Of all the MMOs you have played, do you have a favorite game mechanic or an idea for one you would like to see in game ? Examples of game mechanics include kiting, fear and aggro kiting, root rotting, how feign death works, and anything else that effects how a game functions at the roots in general.
I would say my favorite game mechanic in both EQ and VG was being able to convert HP to mana/power . Many different abilities and items used this mechanic in both these games. Necros undead form slowly converted HP to mana. EQ Mages could summon clicky rods that turned HP to manna. Shamans had canni, bloodmages had a similar ability. I loved how BloodMages could sacrifice HP for power and then the group buff "bloodfeast" would usually heal you right back up again along with siphon. Same went for eq necros being able to use lifetaps and such to regain the HP they converted to mana . EQ shamans could do something similar especially once they had their AA canni ability . I loved old school mana stones and mana robe as well. I loved how EQ necros and VG bloodmages would often live life on the edge of death only to bounce back to full health over and over.
My second favorite mechanic is good ole feign death tied along with the mind wipe abilities many classes had such as Psi's mass amnesia ability.
What is your favorite(s) ?
Pets being less of companion fighters, and more of primary fighters. Pets in EQ were stronger than players of equal level, I really liked that those classes relied on their summons.
Feign Death mechanic in EQ was fantastic, however I would venture to say down the road when players knowledge was at the level it was, it became so incredibly overpowered that a good puller could bring just about anything, anywhere, alone. Fantastic mechanic, but I still think that you should never be able to outrun mobs for very long, pathing made it very easy to manipulate a train in EQ.
Conversions are awesome, but it should be exclusive to a class or 2, and it shouldn't be spammable. I didn't really like the way canni worked, enjoyed the necro undead forms, clarity was well worked out, mana transfers from necros was a great metagame. Modrods were lame IMO, would prefer if there had to be a system for mages to transfer, that it be through their elemental minion in some way.
Mind wipes, calms, pacifies, harmonies, all great mechanics and tools to make splitting camps/encounters unique, enjoyable and dynamic.
Speaking of encounters... I'm gonna go ahead and say that was one of the main things i HATED about EQ2, the fact that mobs were artifically linked to each other, and there was no possible way to seperate them, then they make them weaker to compensate. I absolutely abhor that idea and I would hate to see it in Pantheon. Just give me some tools to control/split mobs and leave them be.
Kiting in general. I remember kiting in the Dreadlands with my bard outside the castle while waiting for a group. As a bard I had a few ways to do it and would vary it depending on my mood. It took forever! but it allowed me to do something while I waited for a group or to gain some exp when I only had 20 min or so. It always felt like a great balance though because if I slipped up or someone dragged something where it shouldn't be I was dead pretty quickly depending on what it was.
I liked the mana-HP switch, although never used it much even with the rods. I liked bind wounds, and being able to bind wounds on someone else. I also liked the alchohol tolerance-mana regeneration subtley that I picked up on a bit later. if you drank booze your int would go down, and your mana would spike up, but if you had good tolerance, you would recover quickly with- close to full mana sort of like a cheap clarity- heh- street clarity! Malt Liqour clarity
multiple targeting, such as 1 offensive target and 1 defensive target like in VG
I would simply like to see a return to true class role distinction - period. Today's MMO's roles are fairly exclusively tank, heal, dps. There is no CC because there is no need to split mobs - which means there is no need for a dedicated puller. There is no need / room for utility classes.
This makes MMO's today games for the selfISH - not games for the selfLESS. That is what role distinction brings to the game. Bards who do very little directly but who are wanted by everyone because they make everyone better... that sort of thing.
Beyond that - I would like to see a return to "life simulating micro games" within the broader MMO game...
- It's very dark at night means "I CAN'T SEE"
- 4 billion copper in my pockets means "I'M WEIGHED DOWN"
- I haven't eaten in 3 days means "I'M STARVING"
That sort of thing doesn't need to be overdone - but it needs to be done. Having to account for such things is seen as tedious by those who simply want to go kill stuff - but that whole concept is sort of anti-mmo. MMO's are set in virtual worlds. That carries with it the implication of virtually living in that virtual world - which means SMART inclusion of some of those mundane things to give players things to contend with beyond "OMG did you see my massive DPS!"
feign death coupled with how pathing worked in the game, easily what I remember as some of my most entertaining and fullfilling time spent in an mmorpg. farming plane of earth as my monk and trying like crazy to work the monk epic weapon PH into the pulls to have just the smallest chance of getting one... to have it then spawn as my guild formed up for the raid and started zoning in as I died pulling it to the entrance for my group. Then having shallow breaths if not holding it entirely waiting to hear the GL deem who gets to loot it, ready to type /gquit if I heard anyone elses name mentioned just from principle xD
Besides, FD enabled that oh-so-fun situation that I am sure many monks went through. Waking up the next morning to see you fell asleep while camping something with a friend - just to see their corpse next to you feigned >.> (sorry Tremeear, wherever you are now)
But I also agree with Wandidar here, Balance is what a great mmo comes down to.
Balance between solo vs group content, or group vs raid content.
Solo vs group capability for classes, and then balanced with desirability.
Difficulty of the game with death penalty.
Greatness/coolness of an item with how easy/difficult it is to obtain.
Day time vs Night time! I want it to be so dark that I either have a light source or seriously regret it.
Classes need to be unique again, not this blending nonsense that is so common.
Races while not as critical, should be unique as well.
Individual starting areas add so much to the immersion, ESPECIALLY WITH FACTIONS done properly.
Too much hand holding goes on these days, tagging a mob flags it for the player/group/raid, wtf? Let people sort it out.
Mobs no longer can be split in games, they are paired or grouped for aggro purposes.
Mobs no longer can be trained in games, yea there was alot of drama in that, but it added to the virtual world everyone was living in.
warcraft comes to mind. A person hits an npc and the name greys out, there is no emotional link to the mob anymore. It used to be, you see a rare spawn up in EQ, you'd then med as long as you were willing to wait - concerned someone else might show up. Then when you pulled the mob, you'd still be concerned until the 50% mark.
As a puller, I remember countless times hitting a named and booking it to the group, then in anticipation waiting for my pull/train to arrive with the named... and on the rare occasion it didnt show up! Someone else stole it or was attempting to. Not allowing flagging kept emotions still involved.
WoW, you find a named, a little happy (no where near as ecstatic as EQ, since wow was saturated in items), but mostly you tagged the mob and sorted out how you'd solo it after, or chugged a quick water for mana.
EQ, you find a named, AWESOME! you were excited.
Then you realize you aren't full mana, and are on edge trying to get as close to full as possible just incase it didn't go easy. Paranoid of others showing up, or a stupid druid/ranger tracking >.>
You'd be anxious from the second you see the mob, until you get it below 50% guaranteeing it'd be yours to loot.
Tagging it - proper etiquette would say someone should let you have your try, but everyone knew not everyone followed that rule.
shrug, trying to put it to words. I personally preferred EQ's way of not holding hands, or boxing people into more rules and restrictions. Maybe I have just grown so tired of the games holding the players hands that I want to be slapped in the face by the freedoms of choice of old games =/
My favorite game mechanic? Mechanic, Bug, Exploit... depending on who ask, would be clipping Eye of Zomm through walls into other parts of the zone.
My other favorite ----
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You've Been Summoned by the Gods
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Levitation
Picklock
Charm
Fear
Blind
I can go on.. but the essence of these are lost on most games.
Feign death is my favorite mechanic. Standing and dropping.. playing with those aggro timers and social abilities of mobs..? Being able to split mobs when no one else can... it is a game mechanic that can take a lot of mastery, if done right.
MeanGary said:
I always enjoyed Charming a high level mob, giving it real weapons with procs (not summoned weapons), hasting it, and putting it to use for hours. Think Planes of Power era.
I enjoyed charming the the ghoul lord in lguk as a necro and then using him to clear the zone while I laid around feigned. Good times.
Something I liked in VG playing my sorcerer was full speed kiting. If you had levitation on you you could move at full speed backwards. I would move in circles backwards while casting insta-cast spells. I enjoyed this and used this tactic against mobs that were immune to movement control abilities or when I just wanted to mix things up.
I sometimes liked to "joust kite" as I coined it in VG with my PSI. If I was fighting stuff in a narrow tunnel I would snare and damage the mob until it came close. Then I would use either instant cast stun or insta-mezz and then run past it to get distance and then start again.
As much as I didn't care for Rift that much one ability I liked was being able to knock mobs way back away from me which added another dimension to kiting.
Jason said:
Something I liked in VG playing my sorcerer was full speed kiting. If you had levitation on you you could move at full speed backwards. I would move in circles backwards while casting insta-cast spells. I enjoyed this and used this tactic against mobs that were immune to movement control abilities or when I just wanted to mix things up.
I sometimes liked to "joust kite" as I coined it in VG with my PSI. If I was fighting stuff in a narrow tunnel I would snare and damage the mob until it came close. Then I would use either instant cast stun or insta-mezz and then run past it to get distance and then start again.
As much as I didn't care for Rift that much one ability I liked was being able to knock mobs way back away from me which added another dimension to kiting.
I really hope there are either no, or very very limited amounts of instant use abilities at all, takes the skill out of combat by not requiring set-up and ruins pvp as well. Exceptions would be melee abilities as they already have to maneuver themselves into melee, that IS the set-up.
Rallyd said:
Jason said:
Something I liked in VG playing my sorcerer was full speed kiting. If you had levitation on you you could move at full speed backwards. I would move in circles backwards while casting insta-cast spells. I enjoyed this and used this tactic against mobs that were immune to movement control abilities or when I just wanted to mix things up.
I sometimes liked to "joust kite" as I coined it in VG with my PSI. If I was fighting stuff in a narrow tunnel I would snare and damage the mob until it came close. Then I would use either instant cast stun or insta-mezz and then run past it to get distance and then start again.
As much as I didn't care for Rift that much one ability I liked was being able to knock mobs way back away from me which added another dimension to kiting.
I really hope there are either no, or very very limited amounts of instant use abilities at all, takes the skill out of combat by not requiring set-up and ruins pvp as well. Exceptions would be melee abilities as they already have to maneuver themselves into melee, that IS the set-up.
Now that prompts a question for me. Should there be quickcast? DAOC added quickcast as an option to cast a spell without interuption (iirc, it had a 3 minute cooldown I think) so casters had an option when a mob got on top of them. I can't recall it being really abused, but I wouldn't mind seeing that make a return in place of insta spells.
Wandidar said:
I would simply like to see a return to true class role distinction - period. Today's MMO's roles are fairly exclusively tank, heal, dps. There is no CC because there is no need to split mobs - which means there is no need for a dedicated puller. There is no need / room for utility classes.
This makes MMO's today games for the selfISH - not games for the selfLESS. That is what role distinction brings to the game. Bards who do very little directly but who are wanted by everyone because they make everyone better... that sort of thing.
Beyond that - I would like to see a return to "life simulating micro games" within the broader MMO game...
- It's very dark at night means "I CAN'T SEE"
- 4 billion copper in my pockets means "I'M WEIGHED DOWN"
- I haven't eaten in 3 days means "I'M STARVING"
That sort of thing doesn't need to be overdone - but it needs to be done. Having to account for such things is seen as tedious by those who simply want to go kill stuff - but that whole concept is sort of anti-mmo. MMO's are set in virtual worlds. That carries with it the implication of virtually living in that virtual world - which means SMART inclusion of some of those mundane things to give players things to contend with beyond "OMG did you see my massive DPS!"
"WELL SAID"