New Combat/Spell System and Mentoring

[Dro]

<DIV>I haven't seen it mentioned  by Moorguard, but please, while you're rebalancing everything, can you make it so that everything scales when you mentor - all spells/arts/abilities, not just equipment.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>thanks.</DIV>

[Salastine]

<DIV>?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You mean you want to use higher-teir special abilities while mentoring teir2?  Spells like Bony Grasp, Pally/Dirge res, Troub mez, etc...   I'd give that a big NO.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Scaling spells to the ones available at the mentor level is perfect in it's current form, IMO.  </DIV>

[Troodon]

I believe what Droo2 means is that upon mentoring the spells on a players hotbars automatically scale down the spell line to versions appropriate for that level. e.g. Splat5 upon mentoring automatically scales to Splat2. You may not see this as a bit issue, Ive got five hotbars on screen, the majority of which have spells that need juggling upon mentoring: its a bit of a pain - it would be nice if a spell became red on a hotbar automatically if was replaced by the highest green version of that line, and upon unmentoring replaced with the highest version scribed. <div></div>

[Zapo]

Hi, the commands /loadhotkeys <filename> and /savehotkeys <filename> are your friend here. It stores your hotkey bar config in a file. So for every five level I do something like /savehotkeys c:eq2_<lvl>.txt and load them when ever I mentor someone. Works fine, just one issue, the icons of user defined macros are reset to the default EQ2 icon unfortunately. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Anthur

[Troodon]

Ah, thank you! Another apparent bug, it seems to ignore loading blank spaces from the file onto the hotbars - not a big issue but it is handy. <div></div>

[Dro]

<P>I'm not asking for more powerful spells at lower levels - just an easier, automatic way of scaling them when you mentor. The current system puts people off doing it on a random or ad-hoc basis.</P> <P>By your argument then equipment shouldn't scale either - we should take off equipment with special procs and mana regen that aren't available at lower levels.</P> <P> </P> <P> </P>

[Salastine]

<DIV>That  /loadhotkeys command is a cool trick, thanks for letting us know!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Droo2 wrote:<BR> <P>By your argument then equipment shouldn't scale either - we should take off equipment with special procs and mana regen that aren't available at lower levels.</P> <P><BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Err, no. If you have an item with an effect on it, and mentor below the "required level" for that item, it turns "purple", and the effect no longer works.  So there is no need to take off equipment, it already scales properly.  There's no need to make "purple" spells though, just use the lower-level version already in your spellbook.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As for swapping out spells, what i did was rearrange my spellbook (took maybe 20 minutes) so i had 1 line in the spellbook for each "spell line", from lowest-level to highest-level.  It's pretty easy to set up, since the spellbook is 4 spaces down/across, and i'm pretty sure there are no spell lines where you received more than 4 versions of it (unless you picked a specialization spell.)  This makes it really simple to flip through the book and see which version of the spell is highest (i.e. first non-red spell, from bottom to top), and just make a few swaps onto your hotbar.  When you're done mentoring, just swap them back to the highest version on each line.   Usually takes me 30 seconds or less to swap around my spellset like this each time i mentor, since it saves a lot of page-flipping.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><SPAN class=time_text><IMG src="http://rynoth.com/public/spellbook.jpg"></SPAN></DIV> <DIV><SPAN class=time_text></SPAN> </DIV> <DIV><SPAN class=time_text>Some spells are more specialty than spell-line, so i have a few pages organized by "theme" rather than spell line... i.e. Group buffs, Single-target buffs, etc.   In the end, organizing my spellbook so i knew how to find everything quickly, organized by level, makes a world of difference in mentoring.  I have 5 hotbars too =)</SPAN></DIV> <DIV><SPAN class=time_text></SPAN> </DIV> <DIV><SPAN class=time_text></SPAN> </DIV> <DIV><SPAN class=time_text></SPAN> </DIV> <DIV><SPAN class=time_text>Edit: Added pic</SPAN></DIV><p>Message Edited by Salastine on <span class=date_text>07-06-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:10 PM</span>

[retro_guy]

<DIV>I too am put off mentoring because of the way the spells work. The scaling of the equipment works wonderfully, but I hate the feeling of awkwardness that comes from hitting spells that no longer work.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The spells grey out, but not enough so it's very hard to tell what can be used and what cannot, I would prefer if they got a big black X across them so you could see that they are unusable.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Even with a bar set up for mentoring it has to be changed everytime, I see a couple of good suggestions here and if I get a chance to mentor I'll give them a go.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I would love to see all spells scaled down to the level you mentor, so that no switching is necessary. I have little interest in XP, mentoring is about helping and playing with otheres that you could not easily group with normally and revisiting zones that you may have missed after they went grey.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'd love to mentor more, but the current system puts me off completely.</DIV>