So searching for collision I only found the following:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4626/character-collision
And one link thats in VIP forums.
Which pretty much only talks about collision with players and pretty much sumarized with its not a good idea due to potential for greifing. Fair enough, and I tend to agree.
So to the point.
But some form of collsion other than just with the environment would be a plus for many of the reasons mentioned as positives in the above thread.
In EQ I espcially liked how melee could work together to interrupt spell casters via pushing. Each melee only pushed a little, and solo you may or may not interrupt a spell cast. However as a team you could usually keep the mob from casting much.
But if we took that concept once step furthar and allowed the MOBS to greif the players as it were, then the mob could use the terrain to their advantage just like the players can.
It could even be worked into quests or factions.
- why does a guard not just block your path when they find you threatning, instead of just attacking?
- By the same token shouldn't the tank be pushed around when multiple mobs are beating on them?
Thoughts?
-Az
I sort of fancy the idea of blockades. And griefing with collision mechanics.
I always wondered why games like Archeage did not use the motivation of players to block roads to create a rewarding game experience.
Like imagine if you have carts blocking the road, but Fireworks (that all games already have), acted as an item you can use on a blocking cart. And someone else could blow out the fuse, or it would go off and light their cart on fire.
Can you imagine any simple mechanics that could be used as a way to create a new game experience out of collision mechanics and griefing? I can think of hundreds. I sort of am... all at once. All the time. I need to go bake something. You got me all spun up now.
Most games I've played have had NPC collision, that includes EQ. It doesn't really impact gameplay much. You don't need collision to have a mechanic like push in EQ, and I should say that push was disabled in EQ because it was truly terrible in raids. Also, in EQ, mobs also pushed players with attacks the same way players could push mobs. Some spells also had higher push modifiers.
In summary, push is a terrible mechanic imo and I don't want to see it again. As for collision, it's probably pointless to have. For mobs to effectively body block you, the collision box would likely need to be larger than the NPC itself. It's just bad design.
Collision between players can have pretty disgusting repercussions if it isn't implemented well, as outlined in the linked thread.
I would love collision with mobs, it could be a very nice feature to enhance the gameplay.
For example tanks could get actions to enlarge their collision surface to make efficient shield walls, rogues could get actions to disable collisions during a few seconds for infiltration, we could also imagine projections above shield walls, etc ...
Griefing issues can be indeed a problem, but I'm pretty optimistic about the maturity of Pantheon's community.
I would like to see collision used as a form of conditional logic. Perhaps there are very basic collision "rules" implemented but these rules can change or evolve under specific circumstances. For example, if X amount of mobs are within X radius of eachother, they start to naturally fan out a little bit in an effort to surround their target. This would allow for more tactical positioning opportunities for both the players and the NPC's. Another idea would be to create temporary buffs that allow players to bypass collision. I have seen this concept used in League of Legends and would seem to think that the same idea could roll over into an MMO. Maybe certain classes could get temporary buffs they can cast on themselves, or others, to allow this to happen. Maybe certain items will have clicky effects that allow a player to do the same (sounds like a cool situational piece as it could free up a spot on someone's hotbar) -- these buffs shouldn't be for any extended duration, maybe 10-20 seconds with a 2-5 minute cooldown ... nothing crazy, just enough to allow players an opportunity to use it as a form of counter play.
I didnt mind the push mechanic, even on nraids in EQ as it was something that was there, and could be worked around. For instance, mage swarms I woud run a circle around the monster as I cast swam and the minions would push the monster against themselves on all points around the circle with the monster in the middle, no push. If I didnt run, however there were enough in a single line to push that monster back in a straight line. If a raid boss got to far packed into the corner a chetari wardstaff was enough to bounce it back out and let the tanks maneouver it into a better spot. sometimes I would sneak behind and give it a thwok to get it out a bit. It alweays amazed me knowing that shaman pets had the biggest push, yet on raids they- knowing this- would all line up and send their dogs in one direction and then worry about push- I woud think some communuicartion or silent observation would say- shaman cast its pup over there, I will go over here and counter it like a weather-vane because of known push, and then raid leadser would say- "no pets" which was hard for mages- as water would not push, air would, fire wouold not but is dangerous and earth was never used, just because of shaman pets push. But contrarily, knowng shaman pets pushed like a mofo- that could also be used like if the monster had a small AE and we neededto stand back- send the shaman pet in to push it back a bit- pack it into the corner.
Player collision- the old Ogre sitting afk at the entrance of Guk so players could not zone out. Initially I thought that if I had a train on me and was runnign to zone after shouting such, as I turned the corner and went invis the froglocks rounding the corner would not see me but see the Ogre and transfer all their hate on the Ogre, killing it. Once dead it would allow me to zone out over the ogres corpse. With the righteously severe death penalty it made me wonder why the oger would do it for jollies. Doing it once I could see- make up the exp elsewhere but with nicely slow Exp it would definitely be a one time thing for the Ogre.
Mob collision- they always seemed smarter than we were, never got in each others way- heh. I would like to see if two trains could be run into a bottleneck and the monsters get stuck- unmoving in that bottleneck.
Manouk said:I didnt mind the push mechanic, even on nraids in EQ as it was something that was there, and could be worked around.
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Player collision- the old Ogre sitting afk at the entrance of Guk so players could not zone out.
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Mob collision- they always seemed smarter than we were, never got in each others way- heh. I would like to see if two trains could be run into a bottleneck and the monsters get stuck- unmoving in that bottleneck.
The push mechanic was actually a strategy too, it made it possible for example to interrupt mob casting even if you had no CC or stun in your group to interrupt it. On raids it required that the whole team work together to properly position a mob, not push it off an edge etc.
Player collision, while it has been used for greifing in the past, seems to be something that could easily be worked around if for example we could cast shrink on the offending player and run past them, or as OneADseven suggested, short tem buffs that allow you to squeeze past. You could play all sorts of interesting games with hit box sizes.
But mob collision, it never made sense to me to see someone quad kiting mobs and they are all stacking inside each other. It doesn't look right and really breaks your suspension of disbelief. While I don't see anything wrong with quad kiting in and of itself, it should actually take more work to keep them in a tight enough ball to land your AE on all of them time after time until dead. When they can just stacking inside one another its quite easy to accomplish this.
Also, you should be able to use a bottle neck to reduce DPS output by the mobs. It only makes sense in any combat strategy. If not every enemy can attack you due to collision then you have a viable and alternative method to having a CC class in your group to control a horde of mobs and their DPS upon you via creative positioning.
It just simply should not be the same fight engaging 4 or 5 mobs in an open field vs a narrow hallway, but without collision it essentially is the same fight and thefore a reduction in options available to the player.
Khendall said:Griefing issues can be indeed a problem, but I'm pretty optimistic about the maturity of Pantheon's community.
I agree with this. I almost want to see somne form of player collision just because it would lead to people acting like idiots and the ability for the community to alienate them. People keep referencing how much community and reputation should matter, well let's put it to the test.
"The Summoner has developed a powerful arcane command to conjure sustenance, tools, barricades, weaponry, even fantastic creatures of incredible strength - all of this at her whim."
^Above taken from class description
Makes me think there will at least be collision of some sort...
I don't want to see collision, but enemies fanning out or being intelligent about their positioning is a completely different than that I can get behind.
You could easily design mobs to follow any kind of complex movement pattern in combat without making them physical objects.