General Game Play thoughts... Anyway, I was just talking about mmos with my girlfriend and one of the things that was making it harder for me, back when I was playing EQ2 regularly, was interface overload. I think this might be a matter of taste but... Just as a general thought, not for EQ2, but as a general game play idea, I thought it would be cool to have the skills, attacks, and defenses be in context of the action. So, I have not thought about this but for a few minutes but, generally you would have a number of icons that can be pressed like in EQ2. The skills might be grouped by categories like attack, defense, utility, and so forth. Attacks might be proactive or counteractive. So if some condition were to arise during a fight were one of your skills could counter it, it would appear in your skill options. The icons would be colored, animated, or drawn in such a way that they could be understood why they had appeared. So if a spell were cast on your teammate, and as a wizard, you had a counter spell, it would appear in your counter spells area. When you moused over it it might display some cool 3d arrow that pointed to your teammate and indicate the spell you were going to dispell. You click it and you start dispelling it. The dispell icon moves into your current action spot, but you could always interrupt yourself because your skill options keep up with the action that is happening an you might decide you have to do something else. I think it might help reduce the number of buttons available at any given time but still retaining the ability to acquire many skills. Anyway that was my general idea. I was wondering if it sounds cool to anyone but me.
I could see this working.. First I'd slow down spell casting to a minimal of 1 second casting time, and the stronger the spell the longer the casting time, even up to around 12 seconds. Now other casters could have a "interrupt" style spell, we'll call it counter spell. When they see the target "casting" their long casting time gives time for the other caster to counterspell. Fighters and Melee in general would have faster abilities with their own interrupts. Melee would be over powered in this style system, fast abilities and interrupts... but if they can protect their casters, the wizards could lay down some extreme damage. So melee would be fast and armored, casters slow and few defenses, but extreme damage. Example, if a fighter could attack 15 times in 10 seconds.. the casters minimal damage would have to match that, but I'm thinking more in the rage of 5x that amount. Gives each class a role a again.. Fighters, Tanks, Melee, Skirmishers, , Archers, and Casters. Priests could almost fall anywhere between depending on flavor. I'd also like Spells to be much more then a single button push. Given longer casting times they can "weave" sigil one after another to produce different effects... You start my using the sigil for Fire.... then Area... then Range... (loose example)... then by the end of the casting time the mechanics combine these sigiles into the spell and it goes off.. Not just for damage.. But could also work for Teleportation and the like... They find a Rune of Karana and can now Teleport.. Karana.. Group... **poof** Imagine seeing a caster casting a spell in this manner? One sigil is drawn in the air (or ground) then another, and another, perhaps another... the spectacle would be incredible.. And other casters would start to recognize combinations. Slowing things down could add a lot to casters in these games.. Right now on my conjurer I can just mash keys as fast as they recycle with little to no thought... **yawn**
I think you could be right. Seems like for a skill decision game it would be better to make each decision more important and effectual rather than an multitude of skill selections that have very small effects. If you are just rotating through hotkeys, it may as well be an auto attack. They could combine all of those kinds of skills into a little queue or something which you could set up and then you can automate it. Like a special hotkey bar that you put your repetitive skills into and they fire off in a prioritized order when available. Then use the really important skills that could actually alter the course of the battle significantly for player decisions. Bah, who knows what would work for EQ2. Maybe nothing, but for a game from scratch, being able to grow and manipulate your auto attack abilities might be cool. I think I understand the benefits of your spell weaving idea. It could further reduce the sheer number of abilities available at once and instead you make decisions during the casting time that alters the final effect. It also eliminates waiting time while waiting for casting times to complete. I don't even know if I like a flat casting time in addition to mana requirements. I might prefer to have the mana bar just regen faster but spells take more of the mana. That way as your grow in power, you could use really expensive spells slower, or cheaper spells faster. Your weaving idea would still work but if a caster had enough energy, he could weave the same spell (that a caster with inadequate energy can) without waiting for the bar to regen (though the caster with less energy could still do it if he has the ability, he just has to wait for the mana regen to make the next weave options to become available).
Yeah. I thought about it more. What if you could hold the icon for the element down and let it charge up. While you held it down it consumed mana. You could charge it to maximum or you could charge it some and then you could hold down a icon for area effect and charge it. You could press an icon to make it a projectile. Or it could be a pbaoe. Depends on your skills. Charging them is what takes time. Charging up range or power or aoe.
So what if the difference between caster strength was not completely spell damage but speed? That could be good. Hypothetically, If extra power was all speed and types of skills, then a stronger mage would win because he was doing more dps through speed of spell attacks. Lets say he was 3 times faster. The stronger one could launch 3 fireballs for every one fireball of the weaker caster. But the stronger one versus 5 weaker casters would probably be out matched, because its 5 fireballs for every 3.
Yup... Stuff like that.. Caster can be implemented much more creatively then following the old pattern that's been around since games and video games have been invented. It wouldn't be for everyone but I feel it is time for a more interesting system.
You have a good imagination. I don't know how to the system should be but I do think EQ players like a slower more thoughtful approach to fantasy mmos.
