Behind the Curtain Elements To Good PVP Combat
mcjenkins
Member
Often times for an MMO especially PVP oriented ones the combat must be near perfect for the rest of the game to be good, and i just wanted to point out a few features that would literally make or break a good combat system. People might disagree on me with this but WOW by far has their combat down to a Tee, it's very easy to read probably has the fastest style of gameplay (if you play Fire Mage you're literally slinging spells at godspeed) and it's spell Queuing systems makes for perfect timing on the next ability or spell cast. Keep in mind that WOW isn't the only MMO I've played just from experience by playing other MMOs Wow has nearly no jank in it's combat system.
GCD
Global CoolDowns, first of all is a must have into any mmorpg, but what i want to bring up specifically with GCDs, that in WOW they are only applied on SUCCESSFUL spell casts, This in particular was a huge problem for Archeage. What this means that the moment you cast a spell a GCD will begin alongside the casting, but it's important that if the player chooses to cancel the initial spell the GCD is also cancelled as well, allowing the player to cast the new intended spell immediately. This was a huge issue for Archeage, when you began starting to cast a spell such as Arc Lightning you were committing to that spell, if you wanted to interrupt your cast and use a different spell, you will still be required to wait for the full GCD from Arc Lightning.
No Static abilities
The player must be at all times in control of their character and the only time they shouldn't be in control is when they are stunned, CCed, or using a charge ability.
Directional Orientation
This is one of the few underappreciated mechanics to wow, but half the time there is no orientation requirements to specific abilities. This mechanic is strictly isolated to AOE abilities, most Healing abilities, and most Crowd Control abilities. For the rest of the abilities such as single target damage abilities the character is required to be facing their opponent.
Spell Queuing
Pretty simple, while casting spells in the last 0.5 seconds of the cast you can begin pressing your next spell and when the inital cast is complete the next spell will begin immediately effectively eliminating any delay between two abilities, this effect is also applied for GCDs on a melee class. However it is important that if you happened to press two different spells in that 0.5 second window that it will instead used the most recent spell you pressed.
CCs
Crowd Control, as i mentioned earlier 9 times out of 10 they do not require any player orientation to be casted. but it's crucial that most of those CCs also DO NOT have a projectile, the amount of jank that can happen while your CC ability is traveling to it's foe is infuriating and extremely difficult to figure out how the CC was broken early. an optional bonus to CCs, is once casted they get rid of any dots already on the target, effectively preventing those dots from breaking the CC.
Good enemy UI
important things to think about when making enemy nameplates, that it includes a clear and concise casting bar for spell interrupts, as well as a good Boon/Condition bar.
Arenas
since Arenas will most likely be the players true test of skill and the fact that there wont be any addons it's important to have a really good arena specific UI a format i would consider looking into is the "Gladius" addon from wow it shows what classes your opponents are, displays there mana and health at all times, but also shows you what spells they are casting when you don't have them targeted and sometimes what Cooldowns they've used.
Personally i still don't know exactly what the combat will look exactly like but if any of these mechanics could be implemented within the game i would strongly consider thinking about applying them to the game, I cannot stress that an MMO with Jank combat is just a jank MMO.
GCD
Global CoolDowns, first of all is a must have into any mmorpg, but what i want to bring up specifically with GCDs, that in WOW they are only applied on SUCCESSFUL spell casts, This in particular was a huge problem for Archeage. What this means that the moment you cast a spell a GCD will begin alongside the casting, but it's important that if the player chooses to cancel the initial spell the GCD is also cancelled as well, allowing the player to cast the new intended spell immediately. This was a huge issue for Archeage, when you began starting to cast a spell such as Arc Lightning you were committing to that spell, if you wanted to interrupt your cast and use a different spell, you will still be required to wait for the full GCD from Arc Lightning.
No Static abilities
The player must be at all times in control of their character and the only time they shouldn't be in control is when they are stunned, CCed, or using a charge ability.
Directional Orientation
This is one of the few underappreciated mechanics to wow, but half the time there is no orientation requirements to specific abilities. This mechanic is strictly isolated to AOE abilities, most Healing abilities, and most Crowd Control abilities. For the rest of the abilities such as single target damage abilities the character is required to be facing their opponent.
Spell Queuing
Pretty simple, while casting spells in the last 0.5 seconds of the cast you can begin pressing your next spell and when the inital cast is complete the next spell will begin immediately effectively eliminating any delay between two abilities, this effect is also applied for GCDs on a melee class. However it is important that if you happened to press two different spells in that 0.5 second window that it will instead used the most recent spell you pressed.
CCs
Crowd Control, as i mentioned earlier 9 times out of 10 they do not require any player orientation to be casted. but it's crucial that most of those CCs also DO NOT have a projectile, the amount of jank that can happen while your CC ability is traveling to it's foe is infuriating and extremely difficult to figure out how the CC was broken early. an optional bonus to CCs, is once casted they get rid of any dots already on the target, effectively preventing those dots from breaking the CC.
Good enemy UI
important things to think about when making enemy nameplates, that it includes a clear and concise casting bar for spell interrupts, as well as a good Boon/Condition bar.
Arenas
since Arenas will most likely be the players true test of skill and the fact that there wont be any addons it's important to have a really good arena specific UI a format i would consider looking into is the "Gladius" addon from wow it shows what classes your opponents are, displays there mana and health at all times, but also shows you what spells they are casting when you don't have them targeted and sometimes what Cooldowns they've used.
Personally i still don't know exactly what the combat will look exactly like but if any of these mechanics could be implemented within the game i would strongly consider thinking about applying them to the game, I cannot stress that an MMO with Jank combat is just a jank MMO.
2
Comments
The player must be at all times in control of their character and the only time they shouldn't be in control is when they are stunned, CCed, or using a charge ability."
can you expand on what you mean here? Maybe include an example please?
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
At present, all the classes appear to have static abilities, its not such a problem if they all have static abilities in terms of balance, but it can drive a vast player base away if you press a button, get rooted, press a button get rooted etc.
Action Combat is loved because almost all active combat doesn't use static skills.
Edit: If we take directional attacks and mix directional attacks with static skills, then it is the difference between a Melee running around your back every time you move to strike, all the while doing basic attacks to whittle you down, but, you can't do anything because you get placed in static positions. In effect what it would boil down to is both parties using basic attacks (Which aren't static) to counter-balance the positioning issues. You can also counter positioning issues with AoE and so far the AoE I've seen is circular in nature. It isn't clear if all classes can perform such AoE though.
A "static" ability is usually when your character is stuck in a "flashy animation" whenever they press a spell and cannot move, essentially stunning yourself for 1 second every time you're using that spell allowing the enemy player an extremely easy window to either interrupt you, stun you, or close the gap between you. In Tera all the original classes suffered from some sort of static abilities, that if you were fighting a Gunslinger or Brawler it was impossible to keep them at a distance, or even close the gap on them, since they had no static abilities themselves.
I'd argue otherwise, being able to completely control your character adds all new depth to the game, in wow for instance its one thing to cast a spell and get interrupted by your opponent, and it's another to cast a spell then stop casting midway in hopes of making the opponent waste their interrupt ability. It's a small mechanic but very powerful in the satisfaction of knowing you outplayed your opponent.
I will try to break down my criticism point by point.
GCD:
You don't need a GCD if you give every ability its own cast time and cooldown. The more powerful / gamechanging the higher the cast time / cooldown. For instance, if the mage casts his fire ball it needs ½s casttime and 3s cd. Now, he casts his firestorm / meteor (imagine it having equal dmg, multiple hits over 5s, ground target and aoe) which takes him 2s cast time and 15s cd. The casttime will work as a GCD and prohibit him from casting something else in the meantime but may enable spell queue'ing.
Macro's shouldn't be allowed IMO.
No Static Abilities:
Now, here's my biggest disagreement. I hate being stuck in one place. And FFXIV really was horrible in that regard. But, there are certain abilities, that need a risk/reward mechanism. Just take the big fire aoe again. Imagine it does a shitton of dmg over 5s. Now, in my opinion the mage shouldn't be able to cast this ability and dodge/reposition himself in the meantime. The mage has to choose a good position and then cast it or else he either is dead, or needs to interrupt the cast. However, this should only be the case for the most powerfull of abilites, which every class should have a max of 2 out of 10.
Now, to balance this out, you can always implement animation cancel via stow, rolls or maybe even moving, which will interrupt the cast. Also, I think gap closers shouldn't be cancellable again risk and reward.
Directional Orientation:
Yes. You should be able to place AoEs wherever you want without needing to face. Single-Target-Point-an- Click abilities should be directional.
Spell Queuing:
Yes. Exactly like this.
CC:
In my opinion, CC is either melee and, when hard cc, single target or it is a skill shot.
Good Enemy UI:
Yes.
Arenas:
Idm
Lastly, I wanna say, that most of these things have been done in Guild Wars 2 and I believe that the system itself Arenanet has used for their MMO, be it a modification of WoWs and struggles in other aspects, is, what should be considered for implementing a pvp system that focusses on massive battles and not just single battles in an environment with many players.
The reason WoW has a GCD is due to the internet when WoW was designed. There is always lag present when playing an online game but in terms of equality a GCD means people are more balanced compared to a non-GCD. If we all had a ping of 0 and skills were instant, you don't need a GCD. If peoples pings will fluctuate then a GCD helps to balance out the fights and fights would be less susceptible of ping fluctuations.
Edit: Of course a GCD doesn't assist in Lag Spikes, Lag Spikes are a different beast entirely.
your solution to GCD is fine imo but I'm still all for 0 Static abilities, it's not fun getting zerged by 20 players in huge player battlegrounds just because you were stuck casting a massive Meteor that takes 4 seconds anyways which btw that long cast time is already a huge risk. Having the ability to be in a good position at all times is crucial for those moments.
What do you mean by nerfed? In terms of gameplay mechanics, nothing has changed. The only things, that changed, were skill specific mechanics such as Winds of Disenchantment or Photon Forge.
And if you mean this, then yes, the older pre PoF combat was more fun IMO.
If that's the case, I agree and disagree, yes the boon and condition spamming isn't optimal but so was the system prior.
Also, I meant more the gameplay basics as we moved through them and not the class synergy system which GW2 has. Which is also one of the best, because it gives nearly every class a role and a feeling of contribution.