Well been a while since ive posted anything here but im always trying to come up with new ideas to get us thinking.
I've been playing a lot of diffrent games to tide me over untill pantheon comes out and it makes me think about how systems work and how intresting things can be/not be depending on how small systems in a game are used. One system that i love to death which hardly ever gets used anymore is resistances on mobs and how diffrent damage types affect them so think how happy i was when i found out a core idea of this game is that monsters will have body types.
Again however this got me thinking about how to use this system correctly to make combat not only intresting but balanced as well. What i mean by this is i expect a gaint fire elemental to be immune to fire damage but won't this make heavy fire casters classes totally useless (yes which is why im some games like ffxiv they cant do it at all) but this is easily solved right?
i mean just make it so every spell caster has more then one damage type and there should be no problems, well this got me thinking even more as i was playing a great deal of DnD 5e over the last year i was reminded of some creatures (like dragons) who could shrug off all magic effects and thus be totally immune to everything a caster can pump out. Now this is no good in an mmo as making a monster magic immune would make half the classes totaly useless correct?
Well prehaps not, also in DnD and a few other games ( one of the older etrians and even games like pillars of eternity) have somthing i always found intresting. Physical spells, yes spells that dont do magic damage at all for example a wind spell doing slashing damage ( or prehaps a summoner spell that summons blades doing slashing rather then magic like in eq1)
Using a system like this could in turn make for a whole lot of creativty for combat design, i mean you could also introduce multi element/damage type spells like a spear of ice doing both piercing and cold damgage.
This was just some of my musings while randomly playing other games and i would love to know what you guys think about it, is it too complicated to work in an mmo setting?
What would you guys do to make combat intresting in the games mechanics.
If an idea like this was posted before sorry, link the post for me and i will move it to that and get this one locked.
Thanks guys.
Akailo said:Well prehaps not, also in DnD and a few other games ( one of the older etrians and even games like pillars of eternity) have somthing i always found intresting. Physical spells, yes spells that dont do magic damage at all for example a wind spell doing slashing damage ( or prehaps a summoner spell that summons blades doing slashing rather then magic like in eq1)
Using a system like this could in turn make for a whole lot of creativty for combat design, i mean you could also introduce multi element/damage type spells like a spear of ice doing both piercing and cold damgage.
It's possible this could be something they have planned for either the colored mana system or perhaps more likely for the living codex. It's possible that by changing something in the codex for a spell that maybe a wizard could change something like Pyroblast into Cryoblast, or otherwise alter the damage type.
As for making combat interesting with game mechanics?
High on my list is making tanking very active and difficult compared to modern standards. I am tired of AoE taunts making adds a non-threat and I am tired of tanks getting aggro at the start and being good no matter what until the mob dies using a threat rotation. I want to see mobs reassess constantly throughout a fight and reacting more. Maybe having crits be mini taunts from DPS players or some mobs swapping to the healer every 3rd or 4th heal cast so that the tanks have to actively be working to keep the attention on them with limited threat priority abilities. Taunt is down so use intercept to charge and root the mob bringing it's attention back to you, he snaps again shortly after and you use cover on an ally to soak 70% of incoming damage for an ally until taunt is back up or hit them with a disarm or a stun. In any case I want to be afraid of mobs and have fights with more unpredictable potential, especially with caster mobs like in the last stream that can be focused on the tank but still take time to target the wizard or healer in the group with powerful spells at random.
Overpowered tanks (meaning ability to hold aggro not meaning ability to do damage) trivializes the role of both DPS and healer. The DPS can attack almost immediately at full blast and continue unabated with a standard rotation that he or she need not change constantly to adjust to the flow of battle unless adds require a change in target. Healers can focus more and more on the tank without needing to be nearly as alert as in the old days to the boss deciding "OK this bugger is insulting my mother but the damn wizard is KILLING me let my mother defend her own honor for a while". Off-tanks just snooze until scripted adds appear.
Implicit in all this is the use of scripted encounters to pose a challenge. One-shot death mechanisms, go from pixel to pixel in a preordained rotation mechanism.
I truly hate those mechanisms - the smarter the bosses (and adds) the more a game can focus on combat in boss fights and the less it needs to focus on scripts. Which is why I so heartily agree with the above comments.
Having many types of status effects and not having quick mana regen would do this.
You would have constant planning about the upcoming encounter, what spells you need, when to cast, timing, etc. The limited mana pool would require smart casting and not let people carelessly blow through their mana, which requires more thought and strategy.
Similarly, I have been playing FFXI on a private server, just getting to content that I had not done in the past. This game make full use of slashing, piercing, blunt damage types as well as elemental resistances changing from mob type all the way down to specific monters (NM's) having their own as well.
I was speaking to a friend and he was exclaiming how he disliked the combat in WoW & FF14. Twas his first time playing it a few months ago and said the "spam gameplay" of hitting spell after spell constantly just completing a rotation was just not for him. The differences between FF11 nd WoW/FF14 are huge (combat wise) yet (from what I know) the differences between EQ and WoW combat would not be as much. I believe you still hit a spell, use it, and fulfill a rotation of sorts.
On top of a system like resistances and type of damage, what else could be done with a typical fast gameplay format to make the "GROUP" content actually depend on the group. FFXI has skill chains and magic bursts as well as mages that can change the weather allowing other mages to do increased damage etc.
I had the idea that CC could be two fold. Lets say 1 class can snare an opponent for 12 seconds with an ability. What if 2 other classes could use slows = to 100%, therefore being a snare. Because it relies on two classes coming together, the snare would last 18 seconds. Or if one class has an intimidate and the other has ability that makes a mob flee, creating a fear type of ability. In a game with faster gameplay and fast casts, it would be interesting to see more synergy between the classes. That is what keeps me wanting to party and try different formats.
- Idioteq
The cleric in me likes to revive people but since I can't play yet, I'm forced to revive posts.
Here's my ideal combat mechanic senario.
Rogue 1 does dps to what "feels" powerful and averages a dps of 110
Rogue 2 does a min/max and crunches the numbers to pull off a dps of 160
which rogue does the best dps in the group? Unkown.
This is because the tank can only hold aggro up to 90dps so if either rogue does more than 90 dps (which they're both capable of) then they will pull aggro and die..or burn through the healers mana and cause a lot more downtime. As such, both rogues need to attempt to get as close to 90dps without going over. If they need to replace their tank then the next tank may be able to hold 80dps or maybe 100. It's an always changing target so it's unpredictable.
In todays MMOs, a tiny percentage of players are patient and skilled at number crunching. They figure out the best skill/spells and the perfect rotation. They then post it online and let the massive majority copy their work. In the end, you have 2% skilled players and 98% unskilled drones. In my senario, it forces all players to be more skilled and the number crunchers can still utilize their skill because raids will still have times where all dps need to burn as much as possible. But for average leveling, the challenge should be on the players abilty to find and walk that aggro line not to see how well they can google.
