Crowd control should not be based on RNG

truelyyy

Dreoh wrote: »

@Noaani Sorry about that, I'm so used to people using gotcha arguments on me.

I'm not arguing that equipment and stuff shouldn't exist or that someone can't have higher stats than another person, as that is a part of RPG's yes. That's a different argument than the one I was making though, and I don't think some people are properly separating the arguments.

You can have mostly fair/balanced pvp with stats.

It's when some of those stats are RNG stats that it becomes unfair/uncompetitive PvP.

GW2 is a good example of an RPG game with (mostly) RNG-less PvP. It has a Structured PvP mode and a WvW, gear-based PvP mode.

• Structured pvp mode, where everyone just chooses their stat build, but all their stats are normalized to be equivalent to each other. This mode is closer to a fighting game than an RPG, and in fact the Structured PvP part of the game is actually separate entirely from the rest of the game. This mode is essentially just a gear-based/loadout-based combat scenario
• WvW mode, where your gear actually does matter, and whoever has better gear has better stats. GW2 does NOT have miss chance, dodge chance, or resist chance. It has crit chance, but crit chance is less decisive than spells and effects completely whiffing. This is an example of a game that "removed that RNG" in favor of more fair pvp and it works well because of it. Nobody complains that they lost because "their heavy strike randomly missed". They might complain they got critted too many times, but that's not nearly as detrimental as a knockback/silence/root not taking effect. This mode is an RPG and progression based combat scenario

Structured PvP aside, WvW mode is exactly what you're describing. Your gear matters, but even if you're weaker, you can tell that you're weaker based on the damage being done. You don't get RNG-fucked by their higher dodge chance or your lower accuracy chance where otherwise you played beautifully.

When @CROW3 was saying "Different genre, context changed and matters", he was being disingenuous because he was missing the point of the argument. The argument is "What makes a fair/balanced PvP" and RNG as I have described many times goes directly against that argument.

You can have stats and stat-based combat. You don't need to mix in RNG beyond a very minor amount.

Have someone with better gear just be stronger, no need to make them more lucky. That's where the "context change" comes in to play.

I agree, GW2 minimising the amount of RnG makes for great PvP

truelyyy

I don't understand why people think skillful build have to be about having RnG. One of the main part of this game will be about augmenting your skills so your active skills change and are used is different and interesting ways. Just boosting a bunch of passive % in a certain way is somewhat one dimensional, this is combination with the active skills is where it's at, and having a bunch of RnG isn't necessary for this. Once again GW2 is a great example.

Noaani

truely wrote: »

TBH I think a lot of inspiration can be taken from MOBAs for combat as they have a lot of similiarities in terms of how it plays with similiar combat skills, positioning etc. I know it's not the same but there are many overlapping similarities and in those game you wouldn't get RnG on stuns because it's just not balanced and isn't good/ feel good gameplay.

MOBA's in some respects can be looked at as MMO-lite.

They are an ok place to start, but there is a need for systems to be fleshed out more from what they are in such games in order to make them compelling MMO's.

truely wrote: »

I agree, GW2 minimising the amount of RnG makes for great PvP

Not going to lie, this is the first time I have heard the terms "GW2" and "great PvP" in the same sentence, without also containing the words "If", "you", "want", "don't", "do", "what" and "does".

truely wrote: »

I don't understand why people think skillful build have to be about having RnG. One of the main part of this game will be about augmenting your skills so your active skills change and are used is different and interesting ways. Just boosting a bunch of passive % in a certain way is somewhat one dimensional, this is combination with the active skills is where it's at, and having a bunch of RnG isn't necessary for this. Once again GW2 is a great example.

You clearly didn't read my previous post. It's long, so I don't specifically blame you.

However, it addresses these points, and I consider it worth the 5 or 6 minutes it would take to read.

JustVine

Vhaeyne wrote: »

JustVine wrote: »

I feel it will absolutely get used. 'Lose a turn' would have to be rediculosly low odds for people to not use it, the skill shot will probably just make it unpopular at lower skill levels, while still dominating the meta at higher skill levels. Even with a long cooldown (which I fully support them having if they are going to have stun.) In any meaningful form of pvp it is free buckets of damage due to Ashes high time to kill.

I doubt adding a skillshot to the hard cc will address the problems of hard cc in the same way rng doesn't. Skillshots generally have about the same accuracy if not better in champion fighters for example as the generally designed rng odds for stun (50 worse 70ish best). And even if it is, the frequency is probably closer to what the rng odds would be, it's just with the 'chance' of it being 100% Here is why:

Think about who gets hard cc traditionally. Fighters, Tanks, Ranger, Mage (and summoner by nature of their job usually gets a summon with it but let's exclude them given how little we know of their intended design)

Two front liners who can negate movement abilities in some way, by either closing distance or pulling back. Two backliners who have big burst damage and no reason to not just open with stun into big burst damage.

Now by nature when you make a high cooldown skill, as a game designer you need the player to still have meaningful odds in an encounter, because it isnt fun to be maimed waiting for a key ability right? So they still need a strong kit without stun. You can't really lock a ranger's or mage's burst damage behind one skill either. Usually they have multiple. So the stun is probably not going to come at the cost of their ability to delete. The skill shot for these classes is almost assuredly easy for them with a bit of practice.

Fighters and Tanks otoh have slightly less high burst damage right? But because they have strong stickiness, and the ability to pull you back/pounce your movement ability if you mash out after the timer, you now not only have half your health missing, but just 'wasted' your movement ability and are rapidly dying. If you stay there, your still at a strong health disadvantage and in a team scenario, probably deleteable. I would argue the skill shot might be slightly harder in this scenario due to the sharper angles in melee, but.... 'shield bash' for example, by nature is usually quick to animate. Same with hamstring etc. Your 'small hit box' idea is a reasonable hope, but I am unsure Ashes is going in the 'small hit box' direction. If they add hard cc it's definitely worth yelling at them about it if the hit boxes are 'normal' I think.

I hope I am reading this right.

You are concerned that if the good "Hard CCs" are limited to skill shots. Only highly skilled players will benefit from them? It also seems like you are worried that skill shots will increase the skill gap between skilled and unskilled players more. This would limit unskilled players to only being able to use "Soft CCs".

You also gave some plausible examples of how skill shots may influence the balance of the game relating to class and roles. To me, that is all very speculative at this point and not very helpful when it comes to the design goals around CCs in PvP. It could be a case of every class has access to a form of any CC and no class is better at resisting CC. I just don't know how relevant those examples would be as the game develops. I like talking about these things, but I want to stay on the main topic of CC as it relates to RNG in this tread if I can.

Without knowing how the hit boxes or meta will be. I think the idea that skill shots being higher risk moves with higher rewards as a design philosophy is something I like. Yes, I understand that it alienates unskilled players. Part of the beauty and curse of open world PvP is that there is no ELO matching. This means that if someone recognizes that, they are not going to be the guy that lands his big aimed stun often. Maybe he is the guy who throws out a tab-targeted slow (Soft CC) to help his more skilled ally. There is nothing wrong with players recognizing where their skill level is and playing to it. No one started pro. The hope would be that over time, a player grows and learns to incorporate more attempts at hard aimed CC in their play style.

I don't know specifically what Intrepid means by "Hard CC" and "Soft CC". My guess is long duration less forgiving CCs (Stun, Sleep) vs short duration CCs where you can still do some things(slow, silence). If this is the case, both are valuable.

I also hope I did not miss the point of your post with all of this.

Thanks for the response. My point was mostly that:
1. Action combat stun has about the same amount of utility as RNG stun because of the inherent design flaw in stun.
2. They both are about the same odds to hit on average in the end and you could in fact have rng on the skill shot and itd still be a part of the meta due to the nature of hard cc and class design.

No I am not particularly worried about skillshots having a skill gap. I personally don't care (especially if you let my summons do a weaker version in tab target if we are passing hard cc around.)

My point was that I agreed with your perspective in a world where hard cc 'must' exist and Intrepid should probably follow your advice because its the least dumb option, but it's not going to have a huge difference in the games design, just your fun (which is important.)

JustVine

Noaani wrote: »

JustVine wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

JustVine wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

In every single one of those, they are NEVER used in serious competitive play or are disliked by the majority of the community.

The previous question wasnt the "gotcha" question, I actually thought I would need one more to get to it.

My assumption was you would name a few games, and then I would ask what their community thought of those systems- to which you would have to answer with the above.

But hey, we're there now. So cool.

People in those games dont like it. They want static characters with known abilities and known combat.

That is because fighting games cater to a specific game desire.

MMO's cater to a different game desire. You ask the MMO population in general if they want to get rid of gear and builds, and you'll just be laughed at.

If you want a game without RNG, where everything is known, you have both fighting games and FPS games.

If you want a game where build matters, where there is more to combat than you would ever be able to factor in before hand, then MMO's are your jam.

Except.... Absolver exists. They have gear. The gear fine tunes their play style. Absolver isn't the same if you take away the gear because you no longer gave the same fine tuning. There isn't rng in Absolver.

Absolver is an ARPG.

Also, it does have RNG. Not as much as an MMORPG, but it has some.

Saying it has rng because it has loot drops is incredibly disingenuous when the question was regarding battle mechanics. It has no rng battle mechanics. Also 'ARPG'? How is this any different from an mmo? Pvp, pve, dungeons, gear, abilities...

There are other RNG elements to the game than just loot - or at least, there was in 2017 when I played it for about two days (the game is actual shit).

However, lets ignore that for a second, and discuss the validity of even bringing this game in to the discussion.

First, the way Absolver keeps people in the game is by making specific loot so rare, that you literally play the game for months without a single upgrade, even when you know there are a dozen or more items that you would want. Rather than allowing players any hand in creating items, they put it on a 100% RNG system.

While you may well think that this doesn't mean anything in this discussion, you would be wrong in that. You do not look at a game system in isolation, you look at it in the context of the game.

If Absolver had a loot system where you could make your own items, the average length of time a player would be in the game until they were "finished" with it would be measures in days, rather than months (or, in the case of some unfortunate people, a few years).

Having a game with low RNG in combat and low RNG in gear means the game has no personality (to be fair, the game has no personality with it's low in combat RNG - removing it from loot would just strip away the last remains).

All we need to do is look at the steam reviews. While I am not a fan of actually listening to peoples opinions on games, it is worth looking at the number of people that have left reviews - as that tells us more than what the reviews themselves ever could.

Absolver was released in 2017, the same year as Divinity 2, Resident Evil 7, Horizon Zero Dawn, Middle Earth; Shadow of Mordor and For Honor (there were also some fairly big releases that year, but lets not get too involved).

Absolver has 9.6k reviews. Over four years, that is less than an average of 7 people per day. Even if the reviews are all fantastic, that is a fairly low number.

Divinity 2 has 110k, Horizon Zero Dawn has 42k, Resident Evil 7 has 33k, Middle Earth; Shadow of Mordor has 43k - even For Honor, a game largely panned at the time as being fairly shit, has almost 60k reviews.

The reason I am bringing these numbers up is because if you are going to point to a game and say "Ashes could do things like this", then that game should at least be somewhat popular. It's easy to find examples of what ever you want to show - if you don't limit it to games that are actually enjoyed by people.

An ARPG is all about the combat system - this is because there is literally nothing else. If the games combat is good, the game will be popular - look no further than Path of Exile for this. It is complex, and it has elements of RNG in the combat, and it has 160k reviews on steam (though it has been out a little while longer than Absolver - though the number still works out to about 55 reviews a day for 8 solid years).

What this means is that if you are going to point to a game that is not popular, and then say that a game should take that games key mechanic and implement it in another game, then you really should re-evaluate your position in the online debate at hand.

I mean, the fact that you can only really cite a single game that is four years old and not overly popular as something to look at and say "do combat without RNG" should really tell you something - let alone tell the rest of us something.

Dreoh went: 'fighting games perfected pvp and dobt have rng'
You went: 'name a game with combat that doesn't rng like that'
Dreoh: 'points to GW2'
Me: 'Points to Absolver'

The point is in Absolver 'your build matters'. You said 'they want static characters with known abilities' you don't know peoples builds ahead of time in Absolver. If you meant regarding the player themselves, yeah most mmos do try to get their build to a static knowable set of abilities and style.

Also you sucking at the game didn't mean there is rng in the combat. I have also been playing since 2017 and can say with confidence as a fighting game player, you are just wrong. It is unpopular because its hard and fighting games are niche. Not because the design is bad.

JustVine

Noaani wrote: »

So, this post is a long read, but I've decided I am just going to skip to the end point of my point

Dreoh wrote: »

The argument is "What makes a fair/balanced PvP"

That is the wrong question to ask. If Intrepid want fair, they need look no further than chess. Fair and balanced is understood well enough, and is not Intrepids goal with Ashes (they have told us as much, remember?).

Rather, the question that should be asked is, "what is it players find engaging in MMORPG's"

For almost all MMO players, the answer to that is threefold in terms of what pertains to our discussion.

The first is worthwhile character progression without introducing power creep.

The second is having multiple and varied viable build options, each with specific strengths and weaknesses.

The third is to avoid a combat situation where mindless ability rotations are all that is needed.

Now, you may look at this and think to yourself that there is no RNG at all in any of that, and you are right.

However, if you consider what is needed to make these things happen, you will see how RNG is kind of needed.

Lets look at the third of the above first, as the first two go hand in hand and need to be considered together.

If players want to not be in a game where rotations are king, literally the only way to get there is for things to be different from time to time. The only way for this to happen is for things to involve RNG. Some RNG can be good (a percent chance that any skill will have it's cooldown halved, for example), and some RNG can be bad (a chance that a spell doesn't land).
.

Forgive me for stopping my read here if you address this point further down simply let me know and I will read the rest.

RNG: Random Number Generator. The game decides for you whether your answer is correct.

This is a seperate concept from.
Random Chance: There was a chance of something working but it didn't for various reasons. The machine isn't required to be involved here.

Games that lean into action combat use Random chance via class design and situational spacing relative to those tools. Rock Paper Scissors.

I can agree with you that something needs to happen to prevent stale rotations however you are setting up a false premise from the very beginning of this post. It's an option between two design sets. RNG mechanics are not the one and only way.

Now I personally think Steven just wants people to be happy and have fun. I think he didn't actually have an opinion one way or the other and your proposed 'rng only' focused design wouldn't go against his intent. But neither would RPS. If he didn't want the RPS crowd to play hybrid combat wouldn't have even come up after all as action combat tilts towards that direction.

Vhaeyne

JustVine wrote: »

My point was that I agreed with your perspective in a world where hard cc 'must' exist and Intrepid should probably follow your advice because its the least dumb option, but it's not going to have a huge difference in the games design, just your fun (which is important.)

I think I fully understand now.

I agree that it is the least dumb option.

This is why I won't shut up about Wildstar whenever I get the chance, and right now is no exception. Instead of just flat having hard CC they took the time to make sure that every CC had a corresponding "Mini-game" like mechanic to keep the game moving and fun.

I don't mind being CCed as much if there is something I can actively do to improve my situation.

Noaani

JustVine wrote: »

It is unpopular because its hard and fighting games are niche. Not because the design is bad.

It is unpopular because it has no soul.
Mortal Kombat 11 has 37k reviews, Tekken 7 has 38k reviews, Street Fighter V has almost 20k reviews.

Sure, if you want to call it a fighting game, it is still the fighting game with the fewest reviews. You can call fighting games niche if you want, but that isn't why Absolver has so few reviews.

Truthfully, the game can be summed up with one specific quote from a review of the game not long after release.

"The most difficult combo is in the menus."

As a game, it isn't worth talking about - let alone trying to use as an example that other games should follow.

This is only compounded by you not having followed the discussion overly well, and thinking that a game that is trying to be an ARPG, a fighting game and a trading card game without the trading, all while trying to be both single and multiplayer at the same time, is worth bringing up in a discussion.

JustVine

Noaani wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

Fighting games are entirely PvP from the ground up and have been optimized over the lifetime of the genre to have as fair and engaging PvP as possible.

Which fighting game is it you have in mind where players create the build and select the gear?

Maybe dont bring up this question if you don't want it brought in to the conversion yourself mate. Who is having trouble following the conversation? That's the only reason it came up.

truelyyy

Well if you don't know that GW2 is one of the popular MMORPGs with good PvP then what can I say, It's pretty well known. The issue is one can easily say none of the current MMORPGs have "good" PvP but GW2 is around the top of the list still. If you have a game in mind you can use that has good PvP as a reference point instead please share. I feel GW2 has a good base, it is a good reference point. Just theorycrafting a bunch of ideas thinking it makes for good PvP has no reality to it, until it's put into an actual functioning game to see how it actually plays, therefore referencing other games is important. You have your ideas about RnG in CC for example, do you have any example of games that do this and have good pvp because I can't. Just saying its RPG isn't a good enough argument and not having examples or reference materials isn't either.

Noaani

JustVine wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

Fighting games are entirely PvP from the ground up and have been optimized over the lifetime of the genre to have as fair and engaging PvP as possible.

Which fighting game is it you have in mind where players create the build and select the gear?

Maybe dont bring up this question if you don't want it brought in to the conversion yourself mate. Who is having trouble following the conversation? That's the only reason it came up.

I have no problem with you bringing up a fighting game - if you bought up a fighting game.

You didn't.

Tekken is a fighting game.
Mortal Kombat is a fighting game.
Street Fighter is a fighting game.

Absolver is not.

From the publishers own website.

Absolver is an online multiplayer combat game

So again, I have no problem with you giving an example of a fighting game where players create their build and select their gear. I do have a problem with you claiming a game is a thing that the publisher itself doesn't in order to try and prove a point that you can not otherwise make.

JustVine

Noaani wrote: »

JustVine wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Dreoh wrote: »

Fighting games are entirely PvP from the ground up and have been optimized over the lifetime of the genre to have as fair and engaging PvP as possible.

Which fighting game is it you have in mind where players create the build and select the gear?

Maybe dont bring up this question if you don't want it brought in to the conversion yourself mate. Who is having trouble following the conversation? That's the only reason it came up.

I have no problem with you bringing up a fighting game - if you bought up a fighting game.

You didn't.

Tekken is a fighting game.
Mortal Kombat is a fighting game.
Street Fighter is a fighting game.

Absolver is not.

From the publishers own website.

Absolver is an online multiplayer combat game

So again, I have no problem with you giving an example of a fighting game where players create their build and select their gear. I do have a problem with you claiming a game is a thing that the publisher itself doesn't in order to try and prove a point that you can not otherwise make.

Man your being as definitionalist as Dygz now. And therefore there is no value in continuing to try and talk with you on this specific subject other than to tell the audience to read Azherae's post above if they feel at all confused about Absolver by this weird off topic squabble.

Vhaeyne

@JustVine

Did you miss quote me in that? I am confused.

Noaani

JustVine wrote: »

Man your being as definitionalist as Dygz now. And therefore there is no value in continuing to try and talk with you on this specific subject other than to tell the audience to read Azherae's post above if they feel at all confused about Absolver by this weird off topic squabble.

Not at all.

In the context of the discussion, we were talking about fighting games. Games where you enter a ring and fight against a single opponent, three times.

When asked for a game from this genre that had a specific feature, you decided to throw in a game from a different genre. Sure, they both contain fighting, but the game you suggested is an action RPG with quests and a somewhat open world.

It is an entirely different genre. It is not what was asked for, and yet you attempted to pass it off as such.

It is fairly standard internet protocol when this happens to ridicule the other debater, claim they are being impossible due to wanting to stick to the original parameters, and say they are impossible to discuss things with. That is the stock standard way to get out of the particular corner you have painted yourself in to here.

JustVine

Vhaeyne wrote: »

@JustVine

Did you miss quote me in that? I am confused.

Yeah my bad mate. Sorry about that.

JustVine

Noaani wrote: »

JustVine wrote: »

Man your being as definitionalist as Dygz now. And therefore there is no value in continuing to try and talk with you on this specific subject other than to tell the audience to read Azherae's post above if they feel at all confused about Absolver by this weird off topic squabble.

Not at all.

In the context of the discussion, we were talking about fighting games. Games where you enter a ring and fight against a single opponent, three times.

When asked for a game from this genre that had a specific feature, you decided to throw in a game from a different genre. Sure, they both contain fighting, but the game you suggested is an action RPG with quests and a somewhat open world.

It is an entirely different genre. It is not what was asked for, and yet you attempted to pass it off as such.

It is fairly standard internet protocol when this happens to ridicule the other debater, claim they are being impossible due to wanting to stick to the original parameters, and say they are impossible to discuss things with. That is the stock standard way to get out of the particular corner you have painted yourself in to here.

You never brought up your definition of fighting game before this point. It fits my definition and can be played via your rule set.

Noaani

JustVine wrote: »

You never brought up your definition of fighting game before this point. It fits my definition and can be played via your rule set.

Fighting game is a specific genre.

You don't get to have your own definition.

That is like saying you have your own definition of MMORPG, and Diablo 3 fits in with it.

JustVine

It's called marketing mate. Calling it a 'fighting game mmo' would have had a number of pr issues.

Now by 'standard internet protocol' I am just going to quote my own post more relevant to the conversation.

JustVine wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

So, this post is a long read, but I've decided I am just going to skip to the end point of my point

Dreoh wrote: »

The argument is "What makes a fair/balanced PvP"

That is the wrong question to ask. If Intrepid want fair, they need look no further than chess. Fair and balanced is understood well enough, and is not Intrepids goal with Ashes (they have told us as much, remember?).

Rather, the question that should be asked is, "what is it players find engaging in MMORPG's"

For almost all MMO players, the answer to that is threefold in terms of what pertains to our discussion.

The first is worthwhile character progression without introducing power creep.

The second is having multiple and varied viable build options, each with specific strengths and weaknesses.

The third is to avoid a combat situation where mindless ability rotations are all that is needed.

Now, you may look at this and think to yourself that there is no RNG at all in any of that, and you are right.

However, if you consider what is needed to make these things happen, you will see how RNG is kind of needed.

Lets look at the third of the above first, as the first two go hand in hand and need to be considered together.

If players want to not be in a game where rotations are king, literally the only way to get there is for things to be different from time to time. The only way for this to happen is for things to involve RNG. Some RNG can be good (a percent chance that any skill will have it's cooldown halved, for example), and some RNG can be bad (a chance that a spell doesn't land).
.

Forgive me for stopping my read here if you address this point further down simply let me know and I will read the rest.

RNG: Random Number Generator. The game decides for you whether your answer is correct.

This is a seperate concept from.
Random Chance: There was a chance of something working but it didn't for various reasons. The machine isn't required to be involved here.

Games that lean into action combat use Random chance via class design and situational spacing relative to those tools. Rock Paper Scissors.

I can agree with you that something needs to happen to prevent stale rotations however you are setting up a false premise from the very beginning of this post. It's an option between two design sets. RNG mechanics are not the one and only way.

Now I personally think Steven just wants people to be happy and have fun. I think he didn't actually have an opinion one way or the other and your proposed 'rng only' focused design wouldn't go against his intent. But neither would RPS. If he didn't want the RPS crowd to play hybrid combat wouldn't have even come up after all as action combat tilts towards that direction.

Tritri

Just my two cent as a veteran fighting game player who participated and organized a ton of tournaments for this genre.

Most fighting games that offers "customization" are shun upon by the community and not played much.
Smash Bros for example, has customization in it but the competitive scene gets rid of it
Street Fighter X Tekken died pretty fast and was criticized a lot for it's gem customization system
MvC4... I know it died fast aswell for multiple issues, but I don't remember it having a customization setting other than the stone you could chose which was more close to an assist sytem than a real customization ?

Soul calibur tournaments all ban any character customization, same with Tekken

There are even some publisher outfit / colors that can be banned because they affect gameplay in some way (special color from guilty gear xrd or blazblue for example)

edit : although I'm not entirely sure I understand why people bring this genre into this topic

JustVine

Tritri wrote: »

Just my two cent as a veteran fighting game player who participated and organized a ton of tournaments for this genre.

Most fighting games that offers "customization" are shun upon by the community and not played much.
Smash Bros for example, has customization in it but the competitive scene gets rid of it
Street Fighter X Tekken died pretty fast and was criticized a lot for it's gem customization system
MvC4... I know it died fast aswell for multiple issues, but I don't remember it having a customization setting other than the stone you could chose which was more close to an assist sytem than a real customization ?

Soul calibur tournaments all ban any character customization, same with Tekken

There are even some publisher outfit / colors that can be banned because they affect gameplay in some way (special color from guilty gear xrd or blazblue for example)

edit : although I'm not entirely sure I understand why people bring this genre into this topic

It got brought up because Dreoh pointed out that pvp as a concept was perfected by fighting games. If you want a game with serious combat there are lessons to be learned from the genre. Fighting games like GGXrd, Soul Calibur, Injustice all have systems for 'more casual play.'

People who dislike 'hard core balanced combat' tent to be closer to the audience of those who play the gear systems in those fighting games. Those who play tournament level obviously want skill to matter mostand therefore shun systems like that.

An mmo with a gear system and high skill ceiling balanced combat require you pay attention to fighting game lessons more. Lower ones less so.

People who want skill shots are closer to this crowd even if they aren't quite fighting game players. There is overlap in player communities hence why games invest in those casual gear systems to begin with.

RPS vs RNG. I think both can exist in tandem but it'd be unwise not to listen to lessons learned in fighting game design if you want a high skill combat system with nuance and.skill mattering.

Noaani

JustVine wrote: »

It's called marketing mate.

No, it's called genres.

RNG: Random Number Generator. The game decides for you whether your answer is correct.

This is a seperate concept from.
Random Chance: There was a chance of something working but it didn't for various reasons. The machine isn't required to be involved here.

Yes, these are different concepts.

However, you are making it sound like RNG is all about randomness.

It is not.

If I have a nuke that deals 500 - 550 damage, the random aspect of that is 50. The ability and my gear make up 500.

In terms of a CC's chance to hit, the effect of the RNG in that would likely be even less than that 10%.

Games that lean into action combat use Random chance via class design and situational spacing relative to those tools. Rock Paper Scissors.

Most MMO's with PvP have a RPS based system. This is nothing at all to do with action combat games.

I can agree with you that something needs to happen to prevent stale rotations however you are setting up a false premise from the very beginning of this post. It's an option between two design sets. RNG mechanics are not the one and only way.

It may not be the only way, but I have yet to see a combat system that would be acceptable in an MMORPG that both avoids rotations and has no RNG.

In fact, the game that has the least reliance on rotations of all that I have played also has the most randomness in it's combat.

Not only have I not seen a combat system that doesn't have random elements get away from there being a theoretical best rotation, but I can't even see how that is possible. While it may well be that you don't know what classes you will come up against in an open world MMO, if there is no randomness, you will very quickly fall in to using the same rotation - or at the very least you will have a combat opener you always use, a few combos to use during combat, and perhaps a closer or two if your build has such things. Basically, while you may not fall in to an exact rotation, without randomization you will fall in to a few basic combos.

Add in randomness to the game in a decent way, and you can't just mindlessly bash out combos. If you are in a fight with someone and you have a combo you like using that debuffs your target for cold damage, and then you follow that with a massive cold nuke with a long cooldown. if you have an effect that has a chance to lower the cooldown of an ability at random and your nuke triggers it and so is available without the debuff being up - you'd be stupid to not use it.

Expand that out to every ability, with any of them having a chance to reset their cooldown, and all of a sudden you simply can't just run the same rotation, or the same combos. You have to always evaluate what you have available and what is coming up to be available soon, and make a decision on every ability on the fly.

If you take any one game that has rotations (other than rotations used to build combat resources - a mechanic I despise) and add in a simple RNG chance of cooldown reset, and you instantly kill any possibility of rotations being effective.

That is just one RNG element - but that is the power that randomness can have in a game, and why the idea that it shouldn't be in an MMO just doesn't hold.

Dygz

JustVine wrote: »

RPS vs RNG. I think both can exist in tandem but it'd be unwise not to listen to lessons learned in fighting game design if you want a high skill combat system with nuance and.skill mattering.

RPGs typically have Rock Paper Scissors and RNG because RPGS were designed for teams; not 1v1 PvP.
PvPers who play MMORPGs typically get pissed off by RPS because they say it's not fair for 1v1 combat, so they start whining for class nerfs.

By high skill, I assume you mean high player twitch skills - but that is unlikely to be an RPG because in an RPG, the character skills are intended to trump player twitch skills. Player skill in an RPG is mostly about building your character; not player twitch skills.
ARPGS attempt to add in player twitch skills as a feature, but if player twitch skills are the priority over character skills and there is no RNG...that's not really an RPG.

Ashes aims to have both Tab Target and Action combat, so it is a great idea to take a look at combat from a variety of games that include combat; not just RPGs. But, Ashes combat still needs some RNG because it is an RPG.
Which is why Jeff stated that there will always be RNG in Ashes combat but the RNG can be significantly mitigated with Action Combat skills...if they can get hybrid combat to work.

JustVine

You are controlling definitions of a bunch of things here creating a series of false positives in this discussion.

Noaani wrote: »

JustVine wrote: »

It's called marketing mate.

No, it's called genres.

Quite frankly.... You don't get to decide the definition of fighting games 'yourself' guv. For Honor won a peoples choice award for best fighting game of the year. Absolver was nominated for two fighting game awards one of them in the same year as For Honor's victory.

And even if I humor your false positives.

Noaani wrote: »

In the context of the discussion, we were talking about fighting games. Games where you enter a ring and fight against a single opponent, three times.

Absolver has a mode where you can do exactly that. Are you one of those people who consider Smash Bros to not be a fighting game?

The point of mentioning any of this, is RPS is sufficient, RNG is not required.

Noaani wrote: »

It may not be the only way, but I have yet to see a combat system that would be acceptable in an MMORPG that both avoids rotations and has no RNG.

...

Not only have I not seen a combat system that doesn't have random elements get away from there being a theoretical best rotation, but I can't even see how that is possible. While it may well be that you don't know what classes you will come up against in an open world MMO, if there is no randomness, you will very quickly fall in to using the same rotation - or at the very least you will have a combat opener you always use, a few combos to use during combat, and perhaps a closer or two if your build has such things. Basically, while you may not fall in to an exact rotation, without randomization you will fall in to a few basic combos.

You have repeatably ignored examples via your personal definitions. If the game is going to have action combat, it makes sense to take lessons from action games. Just because your definition of what an mmorpg 'must' include RNG doesn't mean 'it's the only definition that works.' Your failure of imagination is no reason to dismiss those who can. It's how masterpieces get made.

Tritri

JustVine wrote: »

It got brought up because Dreoh pointed out that pvp as a concept was perfected by fighting games. If you want a game with serious combat there are lessons to be learned from the genre. Fighting games like GGXrd, Soul Calibur, Injustice all have systems for 'more casual play.'

To be honest, fighting games have an history of being particularly bad at introducing mechanics for casual play. The companies always try to promote their next fighting game by saying "yeah, this time, truly, anybody can play the game and everyone will start at the same level and casual will have all their chances against more hardcore gamers". Who believes that ? They always fail with these mechanics that are often just bad at high level and really don't help lower level player beat higher level ones.... because that's how competitive games works. If you are better, you should win more (note the more, not necessary all the time). If not, the game isn't competitive (which if fine aswell, not all games need to be competitive).

Fighting games that are able to grasp the attention of casual audience do it by being fun to play and fun to watch at lower level. But they always fail at teaching people what the games are about truly, most of the time because people don't really want to learn anyway.


Now, about RNG, here is what I think.

Randomness is and will always be part of games, it's even part of real life sports. There is always a bit of luck to everything.
Now there is acceptable RNG and less accepetable ones in a PvP environnement.
In competitive fighting games for example, even if they try to minimize the randomness, there are characters that are based around some randomness (Faust/Zappa/Kliff from Guilty Gear series, The Hero in Smash Bros, Shingo in King of Fighters, Dan in Street Fighter 5, Dummy chars in SoulCalibur/Tekken,...) and people still play them in highly competitive tournament, the characters aren't weak or overpowered just because of their randomness.
In a lot of FPS you have some randomness in the spray patterns of some of your weapons, some games more than others... you can control it a bit, but it's still random
In RTS you also have randomness in the way some units will move in a terrain when multiple units are being moved. You can prevent it, but sometimes shit happens.

For MMOs, I can think of some RNG that don't bother me, like RNG on defensive mechanics such as dodging or blocking (yeah the tank blocked your stun, well maybe next time try to land it from the back on chose a better target). And also some RNG that I don't like, for example, in Dark Age of Camelot, you have 5% chance for any spells to be resisted in PvP, which is ok when doing masse aoe spells since you know some of your targets will resist and you can account for it, but is infuriating on single target spells where you can have 3 resists back to back when trying to finish off your target.

So having my long cooldown last resort crowd control that would change the outcome of my fight being "resisted" just BECAUSE, will anger me a bit
Having it blocked because I threw it on a target that had a reasonable chance of blocking it, well, it sux, but it won't bother me, even if I'll die because of it

Azherae

It's fine if Ashes wants to be more casual.

It's fine if Ashes wants to be Tab Target with the associated RNG stats.

If Ashes went 'hardcore skill heavy competitive' for PvP, it would be likely be less popular.

But the main thing those Action games don't have, is the persistent world and other things to do.

If you took For Honor or Absolver and added Artisan Skills, Freeholds, Nodes, Taverns, Raid PvE (oh wait they already sorta have this one), then more people would play them because those people would have other things to do and could move to something else every time they are frustrated by the combat.

Why do we know this? BDO and GW2. BDO is somehow popular despite having only just added sorta-raid PvE. A massive amount of BDO players never even fight. As in literally 'don't level up even to the level where PvP turns on, and can faceroll the story by making a lot of money, buying overpowered gear off the Market, and bursting down enemies from horseback in a style where the horse does all the attacking.

GW2 has been clearly explained by Dreoh multiple times.

As for the point that fighting games have RNG characters, those are almost always 'crit designed'. The ability never fails. It has a baseline effectiveness and sometimes does more than you were relying on it for. Even Faust's craziness is 'I will use this ability that will almost certainly help me in this position where I am safe to do so'. You choose to use it, sometimes it 'crits'. Also, you can't argue 'well some fighting games have some characters that have RNG' as if this means 'all fighting games have RNG, it's just part of gaming'. Designers choose whether or not to make it part of gaming.

This thread is about 'the success of CC being based on RNG'.

It's not necessary (or even friendly, to casual players) to make abilities RNG in a game that adds 'Action Combat' and has specifically already implied that Hard CC will be skillshots.

Intrepid has a relatively clearly provided design vision involving Action Combat, Skillshots, and specific rewards for those skillshots. If you want them to take out the Action Combat, fine. People who are supportive of it will keep trying to suggest ways to make sure it is good, and Definitionalists will argue 'if you made it that way then it wouldn't be an RPG'.

I personally don't care if Ashes 'is an RPG' or not. If removing RNG based CC makes a game 'not an RPG', then so be it. If removing RNG makes a game 'not an RPG' I'll let the makers of the Legend of Zelda know, and we can move on to 'whatever people want to call Ashes based on that'.

MMO Open World Action Combat Simulator? I'll take it. Whatever.

Rip out the Hybrid Combat and go back to Tab Target with RNG? I'll take that too.

Labels are a convenient thing humans use to gather people into their tribes during disagreements and minimize critical thinking. An obvious tactic to use when you already have authority/power over something... or think you do.

Keyb1nd_

Guli wrote: »

i just dont like the idea where you pray that your CC actually hits or not, and im not talking about balancing right now, this is about CC. Not what class has it or not, but if it should be guaranteed hit or not.

if its guaranteed = skills matter more than RNG
if its not (like it is now in alpha) = if you have bad luck you will die to the on who has better luck.

toughts?

Making CC's be a guaranteed hit and giving players a way to break CC's, kind of like WOW's pvp trinket will make the pvp gameplay much more fun. There is already a lot of reactive gameplay around target switching, crits, etc..

Arena Esports in mmorgps, especially WOW play a lot around trading CC's and Cooldowns in order to open up a kill window on an opponent and CC's play a huge part in that. Personally I think they should not be RNG.

McClouddfck5

Guli wrote: »

i just dont like the idea where you pray that your CC actually hits or not, and im not talking about balancing right now, this is about CC. Not what class has it or not, but if it should be guaranteed hit or not.

if its guaranteed = skills matter more than RNG
if its not (like it is now in alpha) = if you have bad luck you will die to the on who has better luck.

toughts?

pls make it not rng

Dygz

Azherae wrote: »

I personally don't care if Ashes 'is an RPG' or not. If removing RNG based CC makes a game 'not an RPG', then so be it. If removing RNG makes a game 'not an RPG' I'll let the makers of the Legend of Zelda know, and we can move on to 'whatever people want to call Ashes based on that'.

MMO Open World Action Combat Simulator? I'll take it. Whatever.

You don't care if Ashes is an RPG, but I care.
And Steven cares.
Lots of people signed up for Ashes because it's an RPG rather than an action combat simulator.

SongRune

Dygz wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I personally don't care if Ashes 'is an RPG' or not. If removing RNG based CC makes a game 'not an RPG', then so be it. If removing RNG makes a game 'not an RPG' I'll let the makers of the Legend of Zelda know, and we can move on to 'whatever people want to call Ashes based on that'.

MMO Open World Action Combat Simulator? I'll take it. Whatever.

You don't care if Ashes is an RPG, but I care.
And Steven cares.
Lots of people signed up for Ashes because it's an RPG rather than an action combat simulator.

And lots of people signed up for Ashes because it offered Hybrid Combat and got their attention using an Action Combat Battle Royale style game. What's your point?

Dygz

The hybrid combat system has RNG, so what's your point?
Notice, though, that Ashes does not bill itself as an Massively Multiplayer Hybrid Combat Game.

APOC had RNG.