From 1 minute to several minutes. But it should be rewarding. In a mmorpg i want to feel that a mob is a powerful monster that is as strong as me (if not stronger), but i win by my tactics. For example, kiting, or rooting.. or anything that lets me win.
I don't like the games where you kill everything in several seconds - there's no challenge, no actual fight, just killing. There's a difference between fighting and killing.
Id say even a normal monster should take some effort.I did the Darkfall 7 day trial and was surprised at how well even the lowest of level mobs acted in terms of combat.For a game like Darkfall vs a game like WoW this answer is going to be different.In WoW you lock on to a target and cast spells or attacks and can kill them rather easily as long as you are in/out of range for the attacks depending on melee/ranged/caster class.In Darkfall you actually have to predict where the mob will be and even then sometimes they stop or turn direction and your spell or attack misses.
Normal fights should not take more then a few minute's outside of starter areas in any game but one to two shotting anything is crazy at any level.
I believe that most should take several minutes that are challenging but not too difficult, then you should have monsters that are designed to really put your skills to the test which can take like 15 minutes. Also, experience would be greatly increased and if you can manage to take on several at a time and win you get some sort of experience multiplier. Actually being skilled and knowing how to use your abilities would drastically reduce the time you spend leveling. Classes like the priest or cleric would be able to stick to the tests of skill so you don't have to worry about finding a partner so leveling doesn't make you want to delete your character.
I really dont think anything like "ok game A the average mob requires 30 sec to kill, and in game B the average mob requires 2 minutes to kill, therefore A is better/worse/whatever than B".
The question if a game is fun is if it has a combat system thats fun enough to make those 30 seconds or 2 minutes entertaining, i.e. make it a challenge, an opportunity where you have to actually think. Games where you only have to repeat pressing one and the same sequence of combat moves over and over are extremely dull; a good game therefore should make combat much more complex.
Examples:
- Synergy effects like in Vanguard. Different classes may, with a specific attack, put up different weaknesses that can be exploited by other classes for additional damage or other effects with corresponding attacks.
- Conditional reactions. A random critical hit, for example, might open a special attack that might open another special attack etc.
- Timed attacks. A certain special attack might have a timer attached. Once you used the attack, you have to wait a certain time before you can use it again.
- Combat point system. To use certain abilities, you might need to accumulate a certain pool of points. This was executed in multiple classes in Vanguard, like Monk, Disciple, Blood Mage.
- Regenerating abilities. Much like timed attacks, except you work on a slowly refilling pool of points. Done with multiple classes in Vanguard, like Paladin, Druid.
- Culmilative abilities. Performing certain abilities multiple times might introduce stronger and stronger effects of some kind. Done with Dread Knight in Vanguard.
- Choices. You can only perform one out of a group of commands, all of them are on the same timer, so you really have to think which option to pick. Done for example with conditional reactions (multiple reaction chains after a critical hit), symbiote buffs of Blood Mage, or summoned magic items, each applying a selfbuff, but only one could be active at a time, of Sorcerers in Vanguard.
- Continous penalties from buffs. Done in Guild Wars and Dragon Age: Origins. Putting up a buff will take away a part from your pool of mana, therefore you're motivated to actually think which buffs to put up.
All such complexity will make you need to think what you're doing, and make the game therefore more interesting. The question however how long it takes to put the average mob down really hardly does anything at all.
My opinion is that one single person shouldn't be able to kill a monster himself, except maybe in the case it is some sort of "favored enemy", like for example a cleric/paladin against an undead or a mentalist/illusionist against very stupid mobs like Ogres.
"Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars combat, exploration and character progression. In Alganon, in addition to these we've added the fourth pillar to the equation: Copy & Paste."
This is a nice thread, it shows most players want it dead under 15 seconds. I wonder what the results of this poll would have been back when EQ1 was on top?
Playing - EVE, Wurm
Retired - Final Fantasy XI, Anarchy Online, Mabinogi
This is a nice thread, it shows most players want it dead under 15 seconds. I wonder what the results of this poll would have been back when EQ1 was on top?
Agreed, another reason why WoW ruined the MMO community, people want their cap level and they want it instantaneously, sad what has happened to the MMO community. RIP old MMO's they are a dying breed and will most likely never come back.
This honestly isn't something that can be polled very well. Personally, I prefer longer fights, but I prefer longer fights because I want them to actually be engaging and I want the reason I'm fighting them in the first place to be interesting. If you're just being thrown into a field full of trash and grinding out 100 of them for a quest, then yeah, you're going to want them to die almost instantly because the whole situation is unimaginative and boring as hell. There's also things like how much EXP each mob gives to take into account. If you're getting next to nothing and its a very grind heavy game, you want quick deaths. If you're getting a pretty large chunk of exp for taking each one down, then a longer fight is acceptable. The tricky part is that it's harder to make long fights interesting, where as it's easy to just make most mobs take two or three hits to go down thus making sure you don't use most of your abilities in the same battle again. Personally, I think running around and one/two shotting everything is just as boring though.
I really dont think anything like "ok game A the average mob requires 30 sec to kill, and in game B the average mob requires 2 minutes to kill, therefore A is better/worse/whatever than B".
The question if a game is fun is if it has a combat system thats fun enough to make those 30 seconds or 2 minutes entertaining, i.e. make it a challenge, an opportunity where you have to actually think. Games where you only have to repeat pressing one and the same sequence of combat moves over and over are extremely dull; a good game therefore should make combat much more complex.
Examples:
- Synergy effects like in Vanguard. Different classes may, with a specific attack, put up different weaknesses that can be exploited by other classes for additional damage or other effects with corresponding attacks.
- Conditional reactions. A random critical hit, for example, might open a special attack that might open another special attack etc.
- Timed attacks. A certain special attack might have a timer attached. Once you used the attack, you have to wait a certain time before you can use it again.
- Combat point system. To use certain abilities, you might need to accumulate a certain pool of points. This was executed in multiple classes in Vanguard, like Monk, Disciple, Blood Mage.
- Regenerating abilities. Much like timed attacks, except you work on a slowly refilling pool of points. Done with multiple classes in Vanguard, like Paladin, Druid.
- Culmilative abilities. Performing certain abilities multiple times might introduce stronger and stronger effects of some kind. Done with Dread Knight in Vanguard.
- Choices. You can only perform one out of a group of commands, all of them are on the same timer, so you really have to think which option to pick. Done for example with conditional reactions (multiple reaction chains after a critical hit), symbiote buffs of Blood Mage, or summoned magic items, each applying a selfbuff, but only one could be active at a time, of Sorcerers in Vanguard.
- Continous penalties from buffs. Done in Guild Wars and Dragon Age: Origins. Putting up a buff will take away a part from your pool of mana, therefore you're motivated to actually think which buffs to put up.
All such complexity will make you need to think what you're doing, and make the game therefore more interesting. The question however how long it takes to put the average mob down really hardly does anything at all.
^ full of good points.
Also in Mount and Blade or FPS / Hack'n'Slash type games there is a pretty good chance to 1 shot most targets..
for instance if you make a head shot or a charge with a couched lance.. your target is dead. Same is true if you are on the recieving end.
But then you might have other fights where you block with you shield and get parried all the time where its all about finding an opening.. and when you do the hit isnt guaranteed to be a kill shot.
But ok.. most MMOs are not about active blocking or parrying or headshots or similar things.. so you have chance based evation and parrying.. and more HP.. and healing. So where does that leave us..
Well I do like 10 minute long fights against an opponent that should be clearly out of my league solo or at my level.
Also I dont necesarily want to target every little nuisance creep with only 1 hp...or 1 hit +1 hp.
There should be something for everyone and there should be a choice in what monsters you want to kill..
As for your average run of the mill mob... well it should take about 5-10 seconds for a group to kill them and you usually should be aiming to pull more than 5.. on average it should take about 1 minute per fight... guess that holds true for solo as well. Maybe could be a little more depending on how tricky it is to multi pull for groups or single pull for soloers.
For intermediate bosses it should take about 5- 10 minutes.. for end bosses it should take 10 to 30 minutes.. 30 minutes including setup. 10 to 30 also counts for encounters that should really be out of reach of the the group or character attempting it, except they are a paladin or they have found an simple way of doing it with fewer people or they are just badass
Although if someone made a hack and slash game I would want it to take less than a second to kill most things.. provided I didnt miss or was blocked or parried or maybe I just didnt hit hard enough so maybe sometimes 2 or 3 hits..
And then some stuff would take a longer fight with much blocking, dodging, parrying and missing involved.. but a hit should be fealt.
But that would be a game where you chose how you attack, what you aim for and where you swing from and how fast are you moving relative to your target and is he blocking in that direction or is he moving out of the way or does he hit you first...
Works pretty well in M&B.. although I wouldnt mind more attack moves in that... I mean why only up --> down or from left to right ot right to left or stabbing.. I wouldnt mind swinging up to cleave them from nuts to neck... or to stab from over head with a short spear... or stabbing with a spiked shield or a million other moves.. I mean why cant I jab with my left hand?
Also in M&B it seems you can only hit one thing at a time... meh.. why cant my sword lob 2 heads in one swing.. wouldnt even mind if it was 1 of my allies that happened to step in the way.
It should take about 20 seconds in a full group. Soloing it should take about two minutes.
I'm sick of these kids wanting to turn MMORPGs into a single player action game. The fights should take time, and require multiple classes doing a mix of debuffing, slowing, healing, damage spells, damage over time spells, melee combat and positional attacks. A group should be the only way you can kill mob after mob without have to rest to get hp and mana back after every two or three fights.
This would allow people to solo if they wanted, but groups would be much more viable and sought after. They need to get grouping back in mmorpgs and one reason everybody solos is because they can kill 3-4 mobs at a time in a matter of seconds by themselves which is pretty lame. The only way you should be able to kill any more then one mob at a time is if they are multiple levels lower then you. Anything your own level should be a challenging fight enough so that you may even die if you get resisted a few too many times or miss a bit too many attacks.
Both long fights and short fights can be fun, depending on how combat is designed.
You can have City of Heroes, where an individual mob in a pack might die instantly on the first strike, but the rest of the fight takes a while longer. Such games are more focused on efficiently using AOE, and manipulating mob movement.
You can also have a Kongai-inspired MMORPG where fights are longer 1v1 duels, but with enough dynamic elements to avoid the SS-SS-SS-Eviscerate issue the OP states.
Both can be fun, and there's no "golden duration" for combat against a single enemy. I even think there's a lot of wiggle room for the duration of a single encounter. The encounter duration of a COH or Kongai-inspired fight might be the same, but you might have a 3rd game focused around defending castles, where you have these 10-15 minute long battles which aren't "won" until the entire thing is over.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This is a nice thread, it shows most players want it dead under 15 seconds. I wonder what the results of this poll would have been back when EQ1 was on top?
Agreed, another reason why WoW ruined the MMO community, people want their cap level and they want it instantaneously, sad what has happened to the MMO community. RIP old MMO's they are a dying breed and will most likely never come back.
Hear, hear! I say, I must take at least 2 minutes to kill a rat and I must rest 10 minutes afterwards to regain my mana and health. Obviously! Furthermore, the only way to do anything - even kill those horrid rats - must be in a group, so that you're lame and completely incapable of being anything close to self-sufficient. Some hero you are!
Exaggeration? Yes. Point? Still valid. I think we're all talking about average mobs here, things that you kill while leveling or for menial quests, not "important" mobs or bosses. Obviously, the harder enemies should take some time and should require a group (of any size, not necessarily a full group every time). But, while I know it's cool for some people to have masochistic amounts of downtime and be reliant on other people all the time, I'm not one of them.
I think normal mobs should be really quick but there should be MORE of them, think Diablo style. I think this would be great because not only does the player feel more involved (and not bored) but he can feel like a true hero hacking to bits hordes of monsters. Obviously you would make the drops and exp not as great in relation to your traditional 'normal' mob.
I don't really like spamming buttons with little regard for strategy or tactics.
I think that a single player killing a single normal monster of their level should take around 30 seconds. If you are able to kill things of your level any faster than that I believe that most of the game will turn into an ability spam fest when you group up for harder things to kill.
If we want a hack and slash game where you don't really think about what attacks you are using or when you are using them then I feel that is not an RPG. I still play DnD, you must think about every single move before you make it or your entire party could die. That is an RPG, strategic battle mixed with a rich storyline element.
edit: after reading the post before me I would like to add that games like Diablo ARE still strategic, you have to choose when to use your actual abilities and a lot of the game play is strategic, but at the end game is sometimes becomes more of a spam fest than I would like
I don't really like spamming buttons with little regard for strategy or tactics.
I think that a single player killing a single normal monster of their level should take around 30 seconds. If you are able to kill things of your level any faster than that I believe that most of the game will turn into an ability spam fest when you group up for harder things to kill.
If we want a hack and slash game where you don't really think about what attacks you are using or when you are using them then I feel that is not an RPG. I still play DnD, you must think about every single move before you make it or your entire party could die. That is an RPG, strategic battle mixed with a rich storyline element.
edit: after reading the post before me I would like to add that games like Diablo ARE still strategic, you have to choose when to use your actual abilities and a lot of the game play is strategic, but at the end game is sometimes becomes more of a spam fest than I would like
Yeah exactly. The duration to kill one monster is entirely separate from whether a game's combat is tactically deep.
Some games' tactics revolve around mob management (AOEs, player positioning, mob positioning, etc) whereas other games' tactics are pure 1v1 duel decisions (like a WOW raid boss or the types of decisions made during a good Fighting game like Street Fighter.)
Which is why I say fight duration is irrelevant -- players can have fun with either.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I don't really like spamming buttons with little regard for strategy or tactics.
I think that a single player killing a single normal monster of their level should take around 30 seconds. If you are able to kill things of your level any faster than that I believe that most of the game will turn into an ability spam fest when you group up for harder things to kill.
If we want a hack and slash game where you don't really think about what attacks you are using or when you are using them then I feel that is not an RPG. I still play DnD, you must think about every single move before you make it or your entire party could die. That is an RPG, strategic battle mixed with a rich storyline element.
edit: after reading the post before me I would like to add that games like Diablo ARE still strategic, you have to choose when to use your actual abilities and a lot of the game play is strategic, but at the end game is sometimes becomes more of a spam fest than I would like
Yeah exactly. The duration to kill one monster is entirely separate from whether a game's combat is tactically deep.
Some games' tactics revolve around mob management (AOEs, player positioning, mob positioning, etc) whereas other games' tactics are pure 1v1 duel decisions (like a WOW raid boss or the types of decisions made during a good Fighting game like Street Fighter.)
Which is why I say fight duration is irrelevant -- players can have fun with either.
I agree with a twist, I feel that everyone wants a little strategy, WoW's raiding has changed strategy in MMO's. The challenge in WoW's raiding is the actual abilities bosses do and the reactions you need to take to survive, this is fun for some people I'm sure but I feel we've lost a little bit of the difficulty when it comes to choosing what skills to use when. I think that blizzard agree's with me since I've been reading a lot of their Cataclysm changes and they are trying to make everything a lot less "spammy." They want healers to not waste mana and they've done a lot to make DPS classes more in line with each other when it comes to ability timers.
People like killing a lot of things, just don't take away from how meaningful a skill is to use to the point where it feels like its not a strategic element in your game at some points.
This is a nice thread, it shows most players want it dead under 15 seconds. I wonder what the results of this poll would have been back when EQ1 was on top?
Agreed, another reason why WoW ruined the MMO community, people want their cap level and they want it instantaneously, sad what has happened to the MMO community. RIP old MMO's they are a dying breed and will most likely never come back.
Hear, hear! I say, I must take at least 2 minutes to kill a rat and I must rest 10 minutes afterwards to regain my mana and health. Obviously! Furthermore, the only way to do anything - even kill those horrid rats - must be in a group, so that you're lame and completely incapable of being anything close to self-sufficient. Some hero you are!
Exaggeration? Yes. Point? Still valid. I think we're all talking about average mobs here, things that you kill while leveling or for menial quests, not "important" mobs or bosses. Obviously, the harder enemies should take some time and should require a group (of any size, not necessarily a full group every time). But, while I know it's cool for some people to have masochistic amounts of downtime and be reliant on other people all the time, I'm not one of them.
Must I kill 10 rats within 2 seconds and get instant max level?
Exaggeration? Yes. Point? Still valid, yes we ARE talking about average mobs and YES it should take long to kill them, do you really think anyone feels satisfaction in leveling anymore? Answer is no, because seeing how it takes 1 hour TOPS to level no one really cares about leveling. Back when the games took time to kill things it was more fun, you gained a level and promoted it in OOC because basically it really WAS an achievement unlike now.
We both can argue both points, show me a game with general mobs having high intellect casting spells, healing, doing good damage, being able to focus on the mage first, running if it knows it is going to lose the match, etc... I'll show you a game I'll play and pay 30 dollars a month to do so. I'm sick and tired of this hand holding bullshit they throw on this market now a day.
This is a nice thread, it shows most players want it dead under 15 seconds. I wonder what the results of this poll would have been back when EQ1 was on top?
Agreed, another reason why WoW ruined the MMO community, people want their cap level and they want it instantaneously, sad what has happened to the MMO community. RIP old MMO's they are a dying breed and will most likely never come back.
Hear, hear! I say, I must take at least 2 minutes to kill a rat and I must rest 10 minutes afterwards to regain my mana and health. Obviously! Furthermore, the only way to do anything - even kill those horrid rats - must be in a group, so that you're lame and completely incapable of being anything close to self-sufficient. Some hero you are!
Exaggeration? Yes. Point? Still valid. I think we're all talking about average mobs here, things that you kill while leveling or for menial quests, not "important" mobs or bosses. Obviously, the harder enemies should take some time and should require a group (of any size, not necessarily a full group every time). But, while I know it's cool for some people to have masochistic amounts of downtime and be reliant on other people all the time, I'm not one of them.
Must I kill 10 rats within 2 seconds and get instant max level?
Exaggeration? Yes. Point? Still valid, yes we ARE talking about average mobs and YES it should take long to kill them, do you really think anyone feels satisfaction in leveling anymore? Answer is no, because seeing how it takes 1 hour TOPS to level no one really cares about leveling. Back when the games took time to kill things it was more fun, you gained a level and promoted it in OOC because basically it really WAS an achievement unlike now.
We both can argue both points, show me a game with general mobs having high intellect casting spells, healing, doing good damage, being able to focus on the mage first, running if it knows it is going to lose the match, etc... I'll show you a game I'll play and pay 30 dollars a month to do so. I'm sick and tired of this hand holding bullshit they throw on this market now a day.
Then again... The all mighty dollar rules all.
It's wrong to assume you can't get an equal level of challenging combat from mobs which individually die fast.
I mean, I agree that games need to offer players the option of difficult gameplay while leveling, but that's basically off-topic regarding the rate individual mobs die.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think instead of analyzing how long it should take to kill a single mob, we should look at why MMOs are built around this crazy notion that it is somehow fun to pull one mob at a time, burn it down, then move on to the next mob?
You either have that, or crazy AoE where you can burn down 3-4 mobs or more in like 5 seconds.
Or you have Crowd Control where you stun/mez/poly one mob and then burng down another, then finish off the first.
There is absolutely nothing "heroic" or exciting about either.
MMOs could learn a lot from games like Devil May Cry, the Zelda series, the God of War series, even first person shooters like the Halo series where you are ALWAYS engaging groups of enemies, smart enemies, with little "trash" mobs that are mostly an annoyance but CAN pose a significant threat if not dealt with properly, along with elites/captains/squad leader mobs that take a bit more finesse that are leading the group of trash mobs.
The only MMO I have ever heard talk about this was Utlima 10: Odessey (UXO) and tragically this game was cancelled by EA fairly early in its development due to EA wanting to move all the Origin employees, and many refusing to leave their homes and lives/families to stay with the company.
The people who play action games and the people who play MMOs arent the same...
WHile i can easily adapt to a game where cc is totally remoed and its all about quick reflexes, devil may cry , god of war, dante infenro type combat, most MMO players arent about the twitch combat, they like being able to think about what they are doing... these are mostly the people who use the pause function in games like star wars knights of the old republic, mass effect and other single player rpgs of the same nature.
But you should look at tera online if you are lookin for a more horde based game, where its lesss about single pulls and more about the aoe combat.
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As for kill speed... in aion it takes me roughly 7 seconds to kill an even level mob at level 50 as a gladiator... anything between that and 15-20seconds is a good kill sped, but it is based on xp per hour.
Ive spend 3-5minutes killing elites on my ranger because it netted more xp then killing a mob every 10-20seconds
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
All of the things I see in this thread.....are why I play EQ2.
Most people that haven't played EQ2, or don't know HOW (i'll explain) to play EQ2, think it has become a carbon copy of WoW. It hasn't. You have FAR more options on difficulty in leveling, for one. Oh sure...if you WANT to play on easy mode, you can. You can rush to end game, not worrying about gaining any extra alternate advancement points, and you'll reach level 90 fairly quickly....and....with a gimped and crappy character. OR.....
You can play it on "harder mode" like my partner and I do, and level lock yourself and focus on alternate advancement points that will make for a better max level character but will take MUCH more time. We level lock every 10 levels and spend a few WEEKS at that level fighting mobs that are 6 to 10 levels higher than us (yes, that's not a typo) and they do NOT pull individually....many (actually MOST, after low levels) of EQ2's mobs are linked and there is no way to pull them individually. You might be able to root ONE away from you and pull the rest of the group to you to fight first, but....individual mob fighting...isn't the standard after about level 10.
Oh....and we do NOT kill groups of high level mobs like that....in any 7 seconds. And it takes strategizing and paying attention to what we're doing. I can't mindlessly waste power if I intend to LIVE, for one, and if I intend to get the mobs.....DEAD.
There ARE games like this on the market that let YOU determine how you're going to play. You CAN even level lock in WoW, actually, BUT....it never provided the same challenge to me as EQ2 does. Nonetheless.....some of what you guys are complaining about can be "fixed" by how YOU choose to play.
I've been playing EQ2 off and on (mostly on) since 2005, and my highest level character is 64. The character I'm working on NOW is only level 34 and I've been working on her for MONTHS. Yes, I also play "the rest of the game." I craft, I work on collections, I work on my house, I do lore and legend quests, etc., etc.
I guess the point of what I'm saying is......
Not ALL games are easy leveling by necessity. You have to know HOW to play them otherwise.
I think my posts may be too long, people rarely qoute them... or maybe Im just not very good at making my point most times.
Anyways I think I want to eat my own words even if none of you have asked me to.
The time it should take to kill something has many factors.
Having the advantage in numbers or surprize or range should count for something. If you gang up on a target it shouldnt be that much of a challenge to quickly dispatch the target.
Also if you back stab from stealth that should be a good part of the fight already over, (although in PvP you may want to leave people with a small change of recvering). Also we gotta remember that even though the actual fighting doesnt take long here it might take quite a while to get in the right position to deliver the surprize attack.
And if you engage a caster in melee you should have an advantage over him, and him over you if he starts the fight at range.. Last one doesnt have that much to do with time, but its also a factor.
Any combat you should care to engage in should have a certain element of risk
Why should we want to fight something that we can easily kill almost just by targeting it. Is that really the best use for a champion of the realm or would they really have anything of worth we could possibly want? I miss having fights last a good while where there was a good chance, if I didnt keep on my toes, that I would die.
Also I miss having to rest between fights. I dont mean I want to sit down and light a camp fire after each kill but I should at least have to catch my breath after killing something that was my level or above.
A lot of people have mentioned that they want skills in a group to synergize better than a solo players single character skills. SImplest part of this would be to give increased damage to attacks in the back or atleast increased success. But It could also be that one class could freeze the target and then another could whack it with a big weapon to shatter it... ouch.. even though cold numbs the pain..
Anyways.. Combat can be fast paced and still take a while.. but they should be fast paced cause we need to on top of the opponent and not cause we need to keep targeting new stuff cause the old target dies as soon as we target it.
I hate MMOs where it takes a minute or two of chiseling down a mob's health. Makes me feel so gimpy. I'd rather the long fights be reserved for elite type mobs, but average mobs die in 2-3 hits. Add challenge by making the player fight multiple mobs at once, rather than making individual mobs so ridiculously resilient. Especially when the mob is just some guy wearing rags or something, but can keep fighting after being hit in the head with an axe 15 times.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
This is a nice thread, it shows most players want it dead under 15 seconds. I wonder what the results of this poll would have been back when EQ1 was on top?
Agreed, another reason why WoW ruined the MMO community, people want their cap level and they want it instantaneously, sad what has happened to the MMO community. RIP old MMO's they are a dying breed and will most likely never come back.
Yet another laughable comment. Understand that 99.9% of the WoW community doesn't care a jack shit about what you think nor about the community on this site. MMORPG seem to be filled with MMO zombies full of WoW hate. Dear god, here are so many pathetic souls.
Keep on hating WoW = more crap MMO's.
Do any of you ever gonna realize why WoW is so popular?
Comments
From 1 minute to several minutes. But it should be rewarding. In a mmorpg i want to feel that a mob is a powerful monster that is as strong as me (if not stronger), but i win by my tactics. For example, kiting, or rooting.. or anything that lets me win.
I don't like the games where you kill everything in several seconds - there's no challenge, no actual fight, just killing. There's a difference between fighting and killing.
Id say even a normal monster should take some effort.I did the Darkfall 7 day trial and was surprised at how well even the lowest of level mobs acted in terms of combat.For a game like Darkfall vs a game like WoW this answer is going to be different.In WoW you lock on to a target and cast spells or attacks and can kill them rather easily as long as you are in/out of range for the attacks depending on melee/ranged/caster class.In Darkfall you actually have to predict where the mob will be and even then sometimes they stop or turn direction and your spell or attack misses.
Normal fights should not take more then a few minute's outside of starter areas in any game but one to two shotting anything is crazy at any level.
I believe that most should take several minutes that are challenging but not too difficult, then you should have monsters that are designed to really put your skills to the test which can take like 15 minutes. Also, experience would be greatly increased and if you can manage to take on several at a time and win you get some sort of experience multiplier. Actually being skilled and knowing how to use your abilities would drastically reduce the time you spend leveling. Classes like the priest or cleric would be able to stick to the tests of skill so you don't have to worry about finding a partner so leveling doesn't make you want to delete your character.
This is really a riddiculous question.
I really dont think anything like "ok game A the average mob requires 30 sec to kill, and in game B the average mob requires 2 minutes to kill, therefore A is better/worse/whatever than B".
The question if a game is fun is if it has a combat system thats fun enough to make those 30 seconds or 2 minutes entertaining, i.e. make it a challenge, an opportunity where you have to actually think. Games where you only have to repeat pressing one and the same sequence of combat moves over and over are extremely dull; a good game therefore should make combat much more complex.
Examples:
- Synergy effects like in Vanguard. Different classes may, with a specific attack, put up different weaknesses that can be exploited by other classes for additional damage or other effects with corresponding attacks.
- Conditional reactions. A random critical hit, for example, might open a special attack that might open another special attack etc.
- Timed attacks. A certain special attack might have a timer attached. Once you used the attack, you have to wait a certain time before you can use it again.
- Combat point system. To use certain abilities, you might need to accumulate a certain pool of points. This was executed in multiple classes in Vanguard, like Monk, Disciple, Blood Mage.
- Regenerating abilities. Much like timed attacks, except you work on a slowly refilling pool of points. Done with multiple classes in Vanguard, like Paladin, Druid.
- Culmilative abilities. Performing certain abilities multiple times might introduce stronger and stronger effects of some kind. Done with Dread Knight in Vanguard.
- Choices. You can only perform one out of a group of commands, all of them are on the same timer, so you really have to think which option to pick. Done for example with conditional reactions (multiple reaction chains after a critical hit), symbiote buffs of Blood Mage, or summoned magic items, each applying a selfbuff, but only one could be active at a time, of Sorcerers in Vanguard.
- Continous penalties from buffs. Done in Guild Wars and Dragon Age: Origins. Putting up a buff will take away a part from your pool of mana, therefore you're motivated to actually think which buffs to put up.
All such complexity will make you need to think what you're doing, and make the game therefore more interesting. The question however how long it takes to put the average mob down really hardly does anything at all.
The same time it took Sephiroth to do his summon video.
My opinion is that one single person shouldn't be able to kill a monster himself, except maybe in the case it is some sort of "favored enemy", like for example a cleric/paladin against an undead or a mentalist/illusionist against very stupid mobs like Ogres.
"Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars combat, exploration and character progression. In Alganon, in addition to these we've added the fourth pillar to the equation: Copy & Paste."
This is a nice thread, it shows most players want it dead under 15 seconds. I wonder what the results of this poll would have been back when EQ1 was on top?
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Agreed, another reason why WoW ruined the MMO community, people want their cap level and they want it instantaneously, sad what has happened to the MMO community. RIP old MMO's they are a dying breed and will most likely never come back.
This honestly isn't something that can be polled very well. Personally, I prefer longer fights, but I prefer longer fights because I want them to actually be engaging and I want the reason I'm fighting them in the first place to be interesting. If you're just being thrown into a field full of trash and grinding out 100 of them for a quest, then yeah, you're going to want them to die almost instantly because the whole situation is unimaginative and boring as hell. There's also things like how much EXP each mob gives to take into account. If you're getting next to nothing and its a very grind heavy game, you want quick deaths. If you're getting a pretty large chunk of exp for taking each one down, then a longer fight is acceptable. The tricky part is that it's harder to make long fights interesting, where as it's easy to just make most mobs take two or three hits to go down thus making sure you don't use most of your abilities in the same battle again. Personally, I think running around and one/two shotting everything is just as boring though.
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^ full of good points.
Also in Mount and Blade or FPS / Hack'n'Slash type games there is a pretty good chance to 1 shot most targets..
for instance if you make a head shot or a charge with a couched lance.. your target is dead. Same is true if you are on the recieving end.
But then you might have other fights where you block with you shield and get parried all the time where its all about finding an opening.. and when you do the hit isnt guaranteed to be a kill shot.
But ok.. most MMOs are not about active blocking or parrying or headshots or similar things.. so you have chance based evation and parrying.. and more HP.. and healing. So where does that leave us..
Well I do like 10 minute long fights against an opponent that should be clearly out of my league solo or at my level.
Also I dont necesarily want to target every little nuisance creep with only 1 hp...or 1 hit +1 hp.
There should be something for everyone and there should be a choice in what monsters you want to kill..
As for your average run of the mill mob... well it should take about 5-10 seconds for a group to kill them and you usually should be aiming to pull more than 5.. on average it should take about 1 minute per fight... guess that holds true for solo as well. Maybe could be a little more depending on how tricky it is to multi pull for groups or single pull for soloers.
For intermediate bosses it should take about 5- 10 minutes.. for end bosses it should take 10 to 30 minutes.. 30 minutes including setup. 10 to 30 also counts for encounters that should really be out of reach of the the group or character attempting it, except they are a paladin or they have found an simple way of doing it with fewer people or they are just badass
Although if someone made a hack and slash game I would want it to take less than a second to kill most things.. provided I didnt miss or was blocked or parried or maybe I just didnt hit hard enough so maybe sometimes 2 or 3 hits..
And then some stuff would take a longer fight with much blocking, dodging, parrying and missing involved.. but a hit should be fealt.
But that would be a game where you chose how you attack, what you aim for and where you swing from and how fast are you moving relative to your target and is he blocking in that direction or is he moving out of the way or does he hit you first...
Works pretty well in M&B.. although I wouldnt mind more attack moves in that... I mean why only up --> down or from left to right ot right to left or stabbing.. I wouldnt mind swinging up to cleave them from nuts to neck... or to stab from over head with a short spear... or stabbing with a spiked shield or a million other moves.. I mean why cant I jab with my left hand?
Also in M&B it seems you can only hit one thing at a time... meh.. why cant my sword lob 2 heads in one swing.. wouldnt even mind if it was 1 of my allies that happened to step in the way.
It should take about 20 seconds in a full group. Soloing it should take about two minutes.
I'm sick of these kids wanting to turn MMORPGs into a single player action game. The fights should take time, and require multiple classes doing a mix of debuffing, slowing, healing, damage spells, damage over time spells, melee combat and positional attacks. A group should be the only way you can kill mob after mob without have to rest to get hp and mana back after every two or three fights.
This would allow people to solo if they wanted, but groups would be much more viable and sought after. They need to get grouping back in mmorpgs and one reason everybody solos is because they can kill 3-4 mobs at a time in a matter of seconds by themselves which is pretty lame. The only way you should be able to kill any more then one mob at a time is if they are multiple levels lower then you. Anything your own level should be a challenging fight enough so that you may even die if you get resisted a few too many times or miss a bit too many attacks.
There is no magic "duration" combat should last.
Both long fights and short fights can be fun, depending on how combat is designed.
You can have City of Heroes, where an individual mob in a pack might die instantly on the first strike, but the rest of the fight takes a while longer. Such games are more focused on efficiently using AOE, and manipulating mob movement.
You can also have a Kongai-inspired MMORPG where fights are longer 1v1 duels, but with enough dynamic elements to avoid the SS-SS-SS-Eviscerate issue the OP states.
Both can be fun, and there's no "golden duration" for combat against a single enemy. I even think there's a lot of wiggle room for the duration of a single encounter. The encounter duration of a COH or Kongai-inspired fight might be the same, but you might have a 3rd game focused around defending castles, where you have these 10-15 minute long battles which aren't "won" until the entire thing is over.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Hear, hear! I say, I must take at least 2 minutes to kill a rat and I must rest 10 minutes afterwards to regain my mana and health. Obviously! Furthermore, the only way to do anything - even kill those horrid rats - must be in a group, so that you're lame and completely incapable of being anything close to self-sufficient. Some hero you are!
Exaggeration? Yes. Point? Still valid. I think we're all talking about average mobs here, things that you kill while leveling or for menial quests, not "important" mobs or bosses. Obviously, the harder enemies should take some time and should require a group (of any size, not necessarily a full group every time). But, while I know it's cool for some people to have masochistic amounts of downtime and be reliant on other people all the time, I'm not one of them.
I chose 5 seconds and here's my reason -
I think normal mobs should be really quick but there should be MORE of them, think Diablo style. I think this would be great because not only does the player feel more involved (and not bored) but he can feel like a true hero hacking to bits hordes of monsters. Obviously you would make the drops and exp not as great in relation to your traditional 'normal' mob.
It would cure boredom and yield the same results.
O_o o_O
I don't really like spamming buttons with little regard for strategy or tactics.
I think that a single player killing a single normal monster of their level should take around 30 seconds. If you are able to kill things of your level any faster than that I believe that most of the game will turn into an ability spam fest when you group up for harder things to kill.
If we want a hack and slash game where you don't really think about what attacks you are using or when you are using them then I feel that is not an RPG. I still play DnD, you must think about every single move before you make it or your entire party could die. That is an RPG, strategic battle mixed with a rich storyline element.
edit: after reading the post before me I would like to add that games like Diablo ARE still strategic, you have to choose when to use your actual abilities and a lot of the game play is strategic, but at the end game is sometimes becomes more of a spam fest than I would like
Yeah exactly. The duration to kill one monster is entirely separate from whether a game's combat is tactically deep.
Some games' tactics revolve around mob management (AOEs, player positioning, mob positioning, etc) whereas other games' tactics are pure 1v1 duel decisions (like a WOW raid boss or the types of decisions made during a good Fighting game like Street Fighter.)
Which is why I say fight duration is irrelevant -- players can have fun with either.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I agree with a twist, I feel that everyone wants a little strategy, WoW's raiding has changed strategy in MMO's. The challenge in WoW's raiding is the actual abilities bosses do and the reactions you need to take to survive, this is fun for some people I'm sure but I feel we've lost a little bit of the difficulty when it comes to choosing what skills to use when. I think that blizzard agree's with me since I've been reading a lot of their Cataclysm changes and they are trying to make everything a lot less "spammy." They want healers to not waste mana and they've done a lot to make DPS classes more in line with each other when it comes to ability timers.
People like killing a lot of things, just don't take away from how meaningful a skill is to use to the point where it feels like its not a strategic element in your game at some points.
Must I kill 10 rats within 2 seconds and get instant max level?
Exaggeration? Yes. Point? Still valid, yes we ARE talking about average mobs and YES it should take long to kill them, do you really think anyone feels satisfaction in leveling anymore? Answer is no, because seeing how it takes 1 hour TOPS to level no one really cares about leveling. Back when the games took time to kill things it was more fun, you gained a level and promoted it in OOC because basically it really WAS an achievement unlike now.
We both can argue both points, show me a game with general mobs having high intellect casting spells, healing, doing good damage, being able to focus on the mage first, running if it knows it is going to lose the match, etc... I'll show you a game I'll play and pay 30 dollars a month to do so. I'm sick and tired of this hand holding bullshit they throw on this market now a day.
Then again... The all mighty dollar rules all.
It's wrong to assume you can't get an equal level of challenging combat from mobs which individually die fast.
I mean, I agree that games need to offer players the option of difficult gameplay while leveling, but that's basically off-topic regarding the rate individual mobs die.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The people who play action games and the people who play MMOs arent the same...
WHile i can easily adapt to a game where cc is totally remoed and its all about quick reflexes, devil may cry , god of war, dante infenro type combat, most MMO players arent about the twitch combat, they like being able to think about what they are doing... these are mostly the people who use the pause function in games like star wars knights of the old republic, mass effect and other single player rpgs of the same nature.
But you should look at tera online if you are lookin for a more horde based game, where its lesss about single pulls and more about the aoe combat.
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As for kill speed... in aion it takes me roughly 7 seconds to kill an even level mob at level 50 as a gladiator... anything between that and 15-20seconds is a good kill sped, but it is based on xp per hour.
Ive spend 3-5minutes killing elites on my ranger because it netted more xp then killing a mob every 10-20seconds
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All of the things I see in this thread.....are why I play EQ2.
Most people that haven't played EQ2, or don't know HOW (i'll explain) to play EQ2, think it has become a carbon copy of WoW. It hasn't. You have FAR more options on difficulty in leveling, for one. Oh sure...if you WANT to play on easy mode, you can. You can rush to end game, not worrying about gaining any extra alternate advancement points, and you'll reach level 90 fairly quickly....and....with a gimped and crappy character. OR.....
You can play it on "harder mode" like my partner and I do, and level lock yourself and focus on alternate advancement points that will make for a better max level character but will take MUCH more time. We level lock every 10 levels and spend a few WEEKS at that level fighting mobs that are 6 to 10 levels higher than us (yes, that's not a typo) and they do NOT pull individually....many (actually MOST, after low levels) of EQ2's mobs are linked and there is no way to pull them individually. You might be able to root ONE away from you and pull the rest of the group to you to fight first, but....individual mob fighting...isn't the standard after about level 10.
Oh....and we do NOT kill groups of high level mobs like that....in any 7 seconds. And it takes strategizing and paying attention to what we're doing. I can't mindlessly waste power if I intend to LIVE, for one, and if I intend to get the mobs.....DEAD.
There ARE games like this on the market that let YOU determine how you're going to play. You CAN even level lock in WoW, actually, BUT....it never provided the same challenge to me as EQ2 does. Nonetheless.....some of what you guys are complaining about can be "fixed" by how YOU choose to play.
I've been playing EQ2 off and on (mostly on) since 2005, and my highest level character is 64. The character I'm working on NOW is only level 34 and I've been working on her for MONTHS. Yes, I also play "the rest of the game." I craft, I work on collections, I work on my house, I do lore and legend quests, etc., etc.
I guess the point of what I'm saying is......
Not ALL games are easy leveling by necessity. You have to know HOW to play them otherwise.
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I think my posts may be too long, people rarely qoute them... or maybe Im just not very good at making my point most times.
Anyways I think I want to eat my own words even if none of you have asked me to.
The time it should take to kill something has many factors.
Having the advantage in numbers or surprize or range should count for something. If you gang up on a target it shouldnt be that much of a challenge to quickly dispatch the target.
Also if you back stab from stealth that should be a good part of the fight already over, (although in PvP you may want to leave people with a small change of recvering). Also we gotta remember that even though the actual fighting doesnt take long here it might take quite a while to get in the right position to deliver the surprize attack.
And if you engage a caster in melee you should have an advantage over him, and him over you if he starts the fight at range.. Last one doesnt have that much to do with time, but its also a factor.
Any combat you should care to engage in should have a certain element of risk
Why should we want to fight something that we can easily kill almost just by targeting it. Is that really the best use for a champion of the realm or would they really have anything of worth we could possibly want? I miss having fights last a good while where there was a good chance, if I didnt keep on my toes, that I would die.
Also I miss having to rest between fights. I dont mean I want to sit down and light a camp fire after each kill but I should at least have to catch my breath after killing something that was my level or above.
A lot of people have mentioned that they want skills in a group to synergize better than a solo players single character skills. SImplest part of this would be to give increased damage to attacks in the back or atleast increased success. But It could also be that one class could freeze the target and then another could whack it with a big weapon to shatter it... ouch.. even though cold numbs the pain..
Anyways.. Combat can be fast paced and still take a while.. but they should be fast paced cause we need to on top of the opponent and not cause we need to keep targeting new stuff cause the old target dies as soon as we target it.
I hate MMOs where it takes a minute or two of chiseling down a mob's health. Makes me feel so gimpy. I'd rather the long fights be reserved for elite type mobs, but average mobs die in 2-3 hits. Add challenge by making the player fight multiple mobs at once, rather than making individual mobs so ridiculously resilient. Especially when the mob is just some guy wearing rags or something, but can keep fighting after being hit in the head with an axe 15 times.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Yet another laughable comment. Understand that 99.9% of the WoW community doesn't care a jack shit about what you think nor about the community on this site. MMORPG seem to be filled with MMO zombies full of WoW hate. Dear god, here are so many pathetic souls.
Keep on hating WoW = more crap MMO's.
Do any of you ever gonna realize why WoW is so popular?
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!