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MMO group combat done well (without the holy trinity)
Rogue_Leader
Member Posts: 119
In a recent interview the FFXIV developers talked about moving away from the holy trinity towards more neutral roles. I've seen various responces to this but most focus on the posters opinion of the holy trinity (pro or con.) I'm not interested in that conversation.
I want to start a conversation about how group combat with neutral roles could be done well. The goals are a system that provides:
1. Fun combat.
- If the games not fun to play people won't play it (the combat portion anyway.)
2. Promotes group play.
- A major concern is that a system with all neutral roles will promote (reward) solo play more than group play.
3. Has possible solo play.
- This is one of the stated goals of the FFXIV dev team, so any system that negates solo play doesn't really apply to this game.
Comments
Idea 1: I have no doubts that SE can pull this off. FF XI, in my opinion, was one of the few games out there to have grinding that was fun.
Idea 2: Like you stated, neutrals really seem to be more casual and soloist friendly rather than group friendly. I can't stand the idea of "jack of all trades" builds inside FF XIV, that will indefinitely wreck group aspects. Still, I'll need to get my hands on the beta version (which is hopefully in September of this year).
Idea 3: I'm not too sure that SE will make the game completely soloable. They said you could solo while you were bored, but if SE wants to attract the FF XI crowd over, they need to make group aspects the main thing. Solo play might end up still sucking inside FF XIV, and it's only a little easier to do this time around (to live up to the promise they made to soloists, but it could be a ruse to suck them into the game). In my opinion, soloing inside FF XIV should only be during times when you can't find a party, and while soloing you are still searching for a party. It should be difficult and not worth soloing unless you have no choice and are still looking for a party (and it will be difficult and not as rewarding as group play).
Let me try tossing a few ideas out there:
1. Combat more like an action/adventure game. All traditional MMO combat requires of players is that you maneuver your character to within range and start attacking. FFXIV could make it possible for players and npcs to physically dodge attacks. The default could be directional type attacks. A cross between Moster Hunter and Zelda gameplay.
2. Group play can be rewarded with more frequent skill ups than solo play. Not a huge difference, but if you spend 1hr with a good group you'd get ~1.05 - 1.1x the skill ups as a solo player. They could also incorporate group play into the crafting and gathering professions. (That actually makes a lot of sense. Two people can chop down bigger trees and haul larger pieces lumber than one.)
Another way to encourage group combat play is to add creatures that require groups to kill. No soloer can take down leviathan (just pulling him out of my arse) but if you get a large group together you can keep each other alive and take him down.
3. An even match is an even match for a solo-er. It doesn't mean you're guarunteed to win, but if you play right there's a good chance you will.
Let me try tossing a few ideas out there:
1. Combat more like an action/adventure game. All traditional MMO combat requires of players is that you maneuver your character to within range and start attacking. FFXIV could make it possible for players and npcs to physically dodge attacks. The default could be directional type attacks. A cross between Moster Hunter and Zelda gameplay.
2. Group play can be rewarded with more frequent skill ups than solo play. Not a huge difference, but if you spend 1hr with a good group you'd get ~1.05 - 1.1x the skill ups as a solo player. They could also incorporate group play into the crafting and gathering professions. (That actually makes a lot of sense. Two people can chop down bigger trees and haul more lumber than one.)
Another way to encourage group combat play is to add creatures that require groups to kill. No soloer can take down leviathan (just pulling him out of my arse) but if you get a large group together you can keep each other alive and take him down.
3. An even match is an even match for a solo-er. It doesn't mean you're guarunteed to win, but if you play right there's a good chance you will.
Well, now that you mention it like that, those ideas sound quite good. Solo play is a wee bit possible, yet it sucks in all means compared to group play. That should be the way the SE goes with the mechanics, otherwise FF XIV will devolve into another solo game.
1) I love group combat. I think a fun way to allow group combat without utilizing the "holy trinity" is to come up with a system where every "job" has something useful to offer so that no group requires a specific "job".
For example, instead of the same old party of a Tank, Nuker and Healer who group up to kill something which we have seen time and time again, why not have a group consisting of a Time Mage, Oracle and Archer have just as much of a chance at killing something?
In other words, the Oracle pulls the mob by casting poison on it. As the mob runs towards the group it is already losing hp from the poison as well as the Archer making consistent attacks. Hopefully the Oracle can get off a blind spell before the Mob arrives. Now you have a Mob that is missing on half of the attacks due to the blind spell. The Time Mage casts Haste on the Archer and the Archer's damage output increases. The Mob turns to attack the Archer and after a few hits, The Time Mage casts Stop while the Archer recovers a bit or moves away a bit (allowing a couple of ranged attacks before the Mob can get to him once it unfreezes). Meanwhile the Time Mage and Oracle have also been beating on it with their staffs for a bit. Maybe when the Mob unfreezes, it attacks the Time Mage now but hopefully between all of the attacks, the group will have it dead soon.
Honestly, for that example, I just thought of three random Final Fantasy "jobs" and then thought about how they could take down an enemy. I would love to see a system where any combination of jobs could be successful. It doesn't mean you are a one man army like some MMOs, it just means that everyone has something equally important to contribute. However, in my own personal opinion, I would still like an "ideal" group to be a group where each player has a different job. I much prefer group diversity as opposed to a group of six warriors (or six Geomancers) taking down a Mob just as well as a diverse group. I feel diversity was often better in FFXI except for some "all Black Mage groups" which I hope will get fixed for this game.
I would love to play a game where a group can win a battle without having to "tank", "nuke" or "heal". Of course those jobs would always be welcome... just not mandatory. I must say that I think there will always be room for Tanks in the MMO world but being a Tank should mean that they can absorb a lot of damage. It should NOT mean that they should be the only job that can pull a mob off of someone. I think every job should have ways to pull an enemy off of someone in some shape or form if we do not want Tanks or Healers to be a requirement in a group.
2) As others have mentioned. The best way to encourage group play is to have better rewards (money, xp, items) for Mobs that need a group to kill it. Since the Devs have said that you can solo or group, I do not think the game will be like FFXI where it was pointless to try to solo something (at least way back when I played).
I think the best system is a system I have seen in other games before. Regular Mobs and Elite Mobs. If you are a level 10 Bard and want to solo, you can go hunt a level 10 (regular) Mob. If you meet up with two or three group mates who are also level 10, you can go hunt a level 10 Elite Mob which offers much higher rewards compared to the regular Mobs. If you have a FULL group of level 10 players, maybe you can go hunt a level 11 or level 12 Elite Mob. There can be solo and group quests as well for those who don't want to grind all day. The group quests would include Elite Mobs of course. Even if you don't like the idea of Elite Mobs, a group should be able to hunt higher level creatures then a solo player.
Also, I realize the Devs have stated there will not be levels but clearly someone who has played for one week should not be as powerful as someone who has played for one year. So there must be some type of measurement of growth (even if it is just better abilities). I just felt I needed to use levels to explain my point easily.
3) See #2 answer above
Typically the problem with not having a system that relies on the "holy trinity" is you trade one problem for another. Instead of requiring tank/healer/dps you just have some variation of all dps and nobody would really wants the pure tank or healer because they'd just slow down your progress (why have a tank and healer when they don't do as much damage as replacing them with two dps classes if that's viable?). The only way to solve that problem that I know of is to allow the "holy trinity" party to be able to fight harder mobs at a slower rate while the all dps party kills the easier mobs at a faster rate, thus evening things out. But isn't that the scenario we already have in FFXI? People just don't do it because they see the "holy trinity" group killing harder mobs and the perception is that's the most efficient way, when it can be just as efficient to get a group of nothing but DPS with minor healing to kill nothing but tough or very tough mobs. Merit parties were a good example of this.
And one possible problem with that system in a heavily 'gear-based' game, like FFXIV seems to be, is that the better gear will almost inevitably drop off of the harder mobs, further disincentivizing the formation of non-standard groups that can tackle the mid-level mobs faster, but can't handle the high-level ones at all.
So what if they wanted to try and balance it so that a non-'holy trinity' group could fight the same level mob as a 'holy trinity' group? The problems with this arise in play balance. If you want to make a tank or a dedicated healer non-essential, then you need to have good damage mitigation on other classes (such as powerful attack slowing or attack dampening spells), or else make mobs just do less damage. If you want to make DPS non-essential, you need to reduce mob HP or grant powerful effect multipliers other than pure DPS to other classes (damage reflecting spells perhaps, or CC that allows you to make mobs turn on each other?).
And after you do any of these things, you need to balance it so that players can't form an invincible party with, say, a tank, a main healer, a damage mitigator, an effect multipler and a DPS. If you add complications to the 'holy trinity,' and then try to make non-standard groups 'equal' to the 'holy trinity,' you almost inevitably create a massive headache for yourself when you try to balance everything.
One possible solition to this might be to build the mobs more like you build the characters. This approach is sometimes taken in PVP-centric games, since it simplifies PVP/PVE play balance, but it is also applicable to PVE. If you make regular mobs of a given level range more like players of a given level range, and then balance the player classes 1 vs. 1 against each other, you end up with a system where most groups of any composition can take a number of 'equal' mobs slightly larger their group size (due to AI stupidity), or an equal number of mobs slightly higher-level than themselves. Certain group compositions will obviously have advantages, but those advantages would most likely be less extreme.
The problem with this sort of system is that it is basically the most solo-friendly system possible, and would thus discourage group play unless there were other incentives for being in a party (exp bonus, maybe?). It also might make the game feel less 'epic,' if mobs of much higher level than the players end up being too hard to kill. This comes back to how 'levels' are balanced, which is a whole other can of worms...
Well considering that we now know the gladiator class has a shield block and taunt ability I wonder if they're really moving away from the holy trinity as much as they claimed. Kind of sad for those hoping for something different.
Also makes this thread kinda pointless in the FFXIV forums.
Idea 1: I have no doubts that SE can pull this off. FF XI, in my opinion, was one of the few games out there to have grinding that was fun.
Idea 2: Like you stated, neutrals really seem to be more casual and soloist friendly rather than group friendly. I can't stand the idea of "jack of all trades" builds inside FF XIV, that will indefinitely wreck group aspects. Still, I'll need to get my hands on the beta version (which is hopefully in September of this year).
Idea 3: I'm not too sure that SE will make the game completely soloable. They said you could solo while you were bored, but if SE wants to attract the FF XI crowd over, they need to make group aspects the main thing. Solo play might end up still sucking inside FF XIV, and it's only a little easier to do this time around (to live up to the promise they made to soloists, but it could be a ruse to suck them into the game). In my opinion, soloing inside FF XIV should only be during times when you can't find a party, and while soloing you are still searching for a party. It should be difficult and not worth soloing unless you have no choice and are still looking for a party (and it will be difficult and not as rewarding as group play).
Like you, I too hate Jack of All Trade kind of characters but I am not so sure that it will be possible on this game. While they dont have set classes I think the use of your weapon will be a lot more limiting on you then most people seem to think. The weapon will most likely determine your "Job". BUT even if that is not true..and say it is more like the Darkfall system where you level different skills unlocking different things in your character then it still will not be as bad as most people think. Being a Jack of all trades aka RDM... lol is not all its cracked out to be and it wont be these kinds of peopel that will rule the end game. While it will be fun to play a Jack of all trades in midgame and while soloing it will be the people that are purely foccusing on a specific trait/job that will find their way in the best guilds the best raids and parties. A halfass tank can only go so far
and the same can be said for a halfassed healer or dmg dealer.
Well, I don't think you should lose hope just because the Gladiator has shield block and taunt. I mean, I'm sure you didn't think they were going to eliminate Tanks. I just thought you were wondering if a party can be successful without a Tank.
So what I'm saying is... just because there is a Tank-type of class in the game, it does not automatically mean a Tank would be essential to a party's success. It just means a Tank class is available for those who want it. Well, at least that is what I'm hoping it means...
Anyway, I was happy to see the Gladiator having a taunt ability because, as I mentioned earlier, I hope every single class (or at least every single melee class) has the taunt ability. Otherwise, if only Tanks get the taunt ability, they really will be required in a good party and there goes our hope for parties without the Holy Trinity.
whether its done rigth remains to be seen. but i have faith that SE did a good job. they have never let me down before.
You can change classes and gear all you want, but the only thing stopping the Holy Trinity is stats. The second you see an Accuracy stat, and a seperate stat for magic healing vs magic damage, then that's game over.
Well, I don't think you should lose hope just because the Gladiator has shield block and taunt. I mean, I'm sure you didn't think they were going to eliminate Tanks. I just thought you were wondering if a party can be successful without a Tank.
So what I'm saying is... just because there is a Tank-type of class in the game, it does not automatically mean a Tank would be essential to a party's success. It just means a Tank class is available for those who want it. Well, at least that is what I'm hoping it means...
Anyway, I was happy to see the Gladiator having a taunt ability because, as I mentioned earlier, I hope every single class (or at least every single melee class) has the taunt ability. Otherwise, if only Tanks get the taunt ability, they really will be required in a good party and there goes our hope for parties without the Holy Trinity.
I guess we'll see if the taunt ability is shared. I have a feeling it's not, though. I kinda hope I'm wrong.
Not because I have a general animosity of the holy trinity, just because it'd be an interesting change.
I have a hard time seeing an all neutral system working with traditional threat mechanics (including taunt.)
I'm curious what kind of system you imagine where everyone has taunt. I have a hard time seeing anything but de-evolution into taunt rotations, keeping a target running (and doing no damage) for as much time as possible.
I admit I know absolutly nothing about this game, But from the sound of it people like me that like to play only one type of class (a tank in my case) and have zero interest in any other type this might be a game to skip or is there still to little info about it?
I'd say there's still to little info.
I honestly rarely heard of any action oriented game or Non Holy Trinity game where players woud kick for healer for not doing enough dps. Even in the most hardened action RPG self healing would require some sort of resource, either items, mana, or time that slowed down a person's dps. Allowing a person that heals basically alleviated this problem for the group even if it wasn't necessary it was always welcomed. Tanks also only had to swap out a few pieces of gear and wallah! They are dps.
The only times I've seen where tanks and healers were not wanted is during time based missions where the only goal is dishing out as much dps as possible to reach the end, this is really my issue with the Holy trinity in general. The Holy trinity has always been an excuse for developers to great dumb AI or quests that simply require no thought, but the same tank and spank scenario with a few gimmicks. I was honestly disappointed when I realized that figthing the Shadow Lord was essentially the same as fighting a dunes crab except you had to have better gear and higher levels.
By removing tank and spanks and requiring more creative objective based quests and missions, it's possible to create environments where people have to group but they don't have to be tanks/dps/healers in order to succeed. And I know that there are a lot of people that prefer the more traditional RPG methods of leveling up and questing, but as someone mentioned before even in games that praise the holy trinity like FFXI you see a lot of players trying to solo content as much as possible. And before we felt that the only answer was to crackdown on these (many) individuals and force them become one with the holy trinity to progress, but I'm sure the future of MMOs is for developers to be more creative in their content (not just tank n' spank), and make the only requirement to grouping be "bring the player, not the class", which will make grouping more appealing to everybody.
The only people that I know who purposefully only want to tank or heal and never dps is those pre-madonnas. The "cool cats" that relish in the fact that the party literally doesn't start until they arrive. They get a rush knowing that they are irreplacable, which automatically means that they should get their way. And we're talking about the internet here people, you know there are a lot of jerks and @sses that would leap at the opportunity, and of course endgame suffers as a result, of having to deal with their drama.
Well, I don't think you should lose hope just because the Gladiator has shield block and taunt. I mean, I'm sure you didn't think they were going to eliminate Tanks. I just thought you were wondering if a party can be successful without a Tank.
So what I'm saying is... just because there is a Tank-type of class in the game, it does not automatically mean a Tank would be essential to a party's success. It just means a Tank class is available for those who want it. Well, at least that is what I'm hoping it means...
Anyway, I was happy to see the Gladiator having a taunt ability because, as I mentioned earlier, I hope every single class (or at least every single melee class) has the taunt ability. Otherwise, if only Tanks get the taunt ability, they really will be required in a good party and there goes our hope for parties without the Holy Trinity.
Yeah I will agree with what your saying which might end up being the case since they are saying grouping will be easier. Currently in FFXI you must have a tank (Pld/Nin) and healer (Whm/Sch/Brd/Rdm) the rest can be whatever. But yeah we should be able to group up in XIV with any job combo and still be able to take stuff down as if it were a healer and tank party. If this is what Square is going for I will be very impressed.
Gonna jump in here after a lot has been said.. I said some but not all of the posts so this may or may not be redundant...
And I wont necessarily directly answer the questions in the OP and only the questions in the OP though I will touch on them, also dont bother nazi'ing my post into answering what you want me to answer, because I really dont care if it was YOUR question or not. Price you pay for posting on a semi-public forum.
Solo play should be possible and it should be possible from start to end game, simply because oddly some people play MMOs to play by themselves. Solo play also has a positive view: when have any of us when FFXI was the big thing spent hour and hours waiting for a party because of the limited selection of healing and tanking classes in ratio to damage classes?
Solo helps cure the problem where you wait for hours and can't advance because the game is simply too damn hard to solo anything unless you're a bst.
That said soloing should not be paramount to party play.
Ways to do this:
EXP bonuses that are worth it. If solo players average 100 exp per minute, then each individual in a party should average 300-5+ exp per minute.
Now I realize everyone is going to scream at once, "But levels and Experience won't exist in FFXIV!!!!!"
Yes they will. Unless SE creates a pure ReP Based Skill system (god I hope not) then EXP WILL exist in some form, it may be masked you may not see it but it will exist, there are few systems that can survive without a miniscule "form" or exp and most games wont use them.
Anyway needless to say the perks to party play should by far exceed any ease of access of solo play.
In FFXI's early days I knew quite a few RDMs that were soloing through to end game, but they progressed VERY VERY slowly. The ratio of my levels to their was probably 5:1 so for every 5 I gained they gained 1. I think this is an acceptable ratio tho every "class" should be able to accomplish it.
Back on track...
Party > Solo another way that I've seen in many games is to allow parties to take on mobs they could never ever hope to solo, duo, or trio. Half-assed makeshift chart...
GROUP SIZE Max. MOB CHECK (how high a con a set number of players can hope to kill)
Solo Some Decent Challenge
Duo Some Even Match
Trio Most Even Match- some Tough
Quadro Most Tough
Full Party Very Tough- Are you nuts?!?
Obviously as the higher con goes the more "experience" the mob will yield.
These two methods have been used to exhaustion the problem however always is that the effort of going through getting a party and finding a camp and dealing with the drama never really seems worth the miniscult EXP boost you get as opposed to Solo play thus Soloplay has become the perferred of many MMO players.
The key SE (you should be reading this) is to make the bonus to party play unmistakable.
Make the bonuses so prominent that we wont care if our WHM is being a self-righteous little prick.
So we wont care that we waited 3 hours to get the party going.
Tthat we wont care if we died 17 times and lost 1 level because we just gained 5 in 3 hours.
As far as the combat system and the class system I can only guess. I have mixed feelings about the "jack of all trades" deal but changing jobs on the fly is an..... interesting thought to say the least.
we alreadyt know a few things, the randomness is based on a server held AI (server side) so there won't be any physical Dodging of enemy attacks. Look at it as the AI targets just like to player, and instead of physical assacks ( you can take your weapon out anywhere but without a target you cannot preform an attack) where server decides to increase MISS that player strike causes in a case where a player only uses a single focus attack. Maybe this will be handleed different for magic and ranged attack?
As for group play, I heard there is a high level of benifit for groups to become proficient to the point everyone will want to form or rather be in a small group with the same guildleve to optimize skill gain. While they are fdocusing on being able to solo, It may be just this, you can kill AI solo, and gain some little benifit limited to easy guildleves, option being out of a battle you can switch, loosing any momentum by a mele or other, gaining a quik self heal and back into battle, but you can see this is probably just a ploy to gain a large group of players that are into solo play.
Theres not muchinformation out there right now, but I am certian there will be info, and new info later to say sometyhing totaly different, since it is still heavu in development, there is going to be changes and new additions made, at least I hope so.
I'm curious what kind of system you imagine where everyone has taunt. I have a hard time seeing anything but de-evolution into taunt rotations, keeping a target running (and doing no damage) for as much time as possible.
Well, the first thing that comes to mind to solve that problem is some type of timer. In other words, once Taunt is used on a Mob, that Mob is immune to Taunt (used by anyone) for X amount of time.
I guess I just feel that it is so important in a group setting to be able to "save" a team member who is about to get killed. Now there are only two major ways I can think of to do that: Healing or Taunting. This is why the Holy Trinity was so important.
Just look at FFXI. Every Paladin I ever saw had to take warrior as a sub job purely to get the Taunt ability. They were not a useful Tank without it. Now, I'm not saying in FFXIV that every class should also have high defense or HP like a Tank. That is what should make a Tank important. For those who like the Holy Trinity, you trade a little killing speed for some safety that you have a meat shield who can take the pounding for everyone.
But if you want to have a party without healing or a tanking, I envsion a battle where a Mob is about to kill someone but is taunted off by another player. Then when that player is about to die, the Mob gets taunted away by another player just in the nick of time, etc. It's not as easy as it sounds (as long as a Taunt time limit is imposed) because without a healer, nobody is regaining HP during this process and it is a race to see if you can lower the Mob's HP before he can lower the party's HP.
Basically, you are choosing a party with more offensive power than a Holy Trinity party. You can kill more faster with this party but it is also a riskier party. "Risk vs Reward" they say...
Also, I'm cool with only giving the Taunt ability to the "Disciples of War" classes only. I don't think Black Mages, White Mages or Time Mages really need to have that ability.
One last thing regarding the Gladiator. The Devs have now hinted that the system in this game may be a bit similar to FF Tactics (or Tactics Advance... I forget). Anyway, if it is like those games, I could see the possibility that only the Gladiator has Taunt initially but once you master that ability you can keep using that Taunt ability even if you change classes (weapons). That is how the Tactics games work to a degree.