Yes, the original UI that lasted less than 2 years before it was overhauled and spell slots were added through AA immediately after. EQ has been using more than 8 for over a decade.
EQ has always had very limited spell slots.
Key words being "spell slots."
You could only memorize 8. You could extend that later with AA. AA didn't come into Luclin which was way later.
There were few other abilities out there, it was always limited. The biggest use for those empty slots were custom macros and gear swaps.
I think getting away from a billion different skills is a good idea. Makes you pay attention more to the game and less to your macro configuration or makes game add ons not a requirement.
I think this is bringing mmos back to more what UO was. Positioning then skills not just stand in one place rotating through your macros.
Why not let there be100 skills where you can have up to 50 on demand that do completely different things?
Because humans have limited working memory and most cannot handle 50 different things at the same time.
Then how exactly did most of humanity learn to type quickly on a keyboard then?
By training it into a reflex instead of having the person think about which key to use all the time?
And there is no decision to be made. If you are typing the word "hello", you don't have to decide whether to use "h" or not. You do, if you are playing a game.
gonna jump on the oven here, i would prefer a combat system where i could make combos and special hits when doing certain movements with the mouse or with some keys (like in for example, The Legend of Zelda). and have hotkeys organized for skills, as long as i could set a key for each one of them. take out the weapon based skills, leave hotkeys for magic powers and important actions. while leaving melee and ranged combat as an action thing.
i put examples like The Legend of Zelda or Skyrim, yeah i went there, skyrim is a good example of the mix, althought you were limited to one button and had to enter the spell menu in order to change them.
in a nutshell : use action combat with combos for the normal combat, and have hotkeys for the use of magic or other things.
You might feel it's getting dumbed down, but it's not. I've always spent my mmo combat pressing a few buttons anyway - it just was the most effective thing to do.
While I agree PvE gets worse, PvP might even get better.
Its more about positioning, and actually using the abilities at the right moment. Kiting, sidestepping, not stacking stuns or crowdcontrol, staggering disables, using the surroundings. Might seem abstract for some, but there is an unlimited amount of depth in MOBAs. And they generally only have 4 spells (+ items) and you cant even choose which ones.
Anyway I thought8 abilities worked fine in GW1, I don't mind the trend at all.
You might feel it's getting dumbed down, but it's not. I've always spent my mmo combat pressing a few buttons anyway - it just was the most effective thing to do.
While I agree PvE gets worse, PvP might even get better.
Its more about positioning, and actually using the abilities at the right moment. Kiting, sidestepping, not stacking stuns or crowdcontrol, staggering disables, using the surroundings. Might seem abstract for some, but there is an unlimited amount of depth in MOBAs. And they generally only have 4 spells (+ items) and you cant even choose which ones.
Anyway I thought8 abilities worked fine in GW1, I don't mind the trend at all.
I don't agree PvE is getting worse. It is the design.
D3 has great combat .. and it only uses 6 skills at one time. Why? Because a) the skills have great syneries, and combos, and b) positioning is important (for many builds).
It feels great when i get out of the way of mortars, and position myself at a place where vortex cannot get me, and beam (i use archon) the elite to dead. On the flip side, you can easily die if you don't use the terrain and skills effectively. If you rush into battle, it is quite possible (and happen to me many times before) that the retreat get block off (collision detection is great) and i died.
Comments
EQ has always had very limited spell slots.
Key words being "spell slots."
You could only memorize 8. You could extend that later with AA. AA didn't come into Luclin which was way later.
There were few other abilities out there, it was always limited. The biggest use for those empty slots were custom macros and gear swaps.
I think getting away from a billion different skills is a good idea. Makes you pay attention more to the game and less to your macro configuration or makes game add ons not a requirement.
I think this is bringing mmos back to more what UO was. Positioning then skills not just stand in one place rotating through your macros.
Quality is more important then quantity.
By training it into a reflex instead of having the person think about which key to use all the time?
And there is no decision to be made. If you are typing the word "hello", you don't have to decide whether to use "h" or not. You do, if you are playing a game.
gonna jump on the oven here, i would prefer a combat system where i could make combos and special hits when doing certain movements with the mouse or with some keys (like in for example, The Legend of Zelda). and have hotkeys organized for skills, as long as i could set a key for each one of them. take out the weapon based skills, leave hotkeys for magic powers and important actions. while leaving melee and ranged combat as an action thing.
i put examples like The Legend of Zelda or Skyrim, yeah i went there, skyrim is a good example of the mix, althought you were limited to one button and had to enter the spell menu in order to change them.
in a nutshell : use action combat with combos for the normal combat, and have hotkeys for the use of magic or other things.
Might be because MOBAs are so popular.
You might feel it's getting dumbed down, but it's not. I've always spent my mmo combat pressing a few buttons anyway - it just was the most effective thing to do.
While I agree PvE gets worse, PvP might even get better.
Its more about positioning, and actually using the abilities at the right moment. Kiting, sidestepping, not stacking stuns or crowdcontrol, staggering disables, using the surroundings. Might seem abstract for some, but there is an unlimited amount of depth in MOBAs. And they generally only have 4 spells (+ items) and you cant even choose which ones.
Anyway I thought8 abilities worked fine in GW1, I don't mind the trend at all.
I don't agree PvE is getting worse. It is the design.
D3 has great combat .. and it only uses 6 skills at one time. Why? Because a) the skills have great syneries, and combos, and b) positioning is important (for many builds).
It feels great when i get out of the way of mortars, and position myself at a place where vortex cannot get me, and beam (i use archon) the elite to dead. On the flip side, you can easily die if you don't use the terrain and skills effectively. If you rush into battle, it is quite possible (and happen to me many times before) that the retreat get block off (collision detection is great) and i died.