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Class Synergy Concern
Dolyem
Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
So I wanted to hear other opinions on my take away from the Synergy showcase. Please understand that I am not saying Intrepid shouldn't implement the synergy system, I am just concerned about how it seemed to be explained.
So in the recent Dev Update we got a taste of Synergy between classes, in the form of a "Stagger" condition that when applied multiple times by different players, progresses the affect into a stun. I love the concept, but here is my main concern...
With every class potentially having skills that all provide the same affect, would this take away from class identity? And is it a boring system (in its current presentation) to be as simple as adding spells with the same conditions together to level up conditions?
Obviously things will need to be tested, but I feel like all classes synergizing by adding the same conditions together is a underwhelming design. When I hear "Synergy" between classes, I think different affects between different class combos, such as Mages AoE's on friendly tanks granting them protections against that element if the tank is also channeling a defensive ability at the same time, or a rogue dealing increased damage with a backstab to an enemy pinned down by a ranger. The only drawback is not only would it be difficult to design for the amount of abilities Intrepid is claiming to be working on for each class, but it would also be incredibly more difficult to balance.
A constructive middle ground suggestion I though up was basing Synergies off of class Roles, and damage types. (Summoner is up in the air to me, not sure what category they will be in but I am assuming Magic DPS.)
-Support (Clerics/Bards/?Summoners?)
-Tank (Tank)
-Magic DPS (Mage/?Summoners?)
-Physical DPS (Fighter/Ranger/Rogue)
Focusing on role types for synergy seems to me like a much better choice to maintain class identity. To further emphasize the roles, each one that procs would also have a specific type of focus. And the proc would be based off of the initial synergy activation, and potentially have options depending on the secondary trigger. And these are just ideas.
-Support - Healing procs for allies, movement procs for allies, Combat buff proc for allies.
-Tank (Tank) - health shield proc for nearby allies, AOE CC, Threat gain, Damage debuff for enemies
-Magic DPS (Mage/?Summoners?) - Explosion AOE's, Mass Fear, AOE Slow, Resource Regen proc
-Physical DPS (Fighter/Ranger/Rogue) - Movement procs, Damage AOE's, Blinds, Damage Over Time procs, Stuns
Just to give an example, if a tank were to use a synergy affect, and Magic DPS used its synergy with it, it could proc the AOE CC. While if a Support role was done in place of the Magic DPS, it could proc the health shield for nearby allies.
Please let me know what you think of my take, and again understand I know everything should be test, but I also feel like this is an important thing to address seeing as classes and archetypes along with the identity each has for playstyle is an major selling point for this game. Hope you enjoyed more of my ramblings!
So in the recent Dev Update we got a taste of Synergy between classes, in the form of a "Stagger" condition that when applied multiple times by different players, progresses the affect into a stun. I love the concept, but here is my main concern...
With every class potentially having skills that all provide the same affect, would this take away from class identity? And is it a boring system (in its current presentation) to be as simple as adding spells with the same conditions together to level up conditions?
Obviously things will need to be tested, but I feel like all classes synergizing by adding the same conditions together is a underwhelming design. When I hear "Synergy" between classes, I think different affects between different class combos, such as Mages AoE's on friendly tanks granting them protections against that element if the tank is also channeling a defensive ability at the same time, or a rogue dealing increased damage with a backstab to an enemy pinned down by a ranger. The only drawback is not only would it be difficult to design for the amount of abilities Intrepid is claiming to be working on for each class, but it would also be incredibly more difficult to balance.
A constructive middle ground suggestion I though up was basing Synergies off of class Roles, and damage types. (Summoner is up in the air to me, not sure what category they will be in but I am assuming Magic DPS.)
-Support (Clerics/Bards/?Summoners?)
-Tank (Tank)
-Magic DPS (Mage/?Summoners?)
-Physical DPS (Fighter/Ranger/Rogue)
Focusing on role types for synergy seems to me like a much better choice to maintain class identity. To further emphasize the roles, each one that procs would also have a specific type of focus. And the proc would be based off of the initial synergy activation, and potentially have options depending on the secondary trigger. And these are just ideas.
-Support - Healing procs for allies, movement procs for allies, Combat buff proc for allies.
-Tank (Tank) - health shield proc for nearby allies, AOE CC, Threat gain, Damage debuff for enemies
-Magic DPS (Mage/?Summoners?) - Explosion AOE's, Mass Fear, AOE Slow, Resource Regen proc
-Physical DPS (Fighter/Ranger/Rogue) - Movement procs, Damage AOE's, Blinds, Damage Over Time procs, Stuns
Just to give an example, if a tank were to use a synergy affect, and Magic DPS used its synergy with it, it could proc the AOE CC. While if a Support role was done in place of the Magic DPS, it could proc the health shield for nearby allies.
Please let me know what you think of my take, and again understand I know everything should be test, but I also feel like this is an important thing to address seeing as classes and archetypes along with the identity each has for playstyle is an major selling point for this game. Hope you enjoyed more of my ramblings!
2
Comments
In my arrogance I truly believe that Intrepid could just build and give us the entire ability list for EVERY class in this game RIGHT NOW.
People have been playing these games for years. They have clear expectations. Ashes didn't bring some incredibly complex esoteric lore. That wasn't the focus. It took the basic 8 Archetypes of character, LITERALLY called them that, gave us some borderline-obvious "Augment" concepts, and that's it.
I don't know what's 'taking so long'. I'm not saying that 'if I designed this it would be perfect', but perfect isn't their AIM yet. We're not even in Alpha-2.
In the time they've taken, the Eastern MMO market has churned out about sixteen different iterations of the same 7-9 classes. And this will keep happening because everyone knows the Archetypes they want to play.
This is relevant to what you're saying in only one way, ofc.
You could ask nearly any two players 'what synergy do you think your classes should have?' and I bet you 80-90% of the time you will get the same or similar answers from them, or at least they won't be OPPOSED to the answers the majority is giving.
Difficult to balance and design are illusions given their stated design space. I stand by that. There are simply too many other games that have done this already for this to be 'hard', and I hope they're just 'debating which things to add and which to not'.
I'm on the fence.
On the one hand, I know that Intrepid probably doesn't want to just reveal a bunch of stuff. Hype and 'drip' are important, and this game has a long long LONG way to go.
On the other hand, I'm somewhat surprised that those ones are the ones we got, yes.
So I'm definitely 'worried' that they don't have enough design done, as yet, but I'm not as worried that we'd get something overly simplistic or subpar, because I can't think of a reason that would happen, given the way the rest of things go.
Intrepid isn't really beholden to ANYONE. They don't have to follow ANY of the 'rules of game design'. If they 'took a poll' to have players design their Nodes, their Classes, their preferred storylines, and then implemented all of that, there would be no one to complain that this was the way they did it because... they don't answer to anybody.
To me, this gives them ultimate power when it comes to taking feedback of all kinds. On the level of 'MineCraft Modding'.
I truly believe that if they implemented just some super basic stuff and we all told them 'no this is boring fix it' and could agree on HOW, they'd just fix it. My hope for this community is always just 'let's agree on how'.
So it's hard to answer. I'm worried, but I have to temper that reaction because I'm so arrogant about design stuff. I'd be too likely to just go 'here, do it like this, you're welcome' if I thought they were actually 'behind' or 'didn't know what to do', and that's unlikely to be productive, I expect.
I guess we can just ask for clarification about if Synergies are like that, or if they just used the simplest possible and most 'appealing' example so that the maximum number of players could understand and appreciate it. Us die-hards up in here aren't necessarily the target audience for that sort of thing. Gaming demographics are trippy.
Well that's what this discussion is for. Its not to say Intrepid is doing poorly. It's simply to voice opinions on the concern I pointed out so that Intrepid can utilize what the community thinks about this topic. If a lot of people end up sharing my concern, and by chance what they showed is what is intended, they may decide to switch it up in accordance to what the majority desire. Or not. Either way, it's just meant to shed light on the topic at hand.
I might be on a relatively pessimistic side of things, but I find it hard to extrapolate any kind of future developments from what was shown in the last stream.
Well then yes, to Intrepid, I say:
If you were considering 'stacking effects' as your primary synergy options...
I'm sure you can do better.
If you were concerned about balance, testers will help you balance. If you were concerned about complexity, some people probably have enough years of experience with these games and helping others, making guides, etc, to help sort and filter the complexity. If you were concerned about reliability, same deal.
I'll be disappointed if things are 'This mage casts Fire, then this Summoner also uses a Fire summon to make Bigger Fire' and that's our standard synergy type.
You have the potential to do so many things because so many people with so many diverse experiences are rooting for you, so put our minds at ease and make some quick mention that there will be lots of different synergies, whether they are 'true synergies' or 'emergent' ones.
I am going purely based off of what we were shown. It's not to say that is the finished product, but at the very least I am concerned if the intent is to have conditions stack for synergies instead of class specific or role specific effects trigger through synergies.
Yeah my bad I forgot it does that.
Half the time it doesn't even ping me when people @ me, or it takes hours before it does, so I never even remember that the system is 'working'.
Anyway...
I don't feel like I want 'class or role specific effects' per se, either. I feel like that would be disappointing in some ways, I'd go so far as to say kind of LACKING in identity.
But I'm a very picky MOBA/nonFantasy MMORPG player, so my perceptions of 'role identity' are very skewed.
2 ways to add depth to what they've started already:
idk if it's too weird, but given that the roles are trinitarian, I almost want the synergy effect of two roles to proc something related to the third role.
like:
Tank + Support = Damage
Support + Damage = Tank
Damage + Tank = Support
I think that might help with flexibility of party composition.
To add to you, then. For this system to be good, I think most Synergies need to be 'minimally beneficial'/'useless' 80% of the time, then very obviously meaningful the other 20% of the time, on average.
That's the 'worry' I have for what we were shown and told. We were given an obviously useful ability, it combined with another obviously useful ability, to create an 'even more useful' situation. I like that this was shown, because it was a good quick demo for those who don't easily grasp complexity, but I think it would be bad longterm because of low agency/decision making.
Here are some examples of what I consider 'strong synergy designs' vs 'weak synergy designs'.
STRONG:
Cleric Chains of Binding + Ranger Ensnaring Roots = Negate Enemy Dodge Chance for 3s
Fighter Whirlwind + Mage Tornado = Draw In all enemies hit
Bard Flourish + Rogue SmokeBomb = Add hate to whoever is currently 2nd on mob hate lists.
WEAK
Rogue Smokebomb + Mage Tornado = Bigger smokebomb radius
Ranger Ensnaring Roots + Tank Bulwark = Knockdown Enemy (assuming this counts as a good CC)
Bard Flourish + Cleric Divine Light (targeted heal, but targeted on enemy version) = Does more damage
I'd be very wary of adding obvious empowerments with obvious EFFECTS. I feel it'd be very tempting to do this in design, but I'd bet a LOT of money on it creating a stale meta that even the meta-breakers and the 'originality chasers' would not enjoy, EVEN if they were 'more successful' and 'found stronger ones'.
I feel that in order for a Synergy based thing to work and not just be "Follow this Guide and do this when your teammate does this", you need to give effects that play off situations, that 'solve small obscure problems', and that are directly tied to the natural pacing of almost EVERY fantasy MMO's combat.
Things that simplify the pacing by 'reducing the enemy capability' or 'making them dead faster while maintaining the hate list', that can be done on demand, are going to be meta. Players will play 'efficiently' and deconstruct the underlying principles of the GENRE. Every time you give them ANY ability to do so, you're taking one more step toward homogenized boring flows, and throwing in a few mobs this doesn't work on, won't help much (people will avoid them, then if they are bosses that are beneficial to kill, re-spec to counter them, do that, then go back to grinding).
The same thing will happen for PvP because PvP is also deconstructible depending on the game. Good balance can help, but only so much.
It's fun to learn for the 'first time' that "Ok my Hallowed Ground combines with the Mage's Flameburst to create Holy Fire which negates the Regen of Zombies'.
It's less fun to 'open every battle against a Zombie swarm with Holy Fire because that's just the obvious thing to do'. That sort of thing works in TableTop campaigns because 'overcoming the new and interesting encounter' IS the fun and the goal, but TableTop games don't have 'Three mob groups in a room with a safe corner for the group to stand in with no aggro, that give good exp and respawn every 2 minutes'.
Don't see a reason for this, really.
Sure it would probably do what you say, but it seems unnecessary and restrictive to me.
I don't perceive that it'd make anything more fun.
I mean, it'd be worth testing. It would also resonate with class role playstyle. Roles which set things up and roles which play off of those setups for results.
I'll file that under the usual philosophical difference then. Got it.
Instead it was the Clerics chains ability that would stun on the condition that the enemy was already staggered. Otherwise it would just stagger.
So when the Fighter spun and staggered the enemies that where already chained, no stun occured.
If this is the case OP's concern of overly generic CC is avoided, as the "upgrading" of soft CC into harder CC is housed in specific abilities, or skill point choice, resulting in interesting player choices.
The design concern that came to mind when I heard of class synergies was this: The possibility of obvious bests resulting in fixed dependencies.
For example every time you bring a rogue you will 100% bring a ranger for the Procs or you simply will not bring the rogue because those procs represent 35% of the Rogues impact.
Or because this mark increases fire damage our party is 6 fire mages.
If classes have decission points where they can choose to spec into these synergies with other classes that is fun.
If it is instead fighter only plays with a cleric in the party, that feels more restrictive.
The above is just a matter of design and balance.
I want to see the rock paper & scissors.
And a 2D simulation
In the showcase he explained it as 2 staggers leveling up to a stun. More of the same condition levels up the tier of that condition
Right, so:
I think it's possible to retain class identity while keeping it fairly flexible by putting this problem in reverse: What synergies does each class NOT have access to?
That way you can still have things like:
Support
Tank
etc.
@Azherae
yeah I see what you're saying about having effects that are too deterministic.
Can I ask, if you add a significant cost to synergy does this allow you to have strong synergy effects? (My reasoning being the sum of the strong effect is penalized with a significant cost for an overall minor advantage if successful? ((high risk, high reward)))
No that's way 'worse', unless I don't understand you.
Either it will be 'antisocial' because every mistake feels like a big cost, or 'even more blatant'.
Synergy effects being MECHANICALLY strong, to me, is just a negative (again, when both halves of the synergy are more or less 'on-demand' from the players involved).
This is a perspective from my card game design days, though I feel that this is one of those times where that experience absolutely applies.
The 'binary' perspective I am holding here, though, is an exaggeration. From my experience and data from my players (sample size around 10k, give or take a few thousand) they will rapidly discard anything that has less than a 'strong chance of working' EXCEPT when NOTHING has a 'strong chance of working', at which point everyone finds their own thing and the meta expands and people learn to adapt more.
The sliding scale of 'enjoyment of the game' to 'ability to predict and consistently perform in the skill contest' tends to bleed 'casual' players when you are on the 'able to predict' side and lose 'hardcore' players when on the 'game is enjoyable' side, from my limited data.
But whereas 'hardcore' players can just put in time to learn an 'expanded meta' and therefore might continue to enjoy it, putting in more time doesn't make casual players happier, it just turns them INTO 'hardcore players' and honestly doesn't actually seem to affect their overall ENJOYMENT metrics much. Those who like 'winning' stay, those who were 'trying to have fun by not losing as much' drift off anyway.
I'm still gonna give feedback from this experience though, anecdotal as it is. I mention this so you have max context for my perspective.
Also i remember trying the lord of the rings MMO when it came out and the class synergy attacks were beyond IMBA . I would hope the devs are going to start out a bit lower and then dial it up. also a big fan of "synergy"doing small temp buffs, as the cleric fighter AOC stun seems absolutely HUGE.
All that being said its things like this that need to be played, and visited often in PVE and PVP to see what works and what doesnt and why.
Letterz
Case A: skills function normally until a synergy is procced - at which point the penalty occurs
Case B: mechanical cost for mechanical benefit
I agree that Case B is prone to those problems Azherae listed above (basically "why even bother")
Do you think Case A has potential?
I think it could create quite meaningful choice because then triggering a synergy opens opportunity for counterplay from opponents, so you'd want to be prepared to cover your weaknesses before you choose to pop off on synergies.
edit: I'm realizing this is like how Skillchains fill enemy TP
That's it... let the knowledge feeeeed you... {Open} your {Eyes On Me} to the {Darkness}, and let the {Carnage Elegy} begin...
More seriously, yes. This is one of those 'someone has solved the issue already' design considerations. I don't bring up TP Gauge out of any nostalgia based love for it.
It's the best system I know, the convergence at the end of the design-goal space.
Everything else just ends up mimicking parts of it, finding the flaw in the approach, fixing that flaw, and moving closer to it.
The essence of game design really...
As for the overall concept of Case A, the 'flaw' is that doing this is either binary ENOUGH to be simply comprehensible and ironically THEREFORE meta-defining...
Or esoteric, chaotic and cool, and frustrating to the uninitiated (what if you trigger the synergy 'by accident'?) at which point I'm back to begging 'please just give people TP Meter so they can see this sort of thing coming'.
I suspect that there will be many more synergies utilising different conditions and fields, and hopefully other states. Some may even be negative, such as a stealthed thief running into a fire AOE could start smoking so much he gives his position away! Some may be quite unusual, like enemies being blinded if they walk through the clerics 'heal beam' thingy. I also have a suspicion that there will be a third level of combo, as Steven said the stagger/stun was a level 2 {something thingy effect}.
I am sure Intrepid are keeping many skills and augments hidden from us so that A2 is more fun and garners the relevant feedback at that time in actual gameplay. Intrepid do not want us theory crafting over all the skills now in the forums, as mostly we will be wrong.
I like Dolyem's idea "to have support and tanks be the ones that have the initiating synergy abilities while DPS classes can only trigger those synergies set up." Or at least split everything up across the 8 classes. So if you're fighting a boss that needs to be slept, you'll need to bring a Bard and a Summoner so that the bard's lullaby combos with the "summon sheep" field. As daft as this sounds I do wonder if Steven will be injecting some of his humour in the skills.
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I'd rather focus on the status effects of the class abilities - similar to what was mentioned in the demo.
That should set up combat role synergies at a fundamental level.
My Ranger's Root might synergize with the Mage's Frost Snare.
And, yeah, my Mage's Frost Snare might synergize with a Figther's Hammer Strike to cause a Knock Down.
In an RPG, I want to play the classes first and the combat roles farther down the hierarchy.
Play a Shadowcaster; not Support.
Play a Bladedancer; not Damage.
And synergize the Bladedancer abilities with the Shadowcaster abilities; not synergize Damage with Support.
There should not be a "trigger" based on who does what first. Espcially not a limit on who can initiate a synergy. Shouldn't really matter whether the Mage casts the Snare first or whether the Ranger casts the Root frirst.
Mage Frost Snare >> Fighter HammerFall/QuakeStrike (same ability, don't wanna start a different argument):
Bad: Knocks down and CCs harder.
Decent: Does extra damage to all affected by the Frost Snare
Great: Makes the ground ice shatter in all directions doing AoE damage but also BREAKING the Frost Snare.
Reason for ratings:
Just more CC is too obvious, and people would build to resist it.
Extra damage is fine, but it's not a tradeoff, you just do it because reasons.
The best version of this has a 'Tradeoff'. If you wanted the enemy snared for longer for some OTHER reason, you shouldn't HammerFall. If you didn't need them CCed but instead needed them HURT, you go for it, but you lose your CC. Skill wise you could try to time it so that it happens near the end of the Snare for both effects, to give you a 'higher skill ceiling' on the Synergy. The AoE damage also needs to be considered on a 'do I need this?' and 'will it aggro things I don't want to aggro?' basis.
Mage Black Hole >> Cleric Chains:
Bad: Full stuns or roots enemies
Decent: Does immediate extra damage to all in radius
Great: Consumes the 'Stagger' effect of the Chains and trades for a potent alternating Planar/Radiance DoT.
Reason for ratings:
Again, just more CC is too obvious, and both abilities already do it.
Immediate extra damage is not a tradeoff, you'd just almost always do it or frontload it.
The 'great' version is a CHOICE you're making, but more importantly, if you used the 'CC' of either Chains or Black Hole, it was probably to set up a kill, and your opponents will want to get away as soon as possible if they lived through whatever other incoming damage was involved, or start spamming heals. A strong DoT leads to a better situation because they have to devote more focus to when to heal, and if this is PvE, it allows for a damage source from the (often) squishier archetypes that won't pull hate. (the reason why DoT is fine whereas immediate damage isn't is simply that DoT of the exact same type don't normally stack so you can't just frontload a pile of damage)
Two for now. Please complain or praise my genius, whichever suits you.