Currently, the mechanics team is taking a step back and trying to look at the broader scope of the game and what things make it more complex than is necessary. The idea here is to reduce some of the redundancy and fix some things that are complex but don't really need to be that way. The first aspect which we have identified is the overall naming of spells. Some spells which you gain at lower levels have 5 or more versions each with different names. This makes communicating with players of the same class but at different points in the level progression difficult. A level 80 player typically only remembers the most current version of the spell while someone that is newer at say level 20 only knows their most recent version. This makes it difficult for good communication between players even though both are talking about the same spell lines they might appear to be different through casual communication.
What we are looking to do is move to a standard naming convention. So instead of say having Ice Comet, Ice Nova and Bolt of Ice there would be one spell line called Ice Comet. You would see in your spell book Ice Comet I, Ice Comet II, etc. Combat text on the other hand would just refer to Ice Comet without the version number.
For example your combat text would look like the following:
Your Ice Comet hits Aeralik for 12, 345 cold damage. ( All levels )
The tool tip and examine display would look like the following:
Ice Comet III ( Master I ) followed by the rest of the usual examination information. Your spellbook of course would just say Ice Comet III.
Instead of just picking a name arbitrarily for each of the spell lines, we would like to invite the community to vote for their favorites. Early next week, we should have polls up for each class to vote on their favorite spell name of each spell line. It will run for the duration of the week. We will then set our gnomish tinkerers to work on setting the spells to the names the community has chosen for the next game update.
Overall, it's a small change that for the most part has little impact on gameplay. Players might be temporarily confused due to a switch in naming. Overall though it should be a positive change in that the naming is always consistent but you just get a newer version of the spell. We are open to any comments and suggestions you might have on this so feel free to voice any opinions or concerns.
Click here to vote for your classes spell names!
This has always sort of annoyed/confused me and I am glad it is being fixed. Thanks.
Definitely a good idea, especially for noobs leveling up and for those pesky patch notes that refer to some spell I used 3 years ago.
How does this fall under mechanics?
I'd like to see the game more approachable/learnable without dumbing it down, and this might help. Letting the community choose the names sounds great.
But how is the name of the spells mechanics? Your team must have a list of 100+ things to do that truely are mechanics.
Bad idea with the feel of the game. If you need to do it from a technical standpoint fine but for the game it makes the spell progression feel bland and sterile.Plus for communications, when giving advice we usually describe the spell so the person being advised has an overall better idea.
I like it, there's way to much "we ran out of ideas" naming in the T8 spells.
Dispatch -> Dispatched (okay...)
Chilling Inquest, Harrowing Inquest -> Inquest (lots of instances of "drop the adjective" in T8)
Devour Hope, Abolish Hope -> Pessimism (seriously?)
Get back to always having something that sounds at least remotely powerful.
"Surrender, dragon, lest I make ye think this glass half empty!"
(edit: rogue smiley invasion, lousy 8's)
I REALLY dislike this, it's so cool to have your wimpy spell upgraded to some badass-sounding somethingorother. ie Seziure->Stroke->Hemmorhage.
Besides all these spells have generic names within the community anyway. For hemmorhage (coercer), its the DD, mez is mez, etc.
edit: Maybe this wouldn't be such a big "problem" (I don't really see it as a problem) if we had a real EQ2Players site with a compendium/library of spells, abilities, etc, instead of the embarassment that it is now *cough*
Mulethree wrote:
How does this fall under mechanics?I'd like to see the game more approachable/learnable without dumbing it down, and this might help. Letting the community choose the names sounds great.But how is the name of the spells mechanics? Your team must have a list of 100+ things to do that truely are mechanics.
Basically November will be the launch of a new expansion, With that expansion since there was no level increase previous it will go to 90. With RoK it was determined that all spells would be upgraded with every leveling expansion. This saves some poor dev like a week or more of work just coming up with names for the hundreds of new spells that are to come.
Since I think it's July for fan faire and they always show off the next expansion for fan faire they need to get these details done now.
Onto the original topic, I think it's a overall great idea as it really would make life easier just in tracking down spell lines. Say you have a char and accidently deleted a spell from your spell bar. Instead of searching endlessly trying to find it (as some spells never upgraded) you could sort by name and check them all rather quickly.
Vodroc wrote:
Mulethree wrote:How does this fall under mechanics?I'd like to see the game more approachable/learnable without dumbing it down, and this might help. Letting the community choose the names sounds great.But how is the name of the spells mechanics? Your team must have a list of 100+ things to do that truely are mechanics. Basically November will be the launch of a new expansion, With that expansion since there was no level increase previous it will go to 90. With RoK it was determined that all spells would be upgraded with every leveling expansion. This saves some poor dev like a week or more of work just coming up with names for the hundreds of new spells that are to come.Since I think it's July for fan faire and they always show off the next expansion for fan faire they need to get these details done now. Onto the original topic, I think it's a overall great idea as it really would make life easier just in tracking down spell lines. Say you have a char and accidently deleted a spell from your spell bar. Instead of searching endlessly trying to find it (as some spells never upgraded) you could sort by name and check them all rather quickly.
Or you could sort by catagory and find it. Even non-upgraded it stands out and if you know what you're looking for(which you have to for alpha sort to be more usefual than catagory) you'll find it easy.
Thanks for bringing this to the community! Very nice communication and good idea I think.I'd love to have defile called... well, defile.
Also makes reading the tooltips on AA upgrades MUCH easier!
As someone who betrayed to Defiler during RoK I have NO IDEA when I'm looking at an AA that says "Increases the mitigation of the flabbergabbergibbitywhatsit line of spells"... when I have nothing remotely named that in my T8 arsenal.Torpor should also be called Torpor... stoicism was a weak upgrade...But please.... for the love of god... please do not use the "Tellurian blah blah" for tank pets! Earthen Avatar is sooooo much cooler!
Aeralik wrote:
Currently, the mechanics team is taking a step back ...
So tell me the truth...the dev team is just having a hard time coming up with new names for spell upgrades in the next expansion
Initially I thought this was a bad idea. My main problem is it feels like..when the spells are named (Bolt I, Bolt II, Bolt III, etc)...well why do we need the upgrade at all, just make the spell scale better. The new names are more upfront and in your face about the fact its just an upgrade over the earlier spell. But I suppose it isn't a big deal.
Getting more than just one brand new spell over the next 10 levels would be a big deal and I'd willingly sacrifice. (And getting an upgrade to a spell that previously didn't have upgrade versions is not a 'new spell. )
Fendaria
I think this takes away some of the "specialness" of leveling and upgrading but it does lead to players not even knowing what spells are / do.
If you PROMISE to get rid of "Emotional Dirge" and "Power Ballad" as names and go back to the old names (Daro's, Clara's etc) for Dirges then I'm 100% behind the idea.
I dislike this idea alot, it just sucks all the creativity away from the game, and copies so many other games that already use this naming convention. Its boring and unnecessary.
Fendaria wrote:
Aeralik wrote:Currently, the mechanics team is taking a step back ...So tell me the truth...the dev team is just having a hard time coming up with new names for spell upgrades in the next expansion
Haha really, no need to hide it, I thought we were in a new era here.
At the very least if you go through with this I hope you take the best names of the bunch. I still think it's terribly boring.
The real question is, will this do anything for the new lag we get every time a spell is added to the database? If it doesn't then it won't matter.
