Arena (PvP) Combat-System (if there will be such a game mode in AoC)

ItsmeToki

20% I 40% I 60% I 80% I 100% I = Health-Cap

Imagine if the healthbar of a character consists of five 20 percent healthbarparts. If incoming damage exceeds 20 percent of a characters healthbar, the arena-participant looeses this 20% from his maximum healthpool for the rest of the match. He cannot be healed any longer above this new 80 percent maximum healthcap. Same goes for 60%, 40%, ... In one burst-phase attempt, attackers should be ensured and be able to get at least 20 percent of the enemies healthbar. Healers should be able to reduce incoming burst damage but not be able to avoid it all. Make sure, that the crowd controll chain of a defending team doesnt last as long as a burst-phase of an attacking enemie so that there is still time to put out some dmg. crowd control should never enable a player to avoid the whole burst-damage of an attacking enemie. the attacking player would get annoyed, which results in bad gameplay experience for him. On the other hand, nobody should die in one single burst-attempt. Give every player a chance to let them see some results of their work. Skilled healers should be able to reduce the incoming damage of a burst-phase so that they loose at least 20% health (one healthbarpart). Skilled damage-dealers should be able to get 40% to 50% health of unexperienced enemies in one burst attempt. If overall healing is more powerfull than damageoutput, healers can heal/recover their team to an extend (up to the respectively healthcap). So a team without a (good) healer still has the disadvantage. With this system you could ensure, that a arena match will have more than one burst attempt, so there are more chances for everybody to proof themselfes with a planned play. Healing still would be very strong and every player would have an ongoing progress. arena matches wouldnt last for decades and everybody would have fun, feels rewarded and could be proud of their own workresults. Furthermore the more skilled team would always win.

What do you think of such a system for arenas in ashes of creation?

Ludullu

I'd prefer mana play across all classes, so I'd rather have people try and control the enemy healer's mana pool/expenditure/etc than have this convoluted system of controlled hp pools within hp pools.

ItsmeToki

If we look at other games with an arena mode like for example WoW, the system partially as well builds around the mana pool controll of the healer. While this system worked in the Burning Crusade exp. where the characters indeed eventually run out of mana and the match was decided, in later expansions when the system evolved and gear was getting better (giving healers endless manaregeneration), healers where able to continuosly keep up the healthbars of their teammates, even though they had only around 1% mana remaining. I think that a system, where ppl try to control the enemy healers mana pool, is hard to balance with gear getting better and better. It may will work for the beginning of AoC but if time goes on, i fear, arena matches could face the same issues, wow arena had for a long time (the only way to win is by timing one good burst-damage attempt. There are no variations, no exciting other ways to win an arena match (for most classes)). Furthermore with mana controll there is still the issue, that at the end of a match damage dealers dont feel rewarded at all, if they have died after a 10 minute long battle while the enemie team is at full health. For the average player there is no satisfying visual indication of how they performed over all and of how much work they put into the fight.

But maybe you are right and a system based around mana controll could work in AoC. E.g. if the power between healing and damage is more balanced and if the combat system doesnt depend only on modulators that strengthen your abilities every now and than and instead you are able to continuesly pressure the enemie team. A healer needs to steadily loose their mana instead of regaining it during a fight. There needs to be a ressource that is fading for good.

Tragnar

1 - introducing such system that makes the game harder to understand and is isolated towards only pvp arena is fundamentally bad

2 - this way you kill off a large portion of builds, because all damage is on a scale between burst and sustained damage.

3 - shielding (I suppose this mechanic will be present as is in like every game) would be automatically the most valuable game mechanic only in arena environment

4 - dot builds, aoe builds and shielding healers would automatically become the only viable builds for arena, because your mechanic dampens every playstyle except theirs.

tldr: such health system would make the arena unnecessarily convoluted and way harder to understand with a meta that is extremely restricting

ItsmeToki

I dont necessarily think that shielding is going to be a problem, since it is an ability with a certain cd. it depends on how strong shielding will be in AoC. But I agree to you, that some classes could benefit from this system more than other ones. But again, it depends on class designs. Lets say we keep the system which is based around mana controll of the healer. Wouldnt you agree that at least the mana ressource must not regenerate during fights, so that a healer has to think about mana-management carefully instead of trowing out everything he has and overhealing teammates just cause he knows, that his manaresources are infinit and outheal every dmg incoming?

Ludullu

ItsmeToki wrote: »

Wouldn't you agree that at least the mana resource must not regenerate during fights, so that a healer has to think about mana-management carefully instead of trowing out everything he has and overhealing teammates just cause he knows, that his mana resources are infinite and outheal every dmg incoming?

And what I meant by "I'd prefer mana play across all classes" was exactly the stuff that would prevent this kind of shit. Give bards a "mana regen block" debuff, give rogues a "manaleak" debuff, give other clerics a "manasteal" spell, give mages a "manaburn" spell, give tanks a "manadrain" stun, give summoners a summon that gains power the more mana it steals from its target, give fighters and rangers "mana explosion" hits that do dmg dependent on the target's current mana %.

All of those are just super fast ideas that I came up with on the spot. All of those could be tweaked, changed, switched between the classes. All of those would not only influence the arena pvp, but the owpvp too. And all of them would hamper Cleric's ability to survive/heal during a fight. And if you give those kinds of abilities higher mana cost, they'd become purely strategic instead of just spammable. Oh, and any of those abilities could be given to mobs/bosses, which would make pve way more fun/strategic too (and they could be used against pve npcs to prevent them from using their abilities).

There're a ton of ways to design the game around these kinds of issues and imo limiting gameplay (in the case of hp control and predisposed barriers that require you to make use of particular classes/abilities) is worse than adding stuff, that could positively influence not only pvp but pve too.