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Combat time and Mob HP totals
Sinist
Member RarePosts: 1,369
Over the years, combat time has been getting shorter and shorter. The argument is that "harder" does not mean "longer" and that you can obtain very difficult encounters without having to spend a lot of time. While I think that is true to its genre focus, that you can build combat to be focused on reaction time and twitch play which can be a challenging form of play, I don't think such approach works well in deep and rich character development games that focus on strategy of approach and play over quick reaction time.
Fast combat presents numerous problems. It is in the same way, much like designing fast leveling content where your players consume it quickly and move on to something else. You can't keep up with that content load and a dungeon designed with low HP fast based combat also presents similar problems.
Look back to EQ and think about how deep in the dungeons was a feat in exploration alone. Often some deep areas of a dungeon were too time consuming for some nights, so you would plan them with a group to meet up for a longer play time on a weekend. It took time to kill and move in deeper. Mobs did not die quickly, and so fights became endurance fights of mana/hp management, spawn timer management, and a constant need to be aware of pathing mobs. Longer fights means that you have to be concerned about how many mobs you can handle at a single time. More mobs means the need for more CC (which means more mana) or the need for more healing to mitigate the damage. With the issues of casting, healing, low health, and sit agro, having a lot of mobs in camp can quickly lead to a wipe, even with a crack CC team in your fold.
Much of the play experienced in EQ was due to fights taking much longer, where simple DPS bypass was often inefficient and unreliable. Also, longer fights presented a means to apply more strategy than would be allowed in short fights. The longer the fight, the more options for various implementations of certain spells and abilities, exploration of uses and work around. If mobs die quickly, many solutions become less of a use and you lack the time needed to apply various spell and ability executions. Pantheon talks about the use of working class abilities in way that will allow "combo" style play, but if the mobs die too quick, such becomes less important in play. That is, if mobs are dying so fast, is there really a need for additional abilities?
I have watched a lot of games design encounters that really just end up being AoE fests where mobs are mowed through like an action movie. In this pursuit, many strategic elements of play we experienced in past games are no longer present (situational buffs, debuffs, CC, etc...) and the result of such continued slimming down of combat time is the painting of ones self into a corner by turning combat into an ambush style approach of play where either the player one shots the mob, or the mob one shots the player, which is why most games have opted to remove most of the trash in most dungeons (or just have groups of mobs to AoE) in favor of a hop from boss to boss type of play.
So, I think it is important for the sake of Pantheon to have fights last quite a while, even for a group of people fighting. We should not be measuring how long it takes to kill a mob in seconds, but in minutes. At minimum, a typical trash mob should be around 2-3 mins of kill time and areas like dungeons should be heavily populated, requiring clever tricks to pull and manage them. It should not be uncommon for a group to be in the middle of fighting the last mob of a room they broke before respawns. It should be a worry if there is an add or unexpected spawn. Players should be in constant flux with managing their mana/hp and with each rest, it should feel like it was absolutely needed, not just some random thing to do to pass the time.
Now I am not saying every dungeon in every area should have this, just like EQ, there should be easier areas, harder areas, and "No F'ing way, are the devs crazy? How do they expect us to do this?" areas. There should be places where only those groups who have a very solid working team should be able to handle.
I think, as I mentioned that if you make fights go too quickly, you lose many elements of needed strategy. Before someone says it, I know you can achieve much strategy in twitch play, that you can make it so people have to be quick with their keys spamming this, and that, and on time, and in sync, etc... where it would be really hard. I understand that, but... Pantheon isn't an action/arcade game, there is a time and a place for those games, this isn't one of them. Fights should be longer, take time, require patience, and allow players the time to form counter strategies during the fight without turning the game into a key spam fest.
Fast combat presents numerous problems. It is in the same way, much like designing fast leveling content where your players consume it quickly and move on to something else. You can't keep up with that content load and a dungeon designed with low HP fast based combat also presents similar problems.
Look back to EQ and think about how deep in the dungeons was a feat in exploration alone. Often some deep areas of a dungeon were too time consuming for some nights, so you would plan them with a group to meet up for a longer play time on a weekend. It took time to kill and move in deeper. Mobs did not die quickly, and so fights became endurance fights of mana/hp management, spawn timer management, and a constant need to be aware of pathing mobs. Longer fights means that you have to be concerned about how many mobs you can handle at a single time. More mobs means the need for more CC (which means more mana) or the need for more healing to mitigate the damage. With the issues of casting, healing, low health, and sit agro, having a lot of mobs in camp can quickly lead to a wipe, even with a crack CC team in your fold.
Much of the play experienced in EQ was due to fights taking much longer, where simple DPS bypass was often inefficient and unreliable. Also, longer fights presented a means to apply more strategy than would be allowed in short fights. The longer the fight, the more options for various implementations of certain spells and abilities, exploration of uses and work around. If mobs die quickly, many solutions become less of a use and you lack the time needed to apply various spell and ability executions. Pantheon talks about the use of working class abilities in way that will allow "combo" style play, but if the mobs die too quick, such becomes less important in play. That is, if mobs are dying so fast, is there really a need for additional abilities?
I have watched a lot of games design encounters that really just end up being AoE fests where mobs are mowed through like an action movie. In this pursuit, many strategic elements of play we experienced in past games are no longer present (situational buffs, debuffs, CC, etc...) and the result of such continued slimming down of combat time is the painting of ones self into a corner by turning combat into an ambush style approach of play where either the player one shots the mob, or the mob one shots the player, which is why most games have opted to remove most of the trash in most dungeons (or just have groups of mobs to AoE) in favor of a hop from boss to boss type of play.
So, I think it is important for the sake of Pantheon to have fights last quite a while, even for a group of people fighting. We should not be measuring how long it takes to kill a mob in seconds, but in minutes. At minimum, a typical trash mob should be around 2-3 mins of kill time and areas like dungeons should be heavily populated, requiring clever tricks to pull and manage them. It should not be uncommon for a group to be in the middle of fighting the last mob of a room they broke before respawns. It should be a worry if there is an add or unexpected spawn. Players should be in constant flux with managing their mana/hp and with each rest, it should feel like it was absolutely needed, not just some random thing to do to pass the time.
Now I am not saying every dungeon in every area should have this, just like EQ, there should be easier areas, harder areas, and "No F'ing way, are the devs crazy? How do they expect us to do this?" areas. There should be places where only those groups who have a very solid working team should be able to handle.
I think, as I mentioned that if you make fights go too quickly, you lose many elements of needed strategy. Before someone says it, I know you can achieve much strategy in twitch play, that you can make it so people have to be quick with their keys spamming this, and that, and on time, and in sync, etc... where it would be really hard. I understand that, but... Pantheon isn't an action/arcade game, there is a time and a place for those games, this isn't one of them. Fights should be longer, take time, require patience, and allow players the time to form counter strategies during the fight without turning the game into a key spam fest.
Comments
Patheon is supposed to allow people playing just two hours per day and perform meaningful tasks in that time, like finishing a quest. Thus it cant be a game in which a full party requires half an hour to kill a critter.
Never said that it should take 30 mins to kill the average mob. I actually said a minimum of 2-3 minutes to kill a trash mob. That would be sufficient amount of time to get into many areas of a dungeon and camp a named spawn a bit. Will it mean that you can get into the really deep areas of a dungeon and camp a specific mob in 2 hours? Probably not, but I don't think Brad said that you could do anything in just two hours, rather he was saying that 2 hours would be enough time to perform a meaningful task. That could be a shallow area of a dungeon or some camp out in the world somewhere.
If you are killing trash in seconds, it means you can travel an entire dungeon in mere minutes. Considering the size they have planned for dungeons (very large), it would be a bunch of effort to make content that will be steam rolled in minimal time. As I said, if you have mobs dying in seconds, then how long do you have your re-spawn times? Can't have them too long or it would be rather odd (ie fast kills, then sit for 20+ minutes) and if you have them re-spawn faster to match how fast you are killing the mobs, you basically end with people essentially running through a dungeon quickly, consuming content far too quickly, defeating the essence of long term play to which Pantheon is being developed around. Last thing you want is the average player essentially mowing through all of your content in mere days.
So long as content isn't made unreasonably difficult just because there isn't much content.
Also, I'm not a big fan of "bug zappers" - i.e., mobs put in with a zillion hps for players to throw themselves at and die, just so the devs can say no one has beaten their game. Later, after they catch up on content, they nerf the bug zapper. That's a cynical design, imho.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Or...
They can put up walls that are "ridiculous", "stupid", that only the most perfect execution could achieve. Think of it like an anal retentive inspector that says "Nope, sorry, that was not perfect... do it again", I mean BITCH SLAP a raid with all kinds of stupid requirements to achieve a success, almost to the point of being unable to achieve it. Then, put in aspects where there is a "trip up" for that raid where things are going ok, then... randomly, a mass of mobs spawns and rushes them. Hell, make these "end game" mobs a spin wheel of "what will happen next" type of events to keep the guilds busy.
Do that, but make sure you reward them (I mean, if they can survive the hell design I am thinking of, reward them DAMN well) and it won't matter. (if you design the events with random features, even allow GMs to take part in some instances, and the guild still wins, with all the "unfair" treatment of the game and GMs, then make sure the guilds get something cool for it.)
So I am not saying make "unbeatable mobs", I am saying make "ridiculously difficult" mobs, I mean break the rules stupid like mobs, and then... reward if they win (which if designed right, should be rare indeed).
Keep in mind, this design is for the small percent of players who will rush the content and hit end game very quickly. Is playing games with them, screwing with them, etc... really a bad thing?
It sounds good in theory if you have a perma group or a guild group with good coordination and similar log in times, but it's not without it's issues. Without perma groups, I'm sure pick-up groups would port out, etc. and your sorry a** would be left in Gukbottom as a warrior to fend for yourself and when you returned the next day, you'd be /shouting Warrior looking for group/port at Safe Spot #2.
I would imagine though that emergent gameplay would cause those safe spots to be pulling areas, so you might log into to some groups.
And I get your point about people who rush through content, but hey, to each their own. One of these days I may retire, pull my rocker up next to the fireplace and go rush some game's content. "Hey you casuals. Get off my lawn." That ought to be fun. But in the meantime I bear them no malice. I feel like all content should be worthwhile, and never just a placeholder.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Make the game hard, make it require LOTS of time and effort. I won't complain, I will get to it as I can and it will always be something to look forward to. Make it so little time and effort is required to consume the content, I will be bored and cancelling in less than a month (as is the common occurrence of most MMOs these days).
Exp groups are a really integral part of the original MMO model that I miss as well and I have backed a couple of these projects just based on the hope one/some of them may come to fruition and provide the sort of niche PvE mmorpg I am looking for.
If the speed at which you kill mobs is the only thing slowing you down in a dungeon maybe they are making the dungeons wrong.
What did you have in mind? I mean, you are objecting to camps, what is your solution in an open world contested content dungeon? Or were you just passing through looking for some meaningless applaud to a useless comment?
If your dungeons are heavily populated, with longer times to kill (as I explained with possible re-pops in many areas without extremely efficient play), the average player will take much longer to move through a dungeon, making it harder to see all the content in a given single play time (think Sirens Grotto or Sebilis).
Ideally, you want players to "work" back into a dungeon over time, slowly exploring and this process to any "average" player should take quite a while with only the locusts plowing through playing the content 24/7 until they have seen everything, farmed everything, etc...
They really have to consider how fast the average player consumes the content as if they don't, we could end up with a lot of issues. It is a fair and honest concern.
I believe they are too. My posts are not to condemn, or to admonish, or speculate that they are not, it is merely to bring up elements of this issue for discussion. Think about it, when was the last time we had a game that had a solid contested content system with camping and other aspects of conflict?
Everything changes in this type of content. What we know about instancing, or what we experience in today's mainstream games is often counter to the way a contested content game such as EQ would function. It is an important distinction to consider, especially for those who have not experienced a system like EQ before.
I feel that ~45 seconds (with good, but not great, gear) is a good TTK if a group focuses an average mob; obviously it would be good to have mobs with different HP* levels thus TTK. 2-3 minutes would be a good average time for a trash** encounter, with an average of 2-4 mobs per pack.
* I say HP but this really means both HP and damage mitigation. I would love to see an MMO where damage types, debuffs, etc. had a meaningful impact on TTK. Fighting the undead? Don't forget your clubs, fire and holy water.
** I don't really like the term trash as most mobs should serve some purpose, even it is just to get a key to open a door it makes them seem worth the time to kill. A room full of mobs for the sake of it is just annoying and makes you want to skip it.
The main reason I say ~45 seconds is a good TTK is due to ability cooldowns, which IMO should be kept somewhere in the 30 to 90 second range***. Make them much longer and they tend not to get used because they simply aren't reliable, much shorter and they get annoying to constantly re-apply. If TTK is too high (for the average fight), then it just starts getting too repetitive; cycling cooldowns multiple times on every fight is just tiring and if TTK is too low, as the OP said, then everything is dead before you've even warmed up.
*** One exception to this is Oh S### buttons, which should still be kept under 10 minutes (4-6 seems good). Another down side to having long cooldowns is that they tend to need to be made more powerful to justify it, which leads to being overpowered when you have it and underpowered when you don't (pally bubble anyone?); a happy medium is always better.
On a bit of a side note I would also like to see very low vertical progression. One of the issues in FFXIV at the moment is that level 50 content is now trivial, and while it is nice to be able to roll a dungeon that was once challenging it is also rather boring and teaches players some very bad habits. There should still be vertical progress, but it needs to a long road with many tiny hops along the way.
30 - 90 secs? Nah cant agree with that. While a few low sec cool downs are acceptable. The majority should be 2 to 5 min cooldowns. And maybe a couple long cooldowns like 15 maybe even 30 mins. Short cooldowns lead to spam fests and ultimate rotations. I dont want rotations I want situations.
Things like ability cool down duration need to depend on the flow of combat and how much of a role auto attacks are playing in combat overall. While I enjoyed the tactical and group orientation of combat in games like EQ and XI there was also a lot of boring auto attacking going on until it was time to engage yourself in combat to set up combos and skill chains and such. Keeping grind parties fun was more about your party members than it was about exciting combat sometimes. I can definitely do with a more engaging system than the semi-AFK auto attack fests that EQ and FFXI AA grind parties were. But I don't think that longer battle times means the combat needs to be more tedious and less engaging. With the advancement of tools and experience that developers and designers have at their disposal now compared when they were building those older games it shouldn't be that difficult to find a happy medium.
You could bind to whatever location you wanted to, and with a one hour recast you could recall there.
Obviously you would be supposed to bind to whatever spot you would be working on.
Oh, and if you had a house, you would get a second recall on the same recast timer to get to your house instead.
This way you would never end up being stuck in the middle of a dungeon. At worst you would have an old recall spot that would require you to travel back to where you would actually be adventuring at the moment.
Another possibility was calling. A healer (i.e. Cleric, Shaman, Disciple or Blood Mage) could call people to their own position in the dungeon. Specifically said warrior in the safe spot could be called to the entrance of the dungeon.
Mages (Sorcerer, Druid, Psionicist or Necromancer) of couse could simply evac to the next altar (same spot you would appear at if you died and released).
That was actually funny in Vanguard.
Certain classes either needed their mob to stay alife for a bit (Blood Mage needed to build Blood Points so they could cast certain spells) or had a ***load of debuffs (Shaman) or an equally huge ***load of damage over time spells (Necromancer).
When you played them in group, you quickly learned that there was no point really in trying to use these abilities because mobs just wouldnt stay alife long enough.
Changed on highlevel though, because killing became much slower then.
This created class dependence and unique pro/con situations. As a Monk, I could feign death, so while there was always risk of dying, I had an easier time getting around if I was left behind (succor/evac as a "feature" would occasionally leave a person behind on a port, was a great risk/reward feature). Though, some dungeons had places where you needed a port out to leave which made escape by a melee impossible (though there were some special items that a melee could use such as the Overthere Hammer which would randomly proc a self gate to Overthere in Kunark).
Melee could only be bound in the nearest city (even an enemy/NPC city) while casters had the luxury of being able to bind anywhere. Melee could only travel back to their bind point under limited circumstances, such as a Wizard translocation spell cast on you, maybe a special item or potion, or.. death.
What this did is provide layers of unique play and circumstance with pros/cons in class selection, fear in your limitations, and numerous aspects of game play features. These are the subtle interactions and game play elements that simply allowing all players to circumvent with easy travel removes.
That is the major point of slow combat, it greatly encourages social interaction during adventures. If you are too busy worrying about button mashing, you will spend much less time chatting with group mates. If we depended only on downtime for that, then the game would become a complete bore for most people. As a role player, I prefer to not have to focus completely on combat for that reason and others as well.
You're forgetting about class interdependence as a social tool. I think risk is important, but the social aspects are even more important. So, being able to have a class do Call of Hero or evacuate or cast invisibility on a melee trying to navigate to the group is much more important than the risk and frustration of a player trying to get back to their group. It's the social ties and experiences that give a game longevity much more so than certain risk factors could ever achieve.
I 100% agree that social interaction and the game engaging and encouraging players in social ways is as important (maybe even more so to me at this point) than crazy amounts of content and lootz. I am definitely in agreement with you that the largest part of enjoyment, for me, with these games comes from the social aspect. Most of the time in the old games we were working around and against broken systems to find our fun and we did. So clearly we don't need a perfectly polished gem in order to find the fun. I just don't think that the old AFK while auto attacking and come back to your screen once every few minutes to activate your long CD abilities and then go AFK for five minutes again is necessarily the proper tempo of combat. That is slow to the point of tedium. And while conversation is nice it doesn't necessarily make bad combat good. As a point of reference I felt that the pace combat in the original version of FFXIV (1.0) was very solid. It was a bit quicker than XI but still slowish and tactical (setting up disable combos and what not) was pretty decent and allowed for plenty of socializing while leveling in parties or doing dungeon runs. When the revamped the game for 2.0 they really jacked up the pace of combat and turned it into a button mashing fest. I know FFXIV 1.0 was considered to be a travesty of a game by most, but I do feel like they did this one aspect of things pretty well.