by Moorgard on 2001-07-24
qina wrote:Absor buddy, I think there is something we have to talk about. Before, when someone asked if there could be more than 8 spell gems in EQ, you (of Abashi) said it was beyond the abilities of the EQ engine. You said that there was a strategy to what spells you memmed. Well, with Luclin coming out, you have a chance to rebuild that engine. As for the second point, is there also not a strategy in what spells to use when? Wouldn't allowing the changing of strategies mid fight be more of a challenge than choosing what spells to have before the action? I think that with more spell slots, there would be greater versatility. Given that versatility, we would find a greater need to come up with an effective strategy.
I think having all of your tools available to you would force you to think more about your strategy than only having 8 at any given time. As you have more slots open, more and more of the little used spells would come out of the spell books and into play. We would find more opportunities to make strategies if we could use those.
Also, on a lesser note, it is a pain in the butt to have to go to your spell book in order to switch out buffs. No one I know has all their buffs memmed at all times. It would be nice if we could avoid the tedious spell swapping.
I wouldn't mind if more slots were something we would have to earn. Heck, put them on an item. We gotta get the belt of spells in order to access more spell slots. Make us do a quest. Make us turn in XP at 60 (although 60 is a bit late to *start* this).
Well, there is a strategy element involved both when choosing what spells to memorize and when deciding which ones to cast. The more spell slots available, the less strategy required when memorizing spells. One could argue that this increases the amount of strategy required when picking which spell to cast, and that might be true.
But the real strategic part of playing a caster is deciding what spells to have memorized. When going into unknown territory, does a wizard need fire, cold or magic based spells? Do you choose to take all three until you learn which works best and reduce the other types of spells you take, or do you guess and take one type to increase the range of other spells in your arsenal?
Choosing what tools to have at hand is just as important and choosing which one to use.
But the most important thing to understand about the restriction to eight spell slots is that a lot of the game is balanced around that particular restriction.
If you don't like to swap your buffs, bring another character of the same class and decide between you how to split the buff duties.
Alan