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Character design in modern mmos.
Vigiliance
Member UncommonPosts: 213
This is going to be a sweet but short post, I honestly believe that classes in all these MMO's are too heavily influenced by the idea of "balance" in an extreme way.
Class designers forgot that what defines classes even more then by what they can do, is by what they CANT do.
It seems the moment someone sees a cool feature of one class or characters spec or core and they go I WANT THAT too, they give everyone everything, and all the classes start to lose their identity. This isn't just true of WoW, but of games like RIFT, WAR, and any sandbox game without skill limits, (EVE, Darkfall).
A trip back to simplicity with a splash of innovation is what we need...
Classes should be relatively unbalanced because they should all have unique and powerful features that make you want to pick them up and play... I think too many people have "MainITIS". They get so asorbed with one character that they want them to have everything because they don't want to put in a small amount of time to explore the other classes and expierence their other features, no no, just give my class all those features too. That ultimately reduces the lifespan of a game and how much you can enjoy it.
This also has started the MMOSPG (Massive multiplayer online single player game) you give characters enough features then these new abilitys and features augment their previous weaknesses that would of made grouping much more lucrative...
Comments
Letting players freely switch specs to change roles -- and having each class capable of multiple, if not all, roles -- is a very significant improvement over the old class systems in games where if you didn't have a Tank (or whatever role) you were screwed.
So hopefully that's not what you're criticizing, because it's a huge step forward.
Hopefully you're criticizing the unique playstyles themselves, which certainly deserve to be more distinct from one another.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I have no problems with multiple specs most of the time, I just wish each class in MMO's even if it meant there were less, would just truely bring something new and exciting to the group, instead of just having well we can insert any class here.
I would rather forget about classes, and focus on the abilities the character can do. It's just too limit to have specific archetypes that player have to follow, and limit the "play around" aspect of player create their own role for the character. The identity is rest with the player hand to decide of what they want to do, and what their playstyle is going to be today, and tomorrow will be a different one.
As you have mention EVE does not have skill limit, it's not kinda true, as the skills are limit to around level 5. Even the player learn skill, but they does not fly ship that work with that skill, such skill does not give any effect to such player at all. But what limit in EVE is the abilities to mix and match stuff you can put on the ship. Some ship does not allow some type of equipment you can mount on the ship, which in turn is limit itself to different type of classes.
It's come down to that like if you play hunter/rogue, you can not wear plate armour. Why is that? I mean plate armour would have slow hunter down, but the player might come up with something that work with their playstyle but not work with someone else.
Unbalance is a good way to go, but that also have to consider about the leveling aspect where higher player are likely to gain better and higher gears that really push the unbalance aspect to the extreme. As long as the game still holding on to leveling aspect, and single player playstyle rather than think about other 10,000+ players who are on the same server playing together and create their own identity of the character, the unbalance is not going to work well.
Imbalances are poison to PvP. And creating dependencies between classes is just what makes viable grouping a pain.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I have seen some very interesting mmo design where balance wasn't a concern at all, in fact they claim from start balance won't be something they are looking for. Balance is a problem when people don't want to create a character to fill a role, but when they want to have the easiest way to the top. So you can definitly design a game with other view and "ignore" that balance problem.
The problem is that mmo all have pretty much the same mold; thats why balance is a problem, since they are all very competitve. XP/pvp grind, grind, grind, grind... You can definitly make a game where competition isn't the main aspect of the game. Just like you can definitly make a mmo where killing stuff isn't the focus.
I absolutely oppose the OP.
One of the main things why I would still play Vanguard today if there only would be players was that my Cleric was NOT a stupid healbot that just had to look at HP bars 100% of the time and thats it. Like my Shillien Elder was in Lineage 2.
I really dont see why that would be a good idea, either. Vanguard classes had a clear task in group, but they also had multiple secondary tasks. As a Cleric, for example, I had to apply different debuffs and group buffs that I could only keep up if I kept attacking the mob in melee. I also got a special attack for getting mana from the mob.
So nope, get away with those stupid "can only do one thing" EQ1-style classes. I want something more complex and challenging than that.
I want to learn one class from start to end optimally. I cant do that if I constantly use different skills and fill different party tasks.
I don't think we are that much in disagreement, I am not saying that every class should be able to do one part of the trinity and thats it, I am just saying that the few things each class should do, should be unique to that class, so it makes that class feel defined and special. You can give the healer a unique way to deal damage with support and utility that another class can't not provide. I would of loved to see the highmagic system from WAR played out correctly.
"Imbalances are poison to PvP. And creating dependencies between classes is just what makes viable grouping a pain."
This is why PvP can never co-exist with PvE, the two will conflict each other and hinder each other, dependencies between classes are the only thing that keep grouping alive, if they didn't have these everyone would just play a truely solo game. Encounters can be designed as well so besides a healer/tank and even perhaps without one of the two they can be completed they just have to be clever in the scripts.
The only way to make pvp and pve coexist without harming each other is to make it so the skills and abilities used for each are completely different or behave differently, that is my belief. Too many games where PvE has influced changes that hurt PvP and where PvP influenced changes that hurt PvE ...
I disagree with the OP. This makes me want to finish my class balance blog entry. I think I will do just that. I will post it when it's finished so many can understand it. There is a plethora of misconception of what class balance really is.
I am glad I have inspired you and look forward to an interesting read, my ideas are just opinions after all, lest anyone forget that.. like anyone elses ideas as well.
Absolutely. Everyone has their own ideas. Not sure how long it will be up but I will do it for sure.
thats how games are since many years now.... specific classes promotes the trinity ( aka looking for tank, dps, healer) i think we need something different and i believe GW2 will succeed on breaking that cycle.....
TF2 is one of the most class-swap-intensive games ever made, and yet I see people who purely play one class.
So clearly you can get what you want, despite mechanics letting players easily switch roles.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I was bored to death by GW1 in mere days - and I dont consider it a MMO in the first place, thanks to heavy instancing its more of a 3D version of Diablo 2 - and thus I dont care much for GW2 at this point, but I'll grant you it will be interesting how GW2 will work out.
Still I'm a bit angry at GW2 for apparently having inspired all these "trinity" threads recently.
I actually
my character in Rift. I think she's the first character I've made where I'm like, "Holy cow, that's pretty."
I recently joined Eve to try it out... and the character creation is awesome, my toon looked awesome, but it didn't matter ;( never got to see the awesomeness once I entered the game.
In WoW I liked my undead disc priest because it was just awesome looking.
I'm really picky about having either a cool looking or pretty toon. Yes, I'm a vain gamer and I collect all the awesome gear and whatnot just so I can sit at the bank and show off. I'm not as picky as some, but the more customization the better. And I don't mean customization as in "WE NEED BOOB SLIDER"... I mean, everything. Basically Eve's customization was perfect lol
Character customization is the only thing Cryptic excels at. Their char generator in champions online is practically a tool to spend hours and hours in.
As for distinct roles. I'm all for distinct roles. To bridge the gap of 'finding class X' there are two things you need. Better and easier grouping, (fast grouping, teleportation to dungeons, mentoring, etc), even share of classes of the same archetype (3 healers, 3 damagers, 3 tanks... not 1 real tank, 6 dd classes and 1 real healer) and the possibility to swap archetypes completely and on cooldown. Not like building some screwed hybrid half-ass class but going from full-tank to full-heal on a 90 minute cooldown, something like this so you can change your role if its an absolute necessity.
I find free skilling and skill swapping like in Rift ruining my immersion big time. If I create an inquisitor I choose the appearance from hairstyle to overall size accordingly. This guy can't be a druid just for the heck of it. He is thin, tall, beady eyed, goatee, hard face lines... The whole backstory of my character that I have in mind screams inquisitor. He can't change to a tree hugging bushy bearded Hagrid-copy in 10 seconds, that's just not right. But I guess that's an roleplayers problem, and if one thing is fading with certainity from MMORPGs, it's roleplaying. So in 10 years you guys can have your shiny plastic toons and uber gear and rant on vent about epixx while I comb my grey hair, get my notebook out and meet up for some good old dice throwing... sorry for the nostalgia, I had high hopes for this genre... 15 years ago...
M
Short but not so sweet respone. Classes are one of the worst thing to happen to mmos. I am no fan of one character being able to master every skill but the single player rpg hold over that is the holy trinity really needs to go.
What about the idea of just highering an AI to fill a role you or your group is missing? (assuming, of course, that the AI was sufficiently programmed) Or perhaps ignoring the trinity all together like diablo 3 and how every class in that game is DPS, not really any tanks and certainly no dedicated healer. And how about increasing the number of archetypes so that the trinity becomes a pentagram or decahedron with single and multi-target healers, tanks, single target and multi-target dps, buffers, debuffers, single and multi-target crowd control, and pet classes? but then i can see the PvP argument coming into focus here...
I suppose it all boils down to just what people want to play. Do you want a game that does it all and has every possible mode of gameplay in it like a jack of all trades master of none? Or a title devoted to a select precious few modes of play that it does exceptionally well. And how do you factor for player skill versus character spreadsheet balance? We all know about FPS mmo's and other twitch fighting games that feature rigid class balance in support of all success being at the hands of experience of the player themself. Yet games such as this can make it hard for new players to jump in because of learning curves and memorization required for the ins and outs of every class, arena, skill, item, mechanic and exploit. There is no simple solution gang.
Trinity explictly answers the question "Why do I need other players?" Without some form of specialization, a game is going to provide a bad team-play experience.
So hopefully you aren't trying to say the trinity is a "single player RPG holdover" (which it sounds like you are), because that's completely wrong. The trinity is one manifestation of player specialization which forces players to work together to be their most effective.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
When 4th Edition AD&D came out (aka world of dungeons), one of the things they talked a lot about was roles. I was the goto guy for "My group doesn't have role X" for a while until I realized how much I hated the new system and went back to 3.5
For those not familiar with the roles, I will give you my names (their names were just stupid, "leader," was the healer for example). Offense, Defence, Support, and Tactical.
Offense were pure damage dealers, archer/ranger, rogue, and warlock. They tended to be "glass cannons" great at killing, but easily killed if you attacked them.
Defence/Tanks were ok in damage dealing, but primarily there to soak damage and keep the enemy off the squishies. Paladins/warriors.
Support were healers, buffers, and cured debuffs.
Tactical were in charge of mass damage or control of the battlefield (something that most MMO's don't have, and should). They cast debuffs, made areas impassible (walls, tanglefoot), and had a lot of tactical options.
That said, there were a lot of things the DM or the players could do to fill a hole. if you didn't have a tank the healer and ranger could take the front, and the healer could do self healing to keep himself up. If you didn't have a damage dealer, you could just grind the foe down by keeping your side alive. If you didn't have a support, buy potions and work on stealth/surprise. If you don't have support, use retreat to find a battlefield you can use your team in.
Modern MMO's, because they care too much about the "trinity," don't let folks cover other roles as well. Only tank classes have the ability to pull a foe's attention. Only a few classes can heal. When they do let you take multiple roles, they nerf your abilities. Frankly, making your character "switchable" seems dumb anyway.
How about letting a character takes skills from any role, and build your own perfect character, but restrict how many skills you get. Kind of a classless system. If I want a paladin, I take tank and healer abilities. If I want to be a shaman I might take healing and tactical.
I do think debuffs, AOE, and barriers are a great addition to any MMO.
I agree.
The ability to choose from a variety of skills, with an emphasis on strategy and positioning would be ideal. Hopefully that emphasis on tactics would help in preventing Flavor of the Month syndrome.
But what is everyone's take on talent trees?
Is the focus on pouring 'points' or whatever into individual trees too resctricting? Does it inhibit player's abilities to grab from multiple disciplines and spread out?
Would a system asking players to choose skills within a set of tiers be more liberating? For example, choosing 5 tier 1 skills, 4 tier 2 skills, 3 tier 3 skills, 2 tier 4 skills, and 1 tier 5 skill, with the tiers encompassing multiple disciplines and 'classes' of powers?
Just a thought. I have no idea if that's an original idea or not.
The issue is that in practice those types of systems make for sort of nebulous characters. Strong class design, on the other hand, gives you very strong archetypal roles to key in on (in both tabletop and videogame RPGs.)
Players sort of need that to create the desired experience. For example 4th Edition doesn't spell out the fact that you can make any damn group you want and just have the DM adjust encounters, rewards, and mechanics to match. (Well actually I think it probably does spell that out somewhere; even the 2nd ED book reminded DMs that RPGs are whatever you want them to be.) As a result of 4th ED not strongly presenting that group playstyle (ie making sub-par group compositions work) you didn't end up creating a good experience for yourselves.
Similarly, players won't end up creating a good experience for themselves (as consistently) without strong archetypes to key off of. (Although it's worth noting that class systems aren't the only way to present players with strong archetypes.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
My contribution to this thread is this: F*ck the Class System altogether.
Thanks for your time ladies and gents
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
The problem with positioning in most of the games I have seen is that most MMO's allow a tank to "draw fire," but there are really no movement abilities or movement restricting abilities. Even ignoring "click-fest" tactics...
I wonder what would happen if tactical movement was slower than non-tactical, even if it was just "you switch into walking instead of running in combat." You could switch back to running, but you would be a lot easier to hit since you are running instead of defending.
MMO's could also steal an idea from DnD regarding movement. If a character or monster runs past someone to get at the guy behind them, the person who is bypassed gets a free extra attack.
If you did both of these in an MMO, and had "paths," in your battlefields, you could make characters who can create walls, slow movement, and do damage over time far more effective. You would also introduce a lot more tactics I think.
Most of my PVP battle experiences are "how quickly can I click" and frankly that doesn't feel tactical to me. If "I run too fast for anyone to target me" is a valid tactic than your game is broken!
Hehe. You are looking forward to The Secret World, no?