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Dev Discussion #10 - Group Composition

13

Comments

  • pyrealpyreal Member, Warrior of Old
    I think its ok if some classes are better at said job then others. The game will have its PVP/PVE elements where it might matter more in some cases. But i think the worse thing you could do is be like all the other MMOs and lock players into a set role/class. Id be super stoked to see a mage tanking dmg for a group or a rogue tossing some heals. Variety is the spice of life my friends

    How do you balance that sort of variety?

    You don't, you just hit the 'Mid range/Mediocre' button and hope it works out. Not only on the 'freeform characters' your are talking about, but also the content they are supposed to handle.

    AC had a truly free form character system. You started with X number of Skill points and you picked your skills, from First Aid to Crossbows, from Fletching to Life Magic.

    A player was given the freedom to do WHATEVER they wanted. In the end, if you wanted to be a half decent character you had to reroll and get skill X, R, X, D, and F. For all its wondrous freedom, you still got whittled down to what was viable.

    In a 'class' based system EVERY character is already viable and serves a valuable purpose. A player will never have to reroll because he didn't know he HAD to have the Mana Conversion skill if he wanted to be a Mage. Without Mana Conversion a Mage was CRITICALLY flawed and would never do well. So despite wanting to be a mage, creating a mage 'class', you were gimped and had to reroll.

    The player tried to use his freedom to basically 'class' himself. So why not give him the class to begin with, and let him play his desired role?
  • caedwyncaedwyn Member
    edited September 2019
    imagine a full tank party lol
    #forever-fighting

    OR

    full healer party
    you could LITERALLY heal yourselves so much that you make the dungeon boss rage quit XD
    #doctor-strange XD
  • caedwyncaedwyn Member
    edited September 2019
    akabear wrote: »
    Concept in Dragon Age which has been fond for a long time was different party compositions created different opportunities.

    For example; enter a dungeon with
    • a tank and you can break through solid walls to otherwise inaccessible areas
    • a mage and you can teleport over areas
    • a rogue and you can unlock areas

    Beyond that I would like it possible that groups can scale up for different activities ie
    • duo
    • trio
    • 5
    • 7
    • 12
    • 20
    What I don`t want to see if people having to box or (bot) to play solo.

    that is VERY nice in my opinion
    we have this system in more rpg games recently
    where you and your gang can finish quests or areas and etc by doing things differently mainly because you have different kind of fighters in your group
    for example :
    you can unlock a door if you have a rogue
    but if you have a berserker or defender or .... you can break the wall
    and so on ...

    meaning: you can finish the content but it will be a different experience with each different composition you make your group

    @akabear can you post this idea in idea archive?
    https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/43104/archive-of-ideas
  • No matter what you do there always will be META.

    Trinity will be always most effecitve in dungeons.

    For example in Albion Online, your class depends on what items you are wearing.
    At first days of game, everyone was trying some funny builds - heavy armor healers/tanks with stealth etc.
    But finally it turned out that trinity is most efficient.
    Damn heavy tank that hold agro, some support, glass cannon DPS + glass cannon healer.

    People may try different builds but finally META will be set.

  • DamoklesDamokles Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    caedwyn wrote: »
    imagine a full tank party lol
    #forever-fighting

    OR

    full healer party
    you could LITERALLY heal yourselves so much that you make the dungeon boss rage quit XD
    #doctor-strange XD

    I would not plan for that ;)
    IS already stated that they will have enrage mechaniks, which will mean that full healer or full tank groups will have no chance.
    But do you know who will be able to do that? A FULL BARD GROUP! :'D
    a6XEiIf.gif
  • NagashNagash Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    if you have a full party of summoners then you already outnumber any other group ^^
    nJ0vUSm.gif

    The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
  • You absolutely need a balance of the two. In small dungeons whatever AoC decides that is, 5/6 is the usual we see I believe being able to freeform is the best option. You still need the concept of the trinity~someone to take the damage, someone to mend that damage, and someone to deal the damage. That can be done with more than just the AoC specs of tanktank clericcleric and roguerogue/magemage. With you system similar to Archeage you have a wonderful opportunity to balance smaller content in PvE and PvP for freeform groups and theres limitless possibilities on how to decide to do it. In raids or parties bigger than 12 I'd say, a holy trinity is a must for the brunt of tanking and dps. However bc you have more people you can also introduce much more interesting combinations for offtanks, secondary healers and your multitude of dps options. Perhaps a spec is best for AoE tanking in PvE and another spec is best at AoE pvp. In PvE raids you certainly need the tankiest and hardest aggro holding person as your main tank for big bosses but you have a world of opportunity for everything else
  • Just to wrap things up would like to say that the different tank/support/healer combinations all require two persons so dungeouns design could be for six dps. But do not know if it is still true but Ashes of Creation is going with open world dungeouns so that is another thing to consider.

    As far as free form vs the trinity well free form is no form if you are going to have eight bards. So really inclined to keep the trinity around. But another importatn part of an mmo is that each class should have something to contribute to a group so as a dungeoun leader or raid leader I would try to get a diversified group if I can. One of the most important things in an MMO is teamwork, Really one of th key components so trinity would be the way to go.

    The biggest set back of the trinity is that You have to tank and a healer to do dungeouns and raids. But think you have number of options available to you to increase the number of toons that can play the tank and support roles.

    Really the purpose of all that I have post is If you just increase the number of people that can tank and fill the support healer role then the trinity would not fell so restrictive. This could be done by simply asking the player to level a tank or healer to level 20 and do 5 dungeouns for some reward. You do not have to level a toon to max level to figure out if they like it. Simple way of getting people to try it and some of them would most likely really like playing those roles and pursue it to max level.

    In retrospec giving every class the ability to tank does not sound to good. Mage tanking or pet tanking or bard tanking seems weird. But alot can be done with creativity and innovation vs just giving every one sheilds and shield abiltities. But I would leave you with this Idea In WoW there was guild that raided with out a tank just really op healer involved pet tanking and off tanking and kiting and cc and lot of team work. Well if you were give that guild a tank they could do wonders.
    Yes I said RAID not dungeouns.

    And finally I played a hunter and In WoW there was a turtle that had a 50% damage reduction sheild ability for 8 seconds combined with other cooldowns and defensive traits. It could be used to soak up some damage. Then the tank would taunt it back so pet would not die. I think this is the right place for pets to tank. So pets summoner and ranger alike should be allowed to do a little OFF Tanking not really pet tanking per say.
  • That's such an open ended question with so many possible answers in different situations I found a way to sum it all up into a great one-liner.

    I prefere good and well designed games.
    I can be a life fulfilling dream. - Zekece
    I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
  • NagashNagash Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    grisu wrote: »
    That's such an open ended question with so many possible answers in different situations I found a way to sum it all up into a great one-liner.

    I prefere good and well designed games.

    so you like a group full of summoners :D
    nJ0vUSm.gif

    The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
  • Short answer: I prefer "trinity" group compositions.

    In terms of fun, the idea of a more free form system is certainly more appealing. However it's only ever been just that, an idea. In practice PvE content suffers. Essentially team strategy goes out the window and teamwork becomes is far less important than how much damage you can do while avoiding taking damage. In a game with free form groups, things would have to be balanced to be doable by any group composition which usually takes the challenge out of the content (if its doable by a full dps group, why would you ever bring a tank or healer? If a team of heavy CC can just lock things down and ignore them why bring a class with less or no CC?). More often than not that just leads to a meta of a handful of classes, and everyone else who aren't playing those classes are left to the wayside. The trinity being a predetermined framework make people have to think more about the the teamwork involved in overcoming challenges. With that structure every class could have something that would make them valuable even if they dont have the highest dps/hps/mitigation. Without knowing more details of what is planned in terms of PvE I cant really go into more details on that thought so I'll leave it at that. That being said I can see how the freeform style could be better suited for PvP endeavors.
  • The more options the better we should have things to do no matter who is online if you have a group of all tanks they should be able to go get things done if you have a group that's all dps they should be able to go get things done but in order to do more difficult things every class should have a special place. like a hardcore 20 man raid should require 2 rouges to sneak past a boss to hit a switch at the same time that allows the rest of the group access. or maybe a mage has to cast a spell to hold a bridge up. things should have more than one way they can be done but it should take thought. maybe some fights require a bard to play rare song that makes a portal show up out of nowhere. I think the basic Trinity should be included but everyone wants something new instead of the tank and spank all the time make raids that require a specific class that has mastered that class threw questing and in game guild training. lvl 1 stuff anyone should be able to do lvl 2 should require a Trinity first or second time doing it but should also be able to be accomplished after players learn mechanics without Trinity. lvl 3 should require Trinity to accomplish no matter what. lvl 4 should require Trinity and 1 of 8 specialized class abilities to get done. lvl 5 should require Trinity and 2 of 8 specialized class abilities. lvl 6 should require Trinity and 3 out of 8 class specialized abilities. lvl 7 should require the Trinity and 4 out of 8 special classes. lvl 8 should require the Trinity and atleast 1 of each 8 classes for the most organized guilds that have Masters in ever class. it should be so epic that whoever completes it should get a flying dragon. it should be torture it should be hell progression should be very slow and it should take months maybe years to complete. something so hard that you don't want to do it again but if you do the rewards will be amazing. like the only way to get into an end game raid should require a class stone to be but together and make the key. your main class stone should always be available but your sub class stone only once a week or day. maybe we can get raids to put class stones together and avilable raids for that particular raid will appear. no matter what is done it has to be something new old way of doing things is great place to start but like others have said build on top of that. every class can have a quest line that they need a full raid to finish that only that particular class will have an understanding of what's going on and explain it to the rest of the raid. hey guys I'm on my last quest to becoming a master rouge I have traveled around the world and picked up relics that an evil rouge stole from the Divine ancients. he has the ability to teleport and can't be stoped without the relics being put together. it took me 3 months to collect them and 3 weeks for them to be charged it is time to go finish him. tank and healer will need to protect me while I channel the relic the rest of the group will need to be careful when he turns purple because he is going to explode and soul burst into someone. everyone has to be 3 meters apart or the soul burst will wipe everyone if we are to close together. if every class had a crazy story to tell and explain raid mechanics that would feel like a real adventure they worked hard to get to the point that the raid can be done and they need your help and only other people at the same lvl and class will have an understanding of what they are talking about. The raid can also have different mechanics according to the sub class of that person. we just need something new and something Innovative.
  • DamoklesDamokles Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Nagash wrote: »
    grisu wrote: »
    That's such an open ended question with so many possible answers in different situations I found a way to sum it all up into a great one-liner.

    I prefere good and well designed games.

    so you like a group full of summoners :D

    Oh Nagash, you poor summer skelleton...
    He deffinitely meant a group full of bards! ;)
    a6XEiIf.gif
  • NagashNagash Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    Damokles wrote: »
    Nagash wrote: »
    grisu wrote: »
    That's such an open ended question with so many possible answers in different situations I found a way to sum it all up into a great one-liner.

    I prefere good and well designed games.

    so you like a group full of summoners :D

    Oh Nagash, you poor summer skelleton...
    He deffinitely meant a group full of bards! ;)

    What about Summoner hard ^^
    nJ0vUSm.gif

    The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
  • DamoklesDamokles Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Nagash wrote: »
    Damokles wrote: »
    Nagash wrote: »
    grisu wrote: »
    That's such an open ended question with so many possible answers in different situations I found a way to sum it all up into a great one-liner.

    I prefere good and well designed games.

    so you like a group full of summoners :D

    Oh Nagash, you poor summer skelleton...
    He deffinitely meant a group full of bards! ;)

    What about Summoner hard ^^

    A smart group.
    Smart = Summard (a summoner/bard)
    a6XEiIf.gif
  • NagashNagash Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    Damokles wrote: »
    Nagash wrote: »
    Damokles wrote: »
    Nagash wrote: »
    grisu wrote: »
    That's such an open ended question with so many possible answers in different situations I found a way to sum it all up into a great one-liner.

    I prefere good and well designed games.

    so you like a group full of summoners :D

    Oh Nagash, you poor summer skelleton...
    He deffinitely meant a group full of bards! ;)

    What about Summoner hard ^^

    A smart group.
    Smart = Summard (a summoner/bard)

    Perfect
    nJ0vUSm.gif

    The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
  • I don't mind, if the game is built to support it like that, go ahead with a 40 man raid of summoners. An entire Guild defending a castle full of summoners.
    I doubt it will happen, Ashes already has a clear trinity and if you want to talk about preferences you can only talk about your experiences. Tera was (when I played back years and years ago) a great trinity styled game. WoW was a great trinity styled game.
    GW2 was an absolutly horridly broken messs of an illusionary "everything goes". At least for the first 2-3 years, can't say how it is now.
    Do I like trinity styled games more now? No, while not mmo Warframe shows that everything goes, just different approaches, can hold your fun for hundreds of hours even tho we all know that the content itself is the epitome of repetitiveness. It's just at the core a well designed fun game (yes it has it's flaws too) and that is what matters, just do it well and a group of people will love it to death. It just feels unecessery to ask, if it's done well, either way, it will be enjoyable in Ashes.
    I can be a life fulfilling dream. - Zekece
    I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
  • Another thing you could do is increase the dungeoun group from 8 to 10 and raid group to 20 or make a flex raids and flex dungeouns so it would be 8 to 10 people for dungeouns and 16to 20 people for raids this accomadates up to 33 percent more dps do 33 percent less dps toons would be looking for tank and healer.

    Think it would be pretty cool if we had ten man dungeouns, Think most people that play mmos would have to stop what they are doing and play Ashes of Creation just to do ten man dungeouns.
  • One thing that kept me playing Guild Wars 2 (before the jungle killed it for me) was that you could just grab four friends on any class they wanted to play and jump in a dungeon. Yes there was a meta, and yes there were party comps that were better and faster than others... but you could finish a dungeon with 5 anything and have some fun. You couldn't do that with raids, and raids needed 10 people. So instead of "let's go" it was time spent on forums organizing ten people for a certain time, then another hour wait because people didn't show and you had to find someone with the exact gear and traits that you needed with little room for variation... and if you really liked to play ranger you weren't going to play raids.

    I"m all for the traditional trinity or a more open system... as long as there are many viable options so it's easier to find people, and play with the build I want (as long as I can do my job, it should be good). There will always be a "meta" but as long as it's still fun with other hodge podge healers / tanks / dps, I'll have fun.
  • DisobedientDisobedient Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I think trinity is good, but i also think that its not easy when you have so many class combinations. So I'd say I like the idea of many class options more than I like the idea of a trinity system.. but if it's possible to implement without hurting the potential of each class then I like it. At the end of the day I'd like to see a lot of variety in classes and everyone playing their own class that suits them, not a class that they have to play to fit a role in the trinity system.

  • OrcLuckOrcLuck Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    I think I want a variety of compositions to work.

    I think the triad should work, but I think there need to be other combinations of classes that work effectively, so that problems of always being short on tanks and healers for progressing through content makes the dps subset of players wait in line to find those fixed roles. I think we need creative solutions.

    Should rogues find traps and turn them on their enemies? Should they find shortcuts?

    Should Rangers, coax beasts with food away from treasures, should they shoot down enemies before they're aware without drawing aggro?

    Should Bards, charm and inspire lowly minions to join their side and strive to forsake their oaths for gold and eternal glory?

    Should Summoners draw forth powers long lost from near by relics and summon forth energies or long dead foes, or spirits to their whims?

    I see several ways to make the myriad of classes useful to a party and for any one to provide a necessary utility to progress through dungeons and other content, that shouldn't just cater to one subset of a group makeup.
  • Thanks all for joining in on another Dev Discussion on group composition - I'm compiling your feedback now to share with the team, but feel free to keep posting your thoughts here! <3
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  • Well another way to increasenumber of tanks and healers is making them easier to gear up. The hardest thing about multiclassing is keeping toons geared so if tanks and heales had a satchel that was rewareded to them filled with goodies like WoW.
    And if there was an extral chance to get tank gear and healer gear then having a healer or tank as alt would be more easy. Or any other way to make tank gear and healing gear more acessable.
  • mozsta69mozsta69 Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    My perfect party is a crazy barbarian and charismatic ranger who are loud and drunk at the bar, a dark warlock slinkering in the shadows of the inn and a bard jamming music on the dancefloor
  • NagashNagash Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    mozsta69 wrote: »
    My perfect party is a crazy barbarian and charismatic ranger who are loud and drunk at the bar, a dark warlock slinkering in the shadows of the inn and a bard jamming music on the dancefloor

    Brings back D&D memories
    nJ0vUSm.gif

    The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
  • But really if embercoins and cool mounts and lot of goodies were associated with tanking and playing support/healer roles then you would have more tanks and healers than you needed. Could even be for a limited time long enough to get people to try tanking after which it would be up to them if thye wanted to continue tanking and or healing.

    So if you were just willing to do this on simple thing (cough ) then this would solve all your composition problems.

    But realized that I really have not answered your question, Well in LoL the is a support role. But they are different types of support. There is the healer dps, the cc knock other toon out of postition role, then their is the cc/shield (same as healing) dps role.

    In other words they have very specific roles and play styles. So as far as compostiion goes roles ought to be unique to a certain extent. For example if mages wee allowed to have a shpere of force and dome of force to protect tank and party members that would make them a dps support role. Since they would the only ones that could to that then their role would be real specific. Plus if they were giving a buff or debuff or spell like itching powder. Then they could fell like they are play support role and dpsing not just dpsing.

    Right now there are only eight classes so each one should feel special and unique, which includes their role.

    Another thing that could be done is to get people out of the I only play my favorite class or one toon mentallity no ideas come to mind. But as already mentioned one of things that prevent this is raid prep times. Think would rather have people playing alts then having to do four hours of prep time a week.

  • RavudhaRavudha Member
    edited September 2019
    I prefer something based on the trinity.

    If encounters don't 'require' trinity skills to some extent, they're usually designed to:
    1) require some specific combination of skills that ends up being more restrictive on group composition
    2) be a boring dps race (like bosses in BDO)
    3) require universal skills like moderate damage output and movement, which can be fun but not every single encounter should follow this template

    But, I also prefer encounters are not so tightly tuned to the specific trinity roles that hybrids become dismissed, which many classes in AoC kind of are.
  • I like the idea of something trinity based.
    That said id be the last person against hybrids, i like the idea of approaching fights using what you have in the group, coming from rift my mage has 20+ different roles 6 tank and healer spec, so can use whats needed. if the heals is weak run a healing tank to help out. i like the idea of all classes having some ability to do all things. And who wants to fight the same boss each week the same way. the other good thing about all classes having some ability to do all thing is that person that wants to try tanking or healing but no time to get an alt up and running can give it a go, if they like it they then may even start a tank up giving more in game.

    Hard to say how AoC is going to deal with this we know that a tank mage, will be able to tank but still unclear how the mage tank will go if indeed it will be able to tank at all. What ive got off the live streams depending on which one you look at is the 2nd class will add Augments to incorporate the identity of the secondary class, in the last stream a different concept was talked about. ( in this case i think they were getting carried away)
    But still would be nice to know what will be able to to what.
  • ZynarchZynarch Member, Founder, Kickstarter
    For me the holy trinity has worked the best for me in most cases. If I want to do tanking I really want to do actual tanking like cc, aggro and position enemies. Same goes for other roles like healer and DPS, I really want to focus on what my role is capable of doing. I have played other MMO's that have not relied on trinity and done it so you can go like 5 DPS in dungeon and clear it without a problem. I don't think that's a good idea because it just makes you feel insignificant because there are 5 people doing same thing as you are while no one is in trouble because everyone can tank a mob and everyone can self heal themselves easily. It takes away the groups "team" aspect if everyone does the same things.

    So in summery I prefer trinity groups over free-for-all groups and it should be easier to balance anyway.
  • digitalwinddigitalwind Member, Intrepid Pack
    Simple question with a simple answer:
    PVE Dungeons - Perfection required. Trinity required. Skill Required. Gear required.
    PvP - Whatever the hell you want - just be coordinated. All tank? -Why not!
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