Will AoE be meta in massive PvP events?

In Black Desert Online you basically have Wizards throwing out as much AoE as possible in choke points and what happens is that a meta forms and certain classes are so much more desired than others. I'm sure this is destined to happen but what are they going to do to try and prevent this or mitigate this?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Noaani

Seems the easy thing to do would be to give all classes AoE abilities.

Okeydoke

I don't think we really know yet. But my opinion is you either make aoe weak to where it's pretty much a non factor. Or you make it very powerful and the problem solves itself. If it's so powerful then people will fear it. If people fear it, you'll see people spread out to avoid it. If people spread out, there aren't very often clumped groups to aoe. And thus it's no longer a meta, more a tactical decision to employ when the opportunity presents itself.

Anything between those two extremes of either very weak or very powerful, and you'll likely see it become the meta. The aoe murderball/ball group meta that has plagued other mmo's and given a bad name to how good mmo pvp can be.

bloodprophet

Probably not with player collision forcing people to spread out instead of stacking.

Anonymous332

If the TTK extends 30+ sec on average it will be an AoE shitfest (depends on the AoE spell designs though, CD's and all). Around 20 sec TTK would be perfect imo, thats already really long even for people scared of PvP have a decent window to escape in that timeframe

Okeydoke

Yeah that's true too Izil. TTK is going to play a big part in this and so many other things about the game. The minute to a minute and a half TTK I've seen quoted seems way too long to me. Especially for action combat. Can you imagine having to aim and land shots on one guy for a minute and a half just to kill him?

As far as player collision, that helps reduce the effectiveness of aoe. But it's not a cure all. ESO had soft player collision, which I think is what's been described for AoC. And ESO was murderball aoe meta central.

Percimes

Okeydoke wrote: »

As far as player collision, that helps reduce the effectiveness of aoe. But it's not a cure all. ESO had soft player collision, which I think is what's been described for AoC. And ESO was murderball aoe meta central.

Depending of the size of the AoE it might not be that fearsome. Although there isn't a hard-coded limit to the number of targets for AoE, player collision imposed a certain practical limit on how many people can pack in one spot.

Okeydoke

Yeah it did, without question. Just not enough though. Aoe murderball was still the meta.

Viktor von Doom

They'll probably figure it out, WoW had the same problem which they took on with this approach

Okeydoke

All that "fix" does is make the problem worse, at least in the context that we're talking about it in. If you put AOE caps in place, that HELPS the murderball. Because now not all of their 16-24 members are getting hit by AOE's when people jump into their ball to AOE them. It facilitates them actually staying balled up. It solidifies and codifies the ballgroup meta.

Viktor von Doom

Well if the context is 'chokepoints' then it's also a leveldesign issue, we can talk 5 pages about ways to balance out AoE or just look it from another angle which is leveldesign, there should not be chokepoints and always at least a second path

Okeydoke

Yep. Level/map design is a big part in how this all pans out. I just wasn't trying to go down the rabbit hole of all these different factors. Turns into quite the conversation. But you're absolutely right. You can counter the problems of AOE by just designing the map in the right way.

But just to solidify my point. If I'm chillin solo in the world and a group of 10 people catches me off guard and just rolls up on me and AOE's me down, every single one of their AOE's from each individual character is going to do max damage to me in an AOE cap system. But if I AOE back some before I die, little ol solo me, I'm AOEing a clump of players, the exact thing AOE is designed for, but I'm penalized in an AOE cap system. Depending on the caps, I only hit 5 or 6 out of 10. Or maybe I hit them all but only at 50% of the damage.

Completely ass backwards. If anything it should be the other way around. I know, why would 10 players AOE a solo instead of just single target. That's not the point. The example is to illustrate the bad design of AOE caps.

George_Black

The concept of AoE is to hit many at the same time and break the enemies or hold strategic points.
It is also the worst thing for all multiplayer games. People defend AoE saying it's a tool that requires timing and teamwork.
I say take a look at Mobas and mmorpgs.

AoE takes 0 skill, 0 aiming, 0 awereness. Thanks to AoE all PvE except for boss mechanics is considered "trash", ez, non challenging. PvP has turned to either ranged pew pew or aoe zerging.

One big hope of mine is that one day an mmo will restrict AoE, making battles more about taking on an enemy, killing them and move to the next target or help a friend fighting next to you.

What we have now is people stacking on the group leader spamming AoE heals, aoe CC and AoE damage not even looking at anything in the screen, other that beneficial green coloured aoe circles and harmful red aoe circles. With player collision or without. It doesnt nake the world of a difference when you have 30 corpses in an instant.

What happened to seeing an enemies ability, a sword swing or a fireball and you choosing to put your shield up, roll out of the way, rush in to interrupt or simply taking the hit, knowing that you could deal more in that moment, or activate a passive ability.
Nope. Just AoE spams. No strategy, no effort. Just coms "ok AoE dump in three, two, one GO GO GO spam it, spam now. Ok stay in green" everybody can do that and it's still ugly gameplay.

The last good pvp mmo I played was Tera online before the lolly class with the scythe.
Most attacks could hurt anybody in the playets crosshairs, meaning most abilities were AoE, yet never onced did I felt that the combat was AoE spams and zerg stacking.

Tera Online had the best mmo action combat ever, with individual ability cooldowns, usefull normal attacks, feeling of impact when you connected with the enemy, be it using ranged or melee skills and a sense that AoE was not there.

George_Black

The only games in which I enjoy aoes are the RTS. Not as much as possitioning the different units. Not even close.
And the reason thatbI enjoy the aoe there is because there are restrictions to protect the gameplay and give meaning to choices.

Okeydoke

Couldn't agree more George. I'd like to see it be made either non existent, or just so weak its a non factor. Anything but an aoe meta. And everything you just described, like word for word, couldn't have said it better myself.

Jxshuwu

@George Black

AoE Can definitely be made to take skill and teamwork.
Just make it so that powerful AoE spells take a long time to cast with a visual indicator of when it'll impact, giving players plenty of time to run out of its area. BUT at the same time, if it's chained with a stun from a teammate, it would cause big damage and would def be a practice of skill, teamwork and communication.

Nice example of this, is the brimstone staff in Albion where it takes a good 4/5 seconds WITH a visual indicator that shows when its ability (a big fat meteorite) will impact. You wouldnt be able to cast a stun yourself during this time, but during large scale pvp, you could communicate with your team when to use a big stun and the aoe ability.

The only thing is, is that it'll be more powerful against mobs than it will against players since mobs dont run away from aoe. Good way to counter aoe is also by adding movement abilities, which we know already exist such as blink. A good mage will know not to use an AoE attack before they used their blink/dash abilities.

In short: Put a limit on how many aoe abilities are in the game, with large cooldowns, long cast times and proper visual indicators. This way, it isn't spammable, can be dodged or even walked out of fairly easily if not used with a stun or root. Could also just make AoE's do DOT damage instead of big claps. Or limit it to cones and beams that hit multiple enemies.

George_Black

In L2. human elven. dark elven mages; each had a strong AoE ability. Fire for human, blizzard for elf, storm for D. elf. In order to activate that devastating AoE, two mages had to channel energy to a third and then the third would cast the large aoe. The other aoe abilities these 3 classes had wasn't worth slotting for pvp at all.

What do most games do? They give this powerful aoe ability to, let's say, these mages, with no real restrictions, and we have the classic, "rdy? 3 2 1 nuke". How is that fun?

Jxshuwu

George Black wrote: »

In L2. human elven. dark elven mages; each had a strong AoE ability. Fire for human, blizzard for elf, storm for D. elf. In order to activate that devastating AoE, two mages had to channel energy to a third and then the third would cast the large aoe. The other aoe abilities these 3 classes had wasn't worth slotting for pvp at all.

What do most games do? They give this powerful aoe ability to, let's say, these mages and we have the classic, "rdy? 3 2 1 nuke". How is that fun?

Dont understand why we are talking about ''most games''? Only single target spells would be boring to me if anything. Just because you had bad experiences with AoE doesn't mean it can't be implemented to be healthy to the game. A few tweaks and changes like the ones i mentioned, already makes the game not just AoE spam heaven, long cooldowns makes it so that people have to use the AoE's decisively. 3 2 1 nuke won't always be viable, and even if it is, it wont always be succesful.

JamesSunderland

Unless its damage is pretty low compared to non-aoe skills, limitation of maximum number of enemies hit or diminishing damage based on the more enemies hit. AoE will always be the meta in mass PvP.

AoEs usually are not nerfed because they are an essential tool in punishing unorganized zergs and rewarding smaller organized groups.
There are alot of methods of balancing AoEs in a way so a single class such as Meteor Fiesta Mages doesnt become the ultra meta of mass pvps, such as balancing based on risk vs reward through the measurement of Cast time, Area Size and Range to determine power.
Fast Cast time, Bigger area size and long range = Smaller damage
Slow Cast time, smaller area size and short range = Bigger damage

Okeydoke

There are a lot of ways to slice this tomato and get a good system. I agree with James that AOE has a purpose in giving smaller groups of players a chance to take on larger, unorganized groups of players.

But here's the key. That smaller group of players, maybe 8, 16, or 24 people...they should be JUST as susceptible to an even more coordinated group of 1, 2, or 3 players doing the SAME thing to them, AOE bombing. The 8-24 man group is voluntarily balling up in order to AOE bomb a larger, yet spread out unorganized group. The 8-24 man ball should be just as much at risk of AOE. There should be no built in protection mechanics. They voluntarily balled up.

Vhaeyne

If AOE HPS is greater than AOE DPS then AOE DPS will not be the meta for group fights.

Mana efficiency of AOE Heals vs AOE DPS is another factor that can mitigate a AOE meta.

Personally I don't think that AOEs should be spammed in PvP.

Child Item