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Combat Group Sizes
TheSandMan
Member
I think that combat should be balanced around the 8 man groups rather than 40 man groups. You can have 5 teams of 8 take on a boss, but these teams should be independent entities.
I would make it to where player abilities would only be able to interact within the 8 man group. That includes heals, buffs, revives, etc.
Designing it this way makes it much harder to just replace someone in your party with dps person number 25.
I think the class systems should be designed around the 8 man groups so players can develop unique strategies that fits the archetypes within their group. Rather than just relying on the background Zerg heals from people you’ve never talked to. Or being screwed over by unknown player number 33.
But most importantly I think this will accomplish what guild systems fall short in. Which is creating interdependent player groups that actually have to interact with each other if they want to progress.
These 7 other people in your group Will have to be people you get along with and trust. And I can’t think of a better environment to create the fantasy of taking on the world than with a close group of friends.
I would make it to where player abilities would only be able to interact within the 8 man group. That includes heals, buffs, revives, etc.
Designing it this way makes it much harder to just replace someone in your party with dps person number 25.
I think the class systems should be designed around the 8 man groups so players can develop unique strategies that fits the archetypes within their group. Rather than just relying on the background Zerg heals from people you’ve never talked to. Or being screwed over by unknown player number 33.
But most importantly I think this will accomplish what guild systems fall short in. Which is creating interdependent player groups that actually have to interact with each other if they want to progress.
These 7 other people in your group Will have to be people you get along with and trust. And I can’t think of a better environment to create the fantasy of taking on the world than with a close group of friends.
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But a raid where the groups can’t interact with the other groups? That sounds counterproductive. To me anyway..
Yes, it’s intended counter-production. So that strategizing is more impactful and practical, since there is less margin of error due to the faceless Zerg of players around you. I think it will be less frustrating and more rewarding when you have more control over what makes or breaks your combat. Rather than rolling probabilities on randoms.
I would also present the issue that having a raid where you can’t interact with the other groups opens the raid up to getting destroyed group by group by a Zerg. Healers won’t be able to keep anyone alive if they get focused down.
The idea is intriguing I must say. But I’m far from convinced, balance wise
Ya the being attacked by outside players thing is going to be weird regardless.
But forcing the outside sabotagers to form parties in order to utilize their healers full capacity should limit that Zerg.
Keeping extra parties as defenders of the raid would still stand as a way to defend your raid group.
How is it artificial? I think it’s less artificial than zerging raid bosses lol. You can justify it in lore through many ways. Ex: needing a connection with the person in order to heal them.
If it all has high visual clarity then it's pretty intuitive; someone bleeding all over needs a Flesh Mend to stop bleeding and Replenish for blood infusion.
Someone with a limb bent backwards needs a Bone mend (ignoring dislocations lol) at least.
Someone with their neck at a sharp angle and on the floor needs Bone mend, Nerve mend, and possibly Life Spark.
Someone just looking a bit drunk might need a Nerve and Flesh mend in case they're beat up; or something to reduce Exhaustion.
That's my take on healing. No targetting limbs or specific sequence most of the time.
My idea isn’t really regarding balancing issues. It’s about creating a feel of elite groups within the world rather than bodies for the fodder.
Also to expand room for class kits to have more complex and interactive mechanics to them. Something that is much harder to do when you don’t know the 32 other people you are fighting with.
I'm actually of the opposite opinion, I don't think the teams should be fully independent entities, I think there should be buffs that apply to the raid group and some that are unique to your 8 man, because I think what you are proposing is actually more limiting than you need and stops a lot of potential gameplay when you require each party to essentially run as a standard unit of minimum 1/2 tank 1/2 healers 4dps/support whereas removing that structure you could potentially have a "Healer party" all 8 who buff each other coordinate and monitor the health of the whole raid. a tank party who buff each others defenses and control swaps or peeling off adds. Imagine a full 8 man party of rogues kiting and ambushing adds through coordinated cc and stealth attacks, grouping up your mages for potential "group cast abilities" where when 8 mages are grouped they can channel a long cast ult spell.
My hope is that raids aren't just your 8 + 4 other groups, doing the same thing but actually a preplanned event where your dividing up the responsibilities focusing on an objective and working together, if your 8 are fully self sufficient why have the boss scale to 40? What's the benefit of the other 32 beside being faceless people in the zerg?
Whereas if you can specialize parties you'll likely get teamed up with those running similar builds to you, who likely have similar play styles and things to learn. Which I think will add to the sense of getting a close nit group of friends together,
Also I'm not saying you will need to specialize groups each time but I think enforcing strict independence would be a shame if I want to help heal/shield someone in party 2 it should be easy to do so, I don't want to ever think to my self "rip I saw that coming, I'd have helped if I could but the game only lets me heal party 3"
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If you want elites you need challenge; heals requiring skill would create elite and debuffs opens up skill range for DPS and Tanks since they can't just hack n slash while being mostly immortal.
That would be cool too. I just have my doubts on how practical that is. Communication between that many people is really hard unless they have a really active guild they all belong to.
I think the more involved guilds will have what you want, but the people who enjoy starting guilds with just a group of friends are going to be at a disadvantage.
I suppose the main argument would be scale vs depth. For communication, strategy, and mechanics between players.
Well it's not more artificial than the way things are you're right; but hopefully the challenge and skill-requirement involved with execution and "RPG mechanics" such as a heal-sickness can differentiate the players from Elite to Not-Elite and help create immersion.
Having a bunch of healers healing 1 person is a bit immersion breaking and poor content lol so some sort of limit on how many people can heal someone or creative constraints would be nice.
Sorry, I’m not really taking about individual mechanics in this discussion.
It wouldn’t be a bunch of healers healing 1 person. It would be a pre-made party where the healers can only heal people in their party.
Edit: Just realized you might’ve been talking about the other guy.
I agree communication is hard if it's not being required by the content, eg ffxiv alliance raids typically all that's done is party A stand here, b Stand There, C over there, if anything. but conversely I think it would actually strengthen a group of 8 especially if you decided to specialize into solving a specific task, you need a team to deal with adds and cc then hire "the deadmen company" there 8 man team knows how to do x,y,z and are great at adapting and dealing with x issues in these dungeons. I think with many open world events/raids if you come with a group of 8ish vets I don't think you'd have a hard time finding your way onto teams not to mention full independence means as soon as you have 9 friends someone gets benched or fully cut off for any group content
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lol but individual mechanics create dynamics. that's why I say it's just artificial to have a group limit.
edit: I mean the solution can be solved with a change in base game mechanics
If healers can only heal 1 person and it's an involved, difficult process, then you don't have super tanks. If you don't have super tanks you have multiple people taking damage and managing their threat; requiring cooperation and people trying to draw or get rid of threat (needing to frequently increase and decrease threat).
If healing has limitations and super tanks are no longer a thing and Tanks can't be super healed, then healers may need to get threat and put healing on the back burner; hence pure healing is super niche.
This will aleviate the problem where people become heal, dps, or threat bots just pressing some number keys in a particular or whatever random rotation; this means people aren't as Nameless and people Zerging need to call out for Healers and escape danger with the help of others -- making it a real battlefield rather than "ok let tank get threat and then dps/ heal bot".
So I think I am providing a solution by suggesting ways to make content more dynamic and cooperative.
No I was saying that the way it is already is that a bunch of people are healing 1 or 2 people; so I am suggesting my own solution.
The only issue I see with that is if you decide to do outside content with your party. You end up with a party of 8 healers and can’t really do much.
But ya reputation based party advertisement is cool. I just haven’t experienced it, and I don’t know if our current meta hungry player base has killed it off. Who needs a specialist when everyone has the best guides for each class. The skill level difference would be minimal and only really apply to late game content.
Ah i see. But theoretically if you really wanted a super tank in your 8 man party all you have to do is get 3 healers in your party and a tank. If people want to do that I think it’s cool. It’s just one of many viable strategies you can do within an 8 man group. (Also I only used 8 cuz it’s what aoc uses. I’d be ok with like 10 man groups max.)
In the same boat, if they wanted three tanks and no healers that’s fine too. It would be easier to balance since there is less input variables into the combat system.
Since the player group is small, people will have plenty of room to air complaints and change the dynamics of their group if they want.
Mechanics would definitely need to be more complex and interactive in this system. A lack of complex mechanics has always been a turn off for me when playing mmos.
I think that's where the secondary's come into play eg when doing large raid i'm running tank + tank, in 8 man i run tank + ranger so if you get a team of clerics you might branch into the subtypes in 8 man play and perhaps when you come together for raids some of you spec into high priest to be a more uniform force, additionally,
some of your healers could be those who subtype cleric like a soulbow or paladin until we get to a2 and learn how potent subtypes are vs primary, will have a large effect on this, for example, can/should a soul bow (ranger + cleric) be able to heal as well as a Protector (cleric + ranger) or should the protector as primary architype cleric always be able to heal better?
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Making something interesting is what's important. Balance can easily change but mechanics are the basic draw. Without mechanics it's just a blank screen or pretty picture.
I don't think the debuff [buff from 'familiarity'] should be severe though.
Honestly don't like the thought of how healign works lmao pretty gross
True but that’s where another one of my concerns are. I honestly think that the way they are going with how the subclasses effect base classes as well as the augments. We’re just going to be getting generic classes with shallow abilities. Balancing would be a nightmare otherwise in such an open ended system.
I may have added a bunch of pros to my initial post but my primary reason is to influence the class design.
I want a system that can reliably limit complex classes in order to maintain balance, while giving them room for skill expression without being drowned out by 40 people, and pushes them towards making hard decisions in terms of what classes to involve.
Limitations breed variety. And I want a system that breeds innovation in combat without a patch note being added. They could easily make the combat system just as player driven as the other systems they have created if they wanted.
Making something that’s both interesting and balanced is difficult imo
Not to mention practicalities
You can say that but if it’s not enforced it’s just going to be a Zerg fest where skill and mechanics don’t matter.
Also, creating complex mechanics that interact within a pool of either 200 or 40 players is just not practical.
Yeah it's too many classes lol. You'd have to invent 8 different games designed around each Archetype to make room for 8 variations to each archetype (and a further 4 variations to those variations as Sharif mentioned at some point).
It's not practical to fight in armies in the first place lol. Small groups are optimal in reality.
Many "open world dungeons" will have people physically in the way if they try to cram in somewhere. This sets a natural limit and how many people can participate (especially melee) based on dimensions of the building/ area and whatever hazards exist.
Imagine being stuck because there are 10 rows of people behind you and the boss is just meat grinding their way through everyone. Pretty dark.
The complete body block is strange though. Some 'push' to players just standing in place would make more sense imo and Tanks can be least pushable. Variable push.
In more detail: Have a 'squish' where a char can have their space occupation changed to a limit with more push the more squish there is. The squish would be a small radius. This way you can brustle past people without launching them.
Walking should turn more of the unsquishable radius of a char into squishable, so you can bristle past people instead of running through and causing havoc to you and the other person.
f=ma equal opposite et cetera you can knock yourself down if you try running into a tank with 200 kg in their bag as a lightweight.
Q.E.D.