Class roles like a MOBA

Arcona · August 2013

https://twitter.com/DaveGeorgeson/status/367825377193775104

So as suspected, there are still class roles, but they are like in a MOBA.

nolic1 · August 2013

Sounds kinda fun really not the normal style can't wait to see it in action.

TheHavok · August 2013

As long as its fun and engaging - i'll play it.

Crazy_Stick · August 2013

Its an interesting take and not the first game to try and build a game around PVP inspired mechanics. The more I look at the art, the cover portrait, listen to interviews, I keep thinking some one thought WOW was washed up and took aim at one upping GW2...

Stiler · August 2013

I play League of Legends quite a bit and I have been saying for a long time that mmo's could learn something from that style of combat.

Even though your hero only has 4 abilities, the combat and things that you can do with all the skill sets creates some TRULY amazing potential and dynamic combat.

To give you an example of this, in League of Legends there is a support character called Thresh. He is geared toward having good cc abilities.

One of his abilities is a "lantern toss" where he can throw out his lantern and another person on your team can "click" on it and it will then drag them to your position. This is extremely helpful if you get caught and need to get out of a sticky situation.

Another is where he takes his chain and he can either choose to knock someone back, or knock them toward you.

Another is where he can throw his chain and if it lands on an enemy he can then "pull" them in whatever direction he moves, or he can press his ability key again and he will pull himself toward the enemy.

His ultimate is an AOE "wall" he throws up around himself. If an enemy champion moves toward any of the wall faces they will break it, but in the process are slowed.

Here is a great example of Thresh using his chain sweep to knock an enemy back at the EXACT precise time right before he hits Thresh's ally (which would have killed him).

Now to me, if combat is like that, I Will LOVE it.

I am not one to generally play supports in mmorpgs, I have never been a huge "healer" fan, it was never my gameplay style. However in LoL I regularly play the support roles with many different champions.

munx4555 · August 2013

Have to admit I have never really played any of the games like LoL so not entirely sure what this will be like, but from what little I gather it dosnt sound like a entirely bad idea.

However the whole melee- support- ranged comment made me feel they might be a bit to general about it, I really prefer strong and defined roles.

That said, I look forward to seeing it, more then willing to test new things in my mmos, I just don't want another piece of trash like guild wars 2.

Don't get me wrong guild wars 2 have some neat stuff, but to me the horrible grouping/combat system overshadows the good stuff.

voltt · August 2013

personally not a fan of a limited skill bar system, like in GW2 had the setup of skills that were best at lvl20 meaning the rest of the game i had nothing to look forward 2, spamming the same skills over and over

Dracock · August 2013

This was my first post on the site; shortly after they announced no trinity;

I'm not even sure what "no trinity" even means. Look at League of Ledgends for example: it is a total esport pvp arena game with very talented players hell bent on targeting the "face melter" first. Yet even in LoL you had:

Tank characters to initiate and soak up all the initial damage and cc.
Archer and Mage style ranged dps (AD/AP carrys) which were squishy
Bruiser characters that dealt good damage and could also take some beating
Assassin characters that were very squishy and vulnerable but could "assassinate" players quickly
Support characters that provided buffs, heals, cc, and (most importantly) life saving abilities.

You needed a balanced team to play effectively. You wouldn't want a team with no tank, 2 carries and 3 assassins. Teams with 5 bruisers didn't work either. While you could drive it home with a weird group occasionally, you usually wanted a healthy mix of Tank, DPS and support.

There are hundreds of viable team comps. A lot of characters don't fit neatly into one role or not, yet still have a place in competitive games. Certain compositions of characters were better for certain things ect.

To me it seems utterly bizarre that people take "no trinity" of dedicated classes, to mean that all classes will be of like ability to tank, dps, support, ect. Personally I took "no trinity" to mean that there aren't going to be 3 classes you absolutely need to maximize a group. Rather, you will need some broad jobs or roles to be fulfilled that are much more expansive than the tank and spank model provides.

Torcip · August 2013

Good, I've been saying this is how MMOs should work since forever ago. The threat mechanic is archaic and was due to limited tech and should be done away with. Active tanking is much more fun than hitting that threat generation button. Roots, stuns, fears, push/pulls, shields, slows, body blocking, that is how tanking should be.

It's not that there isn't a trinity, it's that they got rid of that god awful threat mechanic that makes MMOs a snooze fest.

Rydeson · August 2013

Originally posted by Torcip
Good, I've been saying this is how MMOs should work since forever ago. The threat mechanic is archaic and was due to limited tech and should be done away with. Active tanking is much more fun than hitting that threat generation button. Roots, stuns, fears, push/pulls, shields, slows, body blocking, that is how tanking should be.

It's not that there isn't a trinity, it's that they got rid of that god awful threat mechanic that makes MMOs a snooze fest.

No offense here, but I think you are a little "off" in understanding what threat mechanics are, and why or how they should be applied.. Since the beginning of class roles, threat was always just a program number that told the mob WHO to focus on and when.. It was a lot more complicated then what it mutated into today.. Threat was always that invisible number separate of actual combat fighting numbers, but was directly tired into.. Normally if a player did an action that caused 50 points of damage, it created 50 points of threat.. But then you had other things outside of pure dps that caused threat too such as heals, debuffing and the like, each with their own value.. Much of the time location of said players also influenced the mob.. You might be number 1 on the threat list, but if you are too far away, the mob ignored you.. and RIGHTFULLY SO TOO.. If you moved within range, you got whacked.. If you were near death, regardless of threat you were always the target as the mob wanted to "finish" you off..

You can argue there is no room for a "threat" button, but it could be easily argued that one should be able to "YELL" in a threatening manner that does NO damage, but generates attention.. You know, like the obnoxious fan at a football game you want to CHOKE.. Why? He's actually creating attention without actually pushing you.. Isn't he?.. However, that has to be reasonable and most of us know that "threat" generation has gotten OUT OF HAND over the years.. You mention things like root, fears, pushes and blocks etc etc.. THOSE were all threat numbers in the original EQ.. You can still go back to giving a warrior shield block 2 numbers when used.. a) the actual dps is causes, and b) the threat is generates.. A shield block for example might cause 30 points of damage and 60 points of threat.. So even if a ranger is causing most of the damage (50 pts) from a distance, the warrior holds the attention of the mob.. and RIGHTFULLY SO..

I get a little sick and tired of devs and fans toting this "smart AI" bullshit to justify their hatred for the trinity type of role play.. That is just a stupid strawman argument.. The average mob such as a bear and wolves are too stupid to know where those arrows are coming from.. If a warrior is face to face with a dumb mob pounding on it, that dumb mob is totally focused on the warrior completely ignorant of the ranger 20 yards away with a bow and arrow.. And even when you start talking about smart mobs that have some form of baseline intelligence, again those mobs will not ignore the face to face beating just to focus on a range mob too far away.. IMO There is absolutely nothing wrong with the role class system and threat mechanics, as long as it's applied correctly.. which over the years it hasn't.. WoW I believe started that slippery slope and it's still broken..

Role_player · August 2013

I agree more or less with Arcona, Stiler and Dracock.

The class roles seems to be Moba style, the combat looks like an improved version of the dynamic combat seen in Neverwinter but with more mechanics and more strategy thinking above all at the destructibility feature and Emergent AI, the 2 weapons sets reminds a lot of people at GW2 and apparentely it's so but I think weapons are going to have a real and wide variety phisicity that isn't meaningless(range,hit frequency,multitarget etc.) ... and, the last thing, the mix and match classes takes me thinking at the cards game Magic the Gathering in which, depending on the Planeswalker you fight against, you choose your Deck(main class), and mix&match skills (swamps+islands or mountains+forests) to create a multiclass appropriate to the duel you are going to engage.

At the end if it's build in that way and if the level of challenge is accurate I'm going to like EQN!

evilastro · August 2013

Originally posted by Rydeson
The average mob such as a bear and wolves are too stupid to know where those arrows are coming from..

OK conduct a little experiment for us. You go find a bear in the woods and shoot it, while your friend yells at it loudly. Lets see who he attacks first shall we?

Threat mechanics are dumb. There is no plausible reason for any creature to turn and fight the most heavily armoured and defended person in a group, while all his friends (who are only wearing light armour) throw fireballs and stick daggers in its back. If a creature is dumb, you might be able to get it to attack you by constantly getting in the way of where it wants to go (ie: whoever was actually hurting it or looks like easy prey), which is the point they are getting at.

You can have defensive fighters, but they should work to get peoples attention by generally being really annoying. Give them slows, interrupts and intercepts, and the AI might turn around to get rid of them rather than keep chasing after the highest damager.

Having one person out of a group being the only person getting attacked, especially when facing large groups of enemies, is just incredibly unrealistic. Especially when they are the lowest actual threat and most heavily armoured.

kellian1 · August 2013

Played and tried a few MOBA's....just wasn't for me, didn't enjoy the gameplay style all that much.

That's not to say I didn't think the class mechanics, they were interesting. Think I'm going to just take a wait and see approach to see how this all works once the beta and/or game is out. This could be a really good idea or crash and burn depending on how they have it setup.

kellian1 · August 2013

Originally posted by evilastro
Originally posted by Rydeson
The average mob such as a bear and wolves are too stupid to know where those arrows are coming from..

OK conduct a little experiment for us. You go find a bear in the woods and shoot it, while your friend yells at it loudly. Lets see who he attacks first shall we?

That is a bad example. If the bear is shot from far away (I would imagine nobody is shooting a bear point blank) and has no idea who attacked it, chances are he is going to charge the first thing he see's which would be the person closest to him. In this case the person who did not attack him.

I do agree though that old school threat mechanics could really use an improvement.

wizardanim · August 2013

Originally posted by Dracock
This was my first post on the site; shortly after they announced no trinity;

I'm not even sure what "no trinity" even means. Look at League of Ledgends for example: it is a total esport pvp arena game with very talented players hell bent on targeting the "face melter" first. Yet even in LoL you had:

Tank characters to initiate and soak up all the initial damage and cc.

Archer and Mage style ranged dps (AD/AP carrys) which were squishy

Bruiser characters that dealt good damage and could also take some beating

Assassin characters that were very squishy and vulnerable but could "assassinate" players quickly

Support characters that provided buffs, heals, cc, and (most importantly) life saving abilities.

You needed a balanced team to play effectively. You wouldn't want a team with no tank, 2 carries and 3 assassins. Teams with 5 bruisers didn't work either. While you could drive it home with a weird group occasionally, you usually wanted a healthy mix of Tank, DPS and support.

There are hundreds of viable team comps. A lot of characters don't fit neatly into one role or not, yet still have a place in competitive games. Certain compositions of characters were better for certain things ect.

To me it seems utterly bizarre that people take "no trinity" of dedicated classes, to mean that all classes will be of like ability to tank, dps, support, ect. Personally I took "no trinity" to mean that there aren't going to be 3 classes you absolutely need to maximize a group. Rather, you will need some broad jobs or roles to be fulfilled that are much more expansive than the tank and spank model provides.

I agree with this. It seems like people were scared of 'no trinity' because that is all they have known in an mmo setting, other than a nearly polar opposite with certain games. For people to assume the system would be a mess of crazy mob bouncing or a mashup of solo-capable all-powerful characters was a bit extreme.

lordnumskull · August 2013

Whether or not there is a holy trinity with the classic taunt mechanism or a more "modern" threat model will not dictate how combat will play out.

The devs made a comment that they didn't want people relying on their "tank buddy" to run a dungeon, which means that each encounter will inevitably devolve to a zerg fest, as it does with GW2. Either every class has its heal / escape / damage abilities, or you're waiting on "someone" who fills a specific role.

I suppose it's possible they craft every encounter to need something other than damage, but not any one type, but I'm not so sure that's possible.

wizardanim · August 2013

Originally posted by lordnumskull
Whether or not there is a holy trinity with the classic taunt mechanism or a more "modern" threat model will not dictate how combat will play out.

The devs made a comment that they didn't want people relying on their "tank buddy" to run a dungeon, which means that each encounter will inevitably devolve to a zerg fest, as it does with GW2. Either every class has its heal / escape / damage abilities, or you're waiting on "someone" who fills a specific role.

I suppose it's possible they craft every encounter to need something other than damage, but not any one type, but I'm not so sure that's possible.

In every case? I could see some content just being chaotic as it should be, and other content that requires a tank.

If you haven't seen it yet check this out:

http://www.eqhammer.com/news/more-everquest-next-answers-darrin-mcpherson-0

[question] Is it possible to have like 5 warriors do the dungeon by themselves, as long as they are skilled enough?

[response] if they have diverse builds? Probably depending on the dungeon. If they are all built the same way it may not be possible.

Augment the trinity role, include unique play styles and unique abilities. The roles will be met in different ways, but not by everyone. There are lots of ways to advance a character, it will take a long time (they want you to keep playing) so assuming that everyone can do everything probably isn't correct.

Not having a 'tank buddy' doesn't mean complete destruction of mechanics in a game. That means that someone else might want to have a tank

Check this out too:

http://www.reddit.com/r/EQNext/comments/1kd1pe/class_roles_think_lol_vs_ai_bots/

Georgeson agrees that there are still specific roles in EQN.

Khebeln · August 2013

Originally posted by Arcona
https://twitter.com/DaveGeorgeson/status/367825377193775104

So as suspected, there are still class roles, but they are like in a MOBA.

MOBA combat = boring

Only fun out of it comes from itemization and team play

wizardanim · August 2013

Originally posted by Khebeln
Originally posted by Arcona
https://twitter.com/DaveGeorgeson/status/367825377193775104

So as suspected, there are still class roles, but they are like in a MOBA.

MOBA combat = boring

Only fun out of it comes from itemization and team play

I could see them using the system for inspiration, but I don't think they would copy it directly. An RTS combat system wont ever work for a MMO, too much movement involved.

Victor_Kruger · August 2013

Originally posted by Khebeln
Originally posted by Arcona
https://twitter.com/DaveGeorgeson/status/367825377193775104

So as suspected, there are still class roles, but they are like in a MOBA.

MOBA combat = boring

Only fun out of it comes from itemization and team play

EQ Next is not a moba and combat roles will still be important, what you noted as fun in a moba is what EQ Next wants in its group dynamics.

Tygranir · August 2013

Originally posted by Khebeln
Originally posted by Arcona
https://twitter.com/DaveGeorgeson/status/367825377193775104

So as suspected, there are still class roles, but they are like in a MOBA.

MOBA combat = boring

Only fun out of it comes from itemization and team play

I think it's more of how group fights work in MOBAs than a direct translation of the combat.

That being said, I have never been bored playing a MOBA, but video games are all about personal preference.

NagelRitter · August 2013

This is one of the best ways to do it, really, and I was hoping for it.

Btw, any claims that Dota-likes are boring are kind of decimated by the current population numbers for either LoL or Dota 2, so good luck with that one.

Aelious · August 2013

I think a MOBA style combat mechanic and class diversity will work great in the setting EQN has for it. It's obvious that MOBA style combat systems are fun because of thier popularity in a small instanced environment. It's not that it's just different, it sounds like a great plan.

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