The buddy system pairs two grouped and willing players together, allowing them to perform specific buddy abilities on/with each other. All mechanics/abilities described herein are just examples of ways one could implement the buddy system. The buddy system attempts to provide the following two benefits:
1) Encouraging (but not necessitating) close play with a single partner. This can be done with just some simple buffs and leaving it at that or with lots of coordination. This adds a layer of coordination and depth into combat that isn't twitchy and will never have scaling issues with party/raid size.
The classic example of inter-class synergy is buffs/debuffs, but they often suffer from scaling issues. In a 6 man party it might not be worthwhile to cast many of your buffs and debuffs, because they don't get much bang for the buck. In a raid scenario buffs can become overly cumbersome, but they are often required. Debuffs are also required since their payoff is often huge relative to the cost, but no matter how big a raid gets, you often only need a small number of debuffers. Having a 2 person restriction allows these interclass synergies to be more easily balanced and remain relevant regardless of changes in party size.
2) Strengthening social bonds through cooperation on a scale that isn't overwhelming. It can even feel lonely to be in a raid where you don't have any close friends, but working in tandem with one other person can be easy to get on board with.
Any class can partner up with any other class to provide useful benefits. Each class provides a different set of benefits with varied synergies. The goal is for no one pair to be perfect, but all viable and beneficial.
Buddy buffs: These buff your buddy, but only one can be used. Each class has one available buff for each of the pillars (tank/dps/cc/support).
Distraction: An ability you can use that provides a distraction. Distractions only last a short time, but allow your buddy to use an ability that "exploits" the "weakness".
Exploit weakness: A high strength move that consumes the "distraction" provided by your buddy.
Overcommitment: A very high strength move, but puts the player in a vulnerable/weak state until their buddy provides them "assistance".
Assistance: A minor buff/boost that provides "assistance", freeing your buddy from the negatives of an overcommitment.
These 5 systems form an example concept, but everything can be tweaked or changed entirely. There are many other mechanics and systems that could similarly pair players together. The real heart of the concept is pairing two buddies together so they can help each other and form social bonds. The following is more fleshing out of the example concept to show how it might work with two classes.
Rogue
Tank buff: Equipment maintenance - Gives +10% armor.
Dps buff: Shadowy movements - Gives -20% threat.
Support buff: Imbued agility - Heals and shields give the target +10% attack speed for 3 seconds.
CC buff: Invigorating oils - Crowd control spells/abilities cost 25% less mana/stamina.
Distraction: Feign injury - Slows your own movement speed by 40% for 10 seconds and creates a distraction.
Exploit Weakness: Accurate strikes - Next three abilities penetrate all armor.
Overcommitment: Foolish courage - Backstab twice in a row, then reduce all damage by 20% until assisted.
Assistance: Veil of smoke - Provides the target 5% increased melee damage and assistance.
Wizard
Tank buff: Twisting mana field - Gives +10% to all magic resistance.
Dps buff: Raw power - Gives -10% miss/resist chance.
Support buff: Imbued agility - Heals and shields cast by the buddy give their target +15% attack/cast speed for 3 seconds.
CC buff: Expanded mind - Maximum number of CC'ed targets increased by 1.
Distraction: Flashy display - Next offensive spell costs an additional 100 mana and creates a distraction.
Exploit Weakness: Magic funnel - Moderate damage attack, the next 5 spells cast by the target cost 100 extra mana that is given to the wizard.
Overcommitment: Fire and fury - Fireball does 1.5x damage and does aoe splash damage, then increases fizzle chance by +30% until assisted.
Assistance: Icy shell - Provides the target a 200 damage shield and assistance.
The details are by no means important - as long as a system like this gives a benefit to both players that is more than totally trivial but less than overpowering.
Given the focus of Pantheon on social play something like this would work very well here. As you say encouraging socialism ...er socialization .... on a smaller than full group scale would be very handy. Its a lot easier to find one partner than to assemble a group and once people team up they may well wind up doing more together.
I've never played a MMO with this sytem but I am sure it is readily doable - I've seen classes in other MMOs have partnership type abilities, such as the captain in LOTRO.
I like it.
Trying to design and balance a game for groups of 6 will be hard enough. Trying to balance the game for both groups of 6 and groups of 2, in my opinion, is kind of contradictory and makes me think it would compromise the integrity of one or both. I would prefer that the dev team focus on one goal and not start down the slipery slope towards smaller groups. I like the complexity and dificulty of the game they are building, and I see no reason to simplify it other than to give people insentive to two-box and avoid real grouping. Just my two cents.
Xbachs said:Trying to design and balance a game for groups of 6 will be hard enough. Trying to balance the game for both groups of 6 and groups of 2, in my opinion, is kind of contradictory and makes me think it would compromise the integrity of one or both. I would prefer that the dev team focus on one goal and not start down the slipery slope towards smaller groups. I like the complexity and dificulty of the game they are building, and I see no reason to simplify it other than to give people insentive to two-box and avoid real grouping. Just my two cents.
I agree that two-boxing instead of real grouping would be something to consider and I hadn't thought of the impact of this mechanic on the ability to box. If any mechanic overly helps boxers without encouraging desired forms of gameplay, then it's not desirable.
There may also be a point of confusion here. It wouldn't be a mechanic only for groups of two people, but for groups of all sizes. The game would still be entirely balanced around groups of six, but in each group of six you could have three buddy pairs. By extension a raid of thirty people would be able to have fifteen buddy pairs.
So I can tell you put alot of thought into this but yeah my vote is no. Seems overly complex and too many variables to keep up with. I just want to enjoy the grass..I mean the game.
Ainadak said:,By extension a raid of thirty people would be able to have fifteen buddy pairs.
I see. Yes that might be interesting. It would definitely complicate things in terms of group composition and balance. I don't like the idea of passive stat boosts as I don't see a difference between balancing for stat boost vs. non stat boost, i.e. it complicates things unnecessarily, as it does not improve the combat experience for the player. On the other hand, I like the idea of abilities interacting with each other, but I guess that is possible without a buddy system as well. Maybe they could blend some of these ideas into the targeting system since they are going to let you target both an ally and an enemy at the same time, i.e. the interaction happens between you and your target rather than you and your buddy. Something like; if both you and your ally target are targeting the same hostile target you can begin chaining your spells off of each other. The depth of that kind of interaction is limited only by your creativity and how much effort you want to put into making it robust. In any event I am excited to see what VR comes up with for release!
Xbachs said:I see. Yes that might be interesting. It would definitely complicate things in terms of group composition and balance. I don't like the idea of passive stat boosts as I don't see a difference between balancing for stat boost vs. non stat boost, i.e. it complicates things unnecessarily, as it does not improve the combat experience for the player...
...Something like; if both you and your ally target are targeting the same hostile target you can begin chaining your spells off of each other. The depth of that kind of interaction is limited only by your creativity and how much effort you want to put into making it robust. In any event I am excited to see what VR comes up with for release!
I agree that the buffs could possibly become an issue for balance. Passive benefits are often strong. I don't think it couldn't be balanced though and I think the buffs could be quite weak and it would still be enough of an incentive to take part in the buddy system.
As for the the distraction/exploitation and overcommitment/assistance mechanics, I think they could be balanced quite simply. Each distraction/assistance ability would be weaker by -100dmg/-100healing/etc. and each exploitation/overcommitment would be stronger by +200dmg/+200healing/etc. and you wouldn't get any scaling balance issues. At least that's my guess.
As for targetting the same hostile target to chain abilities, this doesn't bond two players together, which is the heart of the concept. It would make combat more complex and deeper, which I am a fan of, but I don't think it would have the same social benefit. Maybe you could take something with defensive+offensive targets, where you could specifically indicate with your defensive target who you are coordinating with, but it might get clunky trying to manage two targets like that.
Call me old fashioned but I think having a buddy is its own reward...
edit: This idea doesn't sound too dissimilar to something I was thinking in terms of combat but not for two people or directly controlled:
It probably isn't possible with a limited action set but I'd like to see some kind of skillchain system that perhaps isn't under much (if any) direct control by the player when it comes to starting it. So something like: Warrior gets a string a 3 successful blocks unlocking use of Shield Slam, warrior uses Shield Slam which dazes the enemy and opens use of Expose Weakness for a few seconds for the ranger, ranger uses Expose Weakness which opens up Exploit Weakness for the rogue, rogue uses Exploit Weakness for a high damage hit that ignores the targets AC. Or maybe a DPS lands a string of crits which gives the mob a debuff "Staggered" for a couple seconds, that debuff opens the tank to use Armor Break to lower the targets AC by x% for a few seconds for the party. Likewise you could have something a little more in the control of players along the lines of: Group fighting a mage mob land x successful interrupts in a row marking the mob with a "Shaken" debuff, this could open up something like Supress Will to a caster that then makes the next spell to hit the mob ignore all resistances.
Iksar said:Call me old fashioned but I think having a buddy is its own reward...
edit: This idea doesn't sound too dissimilar to something I was thinking in terms of combat but not for two people or directly controlled:
It probably isn't possible with a limited action set but I'd like to see some kind of skillchain system that perhaps isn't under much (if any) direct control by the player when it comes to starting it. So something like: Warrior gets a string a 3 successful blocks unlocking use of Shield Slam, warrior uses Shield Slam which dazes the enemy and opens use of Expose Weakness for a few seconds for the ranger, ranger uses Expose Weakness which opens up Exploit Weakness for the rogue, rogue uses Exploit Weakness for a high damage hit that ignores the targets AC. Or maybe a DPS lands a string of crits which gives the mob a debuff "Staggered" for a couple seconds, that debuff opens the tank to use Armor Break to lower the targets AC by x% for a few seconds for the party. Likewise you could have something a little more in the control of players along the lines of: Group fighting a mage mob land x successful interrupts in a row marking the mob with a "Shaken" debuff, this could open up something like Supress Will to a caster that then makes the next spell to hit the mob ignore all resistances.
I agree that having a buddy is its own reward! For me, playing with a buddy is infinitely more rewarding than playing alone. But this concept is about encouraging players to find buddies (in the social sense) by making them be buddies (in the mechanic sense), not rewarding players for already having them. I've played MMO's where I felt like a cog in the wheel, lost in the sea of players around me, but if the game said "you need to coordinate with Joan/Steve/etc." then I think that would help break the ice. In the MMO's I've played where I came in with a group of friends, if the game said "you can buddy up with your friend Jane and do some cool coordinated combos", then I would have loved that too.
I would be happy if they did something like what you described. My only worry with that as shown is that it seems a little more complex and involves coordination with an open ended number of people. Maybe your vision of the mechanic is more limited, but that's where my mind went. If you have a group of 3, do you have the ability to complete a combo chain? If two rogues use exploit weakness one after the other, do they both get the benefit? Would a whole raid be calling out "All rangers, use expose weakness now... All rogues, use exploit weakness now... etc."? I think it's a good base notion and could be taken in a good direction though.
Ainadak said:I agree that having a buddy is its own reward! For me, playing with a buddy is infinitely more rewarding than playing alone. But this concept is about encouraging players to find buddies (in the social sense) by making them be buddies (in the mechanic sense), not rewarding players for already having them. I've played MMO's where I felt like a cog in the wheel, lost in the sea of players around me, but if the game said "you need to coordinate with Joan/Steve/etc." then I think that would help break the ice. In the MMO's I've played where I came in with a group of friends, if the game said "you can buddy up with your friend Jane and do some cool coordinated combos", then I would have loved that too.
I would be happy if they did something like what you described. My only worry with that as shown is that it seems a little more complex and involves coordination with an open ended number of people. Maybe your vision of the mechanic is more limited, but that's where my mind went. If you have a group of 3, do you have the ability to complete a combo chain? If two rogues use exploit weakness one after the other, do they both get the benefit? Would a whole raid be calling out "All rangers, use expose weakness now... All rogues, use exploit weakness now... etc."? I think it's a good base notion and could be taken in a good direction though.
Well the idea behind it is to make it so such a system doesn't become a monotonous requirement in combat every encounter where people do them over and over from mob to mob, group to group. By not allowing players direct control over when it happens and instead having everyone in a group work together (further reinforcing social/teamplay) to pay attention should the opportunity open up & communicate in time (short duration windows to act, 2...maybe 3 seconds) it's less forced and certainly not required. Only one of each class could make use in my version before it moved to the next step or ended, so in the example once the first ranger slapped that button then the quickest rogue to notice would be the only one to get the bonus off of the exploit weakness finisher.
When you have it where two players can just go back and forth starting bonuses at will(or 3 sets of players in a group) it dramatically alters the way the game is played; it ceases to be a bonus feature and becomes a core function of grouping.
Iksar said:Well the idea behind it is to make it so such a system doesn't become a monotonous requirement in combat every encounter where people do them over and over from mob to mob, group to group. By not allowing players direct control over when it happens and instead having everyone in a group work together (further reinforcing social/teamplay) to pay attention should the opportunity open up & communicate in time (short duration windows to act, 2...maybe 3 seconds) it's less forced and certainly not required. Only one of each class could make use in my version before it moved to the next step or ended, so in the example once the first ranger slapped that button then the quickest rogue to notice would be the only one to get the bonus off of the exploit weakness finisher.
When you have it where two players can just go back and forth starting bonuses at will(or 3 sets of players in a group) it dramatically alters the way the game is played; it ceases to be a bonus feature and becomes a core function of grouping.
That's a valid concern. I think maybe my preference would be to merge the two concepts then. Maybe the rogue's "feign injury" distraction can only be used after the rogue has been hit by an enemy, then they would need to call our to their buddy to exploit the weakness. Maybe the wizard's "fire and fury" overcommitment can only be used after they land a critical hit with an aoe ability, then they would have to call out for assistance from the buddy. I certainly agree that unpredictability in triggers helps things from becoming routine. I do still think that a player pair system would be more managable than an open ended combo system and still have the benefit of encouraging a social bond.
Iksar said:So something like: Warrior gets a string a 3 successful blocks unlocking use of Shield Slam, warrior uses Shield Slam which dazes the enemy and opens use of Expose Weakness for a few seconds for the ranger, ranger uses Expose Weakness which opens up Exploit Weakness for the rogue, rogue uses Exploit Weakness for a high damage hit that ignores the targets AC. Or maybe a DPS lands a string of crits which gives the mob a debuff "Staggered" for a couple seconds, that debuff opens the tank to use Armor Break to lower the targets AC by x% for a few seconds for the party. Likewise you could have something a little more in the control of players along the lines of: Group fighting a mage mob land x successful interrupts in a row marking the mob with a "Shaken" debuff, this could open up something like Supress Will to a caster that then makes the next spell to hit the mob ignore all resistances.
I like this more as it still focuses on full group battle. A group of two would benefit a little bit, and would be able to chain a little bit, but it becomes more effective when you fill up the group and have more potential interactions to chain off of. I also like the idea of having to watch for opportunities to chain abilities rather than just spamming an ability on cooldown or following a set dps rotation. It would also be cool to add some player choice to make the system less linear, for example if you could chain abilities off your group members to earn a free, instant cast of whatever spell you like. Do you use it to heal the tank, or slow the boss, or root one of the adds? Maybe you use it to re-summon your pet or interupt an enemy cast. Having lots of options to choose from gives you flexability.
Xbachs said:It would also be cool to add some player choice to make the system less linear, for example if you could chain abilities off your group members to earn a free, instant cast of whatever spell you like. Do you use it to heal the tank, or slow the boss, or root one of the adds? Maybe you use it to re-summon your pet or interupt an enemy cast. Having lots of options to choose from gives you flexability.
Possibly, I mostly wanted to avoid having too much opportunity cost involved and keep it a nice but unpredicable small bonus, as usually when there are branching options there is a clear winner for most content and it drags the system/mechanic down a bit to players. That's why I was thinking more along the lines of specific triggers that open up a specific string of abilities that could fall in line with the triggering event, so using the caster example: The wizard mob is interrupted multiple times without landing a spell which makes him shaken (sweating, anxious, becoming riddled with doubt) at which time someone exploits that temporarily dropping his willpower (magic resistances) so the spell that follows stings that much harder before the mob rallys back to normal in anger. It wouldn't make as much sense (to me) to interrupt the mob 3 times and suddenly get a free heal or instant cast etc.
so, i was thinking, when would you attain these buffs? i mean ive done mentoring in most games, thats an experiance/skill gain buff when your in a party with your buddy, and your level is scaled appropiatly in relation with your buddys level.
If you implement these buffs are they always active while buddyed or is distance or in-combat/out-combat a factor?
would it be smarter just to have the different buddy buffs be leveled/class-relation (fusion bonus?) based instead of adding another layer of choice (this creates min/maxing)
I read this intially thinking you wanted a group buff based on timeing and coordination of buddys attacks/actions, and i wonder again if this another layer of min/max that would reduce the frequency of skills you would use overall?
I would agree an extra incentive for grouping would be great, I'm just wondering what the trigger would be?, a skill, a mode, or a passive??
Again, makeing this level and class based would limit min/maxing (min/maxing is toxic as hell when rng is added)
ex. doing the same thing repeatly to get a different outcome........sounds like insanity, yes?
a group buff based on timeing and coordination of buddys attacks/actions sould not be random rng, but rather a combination of timeing and skill between class to class dynamics, this will occur natturally in the game. ex. buddy hits with target with fire, you stun the target at the same time the spell hits causeing flashburn (effect: reduce enemys accurcy by 5% for double the duration of the stun after stun wears off) - hypothedical
as far as the buddy system is concerned i would prefer someing genrally static or passive followed by maybe increseing skill exp/levels based on class, I really dont like % based numbers because they are hard to balence and even harder to manage.
turocko said:so, i was thinking, when would you attain these buffs?... I would agree an extra incentive for grouping would be great, I'm just wondering what the trigger would be?, a skill, a mode, or a passive??...
...a group buff based on timeing and coordination of buddys attacks/actions sould not be random rng, but rather a combination of timeing and skill between class to class dynamics, this will occur natturally in the game. ex. buddy hits with target with fire, you stun the target at the same time the spell hits causeing flashburn (effect: reduce enemys accurcy by 5% for double the duration of the stun after stun wears off) - hypothedical
as far as the buddy system is concerned i would prefer someing genrally static or passive followed by maybe increseing skill exp/levels based on class, I really dont like % based numbers because they are hard to balence and even harder to manage.
I was kind of thinking the buffs would be castable buffs that you would need to cast on your buddy every 30 minutes or so to make it feel like you're taking the time to care for them. Nothing really well thought out though.
Having a system that adds onto the natural flow of combat by pairing with abilities players already use would be great. I think your example flashburn concept would be good.
As far as the details of balancing, I don't think any of them are pertinent to the discussion and I was just taking shots in the dark with all of them. I certainly don't have experience in balancing a game and I wouldn't expect any of the forum participants to have that experience either.
Against this type of system.
The ability to gain a buff that can not be gained in game via solo means, forces top end players to run multiple accounts to gain the buff making content more of a challenge to balance for those that do not have the buff.
Any type of buff or game based mechanic or ability that can have a affect on the core game itself needs to be done in game not with a credit card.
This promotes boxing puring and simple at the end of the day.
I guess I fall into the "against" category. The reward you get for making friends and grouping is winning fights and seeing content. I don't see a need for additional incenive.
And in terms of building community, there are plenty of ways to encourage people to get together without giving them combat freebies.
Some thoughts on this:
Lots of games do a passive group buff based on archetype. So for example, if a warrior groups up with a cleric, both of them will get a minor AC buff (from the warrior) and maybe a minor hp regen buff (from the cleric) as a passive bonus just for grouping. The bigger the group, the more the bonuses pile on. They're very minor individually, but still meaningful.
As far as having specific abilities related to grouping up with people.... I think that might overcomplicate things a bit, and they would need to be very carefully balanced as others have pointed out. Not 100% opposed, but I'd need to be convinced, and a lot of thought would need to go in just how much you give people in the way of additional power.