If there's anything that GW2 has taught me, it's that it's not just about smart Ai. Smart Ai can only go so far, SMARTLY DESIGNED ENCOUNTERS are what really make the difference.
A team will always focus on DPS DPS DPS if the encounter doesn't force them to try something different. A recent encounter in GW2 is a perfect example of this;
In the update, Secret of Southsun, there was a group dungeon where people only had to fight one boss. This boss was incredibly difficult to fight because he did damage overtime, he spawned orbs that ran around the room and did a crap ton of damage and he went invulnerable at certain intervals until you pushed him into certain traps around the room. All of sudden, the name of the game was lasting long enough for the team to take down the boss, normal DPS means weren't going to cut it, you had to think about how to sustain your team, you had to think about how to provide enough knockbacks and CC so that you can push the Boss into the traps because if you didn't, the Boss' dots would eat your team alive. The mechanics of the encounter changed how the players reacted to the game and instead of it being a DPS race, it became all about coordinating and out-sustaining the encounter.
And that feeds into what I said earlier, if the EQN devs can build encounters that forces more than one way of play, they will definitely find success.
Yes, but what your describing is neither new nor innovative. That's just good old fashioned CC. CC is just as old a concept as tanking is. In your example GW2 just removed tanking and replaced it with CC. Why is spamming CC abilities like hamstring and shield bash on a boss more acceptable than taunting or high hate generating abilities? Kiting a boss around in circles while constantly keeping him slowed or keeping him stun locked is better than aggro management? Really?
The standard five man group in a classic MMO consists of a Tank, a Healer, two DPS, and a utility class (CC, DPS, off-heals, and/or off-tank). CC has always been there. The only real difference has been that is the past most MMOs have tended to make boss mobs immune to CC because they felt it would have made the encounters too easy.
So now you want a system where we throw away the tank and maybe even the need for a dedicated healer, but we keep the CC? How is CC kiting a mob a more skillful system than tanking through aggro management?
-Ellessar-
Amen
But it's probably better cause it's different.
I wonder how many people tried out homosexuality when they got bored of their girlfriend or boyfriend.
Originally posted by hMJem But this isn't chess. AI eventually becomes predictable in video games. There will be a way to exploit the AI. The people who grind the game will find it out, and anyone struggling could look online and figure out the trick. "Oh, if you stand in this formation, they wont go for the casters, etc"
I've always considered the trinity an exploit that took on a life of its own, anyway. Like bunny-jumping in an FPS.
Favorites: EQ, EVE | Playing: None. Mostly VR and strategy | Anticipating: CU, Pantheon
The poster probably does'nt know how close he is to the future of a lot of how MMO's will work. With NPC's that leverage the same abilities players have not only destroys the Holy Trinity as it will be everyone has to fight, or on you're head be it.
This also starts to challenge PvP as most people will be trying to keep alive if smart AI is implemented correctly.
A lot of stand and watch players are going to find themselves very dead, when a NPC Mobile decides he will not be distracted under any circumstance.
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
Originally posted by hMJem But this isn't chess. AI eventually becomes predictable in video games. There will be a way to exploit the AI. The people who grind the game will find it out, and anyone struggling could look online and figure out the trick. "Oh, if you stand in this formation, they wont go for the casters, etc"
I've always considered the trinity an exploit that took on a life of its own, anyway. Like bunny-jumping in an FPS.
Probably more an artifact of the old D&D source material that just happened to lend itself to the limited 'AI' mechanics that servers could handle back in '99.
But yeah... it's been embraced in a way that makes me think of Stockholm Syndrome in abusive relationships.
As far as 'gaming' the AI goes, that depends on how Storybricks is set up. I don't know if they're using decision trees... or genetic algorithms... or even some type of self training neural net... but I suspect that they can be improved over time. They don't have to be static.
Ok.. to quote myself from another thread here.. about roles, combat tactics, and the lack of a aggro mechanism.
You have to differ. Yes, there is no aggro vs. taunting mechanism, but this does not mean that you can not play a protective Tank. As example, in DAoC you got as a Tank two abilities
a) Guard. Be able to block for other characters. Just stayed near by and blocked almost any incoming attack.
b) Intercepting. Be able to take the damage of other characters. All incoming damage, to be clear.
Those two mechanism were barely used in PvE in DAoC, because of the very easy taunt mechanism, and it was really extremely simple to get all aggro from all mobs.. as in all games we were used to.
But as with good AI, taunting never worked in PvP, and DAoC was a big RvR game. So in PvP from good coordinated groups those mechanism were used to protect soft targets like all casters and healers.
It is a completely different game, but it by no means less tactical, or even simplier, or complete chaos. And now add in additional roles like Crowd Control, and all other stuff we are used to.
Tank could be more realisticly the Protector, because he protects other people by guarding and intercepting. And not like it is, every dumb AI mob attacks exactly the one with the most HP and the most Armor... just so that everyone else can relax, stay behind, and do whatever they want.
The problem with GW2 in comparsion was much more that you got almost no CC, no healing(self helf and any ability with some additional heals were more or less a joke), no effective mechanism to protect other players. (guardian stuff was rather limited)
So you do have different roles.. maybe not the classical trinity, but a more evolved one.. and maybe it is even more than just 3 different roles.
But bottom line.. there are ways to play tactical with different roles without the old well known aggro mechanism, but up to now we don't know anything like all classes look like, and what abilities they exactly have.
But to jump to the conclusion it will be like GW2, just because of the lack of the aggro mechanism is completely wrong, unfunded and very speculative to say the least.
If there's anything that GW2 has taught me, it's that it's not just about smart Ai. Smart Ai can only go so far, SMARTLY DESIGNED ENCOUNTERS are what really make the difference.
A team will always focus on DPS DPS DPS if the encounter doesn't force them to try something different. A recent encounter in GW2 is a perfect example of this;
In the update, Secret of Southsun, there was a group dungeon where people only had to fight one boss. This boss was incredibly difficult to fight because he did damage overtime, he spawned orbs that ran around the room and did a crap ton of damage and he went invulnerable at certain intervals until you pushed him into certain traps around the room. All of sudden, the name of the game was lasting long enough for the team to take down the boss, normal DPS means weren't going to cut it, you had to think about how to sustain your team, you had to think about how to provide enough knockbacks and CC so that you can push the Boss into the traps because if you didn't, the Boss' dots would eat your team alive. The mechanics of the encounter changed how the players reacted to the game and instead of it being a DPS race, it became all about coordinating and out-sustaining the encounter.
And that feeds into what I said earlier, if the EQN devs can build encounters that forces more than one way of play, they will definitely find success.
Yes, but what your describing is neither new nor innovative. That's just good old fashioned CC. CC is just as old a concept as tanking is. In your example GW2 just removed tanking and replaced it with CC. Why is spamming CC abilities like hamstring and shield bash on a boss more acceptable than taunting or high hate generating abilities? Kiting a boss around in circles while constantly keeping him slowed or keeping him stun locked is better than aggro management? Really?
The standard five man group in a classic MMO consists of a Tank, a Healer, two DPS, and a utility class (CC, DPS, off-heals, and/or off-tank). CC has always been there. The only real difference has been that is the past most MMOs have tended to make boss mobs immune to CC because they felt it would have made the encounters too easy.
So now you want a system where we throw away the tank and maybe even the need for a dedicated healer, but we keep the CC? How is CC kiting a mob a more skillful system than tanking through aggro management?
-Ellessar-
That wasn't what I was describing at all. What I was trying to say is that the encounter in question (which I never said was innovative!!!!!) made players use all aspects of their abilities. CC, healing AND DPS not just DPS DPS DPS. I also omitted a key thing in the encounter; all bosses in GW2 have something called Defiant and this ability prevents the boss from being CCed repeatedly. Defiant comes in stacks, so a boss could have 5 stacks of defiant which you can remove the defiant by constantly applying CC to the boss, the boss won't be interrupted or CCed but you'll reduce the number of stacks he has till he has no more and then you apply one CC to him at which point he gets another few stacks of Defiant depending on how many people are trying to kill him. So in the encounter, CC is useful but it's not the end all be all.
Now as I said earlier, the encounter forces the players to use all aspects of the game's combat system and if EQN can replicate that in ALL their encounters, they would be successful. I really don't know how you only derived Crowd control from all that I said.
Z man.. It still comes down to most characters will perform more dps then anything else.. As I said before, 90% of action combat like GW2 type games are dps.. only a small portion 10% allow you to use different skills like stuns, heal pools, snares and whatnots.. Pure Classes are extinct now.. It appears that everyone is a hybrid dps toon with offshoots of something else.. In my opinion that isn't innovative nor attractive.. I actually view it as homogenizing the classes so they all smell the same.. What is so wrong if a GROUP wants to play by the trinity w/ CC? Shouldn't they have that option as a group? I don't see freedom in EQN, I see restrictive playing and being denied other choices..
Players should have the options to play ANY style they want.. Kiting, Fearing, Trinity, Charming.. etc etc.. Right now it looks like everyone has been hamstrung into a corral to play a dps hybrid toon..
Removing the trinity removes both a tactical and a strategical layer from the combat.....
What i have learned from GW2 is that it dumbs down both gameplay, as the power of a group, as the dependency of the individual members. In my book, not having specific roles makes combat more chaotic...
anyway, i personally think that the future of mmos is still with the trinity, but then allowing people to switch roles on the fly to attack every situation with the right group make up.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Smart AI is fine but what I fail to understand is why remove the mechanics of a Tank/Ranged/Support
This is fantasy, and it should stay that way. When you are in battle, a tank in "fantasy" is blocking the mob from getting to its back line, hence tanking/meatshield. The healer/mage/backline are essentially the damagers due to hiding behind this person thats preventing the mob from getting to them.
This isnt an AI problem its just common sense. Trinity isnt something that was invented, it has been through real times. Knights in front archers back. Snipers in back. How is it smart for mobs to zoom through front line tanks just because it's mad that something behind it is doing more damage or doing a higher impact? If that's the case its all just throw uber fireballs with massive deeps and call it a day.
Instead of "removing" the trinity there are plenty of ways to "improve" the trinity which can make both sides happy. Make tanks tank but "have" to block the mobs from getting to the back line. Let the ranged be "ranged" by having to hide behind things so the mob doesnt "throw a spear" at them. These sort of things are what would make a mob more smart, not it zooming faster than the whole team just to smack someone 300 yards away.
If there's anything that GW2 has taught me, it's that it's not just about smart Ai. Smart Ai can only go so far, SMARTLY DESIGNED ENCOUNTERS are what really make the difference.
A team will always focus on DPS DPS DPS if the encounter doesn't force them to try something different. A recent encounter in GW2 is a perfect example of this;
In the update, Secret of Southsun, there was a group dungeon where people only had to fight one boss. This boss was incredibly difficult to fight because he did damage overtime, he spawned orbs that ran around the room and did a crap ton of damage and he went invulnerable at certain intervals until you pushed him into certain traps around the room. All of sudden, the name of the game was lasting long enough for the team to take down the boss, normal DPS means weren't going to cut it, you had to think about how to sustain your team, you had to think about how to provide enough knockbacks and CC so that you can push the Boss into the traps because if you didn't, the Boss' dots would eat your team alive. The mechanics of the encounter changed how the players reacted to the game and instead of it being a DPS race, it became all about coordinating and out-sustaining the encounter.
And that feeds into what I said earlier, if the EQN devs can build encounters that forces more than one way of play, they will definitely find success.
I agree that it is more the encounter structure then AI that makes things interesting, though smart mobs in great encounters are even better.
But the problem being discussed, you enter an encounter with one class ( 4 abilities and 4 secondary ancillary abilities), your locked in..... So if your build will not work for that encounter you will die... No thinking on the fly... if you don't have the right set up for that mob, you die!
Unlike MMOs that give you a large set of tools to work with and its up to you to use the right ones at the right time to succeed. your death is your fault then... It was not dictated by 4 abilities... giving you no options to react.
Though in a twitch set-up abilities are replaced with roll left and roll right to avoid damage. taking less intellect and more hand eye coordination.
Also the big kicker here is, that the Meta gamers will beat every encounter, even if they have to do it 50 times to create the prefect build for that encounter.
These build will be boiled down to around 3 basic builds, which will end up being the set builds for all raiding guilds. TSW and GW2 has demonstrated that.
It will be interesting to see Elder Scrolls Online vs EQnext encounters because ESOL has a far more customizable classing system with so called smart AI also.
Comments
Amen
But it's probably better cause it's different.
I wonder how many people tried out homosexuality when they got bored of their girlfriend or boyfriend.
I've always considered the trinity an exploit that took on a life of its own, anyway. Like bunny-jumping in an FPS.
The poster probably does'nt know how close he is to the future of a lot of how MMO's will work. With NPC's that leverage the same abilities players have not only destroys the Holy Trinity as it will be everyone has to fight, or on you're head be it.
This also starts to challenge PvP as most people will be trying to keep alive if smart AI is implemented correctly.
A lot of stand and watch players are going to find themselves very dead, when a NPC Mobile decides he will not be distracted under any circumstance.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
It is like some of you never ever played any group PvP MMORPG, like DAoC or GW1..
Ohh.. some of you actually never did. o.O
/facepalm
Ask some DAoC or GW1 player, how they played against good AI(actual other players), and what roles will be important.
Probably more an artifact of the old D&D source material that just happened to lend itself to the limited 'AI' mechanics that servers could handle back in '99.
But yeah... it's been embraced in a way that makes me think of Stockholm Syndrome in abusive relationships.
As far as 'gaming' the AI goes, that depends on how Storybricks is set up. I don't know if they're using decision trees... or genetic algorithms... or even some type of self training neural net... but I suspect that they can be improved over time. They don't have to be static.
Ok.. to quote myself from another thread here.. about roles, combat tactics, and the lack of a aggro mechanism.
That wasn't what I was describing at all. What I was trying to say is that the encounter in question (which I never said was innovative!!!!!) made players use all aspects of their abilities. CC, healing AND DPS not just DPS DPS DPS. I also omitted a key thing in the encounter; all bosses in GW2 have something called Defiant and this ability prevents the boss from being CCed repeatedly. Defiant comes in stacks, so a boss could have 5 stacks of defiant which you can remove the defiant by constantly applying CC to the boss, the boss won't be interrupted or CCed but you'll reduce the number of stacks he has till he has no more and then you apply one CC to him at which point he gets another few stacks of Defiant depending on how many people are trying to kill him. So in the encounter, CC is useful but it's not the end all be all.
Now as I said earlier, the encounter forces the players to use all aspects of the game's combat system and if EQN can replicate that in ALL their encounters, they would be successful. I really don't know how you only derived Crowd control from all that I said.
This is not a game.
Z man.. It still comes down to most characters will perform more dps then anything else.. As I said before, 90% of action combat like GW2 type games are dps.. only a small portion 10% allow you to use different skills like stuns, heal pools, snares and whatnots.. Pure Classes are extinct now.. It appears that everyone is a hybrid dps toon with offshoots of something else.. In my opinion that isn't innovative nor attractive.. I actually view it as homogenizing the classes so they all smell the same.. What is so wrong if a GROUP wants to play by the trinity w/ CC? Shouldn't they have that option as a group? I don't see freedom in EQN, I see restrictive playing and being denied other choices..
Players should have the options to play ANY style they want.. Kiting, Fearing, Trinity, Charming.. etc etc.. Right now it looks like everyone has been hamstrung into a corral to play a dps hybrid toon..
Removing the trinity removes both a tactical and a strategical layer from the combat.....
What i have learned from GW2 is that it dumbs down both gameplay, as the power of a group, as the dependency of the individual members. In my book, not having specific roles makes combat more chaotic...
anyway, i personally think that the future of mmos is still with the trinity, but then allowing people to switch roles on the fly to attack every situation with the right group make up.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Smart AI is fine but what I fail to understand is why remove the mechanics of a Tank/Ranged/Support
This is fantasy, and it should stay that way. When you are in battle, a tank in "fantasy" is blocking the mob from getting to its back line, hence tanking/meatshield. The healer/mage/backline are essentially the damagers due to hiding behind this person thats preventing the mob from getting to them.
This isnt an AI problem its just common sense. Trinity isnt something that was invented, it has been through real times. Knights in front archers back. Snipers in back. How is it smart for mobs to zoom through front line tanks just because it's mad that something behind it is doing more damage or doing a higher impact? If that's the case its all just throw uber fireballs with massive deeps and call it a day.
Instead of "removing" the trinity there are plenty of ways to "improve" the trinity which can make both sides happy. Make tanks tank but "have" to block the mobs from getting to the back line. Let the ranged be "ranged" by having to hide behind things so the mob doesnt "throw a spear" at them. These sort of things are what would make a mob more smart, not it zooming faster than the whole team just to smack someone 300 yards away.
Just my two cents
I agree that it is more the encounter structure then AI that makes things interesting, though smart mobs in great encounters are even better.
But the problem being discussed, you enter an encounter with one class ( 4 abilities and 4 secondary ancillary abilities), your locked in..... So if your build will not work for that encounter you will die... No thinking on the fly... if you don't have the right set up for that mob, you die!
Unlike MMOs that give you a large set of tools to work with and its up to you to use the right ones at the right time to succeed. your death is your fault then... It was not dictated by 4 abilities... giving you no options to react.
Though in a twitch set-up abilities are replaced with roll left and roll right to avoid damage. taking less intellect and more hand eye coordination.
Also the big kicker here is, that the Meta gamers will beat every encounter, even if they have to do it 50 times to create the prefect build for that encounter.
These build will be boiled down to around 3 basic builds, which will end up being the set builds for all raiding guilds. TSW and GW2 has demonstrated that.
It will be interesting to see Elder Scrolls Online vs EQnext encounters because ESOL has a far more customizable classing system with so called smart AI also.