Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Limited Action Bar vs PvE
ArchivedUser
Guest
So this has been a subject of many questions in my mind during the development of the game and I've been fairly attentive to public announcements, but haven't been able to pick up much on this.
So you're pretty dead-set on the fact that our action bars will have a limited number of spells and abilities on it, to avoid having an overabundance of abilities to mash and manage. This is a very logical and understandable stance, but it brings with it a little bit of a concern in regards to PvE and PvP in some ways as well.
My main point is this; how do you plan to make a PvE rotation more engaging and entertaining? 'Cause when I think of games like GW2, the fact that I only had a few major buttons to press and little to no cooldowns to manage made the PvE in that game feel dull and monotonous.
Part of the reason why WoW's Raiding/Dungeon PvE has remained so entertaining is the complexity that can come from a good rotation. While there are some exceptions, they definitely go out of the way to manage the classes so that the good players stand out against the bad because better players are able to manage a more complex rotation and weave high dps in with intense boss mechanics.
With the limited action bars, is there any sort of combo-like system that will require unique setups in order to perform at the highest level or are we going to be stuck with the 4-5 dps buttons and a few utility buttons and that's it? I'm also curious how the sub-class system will assist in these mechanics.
Thanks for the hope for a great game!
So you're pretty dead-set on the fact that our action bars will have a limited number of spells and abilities on it, to avoid having an overabundance of abilities to mash and manage. This is a very logical and understandable stance, but it brings with it a little bit of a concern in regards to PvE and PvP in some ways as well.
My main point is this; how do you plan to make a PvE rotation more engaging and entertaining? 'Cause when I think of games like GW2, the fact that I only had a few major buttons to press and little to no cooldowns to manage made the PvE in that game feel dull and monotonous.
Part of the reason why WoW's Raiding/Dungeon PvE has remained so entertaining is the complexity that can come from a good rotation. While there are some exceptions, they definitely go out of the way to manage the classes so that the good players stand out against the bad because better players are able to manage a more complex rotation and weave high dps in with intense boss mechanics.
With the limited action bars, is there any sort of combo-like system that will require unique setups in order to perform at the highest level or are we going to be stuck with the 4-5 dps buttons and a few utility buttons and that's it? I'm also curious how the sub-class system will assist in these mechanics.
Thanks for the hope for a great game!
0
Comments
Chances are it'll work something like GW2, ESO or FF14. I mention ESO because you have the least amount of skills there, but have a lot of flexibility in what skills you take. GW2 because your skills may or may not be determined by weapon choice, we don't know yet. FF14 because you can have quite a few skills equipped at any time and have multiple skill bars and also have non-combat skills equipped.
Regardless, we don't know exactly how limited our skill bar space will be, nor do we know if weapons have any effect on skills we can take. We also don't know if we'll have something like a combat bar or a utility bar for utility skills like the spyglass shown in previous videos.
I would personally like a system with a mixture of ESO and FF14, where your weapon matters for what skills you can take, and FF14 where you can have a large but not too large variety of skills.
But with no addons, and unless they make a mechanic in-game, it will be manual.
Now there is a request!
Even WoW is going this route. I remember when I needed to rotate between a dozen or more abilities on a regular basis to be effective. Now, I'm usually hitting a rotation of 4 buttons with any given class or spec, with a few more situational buttons and a few more long CD buttons. Blizzard realized what most every other modern MMO designer has realized, which is that people expect and prefer a more streamlined UI. The days of playing a piano are pretty much gone, now we have a child's xylophone.
But that's okay. Strategy is now less about which of the 30 buttons you're supposed to be pressing and more about when to step out of the glowing circle or when to hide behind the column or when you need to save a big heal for spike damage or when you need to use all those DPS-boosting CDs to burn the boss down. I think it's better this way frankly.