/M/U), so it's a lot of different outcomes.

Anyway, it does sound cool. Even if the changes are tiny, like "Back Stab" vs "Ninja Stab" being only different in a side effect, like say Back Stab does 250% damage to your target while Ninja stab does 225% but gives you some kind of buff, that small shift is "different" enough to allow for a lot of mix and matching. (Because maybe the ninja version will play better in a kit that's more utility, while back stab is better for kits with more offense, so you can have two classes, with maybe nearly identical abilities, that have radically different play styles because of small changes.)

Dragoon_sl said:

This game will be nothing memorable.

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Aside from the "I can blow a hole in the ground!" mechanics.

There's something that classic EQ and Skyrim get right that WoW and its clones do not.

Any word on minor illusion?

^That's an example of what this game needs.

And less of overly exaggerated attack animations and particle effects starting at lvl 1.

I registered just to add that EQ Next is an abortion of a game.

I see a lot of effort to rationalize the poor game design into something that might work IF it works like theory A, B, C. The foundation of your game shouldnt be ...well it sucks so far but if they do X, Y, Z it might not suck as bad. Most of the discussion seems to revolve around that concept. At best this is a title that should have been marketed as an Action RPG with no meaningful character development. To claim this Action RPG is revolutionary for MMO's is pure stupidity. All they did was make an Action RPG and then say how awesome this new MMORPG concept is. There is nothing revolutionary here at all.

-40 classes with 4 abilities each? How is that a class?
-No exp/no lvls/no skill based progression.... It is a light action RPG title with lots of fancy graphics to lure in the kids.
-Destructible environments.... BFD. I find the entire DigDug meets Battlefield/COD gameplay tedious to even think about.

I could just go on forever about how bad EQ Next is but simplay stating the obvious will not have any impact. They somehow think they are onto something.

The reason other recent mmo's failed that attempted to clone WoW is simply...why pay to play a WoW clone when you can play WoW. I get that they didnt want to be a WoW clone and that makes good sense...most people were looking forward to that. In the end though they tried too hard and in doing so made a game which perhaps might appeal to young console gamers but really offers little interest as a MMORPG.

Let's hope future game designers use this as a model reference on how arrogance and incompetence can sink your product.

Ill pass on this CF of a concept.

I'm going to wait for this damage control "Combat demo/explanation" ole ponytail tweeted about.

Lithose_sl said:

It does when you have 40 classes. 480 unique skills? I'm thinking you'll see a lot of pooled skills among similar classes. So if say, a cleric and Paladin both used flails (lets say they are two handed, for simplicity)..Then they both might get Basic Heal, Anti-undead nuke on their flail...but then the cleric might get better heal and a general (ranged) nuke on hers, while the Paladin gets a strong melee attack and maybe a mob debuffing strike on his.

So two shared, two different.

Maybe, who knows though--maybe they will just have the same abilities with very small changes. Like the clerics Flail based Anti-undead nuke gives mana back, while the Paladins gives him life back. So technically two different skills butvery similar. It would essentially be like a less modular diablo rune system--where abilities are pooled, but they are different by small changes induced by runes (So Whirlwind is the same but one gives life back, the other makes you move faster). That, however, goes back again to having hundreds of abilities--even for a hardcore player, that's a lot to track (Which sounds good to me). But I can see where it would be worrisome from a development stand point, how many is overwhelming? When you're making classes, is having hundreds of unique skills to build up manageable?

Lots of questions, I wish we knew more. (Though, personally, since I'm kind of an organization/strategy buff, I'd love having 400+ skills with endless variables to mix and match.)

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I think it depends alot on how fast they overwhelm people, there must be like 5-600 unique abilities in DOTA or LoL but for a new player you just focus on your 4. But at the high end being really good means knowing almost all of them. I think most people will prolly start off rolling with their set template abilities that come with the class and branch out slowly from there. This is where it really helps them that the number of abilities you have at one time is pretty low so figuring out the synergies isn't as hard as figuring them out in a game like WoW where you have 40 abilities thrown at you all at once and need to learn to use all of them.

Nirgon_sl said:

Aside from the "I can blow a hole in the ground!" mechanics.

There's something that classic EQ and Skyrim get right that WoW and its clones do not.

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Yep, and it's called First Person mode for more immersion :3