Thoughts on reagents?

Since recent livestreams have focused a lot on the spellcasters, it made me wonder about something that I have pretty integral to the spellcaster experience, but seems to have been falling out of favor in MMOs. Spell and ability reagents. For those unfamiliar, items in your inventory that are consumed to use a spell or ability. For me, at least, dealing with items of magic potency is part of the flavor of of being a spellcaster, though really any class can use reagents as a mechanic. For instance, you could take a page out of the Witcher and have a fighter down mutagens to activate abilities that give them some kind of buff.

I would divide reagents into four categories:

Internal Reagents - Reagents that your class is able to produce on its own by performing some action.

Crafted Reagents - Reagents produced by one of the crafting professions.

Loot Reagents - Reagents dropped by enemies and/or found in the environment

Vendor Reagents - Reagents sold by vendors, especially a specialized "reagents vendor"

For those unfamiliar with the concept, reagents outside of internal reagents aren't typically used for core abilities, but strong or specialized abilities with a significant cooldown, or to give abilities a convenience boost (for instance, a single target buff with a 30 minute duration becomes a party buff with an hour duration).

Any thoughts on this? Good ones, bad ones, or should the whole concept be left in the past?

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Comments

Nerror

I think it should be left in the past. Same goes for arrows for bows. It works ok for pen & paper RPGs where the pace is very slow in comparison, but it was never really a good idea for MMORPGs IMO. I played the old-school MMOs with reagents and arrows and such, and I never found it to add positively to those games.

Azherae

I have no strong opinion either way.

I enjoy the economic aspects they bring in some cases, even if they are mandatory, as long as their stack size is high.

But it's just one more thing for the server/client to track. It's not a 'costly' thing, but it is one more thing.

I enjoy them when they are for use for rare special things though, so the 'special quivers' compromise mentioned awhile back for arrows, or a 'reagent pouch' for whatever else, is fine with me too.

Ace1234

Yeah I think it could be interesting. Obviously you would want there to be counterplay available, or it would be frustrating to lose to an OP skill that you didn't have access to or know the other player had.

I think
1. having a way for players to directly prepare against them
2. having significant risk for acqusition with opportunity for player prevention
3. having equally strong counterparts for other players to utilize

could help balance them to make for unique gameplay experiences, or provide an additional fun option to use for rewards.

Noaani

Things like this I kind of lump in with consumables as a whole.

I'm of the opinion that they are fine if used as an occasional boost, but not as a required part of a class.

pgt1027

Nerror wrote: »

I think it should be left in the past. Same goes for arrows for bows. It works ok for pen & paper RPGs where the pace is very slow in comparison, but it was never really a good idea for MMORPGs IMO. I played the old-school MMOs with reagents and arrows and such, and I never found it to add positively to those games.

I would put arrows and reagents in two different categories.

Arrows are basically an item you have to have for every attack, including auto-attacks. With maybe the exception of internal reagents, reagents really shouldn't be needed for core abilities and especially auto-attacks. Reagents would be more for specialized or powerful abilities with a significant cooldown, or on what you might describe as "convenience abilities," like making a single target buff a party buff.

You could think of them almost like potions, but integrated into your class.

Chocometeor

I remember when a Ability in WoW needed a ''Light Feather'' a Reagent that only dropped from certain Enemies.
It was just really annoying and nobody wanted to farm reagents to use a Spell..
I can imagine the same with crafted Reagents aso.
You just want your spells to be ready when you need them.

pgt1027

Chocometeor wrote: »

I remember when a Ability in WoW needed a ''Light Feather'' a Reagent that only dropped from certain Enemies.
It was just really annoying and nobody wanted to farm reagents to use a Spell..
I can imagine the same with crafted Reagents aso.
You just want your spells to be ready when you need them.

Yes, the mage "slow fall" spell and the priest "levitate" spell. All it really did was slow your falling speed and, in the case of the priests, let you run above water instead of swim. I can't think of a situation where you actually needed these abilities. They were just kind of cool and convenient at times.

Ludullu

I'd support the mechanic Azherae mentioned, because that kind of thing could be applied to any class, would only need one item slot and would require a single craft (with maybe some recharging mechanic or maybe even an ability).

I do like consumables, but their implementation strongly depends on the ability/effect they're linked to. L2 had a consumable that you'd use on each attack (on every class), archers would have arrows as consumables (on top of the first item), some fighter classes would have an item that would charge up their class-based resource, healers had an item for a specific strong ability, one of the mages required another item to use his main nuke and most of the time everyone had to keep a particular item in their inventory in order to be summonable by a support class.

In other words it can get very convoluted and micromanagey real fast. Majority of the items I mentioned could be just bought at an npc store, but I'd personally prefer if Ashes relied on those as little as possible, which would mean that consumables would have to be crafted by people. At which point the micromanagement of your stuff relies on other people. And if those consumables are used in some powerful spells and you happen to run out, and your usual crafter is not online - you're shit out of luck.

Imo it can be a deep and interesting system, but quite often it just goes against the day-to-day fun of the game. I remember countless times when guild gatherings (for raids or pvp) would start with 30% of people saying "oh shit, I forgot a consumable I need, give me 5 mins". And in L2 we had TPs, so it was in fact just 5 minutes. But imagine how that would go in Ashes. "Oh shit, I forgot to stock up on a very important consumable. And it's only crafted in a node 20 minutes away and I'm not sure if the crafter set up his stall for it. Do you want me to go w/o one of my most powerful spells or do you want me to go check (which will take almost an hour)?"

SunScript

pgt1027 wrote: »

Yes, the mage "slow fall" spell and the priest "levitate" spell. All it really did was slow your falling speed and, in the case of the priests, let you run above water instead of swim. I can't think of a situation where you actually needed these abilities. They were just kind of cool and convenient at times.

Actually, there was one place where the Mage "slow fall" spell was something I used consistently. The Twin Peaks Capture the Flag battleground (I hope I remember the name correctly). There was a fairly high plateau there and if you had slow fall, it became a quickish escape for you and fall damage for anyone trying to follow you. I don't consider that implementation of reagents very good.

Now, I will freely admit I wasn't good at the game, I didn't play that mode for long and this is already fairly niche. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that if you make a reagent using spell something neat and flavorful for most players and integral to players of the same class but doing DIFFERENT content, you need to make this a part of a healthy economy for your game. Otherwise it's frustrating. In other words, it should allow some players to think to themselves "the mages are probably going to care about this reagent this month for whatever reason, so I should go gather it to make money off the Auction House". The mages should then be able to decide for themselves whether that's something they want to spend the gold on, or gather for themselves ahead of time.

And even then, if you asked me to design this kind of thing, I wouldn't do it for the slow fall type stuff of all things. It means you would have to carry those reagents around for possibly months at a time until the niche situation arises. Most players will sensibly choose to make better use of the limited inventory slots and then be frustrated when the situation occurs to do something cool as the class they play, but they chose not to carry the reagent. And then you also have players who literally use it all the time because they do very specific content. The better approach imo is to make it required for something somewhat rare, but more uniform across classes and/or content. Like say... Leapfrog Potion to jump over ledges when you know a rare but notable part of exploration involves taking shortcuts over ledges. That suddenly becomes a neat cool thing for most people to do sometimes and an actual job requirement for someone making profit off exploring/gathering (assuming the game allows for this and has a good economy).

Edit: I suppose for slow fall type stuff in a game like WoW where it barely ever comes into play for most people most of the time, another sensible approach might be to introduce a second use for the same reagent, to make it something people can expect to use and need to carry around more consistently. Then it once again becomes a question of stack sizes, how well the game economy is designed and whether you feel it makes the game more fun.

Songcaller

I'm not convinced. I believe everything useful should be in a class kit. Not bolted on afterwards via reagents.

Lash

I am perfectly ok if there is class based skills used to help or enhance dungeon exploration requiring reagents. Normal skills I can go either way depending on the implementation. In the end I would leave it up to the devs to make the game they want to make in this regard.

CROW3

I agree with separating ammunition from reagents.

So:

- arrows / bolts are good
- Reagents for combat abilities are bad
- Reagents necessary for non combat abilities I could go either way (particularly for buffs / travel spells)

tautau

Regarding @NiKr 's comment on the L2 consumable item (various types of 'shots' which increased attack power):

I hope/wish AoC adopts the same system. Not only did their use speed up hunting/levelling, when you decided not to use them you saved money.

Crafters (dwarves) made the shots be deconstructing items so the system was a great sink for lower quality and no longer needed items. It was also a nice source of cash for the crafters. You could set up a 'shot crafting shop' and leave the dwarf online for other players to pay to make shots. If, as in the above example, someone forgets to bring shots to the raid, any dwarven crafter can make them on the spot, thus increasing demand for dwarves at raids.

Of course, others may have different opinions, but I really liked the system.

pgt1027

Neurath wrote: »

I'm not convinced. I believe everything useful should be in a class kit. Not bolted on afterwards via reagents.

They are a part of the class kit. Sometimes an intrinsic part of it. For instance, the warlock class in WoW was originally built around the use of the soulshard reagent, which the warlocks were able to produce themselves by killing units while they were under the effect of the "drain soul" spell. This was one of the elements that made me feel that the warlock class was head and shoulders above the mage class in terms of spellcaster flavor, fantasy and actual magic system mechanics.

Songcaller

Its not really apart of the class though. The warlock required external input to function. By inherent to the class I mean kind of like Soul Shards from other Warlocks which are just earnt through action and spent through action. Not a reagent but a method of acquisition and expenditure. All part of the class design. Something that doesn't stack in an inventory or ability bar slot.

Fantmx

As others have said I equate this to bows and arrows. It is largely a pain to use. I could bend that maybe for spells that are cast less often and that could have a benefit to using an item but not requiring an item to cast. Perhaps there is a KEI equivalent that using an item to cast increases the length or the strength but can still be cast without it. I would probably be ok with that.

pgt1027

Neurath wrote: »

Its not really apart of the class though. The warlock required external input to function. By inherent to the class I mean kind of like Soul Shards from other Warlocks which are just earnt through action and spent through action. Not a reagent but a method of acquisition and expenditure. All part of the class design. Something that doesn't stack in an inventory or ability bar slot.

The items are a part of the class design, not something external to it. Now, the use of reagents could be made less irritating, such as the creation of a special "reagent pouch" slot instead of reagents immediately using up normal bag space and having soulshards stack, but the use of soulshards and other conjured items is part of what made the warlock class unique and flavorful, and part of the reason why the warlock class is now a flavorless. grey damage turret after the removal of these mechanics.

Songcaller

I get what you're saying, but I've struggled to get resource ui for the tank and conviction ui for the cleric. I'm not sure we will be able to get a separate ui for warlock which isn't a base class.

pgt1027

Neurath wrote: »

I get what you're saying, but I've struggled to get resource ui for the tank and conviction ui for the cleric. I'm not sure we will be able to get a separate ui for warlock which isn't a base class.

I wasn't saying that there should be a warlock class in this game, just that the warlock in WoW was a good example of reagents being integrated into a class kit.

PherPhur

Like all proper challenges in a game, it's a test of your ability, in this case the ability to remember.

I know all the zoomers want to do is BDO this shit and teleport around the screen in a fast paced seizure inducing light show with no real challenge, but I'm hoping for something more in AoC.

Like WoW you forget a reagent and you hearth back to town, buy a couple from the vendor, and have the warlock re-summon you. Not much of a penalty, more annoying than anything.

For AoC it can very well be a "we reminded you before the raid, try again next week"
A valuable life lesson, to remember for the 100th time that you're a mage, and some of their magic needs reagents. One more time and your raid slot could be filled permanently.

Challenges feel great to overcome, maybe not in hindsight but they do afterwards, and if they teach a life lesson, all the better.

This game seems serious. Like remember your keys and wallet serious, play with a team to win serious, own a home and grow your own food serious, pay taxes serious, ect. Remembering to do something before you can do something sticks well on an MMORPG, a genre derived from a more thought out and involved tabletop game.

I also like the idea of having reagents come from different sources. Managing inventory space and your need to put in a little time to obtain more. Possibly weaving that in to something else if your in the area. Sharing spare you got with someone who forgot them, ect. Also making the world a little more purposeful and alive.

For other kinds of reagents like high level rare alchemy reagents I'd like to see some really cool stuff like treasure map derived reagents and raid boss reagents, ect.

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