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EQ2/RPG Combat: Is the Fun Lost Forever?
bulldogjones
Member Posts: 12
I would love to hear what you think...
I have been an avid player of all types of games...and I would like to think I know what makes great games great. For me, Everquest was great when I first played it. The sheer size of the place and scope was awesome. The idea that there was so many places to explore and...it was so close to a real world in respect to size, that it was exciting to imagine what else was out there. But as time wore on, the game's scenery becames commonplace...what is left is the actual game....more importantly combat. and thus I slowly get to the point...
The combat in EQ was terrible. Boring. Repetative...if I played a fighter. As a cleric, the situation changed...health bars fluctuated...I would wait till the very last second to throw a greater heal on a furiously typing monk and that would make it more fun. As a fighter, you initiate combat and, with auto attack, let the sound effects let you know that your swining away. Ohh yes...there were some great additions...like Kick...Wooo hoo...push a button and you "kick" an opponent for additional damage. There was no skill. Someone will no doubt reply that "pulling" takes skill...and for those people I do not argue that...pulling does take skill. But I ask you...how boring is that. How boring is auto attack combat.
History: The most exciting games, I believe, come into play when you have strategy to what you do. I would love to hear the science behind it, but I want to think that the more you have to use of your brain...the more real, intense the experience. Chess, although old and arguably boring and something Ive played very little of, is a game that has transgressed through many centuries and has remained popular, because it is not boring. There are so many ways to win, strategies to use, ways...to crush your opponents dreams. But, listen to me clearly, I do not like the slow pace of such a game...and other "turn-based" video games. Too much thinking makes me a little sleepy.
As a EQ2 future player, I want the ability to concentrate attacks on certain parts of my opponets body...causing a kind of damage that will work to an advantage. For instance: a large right-handed Giant with a large club in his hand....would become less effective without an arm...or leg. Or...an octopus like creature that needs tenticals cut off ...or eyes blinded so she cant cast spells as effectively...and so on. Also, a cause to make the player move to create a better attacking scenerio or ....dammit something to make it more like playing a game (in combat) and less like clicking a button. My question to all us Geeks who make an dplay these games...have you ever been in a fight? Have you ever been punched in the face...been in a brawl...where things are happening so fast you are reacting...not thinking. Can they make fighting more intense...more button pushing...something else ...so that if you just sit at your computer and do nothing you will surely be killed. In EQ, thats not how it was. You could click and sit quietly and await the outcome. And for me thats not what I want!!
Right now the excitiement surrounding adventuring is uncovering a new monster/animal/person and waiting to see what kind of spell it or what cleaver line it will say or loot it will drop when you kill it... all in all its the same damn monster just in different textures and shading.
The fun will come when you adventure out and find a new monster but have no idea how to kill it...and you have to change your style of play significantly ...and learn new strategies in order to beat it. Maybe a dragon will have a soft underbelly...but will not reveal it until a person risks attacking his tail or feet that causes him to move or a zombie taking extra damage to a shot to the head. Or...what i think would be great is ...why do all the monsters stand there and fight us. Why not the ability to hunt deer and bear...like if you attack them they run into the trees and you have to track and kill them. or...as they run away ...you have to root them...but then their attacking strategy changes and the fun becomes greater. ...its the unknowning and adventure of fighting that is one factor that makes these games fun.
People still play Warcraft3 because the can use different/new strategies on fresh opponents ...and have no idea how their opponent is going to play...and that makes it exciting. The idea that your strategy will be easily countered and thus your heart is racing and mind is working...to quickly think of the counter to the opponents counter. Does that make sense?
So where am I going with this: I believe that from what I have seen...the combat system has been revamped. I am a positive thinker, and hope that this combat wheel will add a little thinking involved than just mind-numbing auto-attack-lef-click type of combat. Right now....the classic RPG way is ...auto-fight, auto-fight, auto-fight your level of creature....till you level again and then fight the next level of creature. The thing that changes your play is the equipment that you choose/buy...not much else. What I want to see is some real thought into how to improve RPG combat and redesign the way the future RPG combat will go. There was a time not too long ago that 1 person shooter Wolfenstein was revelutionary ...a new way to do combat...that changed the way people thought about games...spawning doom,quake...every shooter out there. I do not want a shooter RPG = does not work. But just a new way to do combat so that my heart races, mind thinks and have a new adventure each time i venture out into this pixilated world.
What do you think?
BULLDOG OUT!
Comments
Eloquent, thoughtful post. Bulldog has earned a great deal of respect this day. I agree with everything you said.
I've held subscriptions to 3 different MMOs and each time I've canceled my subscription because of the tedium of combat. I look forward to D&D online for this reason: from what I've seen and read of D&D online it appears that this game may finally break away from the standard MMO combat system. For this I am grateful and at the same time a bit skeptical. But I will buy it when it comes out because I anticipate it in much the same way EQ2 has been for so many months now.
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To live and not dream is to die at birth.
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You make some very valid and interesting points. I played EQ for almost 4 years and you are right, after a while things become repetitious. For me I enjoyed the social aspects of the game, as well as the exploration and fighting, so it wasn't quite as bad but like you I did need to find additional ways to make the game challenging. I became a grand-master in a tradeskill (not that it meant much in EQ1, but it was still something different), I also started 2 boxing which definitely presented more challenges and increased the difficulty.
I don't know if the technology exists at the present to individualize attacks as you described, but I think having those options would be fabulous. A more targeted attack, by a wizard for example, might change the entire dynamic of the fight. I think the newness and variety that EQ2 will offer is better than any game released thus far, and hopefully by the time we have played it to the point of boredom the type of endless fight scenarios you describe will be possible.
Minxx
Minxx
Your ideas are fantastic. However i think that that type of involvement would drive a lot of people away from mmorpgs. The reason for this is quite simple, If they were to use some of those attacks you suggested they would have to make the mobs MUCH harder because it would be too simple to just cut the arms off the mob and boom he can't kill you. I also think that would make the fights much longer dropping the expo gained. Lets say a casual gamer only has 2 hours to be on, they can fight maybe 6 mobs (depending on how much harder they make the mobs maybe less) therefore you have a game full of people that only play all the time. That wipes the casual gamer out of the picture, and no company would drop the casual gamer because he too pays the same monthly fee as the powergamer but isnt logged on half as much.
No matter how much I personally love your ideas it is not possible to do without driving the company that made it out of buisness. You forget that we can only play if the company has money for updates and repairs.
But props too you... they are truly great ideas
-Loc
Bulldog Here!
The idea is not to have it take longer...but to be more interesting combat...more strategy. From the look at the characters you have sold...you have have spent some time in combat and know the ways to build all available characters. I recently saw a trailer for DOD Online and the combat looks similar to an action style. Fun...I will probably test it to see if its what its cracked up to be...but EQ2 has gripped my attention, because it has such interesting potential outside of combat...ie tradeskills, guilds and a large, detailed world to escape to.
In life, I work around 50 hours+ a week ...and have a fantastic girlfriend that I dont think knows yet that I play video games. (After I see her I may sneak on for an hour at 12:00am to get the adrenaline pumping. I dont have large amounts of time to spend on a game. Thats why I quit EQ. ...too much time to = no fun. The idea is to make even 1 combat situation fun and interesting...not fun&interesting only after leveling to 50...is what that post was about. The EQ2 world is about immersion and thats what I like about it.
A combat system that relys on a few specialized skills to make things interesting....isnt that interesting.
Bulldog OUT!
P.S ...maybe because we all play some many of these games...we could come up with an idea between us...maybe this post serves a purpose...maybe this post could finally create the finest RPG game ever...one that would satisfy all ...and we'd never switch ...maybe I should get some air!
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
Define Challangeing.
Challangeing to whom? A Stanford student with a 180IQ and less than 3 hours a day to spend on the game? A disabled vet on governemnt disability pay with 17 hours a day to play? A 16 year old high school student with 8 hours a day to play and no sense of stragety or maturity or emotional stability to run away?
You really have to pick your audiances when you set the "challange" level in a game. If something is point and click, it may not be challangeing to you, but it will challange that vet. If something requires rudementary tactics and stragety, it may not be challangeing to you, but it will challange that 16 year old. If it requires a large time investment but not alot of anything else it will challange that Stanford student.
When you say you want challangeing combat you mean you want it to be just hard enough to make you think at say 75% of your capacity to overcome, will require you to use 75% of your twitch skills to win, and 75% of your emotional ability to suck it up and do what the raid leader says, and will use 75% of your available free time.
Of course something that fully challanges you on all 4 points will be boreing AND impossibly hard for all 3 of the above examples.
This is something I see alot in these gameing forums...People want a game designed around THEM. That uses all of THEIR abilities to their fullest. Nevermind what the average is and weather the game will be too easy or hard for them....They want a game that caters to them and only them.
In order to attract sufficent subscribers a game must not be too challangeing and at the same time provide the average gamer with some form of challange. The result of that is that the game is too boreing for some and impossible for others....
Where to draw the line? I am reminded of a recent old saying:) "Imagine how stupid the average person you meet is. Now imagine that half of the people in the world are even dumber."
I don't really think that EQ combat was boring, its just that the powergamer's "safe steady xp" attitude seemed to spread like wildfire over the entire game. Most groups you joined in EQ had that stupid pulling philosophy, grab one, kill, rest, grab another, repeat.
In the time it took me to reach level 54 and quit EQ, I joined a handful of really interesting groups. Basically they were insane, the monk would go out and grab a two to four mobs and drag them all back to camp and then somehow we'd come out alive. I didn't quite understand how we were surviving, but often the monk would run away and grab another bunch just when we were almost done with the current bunch. The combat was intense and fun, and we were all frantically yelling at eachother for heals and screaming for the warrior to "AIIEE GET THIS FROGLOK OFF ME!"; anyway, it was hella fun. I'll tell ya, the warrior had plenty to do in that group.
Unfortunately though, due to the reasons Xira mentioned regarding differenciating players, you don't always get groups like this who are a) willing to give it a go and b) can actually handle it. I remember joining some groups that seemed to have a good makeup of classes, but whenever multiples were pulled, we got slaughtered. I guess my point is that while EQ's combat system is what you and your group can make it, and if everyone made it this way, you wouldn't be complaining that warriors have nothing to do because you wouldn't have any beef with EQ's combat, right?
Though you are right IMO. In "small battles" (soloing and boring groups), there really isn't enough to it. I guess this is why UO's combat was fairly interesting for warriors, even when solo. When fighting something challenging, you usually had to run around a fair bit, do alot of bandaging, potion drinking, casting and ontop of that, in old UO you had to keep a close eye on other players incase they were thieves or PKs.
I reckon the solution is pretty simple, give all players some more actions, more interactivity, so that they have to do more than push one button every few seconds to win a fight. After that, just like in EQ1, its up to the players to put themselves in challenging situations; if they don't, combat will be boring.
I could go on to say that combat could be made more challenging again by not making the layout of mobs and their difficulty so linear (deeper/further you go from home, harder it gets) and by making character skill advancement much more flat (lvl 25 is half as good as lvl 50), but this post is getting way too long already, so I'll stop here.