I think this is just the classic miscommunication yet again. Noaani has been talking about multi-effect abilities while Niem has been talking about synergistic abilities. MMO's lack of standardized naming schemes strike once again.
I also thought that "crossover" meant "multi-effect", because for quite a while there we were discussing abilities that did several effects at the same time. So to me this seems more of a Niem's fault for jumping over this shift w/o acknowledging it in text.
Shocked doesn't do damage per say. It enables your selected skills to do more damage. I actually dislike elemental empowerment and the current format of the status effects. If elemental empowerment is required then remove elemental empowerment and lower the stack amounts required.
Though, I would prefer a system where the mage gets temporary buffs to cast times, damage and utility skills based on skill applications and synergies between active skills than these status effects.
You had no attacks that generate aggro? I don't believe you.
This is what I was talking about - that is why I quoted specifically this comment of yours.
Once again, it was absolutely normal in early to mid 2000's MMO's for tanks to have abilities that taunted, and abilities that dealt damage, with no real cross over between the two.
Now, you can go off and argue that this isn't what you were talking about when you talked about cross over, the problem is that I was the first to use that term in this topic, SPECIFICALLY in response to the above comment. The first mention of cross over in this thread was in relation to how tanks and healers in early MMO's didn't have abilities that did both damage and taunting for tanks, or healing and damage for healers. Abilities had a single function, and there was little to no cross over.
I don't see how tanks applying aggro with offensive abilities is in any way a different "crossover" than mages reaching shocked status through various means. The depth is different, I agree but both are crossovers.
That's just not the mechanic Noaani was talking about. One is a single ability multi-effect mechanic, another is a multi-ability single effect. Those are quite different, not only from the pov of design, but also from gameplay's standpoint.
What is a single ability multi-effect mechanic and multi-ability single effect?
We were talking about how in older games, tanks don't have abilities that both deal damage and generate hate in one ability. Multi-effect, single-ability.
You bought up two abilities that both deal damage. Multi-ability, single-effect.
What is a single ability multi-effect mechanic and multi-ability single effect?
I believe Noanni also pointed out that because Mage's abilities are all about damage there is no crossover. What is the reasoning behind this? How is aggroing mobs and grouping them together to increase your party's AoE DPS different from applying status effects that increase your damage?
A single ability that does both dmg and aggro (as a separate mechanic, not just through dmg) - that's a single ability multi-effect thing.
A multi-ability single effect is that synergy between 2 mage abilities. The effect in that particular example is the electrified thing. Noaani was just saying that at their core, the two abilities just do dmg so there's no difference between their core effects.
That's a bit wrong, purely because EE is a passive that influences your basic attacks, but Noaani's point still stands because at base lvl both the ball's and the basic attack's main effect is damage, so effectively they play the same role.
I'd kinda disagree with that because the ball has the secondary effect of applying "electrified", so in a way it's already a "crossover" ability. But this is just good ol' semantics debates with Noaani and those can take up another 10 pages, so I ain't about all that.
You had established as a fact that the different aspects of the healer gameplay in EQ2 had no worthwhile crossovers:
Yes, and by this I meant that there were no abilities that you would use for one thing (such as cleansing) that you would ever consider using for some other function (such as healing).
The reason I said worthwhile was because there were some abilities that would cleanse and also heal about 0.5% of a tanks HP. Not enough to be worthwhile - but technically there.
Random abilities disconnected from one another are easy to design. You then proceeded to claim this is a bad take.
Not something I ever said, I said there is no specific need for abilities with cross over effects (as in a cleanse that heals, or an attack that taunts) to exist in order for a game to be good.
That is what was established as being the topic of discussion and thus the meaning of "crossover" in this context. It's almost as if you didn't even read the first post where I mentioned it, assumed what I meant by cross over (keeping in mind that was the first mention of cross over), made an assumption as to what I was talking about and just ran with it.
Then what did you say?
Since I have no idea what it is I said that gave you this impression, I have no idea what it is I said that made you think this.
What I do know is that I didn't say what you seem to think I said.
To be perfectly clear, your seeming definition of crossover is what is referred to by literally everyone else is "synergy".
This is a term that has been in MMO's for two decades or so referring to abilities that impact each other either directly or indirectly.
Anything that doesn't directly synergizes with each other. Healing and cleansing are related, because they're positive effects on the target, but they're separate mechanics because one increases hp and another removes negative effects.
At their core what do tanking and healing do? Why did the group, the one in the video you linked, take healers and tanks with them to farm mobs?
Two healers because one wouldn't have been enough for the content they were doing.
Tank was there to tank the initial pull of mobs and to provide the tanking buff that let the mages survive the later aggro.
W/o those 2 healers and the tank (and the buffers too btw) those mages would not be able to clear that content. If it would've been 9 mages - they wouldn't be able to clear that content. Pretty much any other mage party setup would not be able to clear that content.
If I had a class with an ability to throw a rock for damage, a second ability to throw a rock for damage, and a third ability to throw a rock for damage, is it safe to assume that this class has synergy because damage and damage and damage are related directly synergizes with themselves?
Those are all the same mechanic. There's rarely any good synergies within the same mechanic. The AoC's mage synergies of "do elemental dmg, then do dmg to do more elemental dmg, that results in more elemental dmg" is probably the most basic synergy possible and I definitely hope Intrepid show us other synergies that are deeper and more complex.
You example would be synergistic if, just as with mage, the first rock throw gave a debuff off "give them a bruise", the second rock throw "was aimed at bruises, increasing their size" and the third one was smth like "do dmg that will knock out the target if they have a bruise over some size". And, again, this would be the most basic synergy and this would still be a single mechanic multi-ability interaction.
Imo good synergies come from several mechanically different abilities. Stuff like "root yourself and your target" from a tank + "heal in aoe around your char. if there's a rooted target within the aoe - cleanse any root-type effect from your allies within the aoe" from a healer + "when your debuffs get cleansed, your crit dmg gets increased by 30% for 5 secs" from a bard.
That interaction has a synergy of a risk/reward debuff, a multi-effect risky heal and an effect-dependent buff - all from 3 separate players with different archetypes. To me, that's a fairly nice lvl of synergistic design. I'm sure others might prefer it simpler and some others yet would prefer an even more intricate design.
No one is asking for a cleanse that heals. Most people are asking for taunts rather than in-baked threat generation on the tank. Sometimes I'm not sure if you are educating the dude or proving your superiority.
No one is asking for a cleanse that heals. Most people are asking for taunts rather than in-baked threat generation on the tank. Sometimes I'm not sure if you are educating the dude or proving your superiority.
I was simply giving an example of what I'd consider a good synergy design. I'm gonna be playing a tank and I sure as hell want good taunt and all kinds of other great tank mechanics. Also, I ain't superior to anyone here. I've got literally a singular mmo experience, and even that was on private servers so I couldn't boast about my AMAZING accomplishments or shit like that. My opinions/suggestions are as shitty as everyone else's
Yeah man, I wasn't aimed at you really. I should add quotes to my posts but there was so many to quote I just summarised. In my mind the requests are rather clear but have been fogged by a lot of too and fro. Nothing wrong with the too and fro but I still think synergies when done well are the best way to go.
Is there synergy between a button whose function is to heal, another to dispel, and a third one to shield? And in what way their synergy differs from the one between three separate buttons for damage that are completely independent of one another?
I mean, this literally isn't what we are even talking about.
Once again, for the third damn time, YOU are the one that first talked about not believing that older MMO's didnt have abilities on tanks that were both attacks and taunts, or that were both heals a d damage. That is what we are talking about here, BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU WERE SAYING YOU DIDNT BELIEVE.
We aren't and never were talking about synergy. That is a different discussion, and one j am not willing to get in to until this discussion about cross over is finished.
This discussion finishes by you admitting you were mistaken when you started talking about synergy in place of cross over (a required first step), and either accept that this is how MMO's used to do it, or ask any questions that this realization may lead you to.
Once accepted on your part, we can then consider this point closed, and potentially move on to something else - potentially synergy.
To paraphrase, for NiKr good synergy exists between separate mechanics that don't directly synergy with each other. How does that make sense?
Synergy is just several things working towards one thing together. In my example, all those things synergize with other things, while having their own effects as their core. The healers heal has synergy with negative root effects. This synergizes with the tank's ability that puts roots on both him and his target. And bard's buff synergizes with healer's cleanse. This could be taken full circle if the tank has buff-related triggers, that would activate after the bard's buff reaction.
Also, could you point to the comment that said this?
it was stated that there are rarely any good synergies within the same mechanic which implies that a good synergy can mostly be created from separate mechanics
This was just my opinion. Others just didn't say theirs or whether they agreed with mine.
I am asking you about the terms you used to explain what you refer to "multi-effect mechanic" and "multi-ability single effect". Trying to go back to what multi-effect abilities are is driving the conversation in circles.
Ah. Good synergy is just a qualitative description based on an opinion. Example of a direct synergy would smth like "a buff that boosts healing" and the healing ability itself. The end result of the synergy is just "a heal".
Indirect synergy would be smth like a passive that increases your dmg when you're at lower hp and a an hp buff that doesn't regen hp. The point of the buff is to influence hp, while the point of the passive is to increase damage. But one influences the other.
@Noaani@Azherae does this make sense in this context or am I bullshitting my own understanding of this concept? I might be just bad at explaining this.
Yeah, that's my bad. That was a bit too specific, cause I was pushed towards that thinking due to the context of the discussion. Mechanics, at their core, are just the basic shit. Aggroing, healing, cleansing, dmg dealing (with its own sub-mechanics), buffs and debuffs (with also some sub-mechanics).
A multi-effect ability would be smth that has more than one of those things in one button.
A multi-ability effect would be the bard buff I described. The bard's ability will buff you, but it requires a cleanse effect from another source. In other words, one effect that comes from several different abilities.
Yes, it is. However, you used your ambiguous opinion as an argument that the fault of miscommunication lies within me. Once I can understand how did you form your opinion, I will also know if I made mistakes in my assumptions and where.
I said that miscommunication was your fault because of the "crossover" semantics. Noaani was talking about abilities that had several different effects in them. Your first response to him HEAVILY implied that you were talking about "several abilities that interact with each other", as evidenced by your next response giving the mage synergy as an example of a "crossover".
In other words, you two were talking about different things, hence the communication.
Direct Synergy: Designed to consistently work together, usually through directly amplifying an underlying numerical representation or creating a new effect that does not exist otherwise.
"Good" Synergy as I define it (heavily biased by card game development): Not designed to consistently work together, but may do so under some limited condition that may or may not be achievable, i.e. 'both abilities could work entirely correctly and yet no third benefit be created'.
Subjective terms probably.
Anyways to recap for my people, here's where we are:
1. Attempting to draw a parallel using Tanking, to how Healing is designed, by Niem, referencing the fact that Tanks do damage as part of their role.
2. Clarification by multiple that in old MMOs, Tanks do not explicitly or necessarily do damage at all (Earth Staff Tanking example used)
3. Disbelief/misunderstanding of how relatively old the 'old MMOs' Steven bases stuff on, actually are (reference to ARR from 2013 not FFXI from 2002/4(EN) as example)
4. Clarification from NiKr about how those MMOs did not mix roles and therefore the gameplay might not appeal to Niem in the first place ('Tanks can just meatshield')
5. Disbelief(?) that there were few abilities that both did damage and got aggro (some dive on one or two L2 abilities, no specific response to the Earth Staff Paladin)
6. Clarification that there were few such abilities in the really old MMOs.
7. Quickpath leading to Niem saying: "And because there is no crossover it is not really well designed. Anybody can slap random buttons on a class and call it design." - which leads into a core disagreement with Noaani for a bit I think.
8. Semantics ensue, which is where we are now. Niem believes that internal flows are design and other stuff isn't. Within model.
What is the difference between good and direct synergy?
I'm going to give you some examples from some real games.
In Archeage, the Sorcery spell Arc Lightning leaves the target electrocuted. The Sorcery spell Firebolt deals an additional 12% damage when it hits targets that are electrocuted.
That is direct synergy. Its also kind of lame.
In EQ2, the Wizard class has the biggest single target damage ability in the game. They also have a debuff to that damage type, they have an ability that makes their next ability a guaranteed crit, an ability that increases the base damage of their next ability by 20%, and bards in that game also have an ability to reduce the cast time and cooldown of abilities on a person I their group for a short duration.
In combination, the above abilities form an indirect synergy. It is far more enjoyable than the direct synergy from Archeage.
Comments
I also thought that "crossover" meant "multi-effect", because for quite a while there we were discussing abilities that did several effects at the same time. So to me this seems more of a Niem's fault for jumping over this shift w/o acknowledging it in text.
Though, I would prefer a system where the mage gets temporary buffs to cast times, damage and utility skills based on skill applications and synergies between active skills than these status effects.
Once again, it was absolutely normal in early to mid 2000's MMO's for tanks to have abilities that taunted, and abilities that dealt damage, with no real cross over between the two.
Now, you can go off and argue that this isn't what you were talking about when you talked about cross over, the problem is that I was the first to use that term in this topic, SPECIFICALLY in response to the above comment. The first mention of cross over in this thread was in relation to how tanks and healers in early MMO's didn't have abilities that did both damage and taunting for tanks, or healing and damage for healers. Abilities had a single function, and there was little to no cross over.
You bought up two abilities that both deal damage. Multi-ability, single-effect. I said no such thing.
A multi-ability single effect is that synergy between 2 mage abilities. The effect in that particular example is the electrified thing. Noaani was just saying that at their core, the two abilities just do dmg so there's no difference between their core effects.
That's a bit wrong, purely because EE is a passive that influences your basic attacks, but Noaani's point still stands because at base lvl both the ball's and the basic attack's main effect is damage, so effectively they play the same role.
I'd kinda disagree with that because the ball has the secondary effect of applying "electrified", so in a way it's already a "crossover" ability. But this is just good ol' semantics debates with Noaani and those can take up another 10 pages, so I ain't about all that.
The reason I said worthwhile was because there were some abilities that would cleanse and also heal about 0.5% of a tanks HP. Not enough to be worthwhile - but technically there. Not something I ever said, I said there is no specific need for abilities with cross over effects (as in a cleanse that heals, or an attack that taunts) to exist in order for a game to be good.
That is what was established as being the topic of discussion and thus the meaning of "crossover" in this context. It's almost as if you didn't even read the first post where I mentioned it, assumed what I meant by cross over (keeping in mind that was the first mention of cross over), made an assumption as to what I was talking about and just ran with it. Since I have no idea what it is I said that gave you this impression, I have no idea what it is I said that made you think this.
What I do know is that I didn't say what you seem to think I said.
To be perfectly clear, your seeming definition of crossover is what is referred to by literally everyone else is "synergy".
This is a term that has been in MMO's for two decades or so referring to abilities that impact each other either directly or indirectly.
Two healers because one wouldn't have been enough for the content they were doing.
Tank was there to tank the initial pull of mobs and to provide the tanking buff that let the mages survive the later aggro.
W/o those 2 healers and the tank (and the buffers too btw) those mages would not be able to clear that content. If it would've been 9 mages - they wouldn't be able to clear that content. Pretty much any other mage party setup would not be able to clear that content.
You example would be synergistic if, just as with mage, the first rock throw gave a debuff off "give them a bruise", the second rock throw "was aimed at bruises, increasing their size" and the third one was smth like "do dmg that will knock out the target if they have a bruise over some size". And, again, this would be the most basic synergy and this would still be a single mechanic multi-ability interaction.
Imo good synergies come from several mechanically different abilities. Stuff like "root yourself and your target" from a tank + "heal in aoe around your char. if there's a rooted target within the aoe - cleanse any root-type effect from your allies within the aoe" from a healer + "when your debuffs get cleansed, your crit dmg gets increased by 30% for 5 secs" from a bard.
That interaction has a synergy of a risk/reward debuff, a multi-effect risky heal and an effect-dependent buff - all from 3 separate players with different archetypes. To me, that's a fairly nice lvl of synergistic design. I'm sure others might prefer it simpler and some others yet would prefer an even more intricate design.
Once again, for the third damn time, YOU are the one that first talked about not believing that older MMO's didnt have abilities on tanks that were both attacks and taunts, or that were both heals a d damage. That is what we are talking about here, BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU WERE SAYING YOU DIDNT BELIEVE.
We aren't and never were talking about synergy. That is a different discussion, and one j am not willing to get in to until this discussion about cross over is finished.
This discussion finishes by you admitting you were mistaken when you started talking about synergy in place of cross over (a required first step), and either accept that this is how MMO's used to do it, or ask any questions that this realization may lead you to.
Once accepted on your part, we can then consider this point closed, and potentially move on to something else - potentially synergy.
Also, could you point to the comment that said this? Cause I'm not quite sure what you mean here.
This was just my opinion. Others just didn't say theirs or whether they agreed with mine.
I'm not sure what you mean by this either. Are you talking about multi-effect abilities?
Indirect synergy would be smth like a passive that increases your dmg when you're at lower hp and a an hp buff that doesn't regen hp. The point of the buff is to influence hp, while the point of the passive is to increase damage. But one influences the other.
@Noaani @Azherae does this make sense in this context or am I bullshitting my own understanding of this concept? I might be just bad at explaining this.
Yeah, that's my bad. That was a bit too specific, cause I was pushed towards that thinking due to the context of the discussion. Mechanics, at their core, are just the basic shit. Aggroing, healing, cleansing, dmg dealing (with its own sub-mechanics), buffs and debuffs (with also some sub-mechanics).
A multi-effect ability would be smth that has more than one of those things in one button.
A multi-ability effect would be the bard buff I described. The bard's ability will buff you, but it requires a cleanse effect from another source. In other words, one effect that comes from several different abilities.
I said that miscommunication was your fault because of the "crossover" semantics. Noaani was talking about abilities that had several different effects in them. Your first response to him HEAVILY implied that you were talking about "several abilities that interact with each other", as evidenced by your next response giving the mage synergy as an example of a "crossover".
In other words, you two were talking about different things, hence the communication.
Direct Synergy: Designed to consistently work together, usually through directly amplifying an underlying numerical representation or creating a new effect that does not exist otherwise.
"Good" Synergy as I define it (heavily biased by card game development): Not designed to consistently work together, but may do so under some limited condition that may or may not be achievable, i.e. 'both abilities could work entirely correctly and yet no third benefit be created'.
Subjective terms probably.
Anyways to recap for my people, here's where we are:
1. Attempting to draw a parallel using Tanking, to how Healing is designed, by Niem, referencing the fact that Tanks do damage as part of their role.
2. Clarification by multiple that in old MMOs, Tanks do not explicitly or necessarily do damage at all (Earth Staff Tanking example used)
3. Disbelief/misunderstanding of how relatively old the 'old MMOs' Steven bases stuff on, actually are (reference to ARR from 2013 not FFXI from 2002/4(EN) as example)
4. Clarification from NiKr about how those MMOs did not mix roles and therefore the gameplay might not appeal to Niem in the first place ('Tanks can just meatshield')
5. Disbelief(?) that there were few abilities that both did damage and got aggro (some dive on one or two L2 abilities, no specific response to the Earth Staff Paladin)
6. Clarification that there were few such abilities in the really old MMOs.
7. Quickpath leading to Niem saying: "And because there is no crossover it is not really well designed. Anybody can slap random buttons on a class and call it design." - which leads into a core disagreement with Noaani for a bit I think.
8. Semantics ensue, which is where we are now. Niem believes that internal flows are design and other stuff isn't. Within model.
Cleanses are often singular in function with a moderate cooldown.
Heals are often variable with crit chances and variable cooldowns.
Damage are often variable with crit chances and variable cooldowns.
Taunts are often modular with moderate cooldowns. Some taunts boost defence too hence the crossover missive.
The reason these skills appear shit right now is because the augments will change, modulate and create crossover effects.
There must be a synergised system between classes, synergised systems on each class and synergies between damage and heals and vice versa.
I'm going to give you some examples from some real games.
In Archeage, the Sorcery spell Arc Lightning leaves the target electrocuted. The Sorcery spell Firebolt deals an additional 12% damage when it hits targets that are electrocuted.
That is direct synergy. Its also kind of lame.
In EQ2, the Wizard class has the biggest single target damage ability in the game. They also have a debuff to that damage type, they have an ability that makes their next ability a guaranteed crit, an ability that increases the base damage of their next ability by 20%, and bards in that game also have an ability to reduce the cast time and cooldown of abilities on a person I their group for a short duration.
In combination, the above abilities form an indirect synergy. It is far more enjoyable than the direct synergy from Archeage.