Non THD games are really not designed around single target boss battles, since to make a single target a threat the stats of said target need to be scaled greatly, and in many cases they are immune to many important survival abilities players have (ie stun/freeze immunity for wow bosses)
I think what "the people that hate THD" want is a more group vs group style gameplay, not group vs single boss, the most fun I had in wow was fighting the groups of 5 elites in 5man instances like blackrock depths and dire maul.
Moving on, nonTHD is made for pvp (ie enemies that can think) though, so once your mobs start playing like players, it's hard to have the solid distinction between pvp and pve, since it would be the same playstyle for both. ( would be interesting to have a lot more named mobs so it wasn't immediately apparent who a player and an npc were at first )
So in that respect huge 25 vs 1 raids just don't happen in non-thd - not that the players of said games care, too busy having fun with dynamic fights. (please correct me if i'm wrong, I haven't played all the way to the pve endgame in guild wars or tcos)
This is an interesting and important subject, and I have to read this thread through with a thought when I have the time.
I don't like the THD(C) dogma, practically for the same reason I don't like many other things: it's too simple and restricting. However it is true, that like some previous poster said, in many RPG's the combat reduces to dealing damage, taking damage and healing it, possibly with some support roles like buffing/debuffing and crowd control.
What would happen if the very nature of combat was changed? What if "combat" didn't feel like chopping a tree (who's chopping you back) and hoping it will fall before you? In all the real-world examples I can thing of (real life tends to be logical for humans, and that's why I like to use it as an example) the focus is not on taking the damage but preventing it. Now someone might say that having 100hp and evading 50% of all hits is equivalent of having 100hp and resisting 50% of the damage, which is of course true. However, what if the evading (or blocking or parrying) wasn't a result of your skills and a dice roll, but a result of tactical thinking (or the lack of it). If one hit can kill (think of irl fencing, tank battles, air battles, etc) or at least incapacitate you, you aren't going to have boxing-style punch exchanges. You are going to spend time outmaneuvering and outthinking your opponent.
In group battles this could mean having formations to protect your flanks, trying to get a terrain advantage, hitting the weakest link in enemy's force, etc. Take a look at Total War -games and imagine a smaller scale.
This is a personal opinion, but I think that in a computer game magic shouldn't be just a graphically nicer looking equivalent of archery. The thing called magic the most MMORPG's have shouldn't therefore be called magic, like the "quests" they have shouldn't be called quests. This nature of magic should mean that a combat should be perfectly meaningful and interesting even without any magic on either side (total war style). Then, if either side had magic-users they wouldn't be next to archers shooting some stupid bolts to the others side. They would be barraging massive fireballs equivalent of modern artillery, providing group buffs to the whole army, raising dozens on skeletons to help the army, changing the weather to make enemies crossbowmen useless, etc. I think Warhammer Fantasy Battles (the tabletop game) had relatively good idea of magic as a true strategic element.
Originally posted by nariusseldon Originally posted by Quizzical If being able to dodge 75% of the time makes a class a tank, then every class is a tank in The Chronicles of Spellborn. Dodging isn't based on your gear giving you +dodge chance. Rather, it's based on, a mob is coming toward you and going to attack in a particular direction, so you strafe to get out of the way. No classes have any inherent advantage at doing this. To call that tanking is to say that Mario was a tank in Super Mario World because a good player could get out of the way of an incoming mob 99% of the time. As for how things are tuned for a 25 man raid, they aren't. The maximum group size is 4.
That is FPS twitch based combat and not RPG char based combat. So no thanks. Plus it can't support big or even medium raids.
This is a subject with which I've had some very heated arguments. Some people tend to think that all the other player skills than the ability to act fast are ok to have. I mean optimization, tactical thinking, cooldown planning, etc. But for some reason if some profession requires you to think and act fast it's suddenly super bad and a suggester of that idea should go feck himself with a stupid childish fps console game. I'm not saying nariusseldon thinks like this, but I've heard things like that a lot.
The funny thing is that most people aren't suggesting adding a purely reflex-based systems but ones that require you reacting fast. Now there is a difference. Reflex is an automated action triggered by some sensory input. If I feel a sharp pain in my hand, I should take my hand away from the pain source. That's a reflex. A reaction, however, I'd like to define as a more general term. A reaction is some action that is made to counter some other action. It doesn't say anything about the time scale. Thinking three days in mail-chess and then countering your opponents check is a reaction by this definition. Reflexes are then a subset of reactions, with every reflex being a (trivial) reaction but every reaction not being a reflex.
So, I'd like to emphasize the thinking part of reactions; instead of requiring lightning-fast mouse finger, a system would require lightning-fast thinking and decision-making. That kind of combat wouldn't be for everyone, but then again the current model is neither. I'd much rather reward intelligent people that those standing the boredom of endless gear-grinding. Of course fast reactions wouldn't be the only thing that mattered. A successful fighter would have to plan his actions, take the initiative in combat, retreat when needed, etc.
I think what "the people that hate THD" want is a more group vs group style gameplay, not group vs single boss, the most fun I had in wow was fighting the groups of 5 elites in 5man instances like blackrock depths and dire maul.
I don't mind a single boss, as long as he acts intelligently. What I hate about THD is that all bosses have to be complete idiots, when even a stupid human is smarter than ALL bosses it is bad. Group on group battles are good too.
Of course, going against one big bad would be very different in a not THD game because that big bad is not going to be dishing out the sort of ludicrous damage you see in a THD game (where you have a class that just spams heals on the guy taking all the damage). You'd also probably have crowd control and debuffs that could actually work on a boss, rather than making it immune to such things.
If being able to dodge 75% of the time makes a class a tank, then every class is a tank in The Chronicles of Spellborn. Dodging isn't based on your gear giving you +dodge chance. Rather, it's based on, a mob is coming toward you and going to attack in a particular direction, so you strafe to get out of the way. No classes have any inherent advantage at doing this. To call that tanking is to say that Mario was a tank in Super Mario World because a good player could get out of the way of an incoming mob 99% of the time.
As for how things are tuned for a 25 man raid, they aren't. The maximum group size is 4.
That is FPS twitch based combat and not RPG char based combat. So no thanks. Plus it can't support big or even medium raids.
This is a subject with which I've had some very heated arguments. Some people tend to think that all the other player skills than the ability to act fast are ok to have. I mean optimization, tactical thinking, cooldown planning, etc. But for some reason if some profession requires you to think and act fast it's suddenly super bad and a suggester of that idea should go feck himself with a stupid childish fps console game. I'm not saying nariusseldon thinks like this, but I've heard things like that a lot.
The funny thing is that most people aren't suggesting adding a purely reflex-based systems but ones that require you reacting fast. Now there is a difference. Reflex is an automated action triggered by some sensory input. If I feel a sharp pain in my hand, I should take my hand away from the pain source. That's a reflex. A reaction, however, I'd like to define as a more general term. A reaction is some action that is made to counter some other action. It doesn't say anything about the time scale. Thinking three days in mail-chess and then countering your opponents check is a reaction by this definition. Reflexes are then a subset of reactions, with every reflex being a (trivial) reaction but every reaction not being a reflex.
So, I'd like to emphasize the thinking part of reactions; instead of requiring lightning-fast mouse finger, a system would require lightning-fast thinking and decision-making. That kind of combat wouldn't be for everyone, but then again the current model is neither. I'd much rather reward intelligent people that those standing the boredom of endless gear-grinding. Of course fast reactions wouldn't be the only thing that mattered. A successful fighter would have to plan his actions, take the initiative in combat, retreat when needed, etc.
Thanks for the support. Most of the supporters of THD seem to have some bizarre ideas about what a non-THD game would be like. "Can't support raids" or the like is a ludicrous statement. I think the REAL WORLD, which is decidedly non-THD supports combat with large groups quite well (too well, really).
I do agree we need more tactical thinking. Games need more combats that require you think on your feet (one thing I hate about WoW is that the boss battles go like clockwork, so you cna get a mod that tells you what the boss is going to do -- that's horrible because it means you almost never have to think on your feet, which is when the game is the most fun). I think a THD or non-THD can support this, but a non-THD game might be a bit more flexible regarding who reacts and what the reactions are like (rather than "healers have to react now"). Anyhow, non-THD has a lot of things going for it, but smart reacting is something more games should have.
This is an interesting and important subject, and I have to read this thread through with a thought when I have the time.
I don't like the THD(C) dogma, practically for the same reason I don't like many other things: it's too simple and restricting. However it is true, that like some previous poster said, in many RPG's the combat reduces to dealing damage, taking damage and healing it, possibly with some support roles like buffing/debuffing and crowd control.
What would happen if the very nature of combat was changed? What if "combat" didn't feel like chopping a tree (who's chopping you back) and hoping it will fall before you? In all the real-world examples I can thing of (real life tends to be logical for humans, and that's why I like to use it as an example) the focus is not on taking the damage but preventing it. Now someone might say that having 100hp and evading 50% of all hits is equivalent of having 100hp and resisting 50% of the damage, which is of course true. However, what if the evading (or blocking or parrying) wasn't a result of your skills and a dice roll, but a result of tactical thinking (or the lack of it). If one hit can kill (think of irl fencing, tank battles, air battles, etc) or at least incapacitate you, you aren't going to have boxing-style punch exchanges. You are going to spend time outmaneuvering and outthinking your opponent.
In group battles this could mean having formations to protect your flanks, trying to get a terrain advantage, hitting the weakest link in enemy's force, etc. Take a look at Total War -games and imagine a smaller scale.
This is a personal opinion, but I think that in a computer game magic shouldn't be just a graphically nicer looking equivalent of archery. The thing called magic the most MMORPG's have shouldn't therefore be called magic, like the "quests" they have shouldn't be called quests. This nature of magic should mean that a combat should be perfectly meaningful and interesting even without any magic on either side (total war style). Then, if either side had magic-users they wouldn't be next to archers shooting some stupid bolts to the others side. They would be barraging massive fireballs equivalent of modern artillery, providing group buffs to the whole army, raising dozens on skeletons to help the army, changing the weather to make enemies crossbowmen useless, etc. I think Warhammer Fantasy Battles (the tabletop game) had relatively good idea of magic as a true strategic element.
I'd love to see formations matter a bit more. Not just "use this particular formation for this particular boss fight and otherwise it doesn't matter much", but more as a general rule. More reactive stuff to reduce damage is fun and engaging gameplay as well. Overall, I agree with you on a lot of stuff in this. I'd love to play a game that upped the challenge to players by making them think more often and expected quick-thinking and tactics to win the day.
Originally posted by Drachasor [Good and well-thought opinions]
Since it often feels we are a minority amongst the WoW-masses, it's always nice to see someone agreeing. I really hope a game like this comes out, so I could actually enjoy _playing_ the MMORPG's again as opposed to tolerating the tedious gameplay because I see a promise of a carrot in my immediate future.
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but Mabinogi also completely avoids the tank/healer/dps setup. Healing during combat is almost never as important as helping deal with existing enemies and everyone should have access to the game's only single target healing spell. No one can afford to take hits from the enemies either, so there is no tank. The entire combat system revolves around no one getting hit to begin with and gives you access to various knockdowns and counters to see that it happens. Unlike most the previously mentioned titles, it is not a twitch game with active dodging and is very much RPG combat.
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but Mabinogi also completely avoids the tank/healer/dps setup. Healing during combat is almost never as important as helping deal with existing enemies and everyone should have access to the game's only single target healing spell. No one can afford to take hits from the enemies either, so there is no tank. The entire combat system revolves around no one getting hit to begin with and gives you access to various knockdowns and counters to see that it happens. Unlike most the previously mentioned titles, it is not a twitch game with active dodging and is very much RPG combat.
I don't mind a single boss, as long as he acts intelligently. What I hate about THD is that all bosses have to be complete idiots, when even a stupid human is smarter than ALL bosses it is bad. Group on group battles are good too.
That is the thing. Enemies do NOT have to be intelligent to make a game fun. Case in point, Diablo (1 & 2) is one of the MOST fun game i have played (and agreed by many). It is not a TDH model either.
The mobs are extremely stupid and just make a beeline towards you. They won't even run away when u mow them hordes and hordes of their comrades. However, the game is extremely fun. It is about different ways of mowing lots of mobs down, and not play the equivalent of real time chess with them.
It is the same for TDH. It may not be realistic but it is fun. Games are not realistic anyway.
Also it's a fast paced action rpg with awesome looking mobs and bosses, can anyone name me some action rpg style mmos ?
I had fun in CABAL like that, chaining huge aoe combos was intense and you had to have perfect timing.
I guess TCoS is the closest since in action rpgs the big difference is you can physically avoid attacks by moving away, meaning you can 9 times out of 10 just back off / run around and slowly pick down your enemies.
The trouble with having a single boss that you can cc is that it just ends up being chain cc'd into oblivion, so there's no challenge, and if it doesn't do big damage then it's no threat at all.
Comments
Non THD games are really not designed around single target boss battles, since to make a single target a threat the stats of said target need to be scaled greatly, and in many cases they are immune to many important survival abilities players have (ie stun/freeze immunity for wow bosses)
I think what "the people that hate THD" want is a more group vs group style gameplay, not group vs single boss, the most fun I had in wow was fighting the groups of 5 elites in 5man instances like blackrock depths and dire maul.
Moving on, nonTHD is made for pvp (ie enemies that can think) though, so once your mobs start playing like players, it's hard to have the solid distinction between pvp and pve, since it would be the same playstyle for both. ( would be interesting to have a lot more named mobs so it wasn't immediately apparent who a player and an npc were at first )
So in that respect huge 25 vs 1 raids just don't happen in non-thd - not that the players of said games care, too busy having fun with dynamic fights. (please correct me if i'm wrong, I haven't played all the way to the pve endgame in guild wars or tcos)
<Welcome to my world>
I must admit CCP broke this model when they rolled in Sleepers.
if you are doing logistics or jamming welcome to primary land.
they ignored three other battleships in order to hammer my jammer ship, because they saw me as the largest threat.
Making the AI think more like players is really cool.
played:WoW and Eve off and on 5 years
Tried:CoH/V, PoTBS, War, TR, STO, FE
TOR is likely to rock
This is an interesting and important subject, and I have to read this thread through with a thought when I have the time.
I don't like the THD(C) dogma, practically for the same reason I don't like many other things: it's too simple and restricting. However it is true, that like some previous poster said, in many RPG's the combat reduces to dealing damage, taking damage and healing it, possibly with some support roles like buffing/debuffing and crowd control.
What would happen if the very nature of combat was changed? What if "combat" didn't feel like chopping a tree (who's chopping you back) and hoping it will fall before you? In all the real-world examples I can thing of (real life tends to be logical for humans, and that's why I like to use it as an example) the focus is not on taking the damage but preventing it. Now someone might say that having 100hp and evading 50% of all hits is equivalent of having 100hp and resisting 50% of the damage, which is of course true. However, what if the evading (or blocking or parrying) wasn't a result of your skills and a dice roll, but a result of tactical thinking (or the lack of it). If one hit can kill (think of irl fencing, tank battles, air battles, etc) or at least incapacitate you, you aren't going to have boxing-style punch exchanges. You are going to spend time outmaneuvering and outthinking your opponent.
In group battles this could mean having formations to protect your flanks, trying to get a terrain advantage, hitting the weakest link in enemy's force, etc. Take a look at Total War -games and imagine a smaller scale.
This is a personal opinion, but I think that in a computer game magic shouldn't be just a graphically nicer looking equivalent of archery. The thing called magic the most MMORPG's have shouldn't therefore be called magic, like the "quests" they have shouldn't be called quests. This nature of magic should mean that a combat should be perfectly meaningful and interesting even without any magic on either side (total war style). Then, if either side had magic-users they wouldn't be next to archers shooting some stupid bolts to the others side. They would be barraging massive fireballs equivalent of modern artillery, providing group buffs to the whole army, raising dozens on skeletons to help the army, changing the weather to make enemies crossbowmen useless, etc. I think Warhammer Fantasy Battles (the tabletop game) had relatively good idea of magic as a true strategic element.
That is FPS twitch based combat and not RPG char based combat. So no thanks. Plus it can't support big or even medium raids.
This is a subject with which I've had some very heated arguments. Some people tend to think that all the other player skills than the ability to act fast are ok to have. I mean optimization, tactical thinking, cooldown planning, etc. But for some reason if some profession requires you to think and act fast it's suddenly super bad and a suggester of that idea should go feck himself with a stupid childish fps console game. I'm not saying nariusseldon thinks like this, but I've heard things like that a lot.
The funny thing is that most people aren't suggesting adding a purely reflex-based systems but ones that require you reacting fast. Now there is a difference. Reflex is an automated action triggered by some sensory input. If I feel a sharp pain in my hand, I should take my hand away from the pain source. That's a reflex. A reaction, however, I'd like to define as a more general term. A reaction is some action that is made to counter some other action. It doesn't say anything about the time scale. Thinking three days in mail-chess and then countering your opponents check is a reaction by this definition. Reflexes are then a subset of reactions, with every reflex being a (trivial) reaction but every reaction not being a reflex.
So, I'd like to emphasize the thinking part of reactions; instead of requiring lightning-fast mouse finger, a system would require lightning-fast thinking and decision-making. That kind of combat wouldn't be for everyone, but then again the current model is neither. I'd much rather reward intelligent people that those standing the boredom of endless gear-grinding. Of course fast reactions wouldn't be the only thing that mattered. A successful fighter would have to plan his actions, take the initiative in combat, retreat when needed, etc.
I don't mind a single boss, as long as he acts intelligently. What I hate about THD is that all bosses have to be complete idiots, when even a stupid human is smarter than ALL bosses it is bad. Group on group battles are good too.
Of course, going against one big bad would be very different in a not THD game because that big bad is not going to be dishing out the sort of ludicrous damage you see in a THD game (where you have a class that just spams heals on the guy taking all the damage). You'd also probably have crowd control and debuffs that could actually work on a boss, rather than making it immune to such things.
That is FPS twitch based combat and not RPG char based combat. So no thanks. Plus it can't support big or even medium raids.
This is a subject with which I've had some very heated arguments. Some people tend to think that all the other player skills than the ability to act fast are ok to have. I mean optimization, tactical thinking, cooldown planning, etc. But for some reason if some profession requires you to think and act fast it's suddenly super bad and a suggester of that idea should go feck himself with a stupid childish fps console game. I'm not saying nariusseldon thinks like this, but I've heard things like that a lot.
The funny thing is that most people aren't suggesting adding a purely reflex-based systems but ones that require you reacting fast. Now there is a difference. Reflex is an automated action triggered by some sensory input. If I feel a sharp pain in my hand, I should take my hand away from the pain source. That's a reflex. A reaction, however, I'd like to define as a more general term. A reaction is some action that is made to counter some other action. It doesn't say anything about the time scale. Thinking three days in mail-chess and then countering your opponents check is a reaction by this definition. Reflexes are then a subset of reactions, with every reflex being a (trivial) reaction but every reaction not being a reflex.
So, I'd like to emphasize the thinking part of reactions; instead of requiring lightning-fast mouse finger, a system would require lightning-fast thinking and decision-making. That kind of combat wouldn't be for everyone, but then again the current model is neither. I'd much rather reward intelligent people that those standing the boredom of endless gear-grinding. Of course fast reactions wouldn't be the only thing that mattered. A successful fighter would have to plan his actions, take the initiative in combat, retreat when needed, etc.
Thanks for the support. Most of the supporters of THD seem to have some bizarre ideas about what a non-THD game would be like. "Can't support raids" or the like is a ludicrous statement. I think the REAL WORLD, which is decidedly non-THD supports combat with large groups quite well (too well, really).
I do agree we need more tactical thinking. Games need more combats that require you think on your feet (one thing I hate about WoW is that the boss battles go like clockwork, so you cna get a mod that tells you what the boss is going to do -- that's horrible because it means you almost never have to think on your feet, which is when the game is the most fun). I think a THD or non-THD can support this, but a non-THD game might be a bit more flexible regarding who reacts and what the reactions are like (rather than "healers have to react now"). Anyhow, non-THD has a lot of things going for it, but smart reacting is something more games should have.
I'd love to see formations matter a bit more. Not just "use this particular formation for this particular boss fight and otherwise it doesn't matter much", but more as a general rule. More reactive stuff to reduce damage is fun and engaging gameplay as well. Overall, I agree with you on a lot of stuff in this. I'd love to play a game that upped the challenge to players by making them think more often and expected quick-thinking and tactics to win the day.
Since it often feels we are a minority amongst the WoW-masses, it's always nice to see someone agreeing. I really hope a game like this comes out, so I could actually enjoy _playing_ the MMORPG's again as opposed to tolerating the tedious gameplay because I see a promise of a carrot in my immediate future.
Yeah theres mmorpgs out now that use tank healer cc and dps instead.
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but Mabinogi also completely avoids the tank/healer/dps setup. Healing during combat is almost never as important as helping deal with existing enemies and everyone should have access to the game's only single target healing spell. No one can afford to take hits from the enemies either, so there is no tank. The entire combat system revolves around no one getting hit to begin with and gives you access to various knockdowns and counters to see that it happens. Unlike most the previously mentioned titles, it is not a twitch game with active dodging and is very much RPG combat.
I will check it out.
That is the thing. Enemies do NOT have to be intelligent to make a game fun. Case in point, Diablo (1 & 2) is one of the MOST fun game i have played (and agreed by many). It is not a TDH model either.
The mobs are extremely stupid and just make a beeline towards you. They won't even run away when u mow them hordes and hordes of their comrades. However, the game is extremely fun. It is about different ways of mowing lots of mobs down, and not play the equivalent of real time chess with them.
It is the same for TDH. It may not be realistic but it is fun. Games are not realistic anyway.
Diablo is fun because AOE is fun,
Also it's a fast paced action rpg with awesome looking mobs and bosses, can anyone name me some action rpg style mmos ?
I had fun in CABAL like that, chaining huge aoe combos was intense and you had to have perfect timing.
I guess TCoS is the closest since in action rpgs the big difference is you can physically avoid attacks by moving away, meaning you can 9 times out of 10 just back off / run around and slowly pick down your enemies.
@Drachasor
The trouble with having a single boss that you can cc is that it just ends up being chain cc'd into oblivion, so there's no challenge, and if it doesn't do big damage then it's no threat at all.
<Welcome to my world>