If you're looking for a way to integrate this concept into what they've committed to testing in PA5, it would be as easy as:
Adding counters to status effects, both for application and removal.
In practice, this means if a state is applied by a creature (perhaps something like 'Bulwark" which mitigates physical damage by 10% per stack) to itself, it will grow over time if not dealt with. If you get a Rogue back there, they can strip stacks of that by using positional attacks.
Once the last one is stripped, the creature gains a new vulnerable status effect, maybe 'Dazed' or 'Reeling' which can then be prolonged by having whatever Roles exploit that status effect.
Strictly speaking none of that has anything to do with damage. Yes, performing actions may have a damage component, but what you're doing is controlling the flow of battle, based on the Roles you have.
From a UI perspective, it's just counters .. you need to counter. (oh my..) But really..
Self applied bulwark, adding over time (on a Tank NPC, perhaps):
Rogue removed bulwark, being stripped over time off of the target:
That's pretty much all you'd be talking about, with respect to interface changes. (for example)
Nephele said:Barin999 said:Nephele if I may, I would like to add the follow question. What if there is no auto attack? So if you're not actually pushing buttons, you'll remain in combat but not hitting anything. The mob however will of course continue to hit you.
So here, you design it so that players actually need to click and choose which abilities to use, if they don't they would just not do any damage to the mob at all. (not counting dots or sorts)
The stats and gear can still be functional, but if you want something damaged there is no "I'll engage with my sword and go afk for a sec."
This isn't twitch combat or waiting for opportune moments to strike a combo. (still not excluding elements of those being integrated ofc)
So, the challenge with not having autoattack at all is that now you need to provide an "attack" button to every player that represents their basic sword swing or what not. Once you've done that, there's a natural pull to want to provide permutations on that attack button - for example, as their skill gets high enough, maybe they get a "sweep" attack that can damage multiple opponents, or maybe they get a "combo" attack that follows up their first hit with a second. None of these is a bad thing in concept but where it starts to become an issue (at least, as i see it) is when it begins to push players into rotation-based play and/or button mashing. Hitting 1, 2, 3 every time they're off cooldown isn't really requiring thought from the player. It's also more vulnerable to latency than a default auto-attack would be.
Non-Auto attack would certainly need to have a queue function. If you have ever played KOTOR (the original games not the MMO) the idea of playing a single character with no pausing allowed you would have an idea of the game play.
You would want to have a small handful of styles of attacks that can be chained in differently either manually or with a macro button that loads a sequence. Each ability would have its own time cost and possibly leading to a state trigger. You can stop a sequence to do a counter, but it will break your current sequence and may need to start over.
It would lead to active gameplay rather than really simple slow hands off combat. Almost impossible to multi box. If you are afk you are not doing anything.
Nephele said:So, the challenge with not having autoattack at all is that now you need to provide an "attack" button to every player that represents their basic sword swing or what not. Once you've done that, there's a natural pull to want to provide permutations on that attack button - for example, as their skill gets high enough, maybe they get a "sweep" attack that can damage multiple opponents, or maybe they get a "combo" attack that follows up their first hit with a second. None of these is a bad thing in concept but where it starts to become an issue (at least, as i see it) is when it begins to push players into rotation-based play and/or button mashing. Hitting 1, 2, 3 every time they're off cooldown isn't really requiring thought from the player. It's also more vulnerable to latency than a default auto-attack would be.
I'm no dev myself, but I've been thinking about that. You don't need an attack damage on your weapon at all. That's why there is auto attack, because weapons (staffs, bows, arrows, swords, etc.) have a damage stat on them. If you swing it and hit, you'll do between X-Y damage. That's the familar scenario thusfar. You could implement the damage factor solely into the abilities or combat arts. Your skill as player or character could influence the min or max amount of damage described by those abilities.
BUT if the gear (weapons included) do not have a damage factor. Instead a staff (wielded by warrior, druid, wizard) can have stats on them, such as: increase STA, Concentration, incombat regen, what ever. These would be the very basics of stats. Advanced weapons could have extra stats to them; +INT, +WIS, +STR. Depending on the class, you'll want that staff with your preferred stat. It doesn't stop here, the next stage of advanced weapons can offer an increase in abilities or skills itself. This means the staff enables the "Dazing Strike" ability of the warrior, but also possible the "Knock back low blow" of a druid. This improved weapon hereby improves the damage of these abilities or combat arts. BUT still doesn't provide any damage itself, so you can equip the staff but only when you use your combat arts you'll benefit from the stats of that staff and do damage. The increase in abilities can be very simple; +1 damage to "Dazing Strike". A warrior would seek out this weapon or try to get it constructed.
In this scenario there is no such thing as a basic swing of the sword. If you're not using your skills or abilities, that weapon isn't moving/causing damage. I hope my example above explains a bit more.
If you want to allow attacking multiple players, put into the skill trees as an option to choose from. So that makes that players can become more aoe or single dps oriented. Enabling different playstyles or combatstrategies.
Concerning rotations and cool down. So far that isn't much different than what we know today. Heck we make macro's for them in some games. If you disable the construction of macro's in my suggested scenario, you will need to playing all the time. And really pick and choose which buttons to hit (depending on casting time, recast, effects on the mobs, etc). Like Trasak suggested, you'd have the option to interrupt or cancel your castingprocess and switch to another ability to react on what the mob is doing. The major difference is still present, namely gear provides stats and focus goes to character - and playerskill and their chosen abilities.
dorotea said:You might be as horrified as I if Pantheon turned into a first-person shooter but downplaying gear and levels and character skills and emphasizing player coordination and skills seems to me as a step and not a trivial one in that direction.
There is plenty of grey between black or white there, Dorotea. You do not downgrade gear by altering what they add or provide to the character. They still require grinding or searching for. And there is no reason to leave out the time or cash sinks. (unless you're going for a Vjek coin-less community ;)). Gear will just bring something else to the table, slightly different but how it influences players can be very different.
Levels can still have influence based on what changes when that character levels up. If a level increase means a general stat increase (or providing stat points so that players can choose where to spent those points a la diablo-style), they still add value. A level increase can boost current abilities or unlock them. Character skill is definitely not downgraded, because you actually put more emphasis to the value of different skills in combination with preferred playstyle or abilities.
It seems the biggest issue would be, how long do I have to respond or how long does it take for casting abilities and actually damaging the mob. There lays a big domain of grey. When it comes to computer systems and requirements, tech has changed a lot, but those things are concepts to be tried and modified as that testing progresses. I'm not saying this should all be tested here in VR's Pantheon. I'm just saying, there is a lot of room to adjust those things to aim for a bigger audience and downgrade the twitch factor of things.
Barin999 said:dorotea said:You might be as horrified as I if Pantheon turned into a first-person shooter but downplaying gear and levels and character skills and emphasizing player coordination and skills seems to me as a step and not a trivial one in that direction.
There is plenty of grey between black or white there, Dorotea. You do not downgrade gear by altering what they add or provide to the character. They still require grinding or searching for. And there is no reason to leave out the time or cash sinks. (unless you're going for a Vjek coin-less community ;)). Gear will just bring something else to the table, slightly different but how it influences players can be very different.
Levels can still have influence based on what changes when that character levels up. If a level increase means a general stat increase (or providing stat points so that players can choose where to spent those points a la diablo-style), they still add value. A level increase can boost current abilities or unlock them. Character skill is definitely not downgraded, because you actually put more emphasis to the value of different skills in combination with preferred playstyle or abilities.
It seems the biggest issue would be, how long do I have to respond or how long does it take for casting abilities and actually damaging the mob. There lays a big domain of grey. When it comes to computer systems and requirements, tech has changed a lot, but those things are concepts to be tried and modified as that testing progresses. I'm not saying this should all be tested here in VR's Pantheon. I'm just saying, there is a lot of room to adjust those things to aim for a bigger audience and downgrade the twitch factor of things.
Its all about the measuring stick used. We as standard Gygaxian MMO players are used to linear/exponential increases in ability magnitudes by level. Its how the standard D&D model functions and nearly every game system uses it to define progression. It is usually divided into naked stat boosts by level (HP, Mana, Characteristic stats), gear cycles with either level limits or cash by level limits, gaining abilities ever increasing in potency. Right along the player growth monster growth also happens to the point that actual progression VS a monster of your own level is even or most often negative.
If we can find a meaningful way of capturing player progression in terms of capability rather than magnitude then we can also break the content trivialization problem. In the level system group content (solo is a sticky wicket) is either trivial, easy, challenging, or impossible. In a capability system (see process capability for a concept of what I am referencing) you will really just have a very small portion that is truly trivial or impossible where most is easy, moderate, challenging, or insanely hard but still possible.
Examples of itemizing capability you would have items that increase your chance to hit, penetrate damage reduction, penetrate armor, penetrate elemental DR and defense, decrease cool downs, increase reaction windows (add a second of duration to that important state). You are not increasing the base DPS hardly at all. You are instead removing limitations on your ability to perform at full magnitude. This allows for all content to be balanced against the same magnitudes but with ever increasing number of mitigators that must be over come.
Reaction and count action combat systems play really well into a capability system as it is less about pumping that magnitude but rather negating penalties to said magnitude.
I know I come at this from an unfun sounding mathy side but my gut tells me it will build a better system long term.
It sounds to me, like what you are describing is what occurs in turn based combat currently, and I interpret your vision being a sort of speeding up of that turn based mechanic.
Instead of a turn ending, -or stopping- and allowing the other player to counter on their turn and then stopping, and then having the pother player continue. IN a LARP setting that may look like: Player 1 raises the two handed axe to strike the blow of anihilation on player 2, from having drank the potion of fortitude last turn. PLayer 1 is now in stasis, axe raised over his head- sweating, hoping the other player doesnt take too long because his arms are getting tired. Player two can either dodge- requiring a roll of 15+ and an unmodded AGI of 25 OR block with shield of deflection needing a roll of STR 10+ but the shield could break and the AGI is just 25. Player 2 succeeds in dodge. PLayer 2 rolls. Player one- relieved swings axe down to where player 2 used to be.
Speed that up for an MMO and I think that is what you are getting to in the form of counters. I just dont see how you can speed that up unless, you go in dodging every time and have one of the top "4 abilities above the Hotbar" as block that you choose from as a suprise move because you have the shield or learned that skill.
Nephele said:I'm going to challenge pretty much everyone's concept of what Pantheon's combat should be in this post - fair warning. I hope that all of you are reasonable enough to approach this topic with an open mind.
One of the things that really bothers me about most MMORPGs is that it is very easy for players to find ways to trivialize content. Whether it's out-gearing things, or out-leveling them, or even just clever use of abilities, it seems that the vast majority of content loses its challenge rather quickly in these games. Even the games we like to hold up as examples of how things were done "right" suffered from this problem. It might happen more slowly, but power creep and trivialization have been a problem in every MMO I've ever played, including EverQuest.
I think that a large part of this has been due to the simplistic, numerical mechanics that govern most fights in these games. Every single person who's ever played an MMO for more than a week or two is familiar with the concept of threat as a numeric value, and the idea of taunts and the like to manipulate that threat. Likewise, we all understand concepts like DPS and mitigation. The fact is, we're used to an MMO paradigm where the job of tanks is to keep the mob focused on them, the job of healers is to keep everyone topped up on health, and the job of everyone else is to do as much damage as possible without stealing threat. Sure, there are different ways that classes can do these things, and the idea of control is certainly an added element, but fundamentally every game follows the same basic formula when it comes to what players do in combat.
So here's the question in the title. What if, instead of combat being all about managing damage taken and damage dealt, it was about skillful countering of enemy abilities?
For example - what if mobs did not have threat at all, and instead warriors and the like "tanked" by purposely intercepting specific attacks? Instead of smashing the taunt button and spamming whatever abilities gave the most aggro, the key to being a good tank would be watching for when the monster was about to do something and interposing yourself in some way when they did. A shield bash to interrupt it, or physically pushing your party member out of the way and taking the hit for them.
What if control wasn't about parking a mob out of the way temporarily, but was actually about controlling its actions? Countering its ability to heal, or forcing that spell it was casting to target another mob (or a nearby tree or rock) instead of a player?
What if classes weren't defined by the type and amount of damage they do but by their ability to exploit specific conditions during combat? A rogue using dirty tricks to blind and confuse their opponents, a ranger striking when there was an opening for maximum damage, a monk turning the mob's own attacks against it, or a wizard analyzing the situation and using just the right spell at the right time to exploit a weakness?
To some extent Pantheon will already do this - but at least as it's currently envisioned, exploiting weaknesses and reacting to NPC abilities seems like it will be a secondary focus in combat, not the primary focus. The primary focus seems like it will be hp, mana, damage, and stats - all things that are prone to power creep and that lead to trivialization.
Thus my question: What if Pantheon were to flip that around and make those things secondary considerations? What if the stats were helpful, but being good at combat really meant being skilled about when and how you used the abilities available to you? Assuming that it worked, would it be fun? Would it really be challenging? Why or why not?
To be clear - this isn't a black and white situation. On a range of purely numbers-driven combat to purely reactive ability use, there's a lot of room in between. So before anyone dismisses this post out of hand, I'd like to challenge you to think about what *could* work. How far *could* it go before it was uncomfortable?
I"m looking forward to seeing everyone's opinions.
The closest game I can think of that fills this is Monster Hunter World, and yes it is a great game, the biggest difference between Pantheon and MHW is that, every fight in MHW is treated like a "boss" fight, and Pantheon will obviously have trash mobs, again I love the idea of it all, but I think a true MMORPG would have a very hard time implemententing this in their game, unless of course they treat all mobs like boss fights, and trash mobs don't really exsist.
Nephele said:I'm going to challenge pretty much everyone's concept of what Pantheon's combat should be in this post - fair warning. I hope that all of you are reasonable enough to approach this topic with an open mind.
One of the things that really bothers me about most MMORPGs is that it is very easy for players to find ways to trivialize content. Whether it's out-gearing things, or out-leveling them, or even just clever use of abilities, it seems that the vast majority of content loses its challenge rather quickly in these games. Even the games we like to hold up as examples of how things were done "right" suffered from this problem. It might happen more slowly, but power creep and trivialization have been a problem in every MMO I've ever played, including EverQuest.
I think that a large part of this has been due to the simplistic, numerical mechanics that govern most fights in these games. Every single person who's ever played an MMO for more than a week or two is familiar with the concept of threat as a numeric value, and the idea of taunts and the like to manipulate that threat. Likewise, we all understand concepts like DPS and mitigation. The fact is, we're used to an MMO paradigm where the job of tanks is to keep the mob focused on them, the job of healers is to keep everyone topped up on health, and the job of everyone else is to do as much damage as possible without stealing threat. Sure, there are different ways that classes can do these things, and the idea of control is certainly an added element, but fundamentally every game follows the same basic formula when it comes to what players do in combat.
So here's the question in the title. What if, instead of combat being all about managing damage taken and damage dealt, it was about skillful countering of enemy abilities?
For example - what if mobs did not have threat at all, and instead warriors and the like "tanked" by purposely intercepting specific attacks? Instead of smashing the taunt button and spamming whatever abilities gave the most aggro, the key to being a good tank would be watching for when the monster was about to do something and interposing yourself in some way when they did. A shield bash to interrupt it, or physically pushing your party member out of the way and taking the hit for them.
What if control wasn't about parking a mob out of the way temporarily, but was actually about controlling its actions? Countering its ability to heal, or forcing that spell it was casting to target another mob (or a nearby tree or rock) instead of a player?
What if classes weren't defined by the type and amount of damage they do but by their ability to exploit specific conditions during combat? A rogue using dirty tricks to blind and confuse their opponents, a ranger striking when there was an opening for maximum damage, a monk turning the mob's own attacks against it, or a wizard analyzing the situation and using just the right spell at the right time to exploit a weakness?
To some extent Pantheon will already do this - but at least as it's currently envisioned, exploiting weaknesses and reacting to NPC abilities seems like it will be a secondary focus in combat, not the primary focus. The primary focus seems like it will be hp, mana, damage, and stats - all things that are prone to power creep and that lead to trivialization.
Thus my question: What if Pantheon were to flip that around and make those things secondary considerations? What if the stats were helpful, but being good at combat really meant being skilled about when and how you used the abilities available to you? Assuming that it worked, would it be fun? Would it really be challenging? Why or why not?
To be clear - this isn't a black and white situation. On a range of purely numbers-driven combat to purely reactive ability use, there's a lot of room in between. So before anyone dismisses this post out of hand, I'd like to challenge you to think about what *could* work. How far *could* it go before it was uncomfortable?
I"m looking forward to seeing everyone's opinions.
To briefly touch on your scenario with the warrior that more like a dynamic combat situation such as TERA, ESO, Monster Hunter, and League of Legends have. It sounds like what Everquest Next was aiming for and what it implemented in Landmark. Combat of this type requires not only a base combat system to be designed with it in mind but also skill modification so they fit and work with the targeting system. Having only played TERA, ESO, and Landmark in an MMO setting with this type of combat, I don't find it to be hugely groundbreaking. I honestly think the only thing groundbreaking in these MMOs was the ability to actively dodge mechanics and I would be ok seeing classes get some ability. Skill-wise though these games really didn't add anything unique to the MMO basket.
As for my opinion, I think that it is always a good thing to move towards a more skilled and strategic combat design. I don't think games are fun unless they make you think about what you're doing and then making the needed adjustments based on the classes you have, the general flow of combat, or the randomness within the encounter. I think that combat should always need to be approached with an air of caution and a degree of preparation beforehand (such as stun, silences, heal reduction, cc..etc).
So to consider how far this push for skill could go... I think that the moment it starts affecting group viability and composition viability it has gone too far. As someone who is a traditional MMO player and is used to optimal group comps, something about being able a sub-optimal comp really excites me. You play a healer and your friend plays a healer so what you can still group and be able to down content even if one of you has to focus more on control/ support.
On the same note of healers, forcing healers into DPS roles under the excuse of more skilled combat or downtime pushes things too far for me. I am tired of seeing games like WoW, FFXIV, and even ESO force their healers into DPS roles in higher-end content especially when doing said DPS doesn't support the group in any way. I play a healer to heal, provide utility/buff, and CC in emergencies, I do not play a healer spend half of my time dpsing in very suboptimal and boring ways. * Side note I was really happy to see the shaman stream and them providing combo setup/ group buffs in the process of dealing damage. I am ok with healers having the option of dpsing if it provides some sort of group utility and adds to strategic combat.
I think that another thing that would push this too far is how complicated is combat for the average person to grasp. One of the more recent situations that comes to mind is in Warlords of Draenor the devs tried to lock heroic dungeons behind class proving grounds and you had to clear gold or silver to get access to heroics. Well getting gold or silver wasn't extremely hard to do, but a lot of the more casual players couldn't achieve this simple feat. They instead gave Blizzard hell until Blizzard had to go back and revoke the changes. The point of this is that Pantheon has to have a balanced gameplay experience that not only appeals to the top 10% of players but also the lower end of the curve.
The threat meter is also something that I don't think should be removed. As a healer, this provides information about who has aggro, and who is at potential risk of being blown up. I think that with the deposition system there is room to add dispositions that ignore that or focus specific classes, but I don't think removing threat is the answer... making it harder to manage sure but removing it no.
I would say that the overuse of instant death mechanics and enrages that cause instant death are not fun. I think that enrage times are great but there needs to be a ramp-up giving the players some agency and ability to adapt to maybe pull off a kill before they all wipe.
Overall I would say that combat needs to be skillful and there should be multiple ways of handling combat scenarios. I think that countering enemies is a combat mechanic that is needed and I think that every class should have an area in which they excel above the rest in terms of combat. I would like to see a "system" in which a player is considered based on a mix of how well they play and what their class can offer the group vs the numbers that they put out.
****As for power creep this is something that is never going to change even if a high skill cap is involved in combat. As a player continues to level and itemize there will always be power creep even if it is slow to power creep. The only way that I could ever see this change is for every expansion to completely reset and revamp the world and reset players to level one. Existing dungeons/raids would be revamped in this process and items would be made into legacy loot that may or may not be obtainable anymore. Personally I'm ok with the power creep as I don't think that it makes much sense to be wasting time in content that no longer holds any relevance outside of possible stay spell/combat point, transmog, vanity pets, or rare mount. However, I would say that it is more annoying to have power creep so high in a single expansion that earlier raids/ dungeons are speed through at breakneck speed. I would like to see the power creep be reasonable in the content of the same expansion.