AoE dmg. PvP and PvE implications

Do you find that AoE spam on demand makes PvP feel less skilled and just a clash of zergballs?

Do you find that PvE leveling up becomes faster when a tank pulls a whole area of mobs for the DPS to spam AoE?

Should there be a limitation of AoE dmg in the form of a cooldown of 10s and mediocre dmg.
Or class restriction in which some classes can make slightly better AoE usage, but struggle with other features?

Personally I dislike blank point AoE combat.
I always invision a more movie like battlefield in which warriors fight each other and then move on to the next target. In mmorpgs latelly all I see is people spamming AoE buttons and just roll up and down.

What do you think about AoE gameplay for PvP and for PvE?

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Comments

ArgentDawn

A big problem i have with a lot of games has to do with AOE. At some point i can understand some AOE, but when you can just face roll the game, pull everything and AOE it down i get annoyed. I prefer smaller fights that require more coordination over large pulls that just wear on resources. Thats just opinion though and i dont have much to say either way.

Shoklen

We will see it, it will happen.... Though it may have change over this amount of time, one of the first skills we saw in action was a Clerics ability to do not only damage in a circle, but also healing at the same time.

(Disclaimer: if I am remembering that correctly, it's been almost two years)

unknownsystemerror

This is another of those opinion threads that takes assumptions from other games and throws them onto here. Until you see actual mmo combat and balance in the first iteration, no one outside of Intrepid has any idea how it will work. APOC does not give an answer, A0 gameplay doesn't either. One thing you do know, is that PVE and PVP mechanics will be the same. The same cooldowns, the same animations, the same stats. The combat in A0 was not balanced. We only got to level 10, and most of the time if you were not around other people you were running for your life after having pulled more than a single mob. But none of those numbers, animations, or skills will make it to A1. They are aware of the problems that zergs and aoe zergs cause in other games. Player and spell collision will help with this issue. (speculation) If two aoe spell blasts of the same type don't overlap or cancel each other out, then that helps with your worries. (speculation over)
@Shoklen The original idea for clerics and others that buff or heal was that they would need to do damage in order to heal or buff. No more sitting in the back and spamming right or left click while some Healbot addon throws your heal where it needs to go. Whether they manage to pull that off in a way that works, again, have to wait and see.

George_Black

I am happy to see now that IS is aware of the AoE problem and that they take steps to make combat more interesting and engaging

Caeryl

I’m in favor of AoEs being primarily utility, except in the case of high cooldown/ultimate abilities where they could reasonably be balanced while having high damage.

AoE with damage equal to a single target ability is unbalanced. AoE with minimal damage but evasion bonuses (a Rogue’s smokescreen), AoE with no damage but a brief cc (a Warrior’s intimidating roar), a moderate damage AoE with a cost to the user (a Mage’s channeled spell). Things like that sound more interesting and more easily balanced than AoE spamming with damage on par with single target.

Damokles

I would be okay with AoEs being rather strong, as long as they need some serious resources or cooldown to be cast.

George_Black

@Caeryl
@Damokles
Interesting

Wololo

I agree with @Damokles .. strong aoes are fine as long theyr high risk/cooldown. Like in gw2 where alot of elite skills are big aoe debuffs with cooldowns of a few minutes at least. And those are not only damage skills but can be AoE stealth or speed up the attacks or recover health etc.
But lets be honest... the moment gameplay is AoE spam fest; something went seriously wrong and combat design failed. Intrepid seems well aware of that in my opinion😅

Narys

Wololo wrote: »

I agree with @Damokles .. strong aoes are fine as long theyr high risk/cooldown. Like in gw2 where alot of elite skills are big aoe debuffs with cooldowns of a few minutes at least. And those are not only damage skills but can be AoE stealth or speed up the attacks or recover health etc.
But lets be honest... the moment gameplay is AoE spam fest; something went seriously wrong and combat design failed. Intrepid seems well aware of that in my opinion😅

I definitely agree with you here @Wololo - AOE has a place but it shouldn't be the only tool you need in your arsenal.

Varkun

Yes I hope not to see the pvp zerg blobs that are present in ESO.

Nagash

As a summoner, AOE is my mortal enemy

Shoklen

This is a bit of a side subject but it still fits..

I like the way Warhammer Online had the mechanic where the longer you were in combat the more a special bar (pool) would rise.. You could then slot special abilities into this bar at 25, 50, 75, and 100%.. You could only use those abilities when the pool raised to that amount.. At which point the pool/bar would drop to zero.

it was a nice solution that gave nice abilities which could not be fired off very often or even at the start of combat. You want that big insane ability at the end of the line? Got to wait for it and not use any of the lesser abilities... Not always an easy choice.

mcstackerson

Shoklen wrote: »

This is a bit of a side subject but it still fits..

I like the way Warhammer Online had the mechanic where the longer you were in combat the more a special bar (pool) would rise.. You could then slot special abilities into this bar at 25, 50, 75, and 100%.. You could only use those abilities when the pool raised to that amount.. At which point the pool/bar would drop to zero.

it was a nice solution that gave nice abilities which could not be fired off very often or even at the start of combat. You want that big insane ability at the end of the line? Got to wait for it and not use any of the lesser abilities... Not always an easy choice.

We had something similar in the past (might still be in). In earlier builds, we had focus, which was a resource that you gained by doing basic attacks (similar to rage) and was used for ultimates. Later on, we also saw some other abilities requiring different amounts of it. Example(if my memory serves): ranger had volley as an ultimate that used all their focus but they also had the ability explosive shot, that used less of it (or at least required less of it to activate). Thinking about it now, I don't think we had a clear indicator of how much focus we had so it's hard to say if abilities consumed all of it or only a set amount.

I agree this kind of system is nice so you can have a variety of impactful abilities that can't be fired off in quick succession at the beginning of combat.

Plateau

Obviously AoE shouldn't do as much damage as single-target stuff, but I don't think it's really a problem to worry about beyond that point. What makes AoE overbearing isn't the abilties themselves, imo; it's the encounter design.

If there's a bajillion trash mobs in every dungeon, then AoE is going to be very important and powerful in that content. If PvP battles involve lots of players focused around singular objectives (especially when choke-points are involved) then again AoE will be overpowered in that situation.

But if more of the content is focused around single-/dual-enemy boss battles, or large battlefields with many objectives to spread out the fighting, then AoE will naturally be less important, and it will only be situationally powerful.

EvoW

In my opinion, the most effective AOE should be super high committment. Otherwise, huge sieges will be riddled with AOE constantly. If you want to take down a multitude of enemies in a siege, it should be proportionately risky to do. For example, if you want to cast a small meteor spell, it should require a large cast time and should be well telegraphed as well. If you want to cast a wide AOE plague effect, I think even multiple casters might not be too under-powered.

Maybe if you possess super high-level artifacts and things of that nature, you could be able to cast these powerful spells, but they should not be common place.

Damokles

EvoW wrote: »

In my opinion, the most effective AOE should be super high committment. Otherwise, huge sieges will be riddled with AOE constantly. If you want to take down a multitude of enemies in a siege, it should be proportionately risky to do. For example, if you want to cast a small meteor spell, it should require a large cast time and should be well telegraphed as well. If you want to cast a wide AOE plague effect, I think even multiple casters might not be too under-powered.

Maybe if you possess super high-level artifacts and things of that nature, you could be able to cast these powerful spells, but they should not be common place.

It would be interesting, if casters could work together to create mega aoes.we know for example, tht summoners can work together to summon siege creatures etc, so why should mages not be able to pool together their mana, for larger blizzards etc

voidshadow

AOE is a pretty big issue but it seems Intrepid are aware of what badly implemented AoE can do so i'll just have to sit and wait

Marzzo

AOE needs to have a cooldown that prevents spam. It should also not deal insane damage that makes it a no brainier during every fight where you fight 2+ targets.

Also, All classes should not have AOE. And finally. Players under an AOE should be able to avoid it somehow.

Damokles

Marzzo wrote: »

AOE needs to have a cooldown that prevents spam. It should also not deal insane damage that makes it a no brainier during every fight where you fight 2+ targets.

Also, All classes should not have AOE. And finally. Players under an AOE should be able to avoid it somehow.

It would be cool if you could channel your aoes.
At the beginning the aoe would be small, but it would grow with the channelduration.
The channel would also exponentally increase the mana cost per second.
The aoe channel could have stages: early stage (5m radius, 50mana per second, 2min cd), medium stage (15m radius, 200mana per second, after 10sec, 3min cd), late stage (30m radius, 500mana per second, after 15sec, 6min cd), catastrophy stage (60m radius, 1k mana per second, after 20sec until no mana, would need multiple mages to channel together, 10min cd)

Azathoth

I don't know about avoiding it, but some classes/augments should be able to shrug some of it off.

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