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Musing on Mass PvP
Caliburn101
Member Posts: 636
There is a general assumption that all mass PvP regardless of the MMO is basically a zergfest.
Now some real battles in history were zergfests themselves – especially when one considers Celts vs. Romans or Mongols vs. Russians etc.
Clearly the ‘zerg’ is always going to have a place in battles...
...however – there are a number of ways of doing things which in my opinion would reduce the zerg to an option to be used when appropriate, rather than the default and most efficient way of doing things.
Sieges
These are a problem because of some very short sighted historically (game-wise) accepted ways of programming them.
- Destructible Gates – hand held weapons, and the kind of spells that merely damage squishy flesh should do precisely no damage whatsoever to a castle gate – NEVER MIND a castle wall! There is a nod to this fact in many games where gates take a while to destroy by zerging them with standard weapons – but it is not a solution – as so many games demonstrates. Gates (and to an even greater extent, walls) should only be destructible through the use of siege equipment or very costly or laborious magic.
- Assault – assault is virtually never possible – I haven’t seen a game where scaling ladders and siege towers are used (there may be some but they must be rare if there are). Now this would as things stand increase the effectiveness of zerging... but see my entry about falling below. The issue here is that destruction of fortifications as point (a) is put in to counter this omission more often than not, so a part solution to ‘paper-gates’ is to put this in.
- Falling – no army in history ever sallied from a fortification by jumping en-masse from the walls in armour and surprising the defenders. What a crock! Moreover, if you were climbing a ladder and it was shoved from the wall it was a short trip to dead/crippled-ville! Putting in realistic falling damage would prevent this ridiculous situation.
- ‘Paper’ Siege Weapons – I defy anyone to take a bloody great axe and attack a trebuchet (such as the one built at Warwick Castle in the UK) and destroy it in moments. Won’t happen – it takes some time. Sure you could cripple it by cutting ropes – but this could be fixed much quicker. Yes you could destroy it with fire... but not mass necrosis, poison clouds or by firing arrows at it – no, no, no. Make the spiking or destruction of siege weapons (now an essential part of siege and castle defence) more realistic and they become a focal point for battlefield tactics.
- Siege Weapon Effectiveness – Most MMO siege weapons are constructed way to fast, they fire too fast, are far too accurate and then to counterbalance this - don’t do nearly enough damage. This should change. They should take time to build, take time to fire, be difficult to precisely target but kill every damn thing in their central 'hit zone', do significant splash damage or nasty cone damage (with the appropriate ammo and type of weapon etc.) so they are worth firing.
- Wall LOS and ranged attacks – LOS should be better for defenders on the wall and their range should be greater due to the advantages of elevation. You should not have the usually hit chance firing at someone behind crenelations – there should be something akin to a +50% miss chance at least for non-aoe attacks.
- Defending equipment – oil cauldrons, catapults etc. used in defence of a fortification should not be easily targeted from the outside. For all other considerations see the other siege weapon relevant entries above.
Attacking a fortification should be a serious undertaking with overwhelming advantages for the defender if the attacker isn’t well prepared. This would make it a real victory to succeed and make it a useful addition to the strategy of the battlefield, not just a means to slightly slow down a zerg for a few minutes.
Open Battle
Now MMOs clearly cannot yet have Total War style battles. A pity, but there it is.
However – There should really be advantages to tactical play – by this I mean NON-zerg tactics of course...
You stand on a hill your ranged attacks should have greater range to lower elevations. You stand in some trees there is a miss chance applied to enemy ranged fire. You charge through a swamp you slow right down. Add good LOS and impact with active blocking (so ranged attacks get intercepted frequently by shield walls for instance) and fights inherently become more tactical.
Melee heavy enemies might want to force a fight in a swampy forest – forcing ranged to close and giving light skirmishers little opportunity to run away quickly. Ranged will want to ambush their targets in the open and from elevation. Shield walls (however impromptu) will be a viable tactic when enemy aoe isn’t strong.
On the issue of AoE – the non-siege weapons availability of this (rain or arrows, firestorm etc. etc. ) should be limited and expensive to use – meaning it gets used in certain circumstances or at critical junctures – not what happens now – where constant spamming of it slows mass PvP to a crawl, makes massed melee a liability and becomes the only truly dominant force on both sides.
It has its place, but it should temporarily cripple casters to use, or take significant prep-time for non-casters to use – penalties truly in balance with it’s effectiveness when initiated by one person, but effective when created by many people.
I would like to see volley fire available to archers for instance that fires one arrow which will land randomly within a target reticle. This would encourage several or many archers to work together and coordinate a ‘mass aoe’ by firing in the same area at the same time. You could even have a command which allows others to slave their fire button to a 'commander' they are grouped with as long as they stand still.
You could do the same for a shield wall or cover manoeuvre, allowing ‘units’ to defend against ranged more effectively in close proximity.
Add the ability for casters to use an AoE reticle for channelled countermagic and just watch the units form up and practice together. People would get used to it pretty quickly I think, and use it well. Gamers after all thrash the pants off any advantage they can get do they not!?
It’s just they haven’t had a reason to play particularly tactically to date...
Another badly designed issue is stealth. There should be ‘heavy cover’ zones which give the opportunity to go invisible IF toons stay still. Add a damage bonus if attacking from stealth (which breaks the moment you do) and watch the ambushes fly.
On open ground – give heavy armoured toons bonuses to defence for better footing or when in close proximity to shield users.
There are many ways to introduce tactical play which are within the realms of possibility – and if holistically and intelligently applied could revolutionise mass PvP.
Your thoughts?
Comments
I certainly like your line of thinking and MMOs could definitely use some more depth when it comes to group (mass) combat.
My critique would be, however, that you seem to recognize yourself that developers can't even come to the implemented realization that powerful effects (like spellcasting AoE) shouldn't be spammable. I'm sure every development group starts out with some of the same premises you have provided, but by the end of initial development some particular bigwig has decided that he likes to fireball things every 5 seconds at the maximum.
I would settle for some solidly implemented class balance, or at least a lack of developer waffling due to invalid complaints about class balance. Healing in particular is often extremely poorly done. Until you see some consistency in small group battles, I think consistency in large group battles is still a ways off.
It's a meme perpetuated by people who like crappy tupperware pvp in their mmos to try and convince themselves that their "leetness" is due to "madskillz" and not time grinded / gear worn / fotm spec off the internet used.
They band about the zerg word to make themselves feel good in comparison to people playing "noob zerg pvp"
Blame the likes of blizzard and arenanet for selling the "mmos can be Esports" lie.
I think the only way to implement this coupled with magic is to look at magic differently. Mana is such a weird resource, as it lasts very long before you are depleted. I'd rather have a storage system of some kind where you'll have to recharge (and this can be immediately) at magic sources (for those who care: kinda stole that from Markus Heitz' books
) and have limited storage based on the items they carry to store it in. When they're out, they just need to sit back or grab a sword. Also casting a spell (should) require(s) the utmost concentration and that's damn hard on a battlefield :P
I agree sieges and combat can be done better, but I see that possibly mainly with action combat (like TERA). This gives way more options for blocking and things like shield size actually matter that way, but a bigger shield would give lower speed in moving that shield...
"We need men who can dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy
And for MMORPGs ever so true...
You might want to try playing the new Darkfall Unholy Wars, it has the best PVP battles there are online currently.
Darkfalls take on the points you mention:
1. Gates only destructible to siege weaponry
2. Jump into a city and assault them if you want that.
3. Falling damage and death from falling is in the game.
4. Siege weapons are destructible but not that easy to do, normally people might try to capture them instead of destroying them. That is because
5. Siege weaponry is really expensive and only master crafters can produce the best siege weaponry.
6. In a FPS style combat you always have an advantage if you only shoot down and can hide behind walls opposed to an attacker that still has to breach the walls. Of couse if the attacker shoot down your walls with cannons they can storm it.
On the other hand there would be a chokepoint where you could catch a lot of attackers with AOE damage... So many possibilities
Cheers .. I dont know other games with sieges but I dont like pvp games without full loot anyway.
I like the concept of having mass combat take a more strategic direction.
Personally I think defenders should have a strong advantage. After all their fortress is designed to give them that advantage. I sort of suspect that this would produce whiners complaing that the defender advantage takes the "fun" out of invading.
Cool thread. An interesting read.
Can't be done. Not with current technology. Atleast not with every soldier as player. Collision detection (both for projectiles and characters), direct movement of the characters, active blocking and even simple physics.. the calculations and traffic would be insurmountable. You can't do it on a scale that would make it feel more than just a skirmish.
I don't know... maybe 60 against 60 is still stretching it.
What could be possible is to put players in charge of companies of NPCs. That way you wouldn't need as many players to make the battle feel like a battle. And also you can avoid all the uninteresting stuff a foot soldier has to endure.
This would also make it more forgiving when you "die" only when your company is taken out (or routs, or when your avatar, the captain, dies or whatever). It wouldn't be a one shot one kill type of deal even if the game was realistic with regards to damage. A player character's abilities could include rallying, inspiring, different formations and tactics for his/her troops. ...could be different.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Great ideas for adding more tactics for largescale wars, but for solving the problem of zergs, you're really overthinking it by a mile.
Adding friendly fire and collision detection shatters the zerg. It also gives more reason for intel scouts since numbers, enemy type and position now become important.There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I agree. I've also been coining attrition mechanics, but they would only work if combat required ammuntion or something similar, or if moving a large body of characters required fuel or something equivalent.
A simple example, "an army marches on its stomach", so perhaps the army needs to forage in order to keep itself in fighting order. With this in mind, perhaps different regions (zones) have a limit how many characters they can support or "keep fed". A "soft cap", if you will, where after a certain limit the army suffers from its large size.
Another one might be that only a certain amount of ships can be in the same warp bubble for long distance travel. Say only capital ships or larger ships can create a large enough warp bubble for smaller ships to ride in its wake, but this number would be limited to the size and power of the ship that created the warp bubble etc. This would effectively limit the size of fleets, much the way Eve's wormholes do (they collapse when enough matter goes through).
But these are more of like hard caps. Its just a matter of how you make it part of the fiction so they don't appear like an invasive rule. I bet people can accept pretty much anything if you mask it properly.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Well Zergs are an issue when talking about many players, networking and rendering wise, there's really only 2 solutions and these are deterrents really. PS2 isn't that bad, though it does cull, the nature of the game follows 2 .
1)A fast way where a single player can destroy a large zerg, yet the same functionality is useless Vs lesser numbers.
2)Provide mechanism systems where zerg's are defeated by small groups in many locations.
The absence of attrition mechanics (i like that term) is primarily the result of two changes that have occurred over time.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Great ideas about siege combat, and great follow up about friendly-fire and other zerg equalizers. Look, getting a large group of fighters together and trying to overwhelm your adversary isn't a "noob" play, it's smart strategy! The gripe people have with the zerg is really a gripe with the way combat is handled in most MMOs. The zerg feels "stupid" because you can literally run up and spam your attacks and spells with little to no consequence and emerge victorious. Now I don't have the background to understand the technical limitations fully, but certainly friendly fire would do a good bit, as would eliminating auto-targeting. I also think ranged magic is simply too prevalent in most MMOs and too easy to spam. "Fireball" type spells should require line of sight. If your target is entangled in melee with a friendly and you try to blast 'em, you better know you could end up taking out your own guy. Another wacky idea is to actual penalize death meaningfully, but that might be going out on a limb.
For the record, a lot of folks complain that in large-scale pvp it's all over too quick and you don't have much of a chance to do anything before getting mowed down. Guess what? That's pretty much how it goes in real life. Ultimately I think moderate scale pvp (maybe 20 players to a side or so) is likely to yield the most rewarding and deep gameplay in most games. That's not to say games shouldn't allow massive hoardes, but I think players have to be realistic about what those battles will feel like.
This is where I disagree. I think If the cost of failure goes up, so does the frequency of zerging (and ganking), because people are less willing to take risks. People are cowards, basically.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
If you played eve online you would make a great fleet commander op. Have you ever read the art of war??
In my opinion eve online and its massive fleet battles with billions of isk(game $$) on the line are epic and uber important. They actually make the news on the many eve online news sites. Internet spaceships are a big deal. If I can I turn your attention to one of the best alliances in the game at this time Rooks and Kings and a video of them in action. They are unstoppable when it comes to fleet engagements and implementing elite strats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMFahR
4wXTg
I have friends that play EVE - it just isn't my kettle of fish due to the vast amount of time necessary to make yourself relevant and competitive.
Yes I am a devotee of Sun Tzu, and am ex-military, an old medieval re-ennacter and massive Total War and RTS player. My wife is a top programmer and program integrator and we do discuss now and again what is possible and what isn't as she's a gamer too.
So I do despair at the Room 101 mistakes which get made repeatedly, and the obvious (to me anyway) solutions.
The MMO crowd would open their wallets to the right game, and key to this is player-lead change, dynamism and challenge - which have either bled out of MMOs, haven't been done yet or are regarded as 'impossible'.
EVE is an oddball in this regard - but it's a simple game in many ways and doesn't have the challenges of a first person, richly detailed gameworld MMO. It has it's own, and space combat is far more suited to a 'realistic' and comprehensive representation in gameplay.
I am just waiting for the more traditional MMO genre to catch up.
It can be done, and it is... Vendetta Online has all the features you describe, and was designed from the beginning for one user to consume, on average, 14kbits of bandwidth. It can theoretically be played over a 56k modem. Take a look at some of the battles in the video I linked to, and keep in mind they are on the medium-smaller side of what is presently in game and will likely be dwarfed by where the game is headed.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance