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Taunts vs Physics
Dajag
Member Posts: 55
I just want to make a small point here.... About TAUNTS
The concept of TAUNTING is not the fact that so and so calls your mother a hairy fat blob of lard rolls with her own gravitational pull... causing you to run over and smack him...
NO NO.. Taunting is a game mechanic developed to replace PHYSICS in games.. you see for years games have tried to prefect PHYSICS and have fallen way short.
In real life.. If CONAN the 300 pound linebacker who can run a 4 40 is standing between you and the 100 pound weakling in the back of the room tossing eggs at your face... and you try to run through CONAN he will choke the living shiz out of you. If you try and run around CONAN, he will choke the living SHIZ out of you. If you try to back up and toss eggs of your own CONAN will follow you and corner you and choke the living SHIZ out of you. SO you have to keep running from CONAN while tossing your eggs or stand and fight CONAN. If you turn your back to CONAN he does not disappear, NO he chokes the living SHIZ out of you.
Just like chess and football... you have to deal with the line before yo can get to the quarterback.
In games player characters do not have real Physics, you can just run through them, which in real life does not happen, if you run passed a guy like CONAN who is trained with a sword.. he chops off your head (attack of opportunity)
So TAUNTING was developed to replace PHYSICS as a mechanism to demonstrate the fact the players have mass and can not be walk through or around so easily. It makes perfect sense that one man can hold down one man or BOSS in game sense.
Try it some time.. Give your friend a garbage can lid and a tire iron and have him stand in a doorway.. and you try and get by him without stopping to defend yourself.. let me know how it turned out when you get back from the hospital...
Now if a game had TRUE PHYSICS. taunts would make no sense because a player could tank by taking up ground and holding it, and if players tried to get around him he would get an attack of opportunity that would be devastating and or debilitating.
Comments
I did not say Taunting was reasonable in every encounter and some BOSSES have immunity, Iron Golem and such..
Like a badger handles a bear, but Dragon is a lose term really.. there are all types of dragons in fantasy.
And realistically, the Godzilla type, large arse dragons, would destroys cities and armies, so yeah no one would handle them, and one hit and You should just be dead, lol... in that sense nothing about GAMES make sense, and logic flys out the window.
Look at Smug, from Middle Earth, no handled him..
But look at Dragon Heart those dragons were small enough and could take damage so one good Knight could easily keep it occupied a good percentage of the time.
Conan in his books killed lots of dragons.
A full grown African Elephant can weighs 14,000 pounds and they were handled by knights on horses though once moving were hard to stop.
I did not say Taunting was reasonable in every encounter
Many games have physical collision, some full time, some only when combat is active.
Warhammer is an excellent example of how to make tanking work with intelligent mobs (players in that case)
Physical collision is a big part of it, CC and projecting defences (blocking for others etc) are another big part of it.
IF and its a big IF they do it right, groups will need a CCer support and DPS
you just have to expand your idea of what CCs is, from the old EQ caster CC (mezz etc), to a CCer being someone who reduces the mobs ability to inflict harm.
IF they do it wrong we will get EQNGW2
I agree.. but they already stated that they were implementing a different way to manage mobs... we just need to see what that is.
The fact still remains that the Knight, Infantry man, phalanx character play style, is a huge part of many players MMO enjoyment.
If EQNext wants to hold to its claim that; they want players to play the style of character they want, then this play style needs to be in game in some form.
There are tons of posts / polls already expressing the communities love of this class style, I mean the ones I have seem have been overwhelmingly in favor of tanks in some form.
The breakdown holds that 60% of players favor some form of DPS, 15% love to tank, 15% love to just heal, and 10% just cant make up there mind and have alt fervor.
Is TAUNTING the only way to handle this, NO, but some form of PHYSICS is needed in a so called smart AI.
And Warhammers PHYSICS is a perfect example of how games fell short on the implementation of PHYSICS. I remember those epic stairwell battles in keeps.. Shooting people through the floor, lol, and 40 players piled in a space that should be able to hold only 3 players. Was a fun game.. but the Physics were flawed and constantly bitched about on the forums.
Unfortunately I have yet to play an MMO that has perfected any real feeling Physics, and I have played almost all the main stream MMOs.
I just hope this game finds a home for the 30% of players whose game play style does not fit... HULK SMASH, LEAP< SMASH AGAIN! UGH.. HULK GOOD! or FIREBALL< FIREBALL, TELEPORT< SELFHEAL< FIREBALL
Its not that I think those play style are not good, its just not the end all be all, of game play.. Just really hoping for not another GW2, NEVERWINTER, style game. I also do not want another theme park WOW where mobs just stand there and get beat down.
Designers claim to be bring next generation games to us, but just keep rehashing the same old crap in a new box... They focus on one aspect of the MMO and forget huge integral play styles in the process. With a smart AI, cleaver encounters, and a great true Multi-Class system (or better yet skill system), important harvesting and crafters (who can actually make useful good) you can please 90% the people. Just give us characters we can make unique in the world, I don't want my Tony The Tiger to look like every other warrior Tony The Tiger... all standing around in the same stupid pose, holding the same great sword, breathing in sync.
Good Post!
A Ranger has spent the morning cleaning out an Orc invasion in a small village outside of Kelethin. He has killed so many Orcs that they are now flee on sight (the Orcs won't attack the Ranger anymore). The Ranger then heads out now that the Orcs are now cleaned out of the village. On his way out of town a Warrior and Healer happen to come in ask if the Ranger would join them in Crushbone. The Warrior and Healer haven't even killed one Orc yet. The Range who is familiar with the region takes point and starts leading the team to Crushbone. As they walk through an Orc Village on the way to Crushbone. The village is empty and Orcs are hiding just in the wood line. The Warrior comments to the Ranger, "Wow! The Orc are really afraid of you. This should be an easy trip into Crushbone". The Ranger just laughs to himself knowing what really is coming up.
They approach Crushbone and the Orc guarding the entrance suddenly dart into the keep as the Ranger walks up. Just as the team gets to the gate of Crushbone five Orc legionnaire burst out of the gate. The Ranger anticipating the Orc Tactic Leaps backwards past the Warrior. The Warrior is able to block the Orc from advancing any further and engages the Orc.
Slowly the team is betting down the Orc. One ... Two ... Three down. Suddenly the forth Orc decides he has had enough and using his dead team mates starts to leap over the Warrior to get at the Ranger. The Ranger ready for anything today hits the Orc with an arrow so hard it knocks him back and the team kills him quickly. The fifth Orc flees back inside.
The Warrior who has sat down for a moment comments about how hard that battle was. He asks the Ranger if the next encounters will be just as hard? The Ranger comments "Nope, it will be even harder"
Where's the part where the Ranger needs a rez?
Actually this is an interesting point.
The entire concept of "Flanking" comes in from going around whatever front line defenses you have to get at the more vulnerable assets you are trying to protect.
I think it kind of breaks down when you look at small scale fighting though. A small group of 4v4, let's say, out in the open. If you eliminate geographic bottlenecks, and just have 4 players versus 4 players, there isn't much shielding you can do.
I think the entire trinity, more or less, has evolved based on taking some real-world encounter, and translating it into some form that could be playable and fun, while still be efficiently simulated in a client/server architecture.
So you have things like "roll the dice to see if you blocked the hit", or arrows that magically hit or miss based on some character statistic versus NPC defense (regardless of where you happen to be looking at the time).
It's all a simulation, and taunt plays one part of that - a method for players to be able to control the ebb and flow of a fight within the constraints of the simulation. The OP Is right, physics didn't play a part in that early on, especially in the early days of EQ1. You had a very basic model where you could tell if you were in line of site of the front, behind, or to the sides of a character model's zero-sized point position (usually their feet) and that was about the extent of it.
Would character collision eliminate the need for taunt? Do games even need taunt? A smart player (PC or NPC) will always target the weakest link of the chain, a smart player will always protect it's own weakest link. Sometimes those two objectives are at odds with one another (if the encounter/mechanics are designed properly), and that could be an interesting interplay in and of itself that replaces "taunt". You look at the 4v4 situation on a flat plane scenario, and aside from taunt, there isn't a lot you can do aside from protect your most vital asset while targeting the oppositions, and you basically will end up going around in circles until someone ultimately makes a mistake and provides an opening for the opposite party.
That could make for really exciting gameplay, or really long and monotonous gameplay. Depends on how "smart" the NPCs are.
Yes.. and it boils down to.. can a game designer give an avatar mass, plus the extended physics it deserves based on reach, to include proper attacks of oppertunity, when another player chooses to ingnore the player infront of him and try and Bull past him.
Intercedes, taunts, slows, damage debuffs, stuns, knock back, knock downs, all played these rolls in a poor physics game... But with only 8 abilities will these warrant taking up slots? I mean if all you have to do is leap away 60 silly feet or teleport and self heal.. all these things become mute.. just like in GW2 were kiting is king.
A really good post! You deserve a gold star my friend.
Other physics can apply as well. What is wrong with slows, stuns, roots, knock backs, knock downs? And they didn't say there wouldn't be taunts, what they said was that taunting may not be effective.
The good news is EQN seems to be doing what you said with just the mechanic you spoke of, physics.
Look at the combat videos and see how the charge and shield basing abilities had an effect. As you said yourself, if Conan was in front of me I would find a way around him rather than get him head on like a idiot. It may be that a tanks job in EQN is to be that moving wall that intercepts mobs too smart to take Conan on.
Smart AI + physics = tanking that's more like actual tanking as you stated.
2cp
Yeah I know...
Stop throwing stone at me...
I just think more people should see this post...
Seriously, stop! @#$%^&;