Illuminator

I've never seen a bigger anti-motivator for fresh players to become "good" than that degree of micromanagement. It's something that impacted the entire game start to finish, not just raiding. This is the only game I've ever played with at least 30 ability buttons in your face. It's a pain in the ass.

This change will make more people happy than sad, will eventually win the hearts even of the raiders, and won't be undone. And you won't realize it until you touch other games that don't mimic the burden.

Take this a step further. Why are most buffs even castable? Why are they not inherent attributes to the class? Why the overhead and tedium? When will a wizard ever choose not to have his +85 INT and STR? Oh wait, my god, I forgot to proclaim my desire to be strong and intelligent!

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Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve.

Deson

Looks like mechanics limitations and gameplay options. When they were talking about it pre-launch, it seems they wanted a lot of buffs to be innate as a bonus to having an archetype in the group. I figure something akin to why you had to constantly rebuff pets was at work when they scrapped it, as well as realizing that it limited debuffing as an option.

Few people are arguing the change can't be good.What people are worried about are the intentions stated and the track record of the company working on something so easy to screw up that really isn't broken and currently "works".

razieh

You misunderstood me, I was just merely using my alt as an example. The point is that MOST classes will not have that many spells, you by far picked the worst case scenario. Fact is most classes will not have that many ability's on their hot bars.

This change, I am not completely against it but some classes really don't need it at all. For defilers the ONLY thing I could see them merging is malignancy and abhorrent seal nothing else needs to be touched.

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Cochy

When you have more than 1 mage in the group? Think before you say stupid things.

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Khalan

Im gonna wait before passing judgement on this, I think Eq2 does have too many abilities but I also think it's too late to make such a drastic change sometimes you just got to live with the choices you make. Changing something like this so deep into the games life is bound to alienate a portion of your playerbase wether group, solo or raid.

I will wait with baited breath and I hope SOE doesn't mess this up.

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Firza

First from personal perspective about the game, then from bard (dirge)perspective:

These changes can not contribute to EQ2 and can only deduct from the game. The changes consist of 2 parts:

1 : Bringing together similar spells.
2 : Bringing together different spells.

to nr. 1:
Some spells are easily brought together. No one in their right mind can say that a game is harder to play if you have 4 cure buttons or just one. This is a reactive, and aiming your mouse at the correct spot is not something I could ever be proud of.

To nr. 2:
This is where I become afraid that many classes will become easy mode, and many classes will be destroyed. The only reason I can see for this part of the changes is to eventually bring all subclasses together.
I never thought I had to many, or not enough spells at lower levels. I just loved the progress I got from getting new spells EVERY level. Not everyone was important, or got used a lot. That was un important. Getting a new spell, trying it out, and then going for the next was what makes it fun. At this moment I have 3 hot bars witrh spells. 2 with buffs. 1 with clickies.
And I run out of things to do.Yup, when I raid, after my standard CA's debuffs, spells I sit looking at my bar looking for what might be usefull to cast till my refreshtimers come back up.

Don't take away possibilities. Please add more possibilities.

Faxon

i gotta back him up on this, short of LFG being a stupid fucker (not that i dont think you are sometimes (^_^) ). my monk gets like 11 single target combat arts. now, half of them do just direct damage, one of them stifles for 6 seconds, one dazes for 3, one stuns for 2.5, and another for 1.5 i also get an AP ability that spins the mob for 2.4, and an aoe 2.5s stun, as well as a frontal aoe that does dot every second and slows casting, and a 360 DD aoe. now, monks, IMO, got shafted compared to bruisers in how long they can keep a mob locked down in some way or form (see knockout combo). sure, we get tsunami also, but what good is that when you can keep a mob stunned for like twice that duration? so, i gotta do my best to chain my shit and keep the mob locked down. as a result, i wear the helm from fizpitzle that procs stun on successful combat art. due to most of my CA spam comming from 2 DD combat arts on a 10s recast, i proc a lot of extra stuns off of those. if i were to either have my control spells consolidated or my damage spells consolidated, i would loose what ability i have now to keep a mob from hitting me which, by the way, is the only reason i can solo anything at all.

now first off, yes im going to betray to bruiser, i just need a new raid main first. second, if soe fucks with any of my combat arts AT ALL well then you better give us much longer duration stuns, or change the mechanics of how the class works. not to mention there are also a lot of other items out there that proc off a successful combat art or spell, and yea what about illus as cal said. i just rolled one as my new raid main and now im wondering if im gonna get fucked the second i ding 70! i mean seriously dude thats just not cool, not cool at all. the only way i can see making this even remotely less worse is if you make every consolidated spell group that can proc ANYTHING have multiple indipendent chances to proc whatever you are casting based on what you consolidated into it. only way it is fair at all, and by doing that it would be grossly overpowered to begin with.


then there is the question of classes that have more buffs than concentration slots. what happens if they consolidate 3 group buffs into 1 and make it cost 3 conc? well fuck you now i gotta cast my group heat/cold resist on a mob that does poison and i cant cast another phoenixblade/vim/insert single target conc buff here on my group/raid ally. either let us group our own abilities into one the way you think it is best or make macroes of spells cast them all at the same time (again overpowered, but thats basically what you are doing).

tbh i dont think this change is never gonna go live, at least not in the stupid shit form they are saying it is. and if so then

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Tokamak

Oh no they fucking didnt

twats

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Slippery

I have all 10 hotbars up on my screen, why? Because I like to be prepared. The majority of them are filled with clickies that I might need just incase something happens. How many hotbars do I use in combat? 1. Just 1, thats it. I have another one for buffs, I have my ae's and other sometimes get used on another, and macros for things like targets or sending someone a tell for buffs on another hotbar. But in a normal encounter as a wizard I can do all my dps from one hotbar, with another 4 slots from another hotbar for ae encounters. Doesn't seem like much spamming to me.

I prefer to be able to choose what I do, not have it chosen for me. The ability to distinguish what is best to do at any given point in time should be for the player to decide.

Tanaka

I thought they wanted us spending time casting /recasting buffs. Why else are Treah and the seedlings in EH?

I think making buffs always up like they are now with the shaman dogs is pretty nice. We should be able to choose which debuffs / spells we want to cast and in which order. If they do different things in different situations, why combine them?

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