Fighting General Grievous in SWG before NGE was a good example of a hard fight that required thinking but wasn't a boring play-by-numbers, hop-skip-press button A-type puzzle combat which is not even combat. I'm surprised you think it is...lol...
Combat is combat, if you feel a complex encounter with multiple monsters is not combat, you're going to have to explain that closer, although it is completely absurd.
And although I quit before Grievous was added, I don't see how that is any different; a boss has abilities, it requires you to react accordingly to these abilities, in other words you need to master a response (strategy) to the actions the boss undertakes.
Similarly, in a complex mob encounter, you need to perform certain actions, or master a certain strategy to win.
If you want you can equal almost any action in an mmo, or any other game, to a puzzle, both are games, both are structured activities.
Thats the thing a lot of people seem to be missing. In any PVE situation, it is a matter of puzzle solving. That NPC enemy is running on some AI script with a set pattern, or variations to a set pattern, within the rules of the script and its preset abilities. No AI is advanced enough yet to make it anything other than puzzle solving, its just a matte rof how complex the puzzle is.
PvP helps lessen the puzzle solving, because youve got a live person who can think freely controlling the battle, rathe rthan being scripted, however in an MMO or any game, that player is still limited to X number of possible actions (depending on class, level, skills, etc). So again its still sort of puzzle solving, only the puzzle can come at you in any form from the player, rathe rthan a preset pattern.
The only way to avoid the puzzle solving is to actually go out and fight someone IRL (in a FFA no rules battle, anything goes), where youre not restricted by a program and its limitations/rules (equipment, stats, skills, etc), and the only thing limiting you is your own mind and body, which is vastly different for every person.
I've felt heroic fighting tons of NPCs in City of Heroes quite often. Either jumping into a swarm of minions or battling waves of elite soldiers. I'm hoping TOR can capture the fun of having your army of heroes & villains fighting their way forward over the alien ship against hordes of purples (NPCs a much higher level than you) in the Rikti Crash Site.
The one versus many is heroic, provided it is challenging. If it means you pul the entire instance into a neat pile, then aoe damage them to death, that is not heroic.
I want the game to put my life points to dangerous level and then somehow I manage to walk away from the encounter. If anything gets me t the edge of my seat, it is that.
Big raids dont make me feel heroic because its not heroic to read a strat online and complete an encounter like a moron messing with a paint by numbers book.
Me killing swarms of mobs and getting out of an encounter that im not supposed to win is heroic imo.
There are two instances that come to mind for me where I really felt overwhelmed and defeating multiple enemies was heroic in a sense for me.
The first was in SWG when I accidently pulled 3 NS Elders and others and actually killed them all, this was in the pre-cu days and was a wtf moment, as I did it solo. (M Doc / M Swords)
The other wasn't solo and was in the game that we all hate now, but before BC WoW was the thing to play and i played it and enjoyed it (sometimes). Anyways, I was a MS warrior 31/20 since you only needed one tank specced prot back in those days.
Anyways, it was the Nef fight and tanking all the dudes coming out the tunnels before Nef drops was completly insane. I'm not sure how it was for the Alliance with whatever Pallies could do to help as they always seemed to zoom past BWL with no prob, but on Horde side defeating Nef was a major step in progression. Well there were a few times I had to tank a side by myself and was a complete omg scenario with no real threat abilities to use from Prot (SS). But that felt pretty heroic to me /shrug
I hear people talking about how the current raid/instance system is un-heroic, where five or more players wail on a single target with maybe a few adds to come out and help the poor, possibly bewildered bastard whilst he wonders what he's ever done to deserve such a harsh punishment. In these scenario's, even if there is an impressive back story to it (and the opponent isn't a giant, multi-storey hulk with guns for arms and lava for blood), then it becomes too easy to believe that in fact, it would be more heroic for the boss to win and it makes us feel more like the bad guys, even if we were to supposedly fly the banner of universal love and an American NHS system.
In the past few minutes I've come up with a single suggestion on how to recreate the predictable Boss encounter, and I'll list it here, right now. Like this:
:O - Do you remember in Star Wars KotOR, at the very end, where you would fight Malak to the death and maybe use that particular cheat to turn the bald bastard into a Twi'lek harem girl? If you answered yes, then bear with me for a few minutes. Setting the scene, you emerge into a massive throne room onboard an Imperial cruiser, bursting through a corridor lined with NPC trooper corpses strewn across the floor and blaster burns disfiguring the wall, causing electrical discharges as far as the corridor will allow you to see. In front of you, a rather large and imposing chair much like Emperor Palpatine's own made of a menacingly dark metal, and behind that, a 'sky light' which replaces the hull onto space which shows the carnage of a Republic/Imperial fleet sent to distract the vessels staff, and to allow your strike team to infiltrate the ship. On the right, and the left are raised up areas made of rock imported from the Sith world of Korriban with ramps leading down to the corridor and the 'swivel chair' at either end of the room. Up on these ledges, three per to be exact, are medical tanks with an individual Jedi in each suspended in a blue liquid, lifeless and unconscious, pawns to be used by their captor at a whim. You're compatriots have gathered a few crates from down the corridor as they anticipate reinforcements to come after the 'insurgents', and of course, they are right. Before you know it a fire fight erupts, the Sith down the hallway deploying their own cover in an effort to elongate the conflict and gain ground inch by inch in an effort to deal with the intruders, and that's the ranged DPS's job for the encounter. Keep the mobs at bay.
Whilst this is going on, the chair at the other end of the room swings in a 180 to reveal what can only be best described as, one f*****g powerful Sith Lord with cyborg-esque body armour, discoloured skin and long flowing, wispy white hair which seems almost as light as air itself. Knowing that this man in front of them is tipping the fight across the ship with his Battle Meditation, the Jedi/Sith amongst the group heroically charges and engages the Lord in a sabre lock, preventing the ranged DPS from firing at him due to the risk of hitting the Tank, thus preventing them from nuking him and neglecting their own responsibilities. The fight draws on, with either the Tank applying heals him/herself with stimulants due to the need of filling the rest of the group out with ranged units to deal with the Corridor NPC's, or with a Healer dropping heals on the DPS and Tank, but after a couple heals done on the Tank, the boss engages them in close quarters combat until the Tank can pull him off of them. This prevents the Healer from feeling stale in the fight, as they need to keep on their toes and have to watch out for when the Lord will jump at them. Towards the middle of the fight, the Lord will withdraw to the chair side of the room and animate one of the captured Jedi, throw him a stolen Lightsaber and use an advanced Mind Control to turn him on the Tank, Healer and the DPS. Whilst the Tank is pre-occupied with this, the Lord will do what Malak did and drain the life energies of the other Captured Jedi to restore his own health up by a size-able chunk, and re-engage the fight once the animation is done. Which I would say, could be about a second or so after the Mind controlled Jedi has been put down. At this point the fight becomes Tank and Spank, but the NPC's in the corridor have been scaling in health and damage output up to this point and could be close to over running the DPS's position depending on their own performance, so time is of the essence, putting extra pressure on the Tank and Healer (who could give up on convention and ignite their own sabre) to slay the maniacal Lord. Once this is done, the fleet outside is no longer affected by the Lord's Battle Meditation and are able to do sizeable damage against the Imperial vessel, causing systems in the corridor to overload and fry any NPC's (or players) in the corridor at the time, and end the encounter. Then, it's just a matter of time to get back to the hangar and escape the soon-to-be wreckage before the ship's power cells implode and take that section of space with it. And there we go, one out of the box Boss encounter where we still have the holy trinity, just in some different situations.
Fighting General Grievous in SWG before NGE was a good example of a hard fight that required thinking but wasn't a boring play-by-numbers, hop-skip-press button A-type puzzle combat which is not even combat. I'm surprised you think it is...lol...
Combat is combat, if you feel a complex encounter with multiple monsters is not combat, you're going to have to explain that closer, although it is completely absurd.
And although I quit before Grievous was added, I don't see how that is any different; a boss has abilities, it requires you to react accordingly to these abilities, in other words you need to master a response (strategy) to the actions the boss undertakes.
Similarly, in a complex mob encounter, you need to perform certain actions, or master a certain strategy to win.
If you want you can equal almost any action in an mmo, or any other game, to a puzzle, both are games, both are structured activities.
Well yes, but by your own definition, laid out right here, many of the raid fights aren't 'combat', they're just versions of that Japanese arcade dance game where you have to put your feet in the right place on the mat at the right time.
Fighting General Grievous in SWG before NGE was a good example of a hard fight that required thinking but wasn't a boring play-by-numbers, hop-skip-press button A-type puzzle combat which is not even combat. I'm surprised you think it is...lol...
Combat is combat, if you feel a complex encounter with multiple monsters is not combat, you're going to have to explain that closer, although it is completely absurd.
And although I quit before Grievous was added, I don't see how that is any different; a boss has abilities, it requires you to react accordingly to these abilities, in other words you need to master a response (strategy) to the actions the boss undertakes.
Similarly, in a complex mob encounter, you need to perform certain actions, or master a certain strategy to win.
If you want you can equal almost any action in an mmo, or any other game, to a puzzle, both are games, both are structured activities.
Well yes, but by your own definition, laid out right here, many of the raid fights aren't 'combat', they're just versions of that Japanese arcade dance game where you have to put your feet in the right place on the mat at the right time.
There is nothing heroic about playing video games. The relevent qualifiers are 'challenging' and/or 'fun'. If you're thinking 'heroic' you've probably been watching too many ads.
And yes, obviously fighting off lots of NPC's can be challenging and/or fun. (see the history of single player video games)
It's not the quantity of mobs thats important, it's the challenge they represent, and not always mobs.
Anarchy Online (Pre SL):
- Perfecting the art of Bodypulling single mobs from groups of 3-5.
- Tanking L220 Missions with my TL5 fixer (much to the annoyance of the Soldier ingroup ) , QL200 Manex was awesome
- Evaccing the team when an Enforcer AoE taunt went wrong, 3 deathgroans +1 evac = 3 very happy people that lost no xp.
Guildwars:
- Completing all 4 end of campaign missions with random PuG's
- Soloing a few HardMode zones with 3 hero's & 4 Henchmen, it took quite a while to do and about 2-3 attempts each. Fire based Elementalists arent the perfect build for HM zones
[edit]
I'm equating 'heroic' with the "warm fuzzy glow" feeling success brings .... maybe not heroic to you, but they felt it to me.
I know exactly what you mean, but for me it was not about the jedi, but more the troopers/soldiers.
They talk about a single player going up against lots of enemies, but when, in all 6 SW films, has a single Storm Trooper faced off against loads of opponents? At the very least, he would be in a squad.
Your mistaking Troopers for Storm Troopers is your first mistake. They are elite in all regards.
And, as for the OP, I think it shows real heroism when one faces many and prevails. This game isn't discluding the necessity for grouping though. Please, stop ignoring the topic and research it fully.
In closing, one would be degenerate (no offense) to not feel heroic staving off multiple opponents at once. I mean, that's EPIC! But if you'd rather be on the other end of the spectrum, where multiple people are fighting one entity in assumption that THAT is heroic, that's all well and good. But they have plenty of MMOs like that for you.
The new combat video goes on about swinging around your Lightsaber or whatever right away. It goes on about the game being action packed and somehow that makes it Star Warsy. It goes on about how fighting in large groups with your friends isn't Heroic but, fighting alone against large enemies is.
There has never been a point where I felt Heroic for killing lots of NPCs in an MMO. For one the AI is really dumb so you get no satisfaction out of that. Usually the Raids are where you feel the most badass because they are so hard and require so much teamwork. Once you start mindlessly killing lots of enemies, it just becomes generic and has no meaning. Frigging watch the new Star Wars movies where you have hundreds of clones and Jedi on the screen killing eachother. That had no impact, it felt souless and boring and most importantly it wasn't Star Warsy. What was heroic was Luke Skywalker standing up against the Emperor and saying he wouldn't kill his dad. He went on a journey that made us care for him because all the heroic things he did before weren't about swinging his lightsaber about all over the place. Yet when we watch the new movies that is what they are about, so all the characters are just bland and generic and you can't remember anything about them other than the bad acting.
To me it just feels like Bioware don't understand what makes Star Wars anymore. They keep saying how they wanted to make their own MMO and not copy the others, however they're just copying what is out there. So far you're killing lots of people to level up and they're trying to pack in lots of action to get you through them levels. However being a Jedi for example isn't about combat in the original movies. It was about using your whit and trying to keep the peace, only in the new movies they couldn't wait to start swinging their lightsabers about. When they were forced to combat in the originals, it was meaningful and a last resort. In the new movies it was all over the place cause Lucas wanted to go nuts with generic CGI.
You know when I felt the most heroic in an MMO? When I was helping out other people and when I was grouped with other people. Nothing else made you feel more heroic than saving someone's life in the Dead Mines in WoW. As a crafter in SWG and you'd make perfect goods that pleased other people and they'd keep coming back to you for the best in the galaxy. When you ran past someone in Everquest and they were being chased, so you saved their life by taking their aggro. When you'd just have a nice event with the guild and everyone is around talking. There is nothing worse in an MMO than being alone because it makes you bored and makes the game feel dead.
The more I see of this game, the less it feels like Star Wars. Sure it looks like it apart from those horrible character models but, the new movies looked like Star Wars and well they didn't feel like it. It's such a shame because Bioware did so well with the original Kotor and you had to earn the ranks of Jedi, you didn't just start out as one. Didn't that make you feel heroic when you spent months trying to unlock Jedi in SWG and you finally did it? Yet for some reason to Bioware now it'll make us feel more heroic to start swinging around a lightsaber straight away.
hmm .. have you actually WATCHED a star war movie? Luke fought lots of imperial troopers. So did Han and essentially every good guy.
Have you seen a group of 25 guys fighting a bad boss in SW? I think NOT.
The new combat video goes on about swinging around your Lightsaber or whatever right away. It goes on about the game being action packed and somehow that makes it Star Warsy. It goes on about how fighting in large groups with your friends isn't Heroic but, fighting alone against large enemies is.
There has never been a point where I felt Heroic for killing lots of NPCs in an MMO. For one the AI is really dumb so you get no satisfaction out of that. Usually the Raids are where you feel the most badass because they are so hard and require so much teamwork. Once you start mindlessly killing lots of enemies, it just becomes generic and has no meaning. Frigging watch the new Star Wars movies where you have hundreds of clones and Jedi on the screen killing eachother. That had no impact, it felt souless and boring and most importantly it wasn't Star Warsy. What was heroic was Luke Skywalker standing up against the Emperor and saying he wouldn't kill his dad. He went on a journey that made us care for him because all the heroic things he did before weren't about swinging his lightsaber about all over the place. Yet when we watch the new movies that is what they are about, so all the characters are just bland and generic and you can't remember anything about them other than the bad acting.
To me it just feels like Bioware don't understand what makes Star Wars anymore. They keep saying how they wanted to make their own MMO and not copy the others, however they're just copying what is out there. So far you're killing lots of people to level up and they're trying to pack in lots of action to get you through them levels. However being a Jedi for example isn't about combat in the original movies. It was about using your whit and trying to keep the peace, only in the new movies they couldn't wait to start swinging their lightsabers about. When they were forced to combat in the originals, it was meaningful and a last resort. In the new movies it was all over the place cause Lucas wanted to go nuts with generic CGI.
You know when I felt the most heroic in an MMO? When I was helping out other people and when I was grouped with other people. Nothing else made you feel more heroic than saving someone's life in the Dead Mines in WoW. As a crafter in SWG and you'd make perfect goods that pleased other people and they'd keep coming back to you for the best in the galaxy. When you ran past someone in Everquest and they were being chased, so you saved their life by taking their aggro. When you'd just have a nice event with the guild and everyone is around talking. There is nothing worse in an MMO than being alone because it makes you bored and makes the game feel dead.
The more I see of this game, the less it feels like Star Wars. Sure it looks like it apart from those horrible character models but, the new movies looked like Star Wars and well they didn't feel like it. It's such a shame because Bioware did so well with the original Kotor and you had to earn the ranks of Jedi, you didn't just start out as one. Didn't that make you feel heroic when you spent months trying to unlock Jedi in SWG and you finally did it? Yet for some reason to Bioware now it'll make us feel more heroic to start swinging around a lightsaber straight away.
hmm .. have you actually WATCHED a star war movie? Luke fought lots of imperial troopers. So did Han and essentially every good guy.
Have you seen a group of 25 guys fighting a bad boss in SW? I think NOT.
You are confusing other MMOs with SW.
Ehhh, Darth Vader killed a lot of good guys. It goes both ways...
Well yes, but by your own definition, laid out right here, many of the raid fights aren't 'combat', they're just versions of that Japanese arcade dance game where you have to put your feet in the right place on the mat at the right time.
Uhh no, I stated most of the combat in any game can be said to be a puzzle of kinds.
But it being a puzzle does not mean it isn't combat.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Uhh no, I stated most of the combat in any game can be said to be a puzzle of kinds.
But it being a puzzle does not mean it isn't combat.
Agreed. The puzzle aspects (and it's not entirely a puzzle or your spec and gear would not matter) make the boss fights distinct. Without them, there would be very little variety in fighting one boss or another.
The boss fights (with some exceptions) were one of the best things about WoW.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
The only time I ever felt Heroic was in SWG. For the first 2 years Straight. It was the best mmo ever. Nothing came close. We developed a fantastic guild to group with and the game was hard and you had to work together or die, alone, in the desert, with no one around to help.... But I digress. My wife (the real kind) loved it. She unlocked. I did not. She was one of the best Chefs on the server, and a hot jedi to boot. She had a rabid following she could move millions of credits worth of goods in hours.
Then the dark times came upon us, the scourge of the NGE grew great until it consumed the land and all who inhabited it.
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison
The new combat video goes on about swinging around your Lightsaber or whatever right away. It goes on about the game being action packed and somehow that makes it Star Warsy. It goes on about how fighting in large groups with your friends isn't Heroic but, fighting alone against large enemies is.
It was commented that multiple players attacking the same enemy (many-vs-one, i.e. group/raid vs boss) isn't heroic, but that facing overwhelming odds (one-vs-many) is. I agree with this. I wouldn't want to see two Jedi beating on Darth Lewtbag, a Trooper and Smuggler stood back shooting him while a third Jedi blasted him with lightning and Force Healed everyone.
From recent comments, I inferred that PVE group combat would focus on few-vs-many battles. A group of 5 Rebels battling a few dozen Stormtroopers sounds VERY Star Wars to me. Moving away from the many-vs-one PvE boss fight is certainly a considerable change in comparison to modern MMO's. Has it been confirmed yet whether TOR's combat will be based on the traditional Tank/DPS/Healer trinity? If not, that would also be a big change.
There is a lot of talk (especially in the Combat videos) about how early combat will be action packed, but I think you're drawing hasty conclusions from that. You say that "you're killing lots of people to level up" but we don't know that. All we've seen are small and isolated combat examples and we've no indication how they fit into the game as a whole. My guess is that TOR will have a lot of combat like KOTOR did, but that the storyline will be the games backbone. Not a bad thing at all.
Regarding SWG and feeling heroic when you finally unlocked Jedi, absolutely agree but there is one thing to consider.. I would be willing to bet that you didn't feel particularly heroic while grinding the Entertainer profession 'cos that's what the Holocron told you to do.
These forums often talk about how games aren't fun at early levels, and how characters don't feel powerful when they're dressed in rags with a rusty sword and being given menial tasks like delivering pies or killing rabbits. Bioware isn't doing that. It's another departure from MMO tradition and I'm very interested to see how well it works.
Agreed. i think the forum poster is jumping to all sorts of conclusions without any real thought. IMO from watching the combat video, it won't be solo vs multi enemies, it will be multi vs multi. Most MMO's I have played its multi v's a lone enemy and that is really bland. Once you have him targeted i just proceed with hitting my buttons. It might get a little interesting if i loose aggro or i have to drag the enemy to a certain area but apart from that theres nothing more to it. I'm liking the idea that Grungi mentioned "A group of 5 Rebels battling a few dozen stormtroopers" . it just always seems in most MMO's the enemy are always out numbered and if they aren't you dont stand a chance. I'm hoping bioware can balance that to perfection.
Actually I hope they change how healing functions. I'm sick to death of healing toons getting agro. Please bioware change that as its getting old now.
A many-vs-one fight CAN be heroic, but not always. 5 Jedi vs one Sith isn't heroic. 5 Jedi vs a big honking war machine such as a 20m+ tall AT-AT is considerably more so.
Yup. Good example. - Well no not really. It'd be impressive to see five or so jedi take on a giant walker, but it'd just be a feat. Impressive, but not really a 'hero' act. I disagree about five jedi vs one sith not being heroic. They have to, the jedi attack the sith in numbers whenever they can. So they can protect each other from the Sith lords strength. Examples of this are Darth Sidious/Palpatine vs Mace Windu, Eeth Koth, Kit Fisto, and Yasee tin. (Not sure on the spelling on the last one.) Another example is Jedi master Faerfellas and his jedi allies who tried to stop Darth Bane on Tython. That was five versus two, and that wasn't heroic? The whole segment was heroic.
As I understand the TOR concept, it's a personal storyline that is unique to each class and (can be) unique to each player as it changes due to choices made. If that's true, you'll never end up at a different stage to your friends because the vast majority of them won't have the same quest chain.
That will isolate you even more. It sounds like you are either going to have most players soloing, or class-specific groups. All bounty hunters, all trooper, etc. Don't the Classes even start on different worlds?
My objection to pie-delivery rabbit-killing quests isn't in their mechanics. I agree that TOR will likely have "take x to y" and "kill x enemies" quests but given the emphasis that Bioware is placing on the story aspect of the game, I anticipate that they will be meaningfully integrated into the backbone of the story instead of being disconnected chores that give you XP.
Could be completely wrong, but at this stage pretty much everything is speculation.
Hey, that's why we're here, right?
I understand the concern about trivialising enemy threats. I guess it depends on how they're presented. I think that LOTRO did quite well with this, I remember having run-ins with Ringwraiths in the tutorial and they were handled in a way that didn't detract from their menace.
How was that?
Longing for Skyrim, The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3
The new combat video goes on about swinging around your Lightsaber or whatever right away. It goes on about the game being action packed and somehow that makes it Star Warsy. It goes on about how fighting in large groups with your friends isn't Heroic but, fighting alone against large enemies is.
There has never been a point where I felt Heroic for killing lots of NPCs in an MMO. For one the AI is really dumb so you get no satisfaction out of that. Usually the Raids are where you feel the most badass because they are so hard and require so much teamwork. Once you start mindlessly killing lots of enemies, it just becomes generic and has no meaning. Frigging watch the new Star Wars movies where you have hundreds of clones and Jedi on the screen killing eachother. That had no impact, it felt souless and boring and most importantly it wasn't Star Warsy. What was heroic was Luke Skywalker standing up against the Emperor and saying he wouldn't kill his dad. He went on a journey that made us care for him because all the heroic things he did before weren't about swinging his lightsaber about all over the place. Yet when we watch the new movies that is what they are about, so all the characters are just bland and generic and you can't remember anything about them other than the bad acting.
To me it just feels like Bioware don't understand what makes Star Wars anymore. They keep saying how they wanted to make their own MMO and not copy the others, however they're just copying what is out there. So far you're killing lots of people to level up and they're trying to pack in lots of action to get you through them levels. However being a Jedi for example isn't about combat in the original movies. It was about using your whit and trying to keep the peace, only in the new movies they couldn't wait to start swinging their lightsabers about. When they were forced to combat in the originals, it was meaningful and a last resort. In the new movies it was all over the place cause Lucas wanted to go nuts with generic CGI.
You know when I felt the most heroic in an MMO? When I was helping out other people and when I was grouped with other people. Nothing else made you feel more heroic than saving someone's life in the Dead Mines in WoW. As a crafter in SWG and you'd make perfect goods that pleased other people and they'd keep coming back to you for the best in the galaxy. When you ran past someone in Everquest and they were being chased, so you saved their life by taking their aggro. When you'd just have a nice event with the guild and everyone is around talking. There is nothing worse in an MMO than being alone because it makes you bored and makes the game feel dead.
The more I see of this game, the less it feels like Star Wars. Sure it looks like it apart from those horrible character models but, the new movies looked like Star Wars and well they didn't feel like it. It's such a shame because Bioware did so well with the original Kotor and you had to earn the ranks of Jedi, you didn't just start out as one. Didn't that make you feel heroic when you spent months trying to unlock Jedi in SWG and you finally did it? Yet for some reason to Bioware now it'll make us feel more heroic to start swinging around a lightsaber straight away.
hmm .. have you actually WATCHED a star war movie? Luke fought lots of imperial troopers. So did Han and essentially every good guy.
Have you seen a group of 25 guys fighting a bad boss in SW? I think NOT.
You are confusing other MMOs with SW.
Funnily enough Lukes lightsaber never touched an Imperial soldier.
Longing for Skyrim, The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3
The thing is, both extremes (one versus many and many versus one) can be completely dull. I think what counts the most is creating an engaging encounter and it doesn't matter what you use to do that, or whether it is loads of mobs or just one.
Having said that I believe Bioware is onto something with emphasising encounters where you are outnumbered. This has much more potential for truly engaging gameplay. They might also emphasise multiple tasks being done by a group so they have to split up and if one part fails then everyone fails.
The original Star Wars had Hans and Luke rescuing Leia whilst Obi Wan had to disable the tractor beam. Terrific stuff. The objective was really NOT to face the boss at all (Vader). Yet it was heroic. Heck, they rescued a princess, which is like the definition of heroic!
I dunno, I don't feel particularly heroic when me and around 25 buddies defeat a single opponent either.
I prefer fighting an equal opponent in skill and numbers, that feels more heroic for me.
Luke dueling with Darth Vader is cool, if he had over 20 buddies with him I wouldn't call it heroic whatsoever.
Of course killing loads of trash mobs just get me the feeling from a really old British movie when 1000nds of zulu warriors storm 25 English soldiers, it isn't that heroic either.
If the game will make me feel heroic or not is a different thing I can't tell you until I played it.
Comments
Thats the thing a lot of people seem to be missing. In any PVE situation, it is a matter of puzzle solving. That NPC enemy is running on some AI script with a set pattern, or variations to a set pattern, within the rules of the script and its preset abilities. No AI is advanced enough yet to make it anything other than puzzle solving, its just a matte rof how complex the puzzle is.
PvP helps lessen the puzzle solving, because youve got a live person who can think freely controlling the battle, rathe rthan being scripted, however in an MMO or any game, that player is still limited to X number of possible actions (depending on class, level, skills, etc). So again its still sort of puzzle solving, only the puzzle can come at you in any form from the player, rathe rthan a preset pattern.
The only way to avoid the puzzle solving is to actually go out and fight someone IRL (in a FFA no rules battle, anything goes), where youre not restricted by a program and its limitations/rules (equipment, stats, skills, etc), and the only thing limiting you is your own mind and body, which is vastly different for every person.
I've felt heroic fighting tons of NPCs in City of Heroes quite often. Either jumping into a swarm of minions or battling waves of elite soldiers. I'm hoping TOR can capture the fun of having your army of heroes & villains fighting their way forward over the alien ship against hordes of purples (NPCs a much higher level than you) in the Rikti Crash Site.
The one versus many is heroic, provided it is challenging. If it means you pul the entire instance into a neat pile, then aoe damage them to death, that is not heroic.
I want the game to put my life points to dangerous level and then somehow I manage to walk away from the encounter. If anything gets me t the edge of my seat, it is that.
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Big raids dont make me feel heroic because its not heroic to read a strat online and complete an encounter like a moron messing with a paint by numbers book.
Me killing swarms of mobs and getting out of an encounter that im not supposed to win is heroic imo.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
There are two instances that come to mind for me where I really felt overwhelmed and defeating multiple enemies was heroic in a sense for me.
The first was in SWG when I accidently pulled 3 NS Elders and others and actually killed them all, this was in the pre-cu days and was a wtf moment, as I did it solo. (M Doc / M Swords)
The other wasn't solo and was in the game that we all hate now, but before BC WoW was the thing to play and i played it and enjoyed it (sometimes). Anyways, I was a MS warrior 31/20 since you only needed one tank specced prot back in those days.
Anyways, it was the Nef fight and tanking all the dudes coming out the tunnels before Nef drops was completly insane. I'm not sure how it was for the Alliance with whatever Pallies could do to help as they always seemed to zoom past BWL with no prob, but on Horde side defeating Nef was a major step in progression. Well there were a few times I had to tank a side by myself and was a complete omg scenario with no real threat abilities to use from Prot (SS). But that felt pretty heroic to me /shrug
I hear people talking about how the current raid/instance system is un-heroic, where five or more players wail on a single target with maybe a few adds to come out and help the poor, possibly bewildered bastard whilst he wonders what he's ever done to deserve such a harsh punishment. In these scenario's, even if there is an impressive back story to it (and the opponent isn't a giant, multi-storey hulk with guns for arms and lava for blood), then it becomes too easy to believe that in fact, it would be more heroic for the boss to win and it makes us feel more like the bad guys, even if we were to supposedly fly the banner of universal love and an American NHS system.
In the past few minutes I've come up with a single suggestion on how to recreate the predictable Boss encounter, and I'll list it here, right now. Like this:
:O - Do you remember in Star Wars KotOR, at the very end, where you would fight Malak to the death and maybe use that particular cheat to turn the bald bastard into a Twi'lek harem girl? If you answered yes, then bear with me for a few minutes. Setting the scene, you emerge into a massive throne room onboard an Imperial cruiser, bursting through a corridor lined with NPC trooper corpses strewn across the floor and blaster burns disfiguring the wall, causing electrical discharges as far as the corridor will allow you to see. In front of you, a rather large and imposing chair much like Emperor Palpatine's own made of a menacingly dark metal, and behind that, a 'sky light' which replaces the hull onto space which shows the carnage of a Republic/Imperial fleet sent to distract the vessels staff, and to allow your strike team to infiltrate the ship. On the right, and the left are raised up areas made of rock imported from the Sith world of Korriban with ramps leading down to the corridor and the 'swivel chair' at either end of the room. Up on these ledges, three per to be exact, are medical tanks with an individual Jedi in each suspended in a blue liquid, lifeless and unconscious, pawns to be used by their captor at a whim. You're compatriots have gathered a few crates from down the corridor as they anticipate reinforcements to come after the 'insurgents', and of course, they are right. Before you know it a fire fight erupts, the Sith down the hallway deploying their own cover in an effort to elongate the conflict and gain ground inch by inch in an effort to deal with the intruders, and that's the ranged DPS's job for the encounter. Keep the mobs at bay.
Whilst this is going on, the chair at the other end of the room swings in a 180 to reveal what can only be best described as, one f*****g powerful Sith Lord with cyborg-esque body armour, discoloured skin and long flowing, wispy white hair which seems almost as light as air itself. Knowing that this man in front of them is tipping the fight across the ship with his Battle Meditation, the Jedi/Sith amongst the group heroically charges and engages the Lord in a sabre lock, preventing the ranged DPS from firing at him due to the risk of hitting the Tank, thus preventing them from nuking him and neglecting their own responsibilities. The fight draws on, with either the Tank applying heals him/herself with stimulants due to the need of filling the rest of the group out with ranged units to deal with the Corridor NPC's, or with a Healer dropping heals on the DPS and Tank, but after a couple heals done on the Tank, the boss engages them in close quarters combat until the Tank can pull him off of them. This prevents the Healer from feeling stale in the fight, as they need to keep on their toes and have to watch out for when the Lord will jump at them. Towards the middle of the fight, the Lord will withdraw to the chair side of the room and animate one of the captured Jedi, throw him a stolen Lightsaber and use an advanced Mind Control to turn him on the Tank, Healer and the DPS. Whilst the Tank is pre-occupied with this, the Lord will do what Malak did and drain the life energies of the other Captured Jedi to restore his own health up by a size-able chunk, and re-engage the fight once the animation is done. Which I would say, could be about a second or so after the Mind controlled Jedi has been put down. At this point the fight becomes Tank and Spank, but the NPC's in the corridor have been scaling in health and damage output up to this point and could be close to over running the DPS's position depending on their own performance, so time is of the essence, putting extra pressure on the Tank and Healer (who could give up on convention and ignite their own sabre) to slay the maniacal Lord. Once this is done, the fleet outside is no longer affected by the Lord's Battle Meditation and are able to do sizeable damage against the Imperial vessel, causing systems in the corridor to overload and fry any NPC's (or players) in the corridor at the time, and end the encounter. Then, it's just a matter of time to get back to the hangar and escape the soon-to-be wreckage before the ship's power cells implode and take that section of space with it. And there we go, one out of the box Boss encounter where we still have the holy trinity, just in some different situations.
Playing: LoL x3
Played: RS, WoW, SWG, TR, Aion, AoC, EVE, SWTOR
Watching: FireFall, GW2
Well yes, but by your own definition, laid out right here, many of the raid fights aren't 'combat', they're just versions of that Japanese arcade dance game where you have to put your feet in the right place on the mat at the right time.
Well yes, but by your own definition, laid out right here, many of the raid fights aren't 'combat', they're just versions of that Japanese arcade dance game where you have to put your feet in the right place on the mat at the right time.
So your basically saying you feel like your characters a puss, and the boss must be an even bigger puss to be beat by you.
I think thats the point of the whole heroic direction thingy.
There is nothing heroic about playing video games. The relevent qualifiers are 'challenging' and/or 'fun'. If you're thinking 'heroic' you've probably been watching too many ads.
And yes, obviously fighting off lots of NPC's can be challenging and/or fun. (see the history of single player video games)
only 2 games have had that moment for me ..
It's not the quantity of mobs thats important, it's the challenge they represent, and not always mobs.
Anarchy Online (Pre SL):
- Perfecting the art of Bodypulling single mobs from groups of 3-5.
- Tanking L220 Missions with my TL5 fixer (much to the annoyance of the Soldier ingroup
) , QL200 Manex was awesome 
- Evaccing the team when an Enforcer AoE taunt went wrong, 3 deathgroans +1 evac = 3 very happy people that lost no xp.
Guildwars:
- Completing all 4 end of campaign missions with random PuG's
- Soloing a few HardMode zones with 3 hero's & 4 Henchmen, it took quite a while to do and about 2-3 attempts each. Fire based Elementalists arent the perfect build for HM zones
[edit]
I'm equating 'heroic' with the "warm fuzzy glow" feeling success brings .... maybe not heroic to you, but they felt it to me.
I'm fairly certain that the jedi and all the other heroes from star Wars spent a lot of time killing trash mobs like stormtroopers...just saying...
Your argument is like a two legged dog with an eating disorder...weak and unbalanced.
Your mistaking Troopers for Storm Troopers is your first mistake. They are elite in all regards.
And, as for the OP, I think it shows real heroism when one faces many and prevails. This game isn't discluding the necessity for grouping though. Please, stop ignoring the topic and research it fully.
In closing, one would be degenerate (no offense) to not feel heroic staving off multiple opponents at once. I mean, that's EPIC! But if you'd rather be on the other end of the spectrum, where multiple people are fighting one entity in assumption that THAT is heroic, that's all well and good. But they have plenty of MMOs like that for you.
THE Rooster Nash
hmm .. have you actually WATCHED a star war movie? Luke fought lots of imperial troopers. So did Han and essentially every good guy.
Have you seen a group of 25 guys fighting a bad boss in SW? I think NOT.
You are confusing other MMOs with SW.
Ehhh, Darth Vader killed a lot of good guys. It goes both ways...
THE Rooster Nash
Darth Vader was the "hero" in such scenarios, much like you'd expect if you were playing a Sith character.
Uhh no, I stated most of the combat in any game can be said to be a puzzle of kinds.
But it being a puzzle does not mean it isn't combat.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Agreed. The puzzle aspects (and it's not entirely a puzzle or your spec and gear would not matter) make the boss fights distinct. Without them, there would be very little variety in fighting one boss or another.
The boss fights (with some exceptions) were one of the best things about WoW.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
The only time I ever felt Heroic was in SWG. For the first 2 years Straight. It was the best mmo ever. Nothing came close. We developed a fantastic guild to group with and the game was hard and you had to work together or die, alone, in the desert, with no one around to help.... But I digress. My wife (the real kind) loved it. She unlocked. I did not. She was one of the best Chefs on the server, and a hot jedi to boot. She had a rabid following she could move millions of credits worth of goods in hours.
Then the dark times came upon us, the scourge of the NGE grew great until it consumed the land and all who inhabited it.
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison
Agreed. i think the forum poster is jumping to all sorts of conclusions without any real thought. IMO from watching the combat video, it won't be solo vs multi enemies, it will be multi vs multi. Most MMO's I have played its multi v's a lone enemy and that is really bland. Once you have him targeted i just proceed with hitting my buttons. It might get a little interesting if i loose aggro or i have to drag the enemy to a certain area but apart from that theres nothing more to it. I'm liking the idea that Grungi mentioned "A group of 5 Rebels battling a few dozen stormtroopers" . it just always seems in most MMO's the enemy are always out numbered and if they aren't you dont stand a chance. I'm hoping bioware can balance that to perfection.
Actually I hope they change how healing functions. I'm sick to death of healing toons getting agro. Please bioware change that as its getting old now.
I did feel heroic in GW and also in WoW. It is pretty funny though. But the feeling is still there.
Longing for Skyrim, The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3
Funnily enough Lukes lightsaber never touched an Imperial soldier.
Longing for Skyrim, The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3
The thing is, both extremes (one versus many and many versus one) can be completely dull. I think what counts the most is creating an engaging encounter and it doesn't matter what you use to do that, or whether it is loads of mobs or just one.
Having said that I believe Bioware is onto something with emphasising encounters where you are outnumbered. This has much more potential for truly engaging gameplay. They might also emphasise multiple tasks being done by a group so they have to split up and if one part fails then everyone fails.
The original Star Wars had Hans and Luke rescuing Leia whilst Obi Wan had to disable the tractor beam. Terrific stuff. The objective was really NOT to face the boss at all (Vader). Yet it was heroic. Heck, they rescued a princess, which is like the definition of heroic!
I dunno, I don't feel particularly heroic when me and around 25 buddies defeat a single opponent either.
I prefer fighting an equal opponent in skill and numbers, that feels more heroic for me.
Luke dueling with Darth Vader is cool, if he had over 20 buddies with him I wouldn't call it heroic whatsoever.
Of course killing loads of trash mobs just get me the feeling from a really old British movie when 1000nds of zulu warriors storm 25 English soldiers, it isn't that heroic either.
If the game will make me feel heroic or not is a different thing I can't tell you until I played it.