LFG

I respect your opinion, but my point is, isn't this all a little much for new players?

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RiTuL

It wasn't too much at launch, and it isn't too much now. If someone seems overwhelmed by the simple spell setup we use now, they probably should find a new game.

Pinski

No, it's not. You know, I was a new player at one point, and I thought I had the right amount of abilities. By the way, you show all your hotbars on your Illusionist, but how many of them do you actually use? Which ones do you use for emergencies to save your tank, or whatever? Or do you just mindlessly spam them all in some dumb order that makes 0 sense at all? I think the problem is that you're looking at an Illusionist, which of course they're going to have a ton of abilities. They have stuns, stifles, roots, dazes, mezes. But they're for emergencies. Enchanters are one of the very few classes that do NOT need to have the consolidation done, because their abilities do not connect in ANYWAY at all. There are lots of abilities for emergencies! I don't use my daze/nuke very often on hard mobs, it's not just a spam it willy nilly ability, it's a save it for emergencies when the tank gets into the red. Same with the stuns, and the stifle. Mezes are there for adds. The entire Illusionist class is setup in a perfect way with lots of abilities giving a lot of choices. Sure, some other classes have too many just damage abilities, but you're looking at the illusionist class in your statement, which is just dumb. What are you going to do to consolidate the spells? Cripple the abilities so that you can never cast them because there's a stun or daze connected to them basically meaning that you'll never be able to cast anything unless you just don't care about being AN ENCHANTER. In which case, LFG, never talk about enchanters again and go fuck yourself for being the dumbest motherfucker ever.

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SageGaspar

That's actually a very good example of what I'm afraid of LFG because I'm honestly not sure how they'd cut down that hotbar without screwing the illusionist.

Magi's Shielding and the power regen take no conc and they're always up, the two group buffs next to it take one each. Those don't really see a lot of play anyway, so let's roll all four of those into one spell that takes no conc, what the hell (although we have to resolve the issue with coercer power regen actually removing the illu buff totally or else we're going to run into some stacking issues). Net savings, three hotbar spaces.

None of the abilities on the rest of the three hotbars even make remote sense to combine besides...

1. The two DDs: one longer reuse, one obscenely short reuse... one has daze, one does not.

2. The two single target DoTs.

3. Possibly putting the single target debuff onto an offensive spell

4. The two AE DoTs (although one you get early now, and one is the special level 50 spell... one has stifle and one doesn't)

If they did that stuff -- especially the DDs, something that might seem relatively innocuous to someone that doesn't play the class much -- it would be a pretty serious blow to both the AGI line and proc damage. I'm just not sure how they'd pair the spells down without changing how the class plays fundamentally.

It's early before we see the plans I guess though.

Morara

No worries, because EQ2 will be a new game when RoK comes out!

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LFG

I would never consider debating any issue about an illusionist with you, I lack the competence to do that.

I simply posted that screenshot in rebuttal to what Raz said. If I understood his meaning, it was that a level 47 couldn't fill three hotbars completely with spells or cas.

My level 34 illusionist is still on Queens Colony, I leveled it to 34 using collection quests. The only thing I've ever killed with this toon is a few guards on noob island. If I had any clue how to play this character and made macros, keys for equipment changes, potions, etc., I could easily fill five hot bars, couldn't I?

What other game can use that many keys at this level?

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RiTuL

None that I can think of LFG, and that is why we play this one. It's got some depth to it.

Pinski

You have useless abilties on there that are barely ever used and aren't EVER used in-combat, for example see invis, your invis's, your 30-minute recast racial traits. There's lot of things on your hotbar that a smart new player would just remove from their hotbars instantly and be down to a smaller setup. Back in T5 I used only 4 hotbars. In T7, I use 4 hotbars, yet I've gained a lot of new abilities. I honestly don't see how 4 hotbars is "too much". I think having 1 hotbar is too little and gives you nothing to work with and no options ever. The fact is, you have options, I am going to admit some classes have dumb abilities that really should be combined, however other classes do NOT have these dumb abilities.

__________________
How many times do you hear it? It goes on all day long
Everyone knows everything And no one's ever wrong
Until later...
Who can you believe? It's hard to play it safe
But apart from a few good friends We don't take anything on faith
Until later..

Deson

Still, as Pinski pointed out, all those things are situational; they simply aren't spam cast abilities. Yes, there can be a lot going on but that's one of the draws of the game to me. You also have some stuff up that isn't combat related. Looking across my 9 chars, 8 of which are 22-38, I simply don't have 3hotbars of always used arts. The only one that has all 5 up and full is my 70 necro and one of those is buffs, the other misc/Drawing of souls spells.Even in the 3 left there are situational uses that get touched only when needed.

While I can take a wait and see on some of the stuff like cures and buffs, I just see too much room for breaking classes with this. My coercer especially; there is simply no way to reduce my abilities without breaking how I work. The only way they could get away with a change like this on a scale that makes it worthy to announce as they did is to do a complete overhaul like LU13- and the game just isn't broken enough to warrant that.

Anyone else reading that FoH thread notice SoGa team is doing guildhalls and cringe a little?

Stoic

Something that I enjoy about the game is that it takes a sharp mind to play it. Having hope that SOE isn't gonna fuck it up in some form or fashion is ludicrous. Multiple times I have had false hope that things were gonna work out alright. Look how long it took them to finally work out the bugs in dimisnishing returns. Hell soloing solo mobs when EOF came out was 10x more difficult than before and soloing a heroic green was tough as nails.

People have given SOE the benefit of the doubt since launch but how many times has that been destroyed by their own hand? It isn't that we don't think they can do it right, but their track record is far from flawless or even worthy of hoping it will come out without glaring flaws.

I don't mind a well thought out consolidation of abilities but I don't trust SOE enough to do that. It isn't about them doing it, its about them doing it correctly. If the game turns into a 6 button mash fest then why don't we all just play WoW instead? We all play this game for the most part because A: it looks better, and B: it actually takes a certain amount of player skill and understanding of the game to master your char.

The MMO industry doesn't need 12 games that are all modeled the same and all roughly the same with minor tweaks, what it needs is Multiple diffrent levels of skill and ability to play, High learning curves for the more advanced gamer and lower ones for the stupid masses. If SOE wants to make a game that is like WoW in its ease or should I say lack of mental ability to play they should make an MMO that is on that level. I for one like EQ2 with a decent learning curve and a clear way to seperate the wheat from the chaff.

If a wizard is parsing below 800 they obviously suck major balls but with the new system wizards will just have to hit 3 or 4 buttons for the same effect and not having to create a good rythem and ability to adjust to new situations cause everyone can suddenly be great. I guess it comes down to the pride of a good player against a mediocre one. Good players like to stand apart from the rest of the masses because they obviously know what they are doing. If a poor player can manhandle their char as well as a good player after this because of the ineptitude of a dev or coder to do it correctly then the game will lose any appeal it had. Why play a game if you can't boast to other gamers about your skill? All gamers are highly competitive and taking that away does in fact make the game just a button mashing fest. Anyone can mash buttons, a good player however presses certain buttons at specific times to achieve a superior and well thought out line of events.

Anyone can play chess after all, but very few people become masters.

All I am saying is that, SOE needs to take the concerns of the players to heart if they plan on doing this. If they fail, their desire to increase revenues will in fact backfire on them. ROK for many people is going to determine wether or not they go and play a diffrent game which by that time many new MMO's will be releasing. They can't afford to fuck this up.

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