What should the strategy of combat be...?

I want to open up a little discussion about what makes combat fun in MMOs.

I've played a non-negligible amount of WoW, Tera and Runescape and whole host of others for anywhere from 50-100 hrs, but my main MMO by far is BDO. Now we all know the action vs tab debate is done at this point but i want to bring up combat interactions.

The way i see it, most tab games utilise a system of offensive CCs and defensive CC breaks with afew big cooldown moves that will typically save you from a situation.

Let's take WoW for example. Paladins can charge into a hoard of enemies, cast bubble on themselves and they are completely immune to all CCs while trying to dish out as much damage as possible. In a 1v1 or small scale scenario any of these fights really come down to chipping away at your opponent until he/she is forced to use a large CD and then surviving that counter attack, and then continuing to chip them down.

Specifically in BDO, the combat interactions work a bit different. In large scale fights the combat interactions revolve around movement and afew key spells that one or two classes get to mitigate or ignore the massive amount of incoming ranged damage, enough to get your own skills off and hope that you have enough dmg to essentially one shot as many enemies you can. In smaller scale however its a much more fun (imho) interaction of finding patterns in your opponents playstyle and trying to position yourself to take advantage of their mistakes. Now this can get very dull when you have a class whose entire roll is to be able to counterattack and your opponent's class is all about speed and surprise, as this makes both players not want to engage each other.

So my question to you all is...

What mechanics do you think would make for fun small and large scale PvP and what makes boring PvP?

(edit: spelling)

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Korela

Borring: BDO.
Fun: real classes and roles.

Solvryn

Strategy and Tactics and a high skill ceiling to go with it.

Mag7spy

Movement and being able to dodge abilities is key (not on the same lvl as bdo since it is much to sporadic). Hopefully they look at some elements of bdo and add those action elements into the game that make it feel good.

Since they are adding action skills and such hopefully that adds enough of that element into AoC so we get some more proper skill ceiling rather than them being low and about rotating while tab auto tracks everything.

Kilion

A main component in tactical PvP will be the character collision. You cannot just walk through someone else, therefore there are limits to the effectiveness of AoE as well as formations that meele classes can use to protect less armored allies. Additionally, I hope that artisans like carpenters will be able to produce destroyable obstacles like spiked fences to modify a battleground even during a fight. This surely shouldn't go as far as e.g. in Fortnite or so, but a bit of that would be cool.

Ludullu

To me it's all about detargeting abilities, mana gameplay and cast-interrupting positioning.

The first one provides constant counter play and requires a ton of attention to your entire screen rather than just your ability bar.

Second one provides deeper combat interactions and class counters.

Third one provides constant bobbing and weaving through your surroundings and requires knowledge of cast times and proper reaction speed to those casts (obviously this only works if the environmental design and cast mechanics support this).

Pyrolol

Skillshots

Dondurk

Mag7spy wrote: »

Movement and being able to dodge abilities is key (not on the same lvl as bdo since it is much to sporadic).

I like this, the idea of afew abilities that move you -just enough- to be able to use them offensively and defensively i think is a really neat idea and can go a long way in making your skill as a player feel impactful.

Kilion wrote: »

A main component in tactical PvP will be the character collision. You cannot just walk through someone else, therefore there are limits to the effectiveness of AoE as well as formations that meele classes can use to protect less armored allies.

Yeah certainly think that could be very interesting. Intrepid really just needs to have their finger on the pulse of the game imo. Like in BDO there is character collision but most classes have afew different spammable abilities that remove your collision box or just straight up let you teleport past enemies. But i fucking love the idea of being able to deploy legit formations that sounds awesome.
Also i REALLY like the idea of carpenters being able to being fortifications that is a super cool concept and would even help make the world feel more alive even when there isn't a battle happening since you'd come across these scenes of past battles.

NiKr wrote: »

To me it's all about detargeting abilities, mana gameplay and cast-interrupting positioning.

Interesting idea! Two things i don't like when i'm playing MMOs is 1. trying to figure out who I'm targeting and getting the correct target and 2. when healing you're just looking at a spreadsheet basically of whose on the lowest health.
So i really like the idea of having to be looking around and bit more cognisant of what's happening in the game rather than in your static UI elements.
Fully agree with the mana element, if spellcasting is really strong should only be able to do so much and have to introduce some efficiency into the equation. I have to admit i don't like cast interruptions if they're instant. Like i saw a clip on WoW where someone was casting and the guy basically just saw that out the corner of his eye and just tab > interrupt and instantly was able to cancel that cast. So personally im not a huge fan of that type of interrupt but maybe im not really understanding what you're trying to say...feel free to elaborate

Dondurk

Korela wrote: »

Borring: BDO.
Fun: real classes and roles.

Pyrolol wrote: »

Skillshots

Solvryn wrote: »

Strategy and Tactics and a high skill ceiling to go with it.

Could you elaborate?

Ludullu

Dondurk wrote: »

but maybe im not really understanding what you're trying to say...feel free to elaborate

I'm used to animation-based casts, so the ability effect is checked at the end of the animation. If the mage starts casting an attack and I then go behind a tree/corner/cover - the cast will fail. It won't be cancelled outright, it will simply fail to have the effect.

This is why I mentioned that this kind of mechanic highly depends on environmental design and cast mechanics, cause if there's not enough cover around - you can't get behind stuff. And if ability effects are check at the start of the animation - you literally cannot react to those abilities, so you can't ever dodge them in any meaningful way.

Aszkalon

Dondurk wrote: »

What should the strategy of combat be...?

Hit your Opponents really really hard.

If that doesn't work -> hit them really really hard together with someone else.

If that doesn't work -> bring a lot of Friends and hit them really really hard with all of your friends.

And if THAT doesn't work -> bring more Friends and repeat the first Steps. 😁 . 🤣

oOKingOo

I think what makes combat interesting is, first of all, having many different classes and ways to skill these classes so you don't just see the whole lobby full of one class like in ESO, for example. There should be multiple viable builds instead of one that's clearly better. For example, it should be possible to make a somewhat viable damage-dealing cleric if you combine the right gear, skills, and augments.

I like mechanics like counters, for example, where you activate an ability and when someone attacks you, they get crowd-controlled (CC'd) or take damage, etc. Spellshields with short durations are nice too for a skill-based way to give some magic classes a little bit of survival. Long spellshields are not fun, in my opinion. I would be okay with a legendary chestplate that constantly heals you every 5 seconds and gives you a shield on overheal.

The main thing is going to be to allow people from the same class to play completely different builds and both be successful if they have found their niche and built for it correctly. I don't like systems where it's like in WoW and you can only wear certain gear or weapons.

Pyrolol

Skillshots are spells & abilities that requires proper aim and timing to hit an enemy, love that they are in this game compared to everything automatically hitting enemies

Solvryn

Dondurk wrote: »

Korela wrote: »

Borring: BDO.
Fun: real classes and roles.

Pyrolol wrote: »

Skillshots

Solvryn wrote: »

Strategy and Tactics and a high skill ceiling to go with it.

Could you elaborate?

A game with high amounts of RNG lowers the skill ceiling and that usually means passive defensives like evade, dodge, block, etc. Instead, making those abilities active which makes the game more deterministic and more tactical. Removing skills off of rolls and instead based off of the players ability. On top of things like greater movement abilities and freedom, positioning etc.

When you require those things, it requires a greater strategy to move that many people across a field.

Vaknar

Dondurk wrote: »

What mechanics do you think would make for fun small and large scale PvP and what makes boring PvP?

Great prompt for discussion, OP! There are already some great perspectives and answers being shared in this thread!

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