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Re-imagining MMORPG combat
Quirhid
Member UncommonPosts: 6,230
Traditional MMORPG combat scales very poorly from duels and small-scale to large scale engagements. Usually, I find, this manifests itself by abilities balanced for small-scale engagements becoming less useful in large-scale engagements and abilities balanced for large scale engagements becoming overpowered in small-scale engagements.
As a practical example, in Eve Online, fleets can grow up to a size where the damage output from a single combined volley will kill any ship in the hostile fleet defeating the purpose of logistics ships (healers); hence, leading to a tactically boring slugfest. This is simply a case of reaching a critical number of ships in a fleet and decreasing (or nerfing) the damage output of each ship would only serve to increase that number. Also, increasing the effectiveness of healing would be pointless, since the healers have no chance to intervene in the first place.
Other examples would include the increasing importance of AOE effects as the size of the engagement increases. Especially in games where players can pile up onto one another. Some of you must have seen the AOE spiking (volleys) in GW2 and WAR so clearly scaling is problematic to all MMORPGs trying to fit both small-scale and large-scale engagements within the same ruleset.
To try and find a solution to this problem, I want to bring forth another game from another genre: Battlefield 4. In BF4 and similar shooters, terrain plays and important part of ones tactics. Even if the match is played between 64 or 128 people, the terrain splits the action into smaller parts in a very efficient way. As a player if you use the terrain correctly, you would expose yourself to as few enemies as possible. Thus an instance where all the members of one team targets any one member of the opposing team is relatively rare. So far so that if such an instance would occur, it would likely be an error on the part of that player. Not like in Eve Online where it would be commonplace.
But what about games without manual aiming and what about games with space combat like Eve Online with little to no "terrain"? Well, one solution is to use players as the terrain i.e. use collision detection. Collision detection not only between players but between projectiles and players, meaning you cannot pass through friends or opponents nor can you shoot through your allies or other unintended targets.
Let that thought sink in.
In both space and traditional MMORPG combat, this would instantly add in tactical formations. The fact that you cannot spike or one-volley a healer in the back of a formation greatly changes the dynamics of combat. Likely you would still have a sturdy front line (just like the tank in the holy trinity), but there would be little use for traditional aggro mechanics. Rather than manipulating aggro, you would be maneuvering to protect your allies.
Balance-wise such a game would be easier to balance, because the potential incoming damage you can receive is greatly reduced. For example, when melee characters cannot pile up, only so many characters can fit into the space within melee range of one solitary character. Also, discounting indirect fire (which could serve as a powerful type of ranged attack), the opportunities for a direct ranged attack would decrease immensely. Characters specialized in ranged combat would have to constantly maneuver for a direct line of sight to their intended target.
Long gone would be the days when "the tank" would tie the monster down in melee while ranged characters would unleash massive waves of damage through the body of the tank. And, as mentioned before, targeting and one-volleying a squishy in the hostile back-line would be a very rare instance. As rare as it is in BF4.
Also with formations, abilities which manipulate hostile formation such as knock or push backs would become more important. Naturally you would have to create abilities counter these effects. Likely features such as weight and momentum could prove to be very interesting mechanics to support this sort of combat style. Trying to maintain your formation while trying to break the hostile formation could prove to be a very entertaining challenge in massed battles.
High ground would have a clear benefit to ranged characters and choke points would be crucial in defense against larger groups of players.
Any thoughts?
TL;DR: Stuff about collision detection and how it would change MMORPG combat.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Comments
Yes, I know what you mean by Protective Spirit.
To someone who doesn't know: Protective Spirit was a protective enchantment in Guild Wars 1 which would limit the amount of damage from any one attack to 10% of the enchanted character's maximum health (*). In combination to some other protective enchantments it was a very effective ability to shield yourself against spike damage (simultaneous volleys) for a short while and gave healers enough time to react and save that character.
But I intentionally left out such abilities because I find collision detection is a much more elegant solution. Protective Spirit still wouldn't work in a truly large scale engagement.
GW1 and GW2 touch on the subject though, since GW1 has body blocking and GW2 has atleast some projectile blocking, but neither has both (although I haven't played GW2 in a long while).
(*) It is important to note that the maximum size of a group was 8 players so this echantment made it impossible to one-volley a character. Thus all "spike builds" were either 2 strike or 3 strike volleys in quick succession. Such team builds had to be fairly specialized to pull it off tho; hence, they were vulnerable/weak in some other areas.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
FPS forums are ====> that way
Seriously, with a high action twitch based games your ideas would make a bang on game. I suggest that you go to the FPS forums and developers and encourage them to open up their FPS games to allow more large scale battles.
Collision detection does not imply action combat. There's no reason a turn-based game can't have collision detection.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Me neither - and for the same reasons.. It is partly why I wrote this.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I agree with you.. collision detection, formation and useful implementation of formations(like group leader commands a certain formation and players see at least a mini verion of how it should look, or formation editors and so on) would extremely enhance large scale battles.. and now add friendly fire(like in BF2 with artillery) and we can go to the next level of large scale combat.
Though.. FPSish(manual) aiming, especially for long range combat, and even more indirect attacks would improve that system.. but GTAEs may do it, too.
People seem to think action oriented combat is more realistic. I find it to be the opposite. We are in virtual worlds here with virtual heroes. My skill with keyboard strafing and button spamming should have nothing to do with the combat outcome of my max level warrior with a +10 sword of dragon slaying. That guy doesn't miss horribly like i often might.
This is why I think a tab targeted turn based approach is far more realistic then something like TERA. It allows combat to be a realistic outcome between your hero and their hero/monster which is why I like EQ classic.
In all honesty.. if you want your hero vs the other hero you have to play turn based.. and not those half realtime/turn based bastard of a tab targeting system is.. because you don't need a lot of twitch skill in tab targeting games.. and GC of 1.5, but you need some.. enough to usually make a difference between winner and loser.
And.. in a real time FPS game, like Mount&Blade or War of the Roses, or Chivalry you don't need a lot more twitch skill than in your usual tab targeting game.. it is not Quake 3 or UT after all.
So for me.. either FPSish like M&B or turn based like X-Com.. but pls no more tab targeting or soft targeting.. but well.. thats me.
Yep, good idea. Would work. Currently imagining how it would look like in combat mechanics like tera's.
Add grenade type skills that need to be aimed carefully and mines with remote control and it's looking very good. If I understood correctly, your idea was there would still be aoe's, but they would always be centered where they hit and other target's in the way of the spreading of the aoe absorb much of the damage? Kinda like the damage spreads as a circular wave from where it explodes. Of course that would mean that if an aoe hits a tank, the tank's body would absorb both the explosion and much of the wave.
Heh, gvg in a forest would be great with that system. Would be even nicer, if the environment could be altered e.g. by felling the trees by making them absorb too much damage and as they fall, they of course do damage to everything under them. Real nice possibilities, but I wonder how much of it is possible with the current tech. Especially large numbers..
Honestly, I like Dragon Dogma's combat system. You can push, grab, climb on monsters. You can hit them in weak spots and etc. Makes combat way more interesting. Though DD's combat system is limited by limited amount of enemies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWatmDmKGDA