I think I can explain this directly, actually, so indulge me.
Healers are designed archaically in almost all games that are not Battle Arena shooters or specific MOBAs. Whether or not one likes the design, there are some factors that come up due to it.
Why are Healers a low mobility class?
Now, this isn't true in EVERY game, but consider it the other way. Why aren't they EXPLICITLY a high mobility class that heals from close range?
The answer is basically because it would be a type of challenge that most players in ye olde days that wanted to play 'as Healers' wouldn't want, and therefore we got 'stuck' with this sort of 'I magically call upon my Divine Power/Deity and that Deity knows exactly who I am pointing at and heals them' while I safely stand over here'.
But it would make much more 'sense' to at least have a type of Healer that is VERY mobile but heals at close range, whether they do that by 'magic' or not. In an Action-y game, a mobile Healer gets to experience the challenge too, of getting in and out of their healing position while avoiding damage. They wear light armor anyway in most games (and have no true justification for why they don't wear heavier armor other than old D&D tropes).
The class normally is in the backline 'because it's easier to not take damage there', but in an Action heavy game, where both the enemy and the tank/DPS are moving around quite a lot, this guarantee falls very quickly, yet the Healer remains static. The Healer just 'sits there and hopes that no one messes up and pulls the enemy to them or causes them to end up in an attack cone/circle'. But why? A healer could simply... be mobile... and react. If limited to closer range healing, and with longer 'recovery times' after certain mobility skills for using self heals (assume for example that a fast teleport-like dash up to another player to heal them, only works on OTHER players, because MAGIC), then the complaint of 'I can't catch the healer to kill them' changes too.
The Healer must come into RANGE to heal the person you are hurting, and therefore be in danger. As opposed to now, where other people have to devote focus and dedicated effort to catching the healer, making balance more difficult.
Action MMORPGs may someday stop doing this, just as some MOBAs and Shooters have done. And maybe then, 'Action vs Tab' will be less of a consideration...
Orrrr... a bunch of people will complain that they just want to heal and not have to move around all the time.
In fact, almost all healing works like this in MMORPGs of the last few years, with only two Innovative methods that I am aware of. I personally consider the innovative ones to be better suited for Action MMOs. So, from the perspective of 'could a player who is used to healing in a Tab Target game effectively act as a healer here while still experiencing some Action', the answer is yes.
From the perspective of 'could this have been done better or in a way more suited to improving the gameplay from the Action perspective', the answer is 'very yes'. That said, I think it's usually better for games to make healing 'easy and similar to tab target' since adding mechanical skill to healing is a barrier to entry for a reasonably large portion of the healerbase.
People already struggle with targeting and healing allies with Tab Target, particularly in mobility situations where they must get out of central attack cones/blast radii.
Ok, makes sense.
From what I remember in GW2, healing was also mostly AOE or ground targeting hots. I didn’t play a healer, and only did a handful of group content before walking away from the game. My friend who was a always our healer in different games found the whole experience frustrating.
It makes me wonder if the supporting roles are what is holding up decisions on the combat type…
I think I can explain this directly, actually, so indulge me.
Healers are designed archaically in almost all games that are not Battle Arena shooters or specific MOBAs. Whether or not one likes the design, there are some factors that come up due to it.
Why are Healers a low mobility class?
Now, this isn't true in EVERY game, but consider it the other way. Why aren't they EXPLICITLY a high mobility class that heals from close range?
The answer is basically because it would be a type of challenge that most players in ye olde days that wanted to play 'as Healers' wouldn't want, and therefore we got 'stuck' with this sort of 'I magically call upon my Divine Power/Deity and that Deity knows exactly who I am pointing at and heals them' while I safely stand over here'.
But it would make much more 'sense' to at least have a type of Healer that is VERY mobile but heals at close range, whether they do that by 'magic' or not. In an Action-y game, a mobile Healer gets to experience the challenge too, of getting in and out of their healing position while avoiding damage. They wear light armor anyway in most games (and have no true justification for why they don't wear heavier armor other than old D&D tropes).
The class normally is in the backline 'because it's easier to not take damage there', but in an Action heavy game, where both the enemy and the tank/DPS are moving around quite a lot, this guarantee falls very quickly, yet the Healer remains static. The Healer just 'sits there and hopes that no one messes up and pulls the enemy to them or causes them to end up in an attack cone/circle'. But why? A healer could simply... be mobile... and react. If limited to closer range healing, and with longer 'recovery times' after certain mobility skills for using self heals (assume for example that a fast teleport-like dash up to another player to heal them, only works on OTHER players, because MAGIC), then the complaint of 'I can't catch the healer to kill them' changes too.
The Healer must come into RANGE to heal the person you are hurting, and therefore be in danger. As opposed to now, where other people have to devote focus and dedicated effort to catching the healer, making balance more difficult.
Action MMORPGs may someday stop doing this, just as some MOBAs and Shooters have done. And maybe then, 'Action vs Tab' will be less of a consideration...
Orrrr... a bunch of people will complain that they just want to heal and not have to move around all the time.
So, does that more mobile healer put a player into more of a sub game of tag with short range heals, versus the stationary heal canon?
I only healed the last part of legion on my Paladin, which was very much a stay put and lob yellow light at the tank. My aforementioned healer buddy always played Druid and spent a good deal of time running around deploying hots and activating his heals. I can’t say which is better since it’s really not my cup of tea.
I think I can explain this directly, actually, so indulge me.
Healers are designed archaically in almost all games that are not Battle Arena shooters or specific MOBAs. Whether or not one likes the design, there are some factors that come up due to it.
Why are Healers a low mobility class?
Now, this isn't true in EVERY game, but consider it the other way. Why aren't they EXPLICITLY a high mobility class that heals from close range?
The answer is basically because it would be a type of challenge that most players in ye olde days that wanted to play 'as Healers' wouldn't want, and therefore we got 'stuck' with this sort of 'I magically call upon my Divine Power/Deity and that Deity knows exactly who I am pointing at and heals them' while I safely stand over here'.
But it would make much more 'sense' to at least have a type of Healer that is VERY mobile but heals at close range, whether they do that by 'magic' or not. In an Action-y game, a mobile Healer gets to experience the challenge too, of getting in and out of their healing position while avoiding damage. They wear light armor anyway in most games (and have no true justification for why they don't wear heavier armor other than old D&D tropes).
The class normally is in the backline 'because it's easier to not take damage there', but in an Action heavy game, where both the enemy and the tank/DPS are moving around quite a lot, this guarantee falls very quickly, yet the Healer remains static. The Healer just 'sits there and hopes that no one messes up and pulls the enemy to them or causes them to end up in an attack cone/circle'. But why? A healer could simply... be mobile... and react. If limited to closer range healing, and with longer 'recovery times' after certain mobility skills for using self heals (assume for example that a fast teleport-like dash up to another player to heal them, only works on OTHER players, because MAGIC), then the complaint of 'I can't catch the healer to kill them' changes too.
The Healer must come into RANGE to heal the person you are hurting, and therefore be in danger. As opposed to now, where other people have to devote focus and dedicated effort to catching the healer, making balance more difficult.
Action MMORPGs may someday stop doing this, just as some MOBAs and Shooters have done. And maybe then, 'Action vs Tab' will be less of a consideration...
Orrrr... a bunch of people will complain that they just want to heal and not have to move around all the time.
So, does that more mobile healer put a player into more of a sub game of tag with short range heals, versus the stationary heal canon?
I only healed the last part of legion on my Paladin, which was very much a stay put and lob yellow light at the tank. My aforementioned healer buddy always played Druid and spent a good deal of time running around deploying hots and activating his heals. I can’t say which is better since it’s really not my cup of tea.
That would essentially be the idea, yes. Ground AoE heals are a pain in a game with even medium mobility. Tab Target allows you to 'just lock and track' the ally, but results in 'becoming a heal turret', and designers then focus on 'how can we make your heals different or stronger?' instead of 'how can we challenge your skill in movement or targeting the way we are doing for everyone else?'
It results in Healers playing a relatively different game from everyone else, and then ALSO being relatively unable to defend themselves when placed into danger other than... standing still and healing themselves even MORE (which in turn again requires that their healing is even stronger).
This of course leads to the dualboxing epidemic soon after 'serious' or 'good' players realize that they could be more effective with a Pocket Healer instead of relying on a whole separate person that they have to communicate with.
@Azherae you know, moba's did a fantastic job of not having to solely rely on healing, it really broadened the playing field and gave players options (quite a few would say, more "straight" options).
The problem with the standard mmo format, is that it promotes team play instead of it actually being team play. Tank goes in, dps follow or range fire, healers stay safe and do their job, it's the ABC/123 you could be speaking another language and get shit done.
Then when mmo's or new ones try to expand gameplay everyone plays and finds the cogs are sitting right, well it's because you've kept the jobs entirely the same and so heavily focused on one thing!
"Hi, I'm a ranger"
"nice, what you do"
"I shoot a bow, I'm a dps"
"great, nice....("LF Healer/Tank, this century please")"
Theme wise is the ranger a Legolas turret? ofc not, why aren't there supportive elements out of him, it's kept so billy basic in the mmo world.
When everyones shifting around, more so in hybrid/action games, when you have an ally nearby, just 1, the experience can be a lot realistic, it's not like they look at each other and go "we're dps!....shit! wanna be best friends? dood!....let's die and on respawn cry about healer suck, huhu!".
All I'm saying is, it's cool to have specializations but the genre has got to evolve eventually from a hardened trinity system and the hardened formation that comes with it, tech and graphics have improved greatly and young people are used to that high octane gameplay from all sorts of games, it's been a long time needed...
@Azherae you know, moba's did a fantastic job of not having to solely rely on healing, it really broadened the playing field and gave players options (quite a few would say, more "straight" options).
The problem with the standard mmo format, is that it promotes team play instead of it actually being team play. Tank goes in, dps follow or range fire, healers stay safe and do their job, it's the ABC/123 you could be speaking another language and get shit done.
Then when mmo's or new ones try to expand gameplay everyone plays and finds the cogs are sitting right, well it's because you've kept the jobs entirely the same and so heavily focused on one thing!
"Hi, I'm a ranger"
"nice, what you do"
"I shoot a bow, I'm a dps"
"great, nice....("LF Healer/Tank, this century please")"
Theme wise is the ranger a Legolas turret? ofc not, why aren't there supportive elements out of him, it's kept so billy basic in the mmo world.
When everyones shifting around, more so in hybrid/action games, when you have an ally nearby, just 1, the experience can be a lot realistic, it's not like they look at each other and go "we're dps!....shit! wanna be best friends? dood!....let's die and on respawn cry about healer suck, huhu!".
All I'm saying is, it's cool to have specializations but the genre has got to evolve eventually from a hardened trinity system and the hardened formation that comes with it, tech and graphics have improved greatly and young people are used to that high octane gameplay from all sorts of games, it's been a long time needed...
Sorry, I don't play those sorts of games.
I only play high-focus games with actual group mechanics, aim, etc. Not to knock what you're saying at all, I just am... 'above' that experience, to be frank. I've played too many better games, maybe the sort of games you're talking about, to even put any thought toward those simplistic/restrictive ones.
I just want to know if Ashes will end up being another simplistic/restrictive one, so I'm waiting. If it is, thankfully I have a backup, since I'm not in the 'No Cash For Ingame Advantage EVER!' crowd, so I can play Korean MMOs with less misery if the dynamic gameplay is good.
I'm fine with the Trinity system. I see no reason it needs to evolve away from that. But again, I play better games. Quite frankly the definitions and explanations I get for how that system works in most games just seems pathetic to me, but I don't have any negativity toward the Trinity system itself because I don't PLAY those games. I play ones where it works.
@Azherae they can evolve to have group mechanics, I love aim and want that to be more of a thing especially for making mages and rangers more exciting (not nerfing them to make them only aim, infact I would make them do more damage if their efforts were more calculated and precise!).
In regards to the Trinity System I have no problems with its foundation, it's merely just devs lack of passion and bravery inside of that to make a system more reasonable for gameplay demands that many have experienced in some way from say the FPS and Moba genre.
I mean you couldn't get more crystal clear if you take LoL as an experiment, people want the action, only a small % actually want to play supportive elements but then when you introduce mechanics and characters like Thresh and Pyke they go "ok, that's pretty cool!". I'm really not biased against traditional healing/buffing gameplay and theme wise but devs have stayed stale with expanding it, there's so much to explore.
In regards to the Trinity System I have no problems with it's foundation, it's merely just devs lack of passion and bravery inside of that to make a system more reasonable for gameplay demands that many have experienced in some way from say the FPS and Moba genre.
You know what I hate about the FPS genre? The lack of a persistent world.
This is what I have come to expect from playing MMORPG's, and it is about damn time FPS games realized that this is just where games are headed. They really need to get with the times!
See, this doesn't work. Different genres are different genres for a reason. Just because something is happening in one genre, doesn't mean it needs to (or should) happen in another.
If players from one genre like a thing that the genre they play does, great! They can continue to play that genre that has that thing they like and expect.
@Azherae they can evolve to have group mechanics, I love aim and want that to be more of a thing especially for making mages and rangers more exciting (not nerfing them to make them only aim, infact I would make them do more damage if their efforts were more calculated and precise!).
In regards to the Trinity System I have no problems with it's foundation, it's merely just devs lack of passion and bravery inside of that to make a system more reasonable for gameplay demands that many have experienced in some way from say the FPS and Moba genre.
I mean you couldn't get more crystal clear if you take LoL as an experiment, people want the action, only a small % actually want to play supportive elements but then when you introduce mechanics and characters like Thresh and Pyke they go "ok, that's pretty cool!". I'm really not biased against traditional healing/buffing gameplay and theme wise but devs have stayed stale with it, there's so much to explore.
Like I said, I don't think about any of these things. You're describing a world that I 'don't live in', to me.
Every time I hear about RPGs other than the ones I play and maybe two others, I think 'I'm so sad that the rest of you have to play this crap and form all these half-opinions, but I can't help much'. There's two options here.
1. All the games I hear about kind of suck.
2. All the people who explain the games kind of suck at them.
And it really doesn't matter which is true, to me. All that matters is that EITHER Ashes is great and not just another one of those same games, OR that Throne and Liberty is.
I appreciate your passion, but y'all up here talking about 'Action' and 'New Tanking Dynamics' and I'm thinking 'Is Rogue gonna get some equivalent of SATA Dancing Edge so my friend can dump Enmity onto our Bard when our Paladin needs to take a breather because all his mitigation skills are down, and if so, what options will the Bard have for kiting assuming she used her strongest Evasion buff performance?'
I'm sure that other games have some equivalent of stuff like this, but it's nearly never what we end up discussing around here.
tl;dr the MMOs I play ALREADY play like MOBAs (or whatever, to me it's just 'play like interesting games') and I'm just looking for the next good one because the 'fantasy' one I play is old. If Devs have stayed stale with it, I'm really sorry to hear that, but I don't care enough about the 'crusty inbetweens'. I have seven great games to play and I just wanna rotate out a slot to 'replace it with' something modern of at least reasonably equal quality.
But I'm not gonna talk about 'How good Seris or Corvus as healers' or 'How much fun it is to play healer/debuffer in space battles in Elite Dangerous' because that's just gonna summon Dygz unnecessarily. If Intrepid cares, I'm sure they know where to find my data posts.
So uh... yeah... I'll care when you and Dygz and whoever else get past the 'Action vs Tab', 'Trinity vs Innovation' or whatever stage of discussion, if that ever happens (depending on who you engage, it usually doesn't).
@Noaani please don't confuse systems with theme and gameplay.
I am not suggesting that systems mold with very popular genre's, only steal ideas that lead to elevating it.
BDO made 20+ skills incredibly accessible by utilizing direction input like the fighting game Tekken (that has 50+ moves on average for every character), it's user convience bliss in comparison to holding shift/alt whatever and working mouse button 1-12 etc.
You could implement that in tab target game like Archage in some measure and it's a logic improvement to a proposed hybrid system that will involve elements of action controlling, and it's not at all saying that a fighting game in any of its entirety belongs in a 3d open world.
If a Healer class in an mmo has a lantern and chain (let's just say Thresh), and strengthen's and heals allies via souls and there's a more "ruthless" gameplay style, along with lore and conflict from the holy side of life, adding character to the more traditional type of healing we see in typical mmos and thereby making being a healer/support more desirable, that is infact an evolution, nothing short of it.
Anyway, I hope you have something more constructive than a flat out "incompatibility" view anyway.
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BDO made 20+ skills incredibly accessible by utilizing direction input like the fighting game Tekken (that has 50+ moves on average for every character), it's user convience bliss in comparison to holding shift/alt whatever and working mouse button 1-12 etc.
If you are having to use a combination of keys like this, you are doing it wrong. Don't blame the tab target genre for you not being able to figure out how to bind your abilities.
When I set up my keybinds, I use ~ through to 7, T, Y, G and H. Between these buttons and 2 buttons on my mouse that I use for this as well, combined with shift, ctrl OR (not and - never and) alt, I have 56 immediately available keybinds.
These are the binds I can use without needing to look or think, that I can go between any two in less than one second, while still retaining viable use of WASD.
It seems to me that all BDO did was lower the player skill ceiling. Knowing how to bind your abilities and having the dexterity to access those abilities is actual real player skill - in the same vein as twitch/reflex is a skill.
If a Healer class in an mmo has a lantern and chain (let's just say Thresh), and strengthen's and heals allies via souls and there's a more "ruthless" gameplay style, along with lore and conflict from the holy side of life, adding character to the more traditional type of healing we see in typical mmos and thereby making being a healer/support more desirable, that is infact an evolution, nothing short of it.
Which part of this do you think would be an evolution?
The first point I want to make here is that the personality of a character in an MMO is supposed to come from the player, not the class (or character, in the case of LoL that you are talking about here). If you are trying to say that classes in an MMO should come with a built in character as they do in games where you pick a character rather than a class, I would call that a devolution, not evolution. You play an MMORPG to play with other players - people you get to know extremely well - not to play with characters that some developer created.
If you think the evolution part of the above is the healer also buffing players, I agree. That was an evolution that EQ2 managed 18 years ago - as literally every healer in EQ2 buffs allies (literally every character in that game has a number of buffs it can cast on themselves and on others - yet the game still has room for dedicated support classes - because it is not shit).
EQ2 also does have Censers (the proper name for a "lantern on a chain" that a "holy" person may have - a fact you would know if you played early EQ2 at the top end). However, EQ2 doesn't limit any one class to any one weapon type (games that do are games that are targeting the lowest common denominator - which means people that think aspects of those games should be moved over to other games are themselves that lowest common denominator).
Doing the above now isn't an evolution, it is just copying something that happened a generation ago - just as it was when it was when LoL did it. It was an old idea back then, it is an old idea now. That doesn't mean a game like Ashes should have it (at least, the healers also having buffs thing - the rest of it is out of place in Ashes), it just means that it is not evolutionary any longer.
Well for one, bind is not casual friendly, forgive me for wanting to allow accessibility while maintaining hardcore interest.
Also, gear that someone wears, doesn't change their gameplay (or if it does it's on the very low spectrum), it only changes their avatar/appearence, which is a great thing. Gameplay and gameplay options (weapon swapping btw I implore) can be just as big as if not bigger to a certain demographic as the class and purpose you assign yourself as it maintains interest and expertise going forward as opposed to old practices of gear gives you +++ stats and "exciting" skill required usage and cooldown discipline.
You can keep ignoring what other people have experienced, from korea attempts at action or unique improvements to tab or from other genre's, your way is simple not going to appeal to audiences that have experienced evolutions in user input and gameplay.
Feel free to make a thread explaining why a polished tab and Everquest focus is king, please explain how it would geinunely excite people, people who have played other mmo's alternative to yours, newcomes to the genre, please.
Lowest common denominator, right, great, I hope EQ3 comes for you, I''ll seriously be happy for you.
Also, gear that someone wears, doesn't change their gameplay (or if it does it's on the very low spectrum), it only changes their avatar/appearence, which is a great thing.
Gear does change the way you play.
I'll give you two games as examples. The first is Path of Exile (an online ARPG). Your gear literally dictates what builds are available to you. Almost all build guides for that game list the specific items of gear you absolutely need to make the build even function, and then also give a list of some good to have items.
Then there is EQ2 (didn't want to disappoint). In most content cycles, there were two or three points where the gear you have acquired would see you able to take a different spec. Changing spec in EQ2 was quite the change to your character, since EQ2 had 6 or 7 different "talent trees" (note, trees, not branches, these were all individual, and all had their own branches you could pick) per class.
In some of these cases it was a matter of getting enough of a stat to be able to remove points from that to place elsewhere, (which also means removing the points you needed to place in the tree in order to get to that stat).
In other cases it is literally getting a single item alters the viability of specific builds. When you have a build that gives you an ability that does absolutely massive damage, but leaves you with absolutely zero mana, you have to kind of build things around that ability. If you can't build things around that ability, you can't take that ability. If you can build things around that ability, your gameplay now becomes focused around maximizing your use of that ability.
Or it could be that you managed to pick up an item that - when used - lowers your position on the targets hate list by 24 players (in a game with a raid size of 24). If you are a DPS character, having this item changes how you play your character.
In fact, me having this item, and having the setup to use the spell I described above as well, altered the gameplay of the tank in my raid - not just my own gameplay. He would pull a mob, and combat would start, then when we knew nothing was about to go off, I would cast that massive damage dealing ability (that would deal perhaps a full percent of a bosses HP in damage). This would send the boss right after me, the tank would have perhaps 50,000 hate generated against the mob, and I just generated 500,000 in a single cast. The tank would then use a taunt that would increase his position on the targets hate list by 1, meaning he would now be at exactly 1 threat point above me. I would then use the item that decreases my position on the hate list by 24, meaning the tank is now at over 500,000 hate, the next highest DPS is at about 45,000, and I am sitting at 0 hate.
This meant that the tank no longer needed to spec in to things that would allow him to generate hate quickly, and could instead spec in to other things.
All only possible due to me having a specific combination of items.
Point being, gear ABSOLUTELY does alter how you play your class - and your gear can alter how others play their class.
Feel free to make a thread explaining why a polished tab and Everquest focus is king, please explain how it would geinunely excite people, people who have played other mmo's alternative to yours, newcomes to the genre, please.
I've already gone over what issues a new tab target game would have - I see no need to start a new thread about it when this thread right here will do me just fine.
How about you explain to me how any western PvP MMO is going to survive when the expectation is that the bottom 10% will leave the game every 3 months - because that is the best case scenario if you attract the MOBA crowd.
I just now took a look at Skyrim combat. Seems close to what I'd want for action combat. It's not Hack & Slash.
.
People say that in every forum for new mmorpgs in development.
Every mmorpg that have tried it have failed..HARD
Its very niche and doesnt work well in mmorpgs
Unfortunally the players that thinks they want it are very vocal and ruins alot of potentially good mmorpgs.
I just now took a look at Skyrim combat. Seems close to what I'd want for action combat. It's not Hack & Slash.
.
People say that in every forum for new mmorpgs in development.
Every mmorpg that have tried it have failed..HARD
Its very niche and doesnt work well in mmorpgs
Unfortunally the players that thinks they want it are very vocal and ruins alot of potentially good mmorpgs.
Are you saying that action combat was the cause for these MMOs to fail hard? If so, which MMOs are you thinking of?
I'll give you two games as examples. The first is Path of Exile (an online ARPG). Your gear literally dictates what builds are available to you. Almost all build guides for that game list the specific items of gear you absolutely need to make the build even function, and then also give a list of some good to have items.
Then there is EQ2 (didn't want to disappoint). In most content cycles, there were two or three points where the gear you have acquired would see you able to take a different spec. Changing spec in EQ2 was quite the change to your character, since EQ2 had 6 or 7 different "talent trees" (note, trees, not branches, these were all individual, and all had their own branches you could pick) per class.
In some of these cases it was a matter of getting enough of a stat to be able to remove points from that to place elsewhere, (which also means removing the points you needed to place in the tree in order to get to that stat).
In other cases it is literally getting a single item alters the viability of specific builds. When you have a build that gives you an ability that does absolutely massive damage, but leaves you with absolutely zero mana, you have to kind of build things around that ability. If you can't build things around that ability, you can't take that ability. If you can build things around that ability, your gameplay now becomes focused around maximizing your use of that ability.
Or it could be that you managed to pick up an item that - when used - lowers your position on the targets hate list by 24 players (in a game with a raid size of 24). If you are a DPS character, having this item changes how you play your character.
In fact, me having this item, and having the setup to use the spell I described above as well, altered the gameplay of the tank in my raid - not just my own gameplay. He would pull a mob, and combat would start, then when we knew nothing was about to go off, I would cast that massive damage dealing ability (that would deal perhaps a full percent of a bosses HP in damage). This would send the boss right after me, the tank would have perhaps 50,000 hate generated against the mob, and I just generated 500,000 in a single cast. The tank would then use a taunt that would increase his position on the targets hate list by 1, meaning he would now be at exactly 1 threat point above me. I would then use the item that decreases my position on the hate list by 24, meaning the tank is now at over 500,000 hate, the next highest DPS is at about 45,000, and I am sitting at 0 hate.
This meant that the tank no longer needed to spec in to things that would allow him to generate hate quickly, and could instead spec in to other things.
All only possible due to me having a specific combination of items.
Point being, gear ABSOLUTELY does alter how you play your class - and your gear can alter how others play their class.
That whole explanation makes me wish mmos split into "pvp and pve" subgenres instead of "tab and action or hybrid" subgenres. Because that sounds like a great pve design that is utterly useless in pvp. At which point, if you wanted to have pvp in the game and make gear variability important there too - you'd have to make a separate set of gear for that.
And I feel like if at least a few companies risked a good pvp game back in the WoW days, where the world would stay persistent, while player power would be semi-equalized with longtime hardcore players being a few steps above newbies but w/o utterly destroying them - the genre would've been better off because of that. But I guess that risk came in the form of mobas and fps games instead of big worlds that progress through time. The cheaper choice always wins
That whole explanation makes me wish mmos split into "pvp and pve"
Hey there's nothing to stop a PvE experience from being more interactive inside of a game where PvP exists. The whole premise of gear being the be all and end all of everything in development is weak to hang onto or at least letting the 2 co-incide, it's a mighty balancing chore, that also involves the horrible practice of usually making classes weak/strong for PvE/PvP.
You're familiar with my long friend L2, PvE combat devolves a hell of a lot into piggybacking off of the Destroyer. Strong PvE doesn't need to be involving gear, it can always be a true group effort like doing a Kraken at sea in Archeage for instance, utilizing tools like cannons, obv needs to add a bit more involvement than ship repairs as a side chore and then you focus on that sweet PvP competitive scenerio or don't at times or depending, for casual sake.
My example would be, have gear that covers trash/open world mobs and PvP that both gel and balance together with all those nice attack/casting speed and damage bonuses you all gasm over (stats+++ won't nearly need to be as extreme though in a Hyrbid/action game as it's already more fun from base, challenging with aim/skill and "reactive mechnically" to play) and let top end PvE/raid just always be reliant on the utilization of tools or subset skills + base skills such as agro'ing/healing.
Hey there's nothing to stop a PvE experience from being more interactive inside of a game where PvP exists. The whole premise of gear being the be all and end all of everything in development is weak to hang onto or at least letting the 2 co-incide, it's a mighty balancing chore, that also involves the horrible practice of usually making classes weak/strong for PvE/PvP.
You're familiar with my long friend L2, PvE combat devolves a hell of a lot into piggybacking off of the Destroyer. Strong PvE doesn't need to be involving gear, it can always be a true group effort like doing a Kraken at sea in Archeage for instance, utilizing tools like cannons, obv needs to add a bit more involvement than ship repairs as a side chore and then you focus on that sweet PvP competitive scenerio or don't at times or depending, for casual sake.
My example would be, have gear that covers trash/open world mobs and PvP that both gel and balance together with all those nice attack/casting speed and damage bonuses you all gasm over (stats+++ won't nearly need to be as extreme though in a Hyrbid/action game as it's already fun and "reactive mechnical" to play) and let top end PvE/raid just always be reliant on the utilization of tools or subset skills + base skills such as agro'ing/healing.
L2's pve was the biggest gearcheck though. There were pretty much 0 gameplay mechanics to do while fighting, so it was just a dps check which came from gear. And later on even when there were some mechanics, the boss itself still was just a thiccque HP piñata that required you to have as best of a gear set as possible so that you wouldn't die due to running out on mp on your supports.
And that was mainly done because L2 gear was universal so you'd use it in both pve and pvp. Adding pve mechanics to that gear would introduce the "I gotta have a dozen different gear pieces" issue (as it did in the later updates where attributes were important), while having both pve and pvp versions would make that shit even worse (was also the case for any and all top lvl Oly champs, because they needed to counter the enemy att). And that's not even considering the augmentation on gear in L2. That shit added even more required gear to pvp.
And having a cool pve experience that interacts with your non-boring gear, while also supports the potential of there being some pvp around that pve experience, where you'd also need the same non-boring gear (unless you go for separated sets) - all of that would require a ton of great design and balancing from devs. And I guess Intrepid's trying to do that. Now I don't know how well they can manage it and whether it's even possible, but I sure hope it is cause it'll just prove that all the previous mmos just didn't even try to do that, for one reason or the other.
Yes, skill should be important in both pve and pvp, but I do agree with those saying that RPGs have usually depended highly on player's gear to define their power lvl. And the best representation of good pvp gear balance (imo) was L2, where you still needed good gear for pve, but weaker gear still worked just fine in pvp. But I can definitely say that the gear itself was super basic and usually had very similar stats on it, with higher gear tiers just having those stats higher.
I've heard that SWG had some good pvp and had an amazing crafting/gear system, if Intrepid manages to combine that system with L2's balancing - I feel like we might have one of the best gear systems in mmos. But obviously they'll have to prove that, so only the time will tell.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
And I feel like if at least a few companies risked a good pvp game back in the WoW days, where the world would stay persistent, while player power would be semi-equalized with longtime hardcore players being a few steps above newbies but w/o utterly destroying them - the genre would've been better off because of that. But I guess that risk came in the form of mobas and fps games instead of big worlds that progress through time. The cheaper choice always wins
Have never even heard of it in my corner of the internet. Did it flop so hard that no one else even attempted to make another mmo in the same "genre"?
edit: looked into it. Looks like it suffered the usual fate of old mmos w/o billions of dollars of support. Concept seems great and looks like Ashes will have some similar mechanics of player agency. And as one of the steam reviews pointed out, Ashes will also have one of the biggest issues with such a game - days/weeks/months of work can be destroyed within a day. So we'll see how Intrepid manages to avoid the game's death because of that mechanic.
I enjoy both types. But in the long run i prefer tab targetting simply because form my experience it opens up for more different rotations/playstyles, making classes/specs feel special and different.
I really enjoy Elder Scrolls Online combat for a couple of weeks a few times per year, but in reality all classes/builds/specs are the same since it all instant casts but with some graphic differences.
(I am talking out of a perspective of those of us who dont cheat, as in macro script or lag switches, but play it like it was meant to be)
I always end up going back to WoW though. Even though its in the worst state its probably ever been, there is actual class fantasy and the classes/specs have a real difference in playstyle.
Adding interesting/complex/different rotations into action-style combat doesnt seem possible to me.
Have never even heard of it in my corner of the internet. Did it flop so hard that no one else even attempted to make another mmo in the same "genre"?
It ultimately flopped, but it had a small dedicated following. I was going to play it, can't remember what happened. Think I got a girlfriend shortly before launch or something weird like that. So I never played it.
But yes, it had the typical problems of low budget, bugs, exploits etc.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
PvP-centric MMORPGs rarely have enough players to last long.
PvP-centric MMORPGs rarely have enough players to last long.
I dunno how DAOC was, but from all the other pvp mmorpgs I've seen they usually suffer from bots/p2w/exploits/etc on release and then rarely fix it. And even if they do fix it, it's usually too late. I'm not saying that they'll ever have more players than smth like wow or ff14, but as you said yourself, there's at least a million people ready to try out a mmorpg (even if they didn't call it that) with pvp in it. And even NW got killed by the same issues as all those other older pvp mmos. 20 fucking years, yet nothing has changed. Big sad.
PvP-centric MMORPGs rarely have enough players to last long.
I dunno how DAOC was, but from all the other pvp mmorpgs I've seen they usually suffer from bots/p2w/exploits/etc on release and then rarely fix it. And even if they do fix it, it's usually too late. I'm not saying that they'll ever have more players than smth like wow or ff14, but as you said yourself, there's at least a million people ready to try out a mmorpg (even if they didn't call it that) with pvp in it. And even NW got killed by the same issues as all those other older pvp mmos. 20 fucking years, yet nothing has changed. Big sad.
Not exactly...
Remember that New World had to take out the no-flag PvP because of seal-clubbers.
Remember that New World had to take out the no-flag PvP because of seal-clubbers.
Yeah, I know it's not as pvp as Ashes or older mmos, but it was still advertised as "mmo with pvp" iirc. And even with a $40 price it got 1 mil on release. And I'm sure if Amazon had not fucked up pretty much every single fucking thing they could've possibly fucked up - the game would've lasted way longer and would've had at least a few hundred thousand active players. Which is why Intrepid gotta iron out as many kinks as they can before release, considering that their pvp is harsher so it's gonna be a tougher sell.
Remember that New World had to take out the no-flag PvP because of seal-clubbers.
Yeah, I know it's not as pvp as Ashes or older mmos, but it was still advertised as "mmo with pvp" iirc. And even with a $40 price it got 1 mil on release. And I'm sure if Amazon had not fucked up pretty much every single fucking thing they could've possibly fucked up - the game would've lasted way longer and would've had at least a few hundred thousand active players. Which is why Intrepid gotta iron out as many kinks as they can before release, considering that their pvp is harsher so it's gonna be a tougher sell.
But this would generally not change the way it flows, because the core flaw of how PvP MMOs are designed is to create antagonism with minimal benefit to all but the toughest of psyches.
New World, in particular, even with good design otherwise, simply shifted who was on the receiving end of that 'pain' by adding scaling so that lower level players could win fights. This resulted in a different set of people being salty and 'damaged'.
I'm not saying MMOs shouldn't have PvP, I'm saying that if that PvP happens outside of arenas or has real consequences, in the game paradigms we have available NOW, they suffer the same problem every time.
I'm not saying MMOs shouldn't have PvP, I'm saying that if that PvP happens outside of arenas or has real consequences, in the game paradigms we have available NOW, they suffer the same problem every time.
Which is why we're long overdue a paradigm shift. But it's so risky to do, moneywise, that no one even attempts it. And the ones who even try going for smth pvp-centric, usually go for nostalgia-inspired games, instead of trying to come up with a new system where owpvp might work in everyone's favor (if that is even possible obviously).
I'm not saying MMOs shouldn't have PvP, I'm saying that if that PvP happens outside of arenas or has real consequences, in the game paradigms we have available NOW, they suffer the same problem every time.
Which is why we're long overdue a paradigm shift. But it's so risky to do, moneywise, that no one even attempts it. And the ones who even try going for smth pvp-centric, usually go for nostalgia-inspired games, instead of trying to come up with a new system where owpvp might work in everyone's favor (if that is even possible obviously).
Well, we don't know if Intrepid is going to try to come up with such a system eventually. There's nothing tying them to the less effective paradigms as of now.
But I think their messaging is correct to start where it is. Many methods of introducing PvP to those who 'hope to just avoid it', even methods explicitly intended to lead to growth and additional fun, are interpreted by those people as 'Oh good I don't have to PvP' instead of 'Oh good I have a chance to get good at/enjoy PvP'.
Which means that no matter how well you design the system, there will always be a subset of very loud people willing to broadcast to the world that 'this game is supposed to protect me from PvP but it doesn't'. Better to make it clear up front 'yeah you're gonna just get killed and you probably won't be able to do anything about it', and then work on properly incentivizing 'participation' later depending on your game's other progression mechanics.
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Healers are designed archaically in almost all games that are not Battle Arena shooters or specific MOBAs. Whether or not one likes the design, there are some factors that come up due to it.
Why are Healers a low mobility class?
Now, this isn't true in EVERY game, but consider it the other way. Why aren't they EXPLICITLY a high mobility class that heals from close range?
The answer is basically because it would be a type of challenge that most players in ye olde days that wanted to play 'as Healers' wouldn't want, and therefore we got 'stuck' with this sort of 'I magically call upon my Divine Power/Deity and that Deity knows exactly who I am pointing at and heals them' while I safely stand over here'.
But it would make much more 'sense' to at least have a type of Healer that is VERY mobile but heals at close range, whether they do that by 'magic' or not. In an Action-y game, a mobile Healer gets to experience the challenge too, of getting in and out of their healing position while avoiding damage. They wear light armor anyway in most games (and have no true justification for why they don't wear heavier armor other than old D&D tropes).
The class normally is in the backline 'because it's easier to not take damage there', but in an Action heavy game, where both the enemy and the tank/DPS are moving around quite a lot, this guarantee falls very quickly, yet the Healer remains static. The Healer just 'sits there and hopes that no one messes up and pulls the enemy to them or causes them to end up in an attack cone/circle'. But why? A healer could simply... be mobile... and react. If limited to closer range healing, and with longer 'recovery times' after certain mobility skills for using self heals (assume for example that a fast teleport-like dash up to another player to heal them, only works on OTHER players, because MAGIC), then the complaint of 'I can't catch the healer to kill them' changes too.
The Healer must come into RANGE to heal the person you are hurting, and therefore be in danger. As opposed to now, where other people have to devote focus and dedicated effort to catching the healer, making balance more difficult.
Action MMORPGs may someday stop doing this, just as some MOBAs and Shooters have done. And maybe then, 'Action vs Tab' will be less of a consideration...
Orrrr... a bunch of people will complain that they just want to heal and not have to move around all the time.
Ok, makes sense.
From what I remember in GW2, healing was also mostly AOE or ground targeting hots. I didn’t play a healer, and only did a handful of group content before walking away from the game. My friend who was a always our healer in different games found the whole experience frustrating.
It makes me wonder if the supporting roles are what is holding up decisions on the combat type…
So, does that more mobile healer put a player into more of a sub game of tag with short range heals, versus the stationary heal canon?
I only healed the last part of legion on my Paladin, which was very much a stay put and lob yellow light at the tank. My aforementioned healer buddy always played Druid and spent a good deal of time running around deploying hots and activating his heals. I can’t say which is better since it’s really not my cup of tea.
That would essentially be the idea, yes. Ground AoE heals are a pain in a game with even medium mobility. Tab Target allows you to 'just lock and track' the ally, but results in 'becoming a heal turret', and designers then focus on 'how can we make your heals different or stronger?' instead of 'how can we challenge your skill in movement or targeting the way we are doing for everyone else?'
It results in Healers playing a relatively different game from everyone else, and then ALSO being relatively unable to defend themselves when placed into danger other than... standing still and healing themselves even MORE (which in turn again requires that their healing is even stronger).
This of course leads to the dualboxing epidemic soon after 'serious' or 'good' players realize that they could be more effective with a Pocket Healer instead of relying on a whole separate person that they have to communicate with.
The problem with the standard mmo format, is that it promotes team play instead of it actually being team play. Tank goes in, dps follow or range fire, healers stay safe and do their job, it's the ABC/123 you could be speaking another language and get shit done.
Then when mmo's or new ones try to expand gameplay everyone plays and finds the cogs are sitting right, well it's because you've kept the jobs entirely the same and so heavily focused on one thing!
"Hi, I'm a ranger"
"nice, what you do"
"I shoot a bow, I'm a dps"
"great, nice....("LF Healer/Tank, this century please")"
Theme wise is the ranger a Legolas turret? ofc not, why aren't there supportive elements out of him, it's kept so billy basic in the mmo world.
When everyones shifting around, more so in hybrid/action games, when you have an ally nearby, just 1, the experience can be a lot realistic, it's not like they look at each other and go "we're dps!....shit! wanna be best friends? dood!....let's die and on respawn cry about healer suck, huhu!".
All I'm saying is, it's cool to have specializations but the genre has got to evolve eventually from a hardened trinity system and the hardened formation that comes with it, tech and graphics have improved greatly and young people are used to that high octane gameplay from all sorts of games, it's been a long time needed...
Sorry, I don't play those sorts of games.
I only play high-focus games with actual group mechanics, aim, etc. Not to knock what you're saying at all, I just am... 'above' that experience, to be frank. I've played too many better games, maybe the sort of games you're talking about, to even put any thought toward those simplistic/restrictive ones.
I just want to know if Ashes will end up being another simplistic/restrictive one, so I'm waiting. If it is, thankfully I have a backup, since I'm not in the 'No Cash For Ingame Advantage EVER!' crowd, so I can play Korean MMOs with less misery if the dynamic gameplay is good.
I'm fine with the Trinity system. I see no reason it needs to evolve away from that. But again, I play better games. Quite frankly the definitions and explanations I get for how that system works in most games just seems pathetic to me, but I don't have any negativity toward the Trinity system itself because I don't PLAY those games. I play ones where it works.
In regards to the Trinity System I have no problems with its foundation, it's merely just devs lack of passion and bravery inside of that to make a system more reasonable for gameplay demands that many have experienced in some way from say the FPS and Moba genre.
I mean you couldn't get more crystal clear if you take LoL as an experiment, people want the action, only a small % actually want to play supportive elements but then when you introduce mechanics and characters like Thresh and Pyke they go "ok, that's pretty cool!". I'm really not biased against traditional healing/buffing gameplay and theme wise but devs have stayed stale with expanding it, there's so much to explore.
This is what I have come to expect from playing MMORPG's, and it is about damn time FPS games realized that this is just where games are headed. They really need to get with the times!
See, this doesn't work. Different genres are different genres for a reason. Just because something is happening in one genre, doesn't mean it needs to (or should) happen in another.
If players from one genre like a thing that the genre they play does, great! They can continue to play that genre that has that thing they like and expect.
Like I said, I don't think about any of these things. You're describing a world that I 'don't live in', to me.
Every time I hear about RPGs other than the ones I play and maybe two others, I think 'I'm so sad that the rest of you have to play this crap and form all these half-opinions, but I can't help much'. There's two options here.
1. All the games I hear about kind of suck.
2. All the people who explain the games kind of suck at them.
And it really doesn't matter which is true, to me. All that matters is that EITHER Ashes is great and not just another one of those same games, OR that Throne and Liberty is.
I appreciate your passion, but y'all up here talking about 'Action' and 'New Tanking Dynamics' and I'm thinking 'Is Rogue gonna get some equivalent of SATA Dancing Edge so my friend can dump Enmity onto our Bard when our Paladin needs to take a breather because all his mitigation skills are down, and if so, what options will the Bard have for kiting assuming she used her strongest Evasion buff performance?'
I'm sure that other games have some equivalent of stuff like this, but it's nearly never what we end up discussing around here.
tl;dr the MMOs I play ALREADY play like MOBAs (or whatever, to me it's just 'play like interesting games') and I'm just looking for the next good one because the 'fantasy' one I play is old. If Devs have stayed stale with it, I'm really sorry to hear that, but I don't care enough about the 'crusty inbetweens'. I have seven great games to play and I just wanna rotate out a slot to 'replace it with' something modern of at least reasonably equal quality.
But I'm not gonna talk about 'How good Seris or Corvus as healers' or 'How much fun it is to play healer/debuffer in space battles in Elite Dangerous' because that's just gonna summon Dygz unnecessarily. If Intrepid cares, I'm sure they know where to find my data posts.
So uh... yeah... I'll care when you and Dygz and whoever else get past the 'Action vs Tab', 'Trinity vs Innovation' or whatever stage of discussion, if that ever happens (depending on who you engage, it usually doesn't).
Good luck though, no sarc.
I am not suggesting that systems mold with very popular genre's, only steal ideas that lead to elevating it.
BDO made 20+ skills incredibly accessible by utilizing direction input like the fighting game Tekken (that has 50+ moves on average for every character), it's user convience bliss in comparison to holding shift/alt whatever and working mouse button 1-12 etc.
You could implement that in tab target game like Archage in some measure and it's a logic improvement to a proposed hybrid system that will involve elements of action controlling, and it's not at all saying that a fighting game in any of its entirety belongs in a 3d open world.
If a Healer class in an mmo has a lantern and chain (let's just say Thresh), and strengthen's and heals allies via souls and there's a more "ruthless" gameplay style, along with lore and conflict from the holy side of life, adding character to the more traditional type of healing we see in typical mmos and thereby making being a healer/support more desirable, that is infact an evolution, nothing short of it.
Anyway, I hope you have something more constructive than a flat out "incompatibility" view anyway.
When I set up my keybinds, I use ~ through to 7, T, Y, G and H. Between these buttons and 2 buttons on my mouse that I use for this as well, combined with shift, ctrl OR (not and - never and) alt, I have 56 immediately available keybinds.
These are the binds I can use without needing to look or think, that I can go between any two in less than one second, while still retaining viable use of WASD.
It seems to me that all BDO did was lower the player skill ceiling. Knowing how to bind your abilities and having the dexterity to access those abilities is actual real player skill - in the same vein as twitch/reflex is a skill. Which part of this do you think would be an evolution?
The first point I want to make here is that the personality of a character in an MMO is supposed to come from the player, not the class (or character, in the case of LoL that you are talking about here). If you are trying to say that classes in an MMO should come with a built in character as they do in games where you pick a character rather than a class, I would call that a devolution, not evolution. You play an MMORPG to play with other players - people you get to know extremely well - not to play with characters that some developer created.
If you think the evolution part of the above is the healer also buffing players, I agree. That was an evolution that EQ2 managed 18 years ago - as literally every healer in EQ2 buffs allies (literally every character in that game has a number of buffs it can cast on themselves and on others - yet the game still has room for dedicated support classes - because it is not shit).
EQ2 also does have Censers (the proper name for a "lantern on a chain" that a "holy" person may have - a fact you would know if you played early EQ2 at the top end). However, EQ2 doesn't limit any one class to any one weapon type (games that do are games that are targeting the lowest common denominator - which means people that think aspects of those games should be moved over to other games are themselves that lowest common denominator).
Doing the above now isn't an evolution, it is just copying something that happened a generation ago - just as it was when it was when LoL did it. It was an old idea back then, it is an old idea now. That doesn't mean a game like Ashes should have it (at least, the healers also having buffs thing - the rest of it is out of place in Ashes), it just means that it is not evolutionary any longer.
Also, gear that someone wears, doesn't change their gameplay (or if it does it's on the very low spectrum), it only changes their avatar/appearence, which is a great thing. Gameplay and gameplay options (weapon swapping btw I implore) can be just as big as if not bigger to a certain demographic as the class and purpose you assign yourself as it maintains interest and expertise going forward as opposed to old practices of gear gives you +++ stats and "exciting" skill required usage and cooldown discipline.
You can keep ignoring what other people have experienced, from korea attempts at action or unique improvements to tab or from other genre's, your way is simple not going to appeal to audiences that have experienced evolutions in user input and gameplay.
Feel free to make a thread explaining why a polished tab and Everquest focus is king, please explain how it would geinunely excite people, people who have played other mmo's alternative to yours, newcomes to the genre, please.
Lowest common denominator, right, great, I hope EQ3 comes for you, I''ll seriously be happy for you.
I'll give you two games as examples. The first is Path of Exile (an online ARPG). Your gear literally dictates what builds are available to you. Almost all build guides for that game list the specific items of gear you absolutely need to make the build even function, and then also give a list of some good to have items.
Then there is EQ2 (didn't want to disappoint). In most content cycles, there were two or three points where the gear you have acquired would see you able to take a different spec. Changing spec in EQ2 was quite the change to your character, since EQ2 had 6 or 7 different "talent trees" (note, trees, not branches, these were all individual, and all had their own branches you could pick) per class.
In some of these cases it was a matter of getting enough of a stat to be able to remove points from that to place elsewhere, (which also means removing the points you needed to place in the tree in order to get to that stat).
In other cases it is literally getting a single item alters the viability of specific builds. When you have a build that gives you an ability that does absolutely massive damage, but leaves you with absolutely zero mana, you have to kind of build things around that ability. If you can't build things around that ability, you can't take that ability. If you can build things around that ability, your gameplay now becomes focused around maximizing your use of that ability.
Or it could be that you managed to pick up an item that - when used - lowers your position on the targets hate list by 24 players (in a game with a raid size of 24). If you are a DPS character, having this item changes how you play your character.
In fact, me having this item, and having the setup to use the spell I described above as well, altered the gameplay of the tank in my raid - not just my own gameplay. He would pull a mob, and combat would start, then when we knew nothing was about to go off, I would cast that massive damage dealing ability (that would deal perhaps a full percent of a bosses HP in damage). This would send the boss right after me, the tank would have perhaps 50,000 hate generated against the mob, and I just generated 500,000 in a single cast. The tank would then use a taunt that would increase his position on the targets hate list by 1, meaning he would now be at exactly 1 threat point above me. I would then use the item that decreases my position on the hate list by 24, meaning the tank is now at over 500,000 hate, the next highest DPS is at about 45,000, and I am sitting at 0 hate.
This meant that the tank no longer needed to spec in to things that would allow him to generate hate quickly, and could instead spec in to other things.
All only possible due to me having a specific combination of items.
Point being, gear ABSOLUTELY does alter how you play your class - and your gear can alter how others play their class. I've already gone over what issues a new tab target game would have - I see no need to start a new thread about it when this thread right here will do me just fine.
How about you explain to me how any western PvP MMO is going to survive when the expectation is that the bottom 10% will leave the game every 3 months - because that is the best case scenario if you attract the MOBA crowd.
People say that in every forum for new mmorpgs in development.
Every mmorpg that have tried it have failed..HARD
Its very niche and doesnt work well in mmorpgs
Unfortunally the players that thinks they want it are very vocal and ruins alot of potentially good mmorpgs.
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Are you saying that action combat was the cause for these MMOs to fail hard? If so, which MMOs are you thinking of?
And I feel like if at least a few companies risked a good pvp game back in the WoW days, where the world would stay persistent, while player power would be semi-equalized with longtime hardcore players being a few steps above newbies but w/o utterly destroying them - the genre would've been better off because of that. But I guess that risk came in the form of mobas and fps games instead of big worlds that progress through time. The cheaper choice always wins
Hey there's nothing to stop a PvE experience from being more interactive inside of a game where PvP exists. The whole premise of gear being the be all and end all of everything in development is weak to hang onto or at least letting the 2 co-incide, it's a mighty balancing chore, that also involves the horrible practice of usually making classes weak/strong for PvE/PvP.
You're familiar with my long friend L2, PvE combat devolves a hell of a lot into piggybacking off of the Destroyer. Strong PvE doesn't need to be involving gear, it can always be a true group effort like doing a Kraken at sea in Archeage for instance, utilizing tools like cannons, obv needs to add a bit more involvement than ship repairs as a side chore and then you focus on that sweet PvP competitive scenerio or don't at times or depending, for casual sake.
My example would be, have gear that covers trash/open world mobs and PvP that both gel and balance together with all those nice attack/casting speed and damage bonuses you all gasm over (stats+++ won't nearly need to be as extreme though in a Hyrbid/action game as it's already more fun from base, challenging with aim/skill and "reactive mechnically" to play) and let top end PvE/raid just always be reliant on the utilization of tools or subset skills + base skills such as agro'ing/healing.
And that was mainly done because L2 gear was universal so you'd use it in both pve and pvp. Adding pve mechanics to that gear would introduce the "I gotta have a dozen different gear pieces" issue (as it did in the later updates where attributes were important), while having both pve and pvp versions would make that shit even worse (was also the case for any and all top lvl Oly champs, because they needed to counter the enemy att). And that's not even considering the augmentation on gear in L2. That shit added even more required gear to pvp.
And having a cool pve experience that interacts with your non-boring gear, while also supports the potential of there being some pvp around that pve experience, where you'd also need the same non-boring gear (unless you go for separated sets) - all of that would require a ton of great design and balancing from devs. And I guess Intrepid's trying to do that. Now I don't know how well they can manage it and whether it's even possible, but I sure hope it is cause it'll just prove that all the previous mmos just didn't even try to do that, for one reason or the other.
Yes, skill should be important in both pve and pvp, but I do agree with those saying that RPGs have usually depended highly on player's gear to define their power lvl. And the best representation of good pvp gear balance (imo) was L2, where you still needed good gear for pve, but weaker gear still worked just fine in pvp. But I can definitely say that the gear itself was super basic and usually had very similar stats on it, with higher gear tiers just having those stats higher.
I've heard that SWG had some good pvp and had an amazing crafting/gear system, if Intrepid manages to combine that system with L2's balancing - I feel like we might have one of the best gear systems in mmos. But obviously they'll have to prove that, so only the time will tell.
edit: looked into it. Looks like it suffered the usual fate of old mmos w/o billions of dollars of support. Concept seems great and looks like Ashes will have some similar mechanics of player agency. And as one of the steam reviews pointed out, Ashes will also have one of the biggest issues with such a game - days/weeks/months of work can be destroyed within a day. So we'll see how Intrepid manages to avoid the game's death because of that mechanic.
I really enjoy Elder Scrolls Online combat for a couple of weeks a few times per year, but in reality all classes/builds/specs are the same since it all instant casts but with some graphic differences.
(I am talking out of a perspective of those of us who dont cheat, as in macro script or lag switches, but play it like it was meant to be)
I always end up going back to WoW though. Even though its in the worst state its probably ever been, there is actual class fantasy and the classes/specs have a real difference in playstyle.
Adding interesting/complex/different rotations into action-style combat doesnt seem possible to me.
It ultimately flopped, but it had a small dedicated following. I was going to play it, can't remember what happened. Think I got a girlfriend shortly before launch or something weird like that. So I never played it.
But yes, it had the typical problems of low budget, bugs, exploits etc.
Not exactly...
Remember that New World had to take out the no-flag PvP because of seal-clubbers.
But this would generally not change the way it flows, because the core flaw of how PvP MMOs are designed is to create antagonism with minimal benefit to all but the toughest of psyches.
New World, in particular, even with good design otherwise, simply shifted who was on the receiving end of that 'pain' by adding scaling so that lower level players could win fights. This resulted in a different set of people being salty and 'damaged'.
I'm not saying MMOs shouldn't have PvP, I'm saying that if that PvP happens outside of arenas or has real consequences, in the game paradigms we have available NOW, they suffer the same problem every time.
Well, we don't know if Intrepid is going to try to come up with such a system eventually. There's nothing tying them to the less effective paradigms as of now.
But I think their messaging is correct to start where it is. Many methods of introducing PvP to those who 'hope to just avoid it', even methods explicitly intended to lead to growth and additional fun, are interpreted by those people as 'Oh good I don't have to PvP' instead of 'Oh good I have a chance to get good at/enjoy PvP'.
Which means that no matter how well you design the system, there will always be a subset of very loud people willing to broadcast to the world that 'this game is supposed to protect me from PvP but it doesn't'. Better to make it clear up front 'yeah you're gonna just get killed and you probably won't be able to do anything about it', and then work on properly incentivizing 'participation' later depending on your game's other progression mechanics.