Does this sort of /anyone can now do it/ integration of real time combat into MMO middleware complete with provided reference game code make it more likely Goblinworks will go for a more active combat model than the WoW standard tab-target timer-based hotkey pressing? Eg, might we get some active aiming and blocking mechanics going on?
HEROENGINE ADVANTAGES
Reference Worlds — Access to reference worlds of typical online games (social, FPS ect), complete with example code.
http://www.heroengine.com/spotlights/sand-in-the-gears/
"There are actually 2 worlds -- a world with a blade you can download to get references and check how things work, and a player client for a different world where you can actually play. There is not a great deal of “gameplay” other than shooting other robots in the face. But there are kill streaks and leader boards, etc. There’s a standard rifle, and a melee axe, and limbs can get blown off."
I remember that thread well. Thing is, since the technical problems are not insurmountable unless you want people to be able to play on a 56k modem, and hotbar-tab target-timer based combat ends up being rather "twitch" anyways, in addition to boring and heavily gear dependent; why not have something more visceral?
His analogy (not sure if it was that thread) about guitar playing intrigued me, so I started thinking of possibilities. Active defensive skills is one of them, as is certain extra powerful attacks being "aimed" while others are not. Think player controlled parry-riposte.
One of the unique but poorly executed ideas in Matrix Online was this idea of melee "interlock", where once you locked in on someone your focus was on controlling the combat, and not your character's movement, since your character would automatically animate and move in opposition to the person you "locked on".
It got me thinking of what's wrong with MMO combat in general, and much of it is movement and behaviors that don't make sense in real combat. Like constantly for example (running through) someone in order to stay out of their line-of-sight in standard model, or "jousting" in a more realtime model.
An interlock type of system resolves that goofiness, and leaves the player free to focus on controlling the actual combat instead of juggling multiple responsibilities. Thus, combat can be much more involved without being overwhelming.
Also, range is a huge advantage that having aiming mechanisms and interlock type systems can move more towards balance.
Anyways, just some random thoughts. In my experience the standard derivative MMO combat is just as unplayable with a 250 ms ping in PvP as a 200 player match of Battlefield is with the same ping.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I remember that thread well. Thing is, since the technical problems are not insurmountable unless you want people to be able to play on a 56k modem, and hotbar-tab target-timer based combat ends up being rather "twitch" anyways, in addition to boring and heavily gear dependent; why not have something more visceral?
His analogy (not sure if it was that thread) about guitar playing intrigued me, so I started thinking of possibilities. Active defensive skills is one of them, as is certain extra powerful attacks being "aimed" while others are not. Think player controlled parry-riposte.
One of the unique but poorly executed ideas in Matrix Online was this idea of melee "interlock", where once you locked in on someone your focus was on controlling the combat, and not your character's movement, since your character would automatically animate and move in opposition to the person you "locked on".
It got me thinking of what's wrong with MMO combat in general, and much of it is movement and behaviors that don't make sense in real combat. Like constantly for example (running through) someone in order to stay out of their line-of-sight in standard model, or "jousting" in a more realtime model.
An interlock type of system resolves that goofiness, and leaves the player free to focus on controlling the actual combat instead of juggling multiple responsibilities. Thus, combat can be much more involved without being overwhelming.
Anyways, just some random thoughts. In my experience the standard derivative MMO combat is just as unplayable with a 250 ms ping in PvP as a 200 player match of Battlefield is with the same ping.
Interesting points. I could easily see defensive skills being set as on/off, or conditionally activated, or manually activated. Only one of those options requires immediacy during combat.
I also think that you are absolutely crazy if you think that 250ms is insurmountable latency, or that faster throughput results in lower minimum ping. Simultaneous multiplayer online PvP has existed longer than the internet. See "Trade Wars 2002" (released 1991), which supported multinode BBS play, and was a fairly good implementation of sandbox PvP, provided there are the right amount of players.
I also think that you are absolutely crazy if you think that 250ms is insurmountable latency, or that faster throughput results in lower minimum ping.
Faster net infrastructure and non-analog signals result in a much lower minimum ping. The higher bandwidth lets more data be sent each update pulse. It's not uncommon for me to ping between 15 and 60MS to any given game server on arguably one of the worst cable isp's in the states (Time Warner).
To be clear, it's insurmountable in competitive PvP in derivative MMO combat. Let me give you an example.
If I am in WoW arena, and I've partly through casting frost bolt (2s cast) to snare a melee type, and my team-mate notes the potential to kill the healer next to my current target who has 1 hit's worth of life left, I must move to cancel the current spell, retarget (multiple tabs) till I get to the healer, wait for my GCD to finish and ultimately have a fraction (less than a 5th) of a second left to get a counterspell in to prevent the life saving flash heal (1.5s cast) from completing.
In a game with aiming I could have let the frostbolt cast finish but re-aimed while it was casting at the healer. It would actually in effect be much *less* twitch than traditional MMO combat, less artificial and awkward, and less prone to latency causing my intention to go awry. My low ping in the derivative MMO scenario outlined above (<30ms) actually gave me a much greater advantage than slightly more accurate aiming does in a modern FPS where players don't run 900 miles an hour like they did in the Quake days.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I also think that you are absolutely crazy if you think that 250ms is insurmountable latency, or that faster throughput results in lower minimum ping.Faster net infrastructure and non-analog signals result in a much lower minimum ping. The higher bandwidth lets more data be sent each update pulse. It's not uncommon for me to ping between 15 and 60MS to any given game server on arguably one of the worst cable isp's in the states (Time Warner).
To be clear, it's insurmountable in competitive PvP in derivative MMO combat. Let me give you an example.
If I am in WoW arena, and I've partly through casting frost bolt (2s cast) to snare a melee type, and my team-mate notes the potential to kill the healer next to my current target who has 1 hit's worth of life left, I must move to cancel the current spell, retarget (multiple tabs) till I get to the healer, wait for my GCD to finish and ultimately have a fraction (less than a 5th) of a second left to get a counterspell in to prevent the life saving flash heal (1.5s cast) from completing.
In a game with aiming I could have let the frostbolt cast finish but re-aimed while it was casting at the healer. It would actually in effect be much *less* twitch than traditional MMO combat, less artificial and awkward, and less prone to latency causing my intention to go awry. My low ping in the derivative MMO scenario outlined above (<30ms) actually gave me a much greater advantage than slightly more accurate aiming does in a modern FPS where players don't run 900 miles an hour like they did in the Quake days.
Analog signals have never been used in the history of computing. If you meant to refer to modulation of an analog carrier tone to carry the signal, that's still the basic premise in use, just at frequencies much higher than audible.
Actual ping time is determined by the number and type of links between you and the target. If you need to bounce off of a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, there is a minimum additional ping of about 500 ms. Crossing the Transpacific Cable (17,700 km) adds 100ms to ping due to lightspeed alone.
I don't see how your low ping allowed you to change targets any earlier, even by the quarter of a second that you claim. I do acknowledge that when the server is calculating collisions based on the information it has now, aiming by using more recent information gives you a significant advantage. Player skill can still overcome that disadvantage, but it requires "preacting" to situations about to develop, rather than reacting to conditions that exist.
I think EvE handled the situation by keeping the time intervals rather large, like 3-10 seconds depending on the number of ships in the area. DCUO handles it with lots and lots of sharding and instancing, so that no one piece of hardware can ever be overloaded.
Goblin Squad Member
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I remember that thread well. Thing is, since the technical problems are not insurmountable unless you want people to be able to play on a 56k modem, and hotbar-tab target-timer based combat ends up being rather "twitch" anyways, in addition to boring and heavily gear dependent; why not have something more visceral?
His analogy (not sure if it was that thread) about guitar playing intrigued me, so I started thinking of possibilities. Active defensive skills is one of them, as is certain extra powerful attacks being "aimed" while others are not. Think player controlled parry-riposte.
One of the unique but poorly executed ideas in Matrix Online was this idea of melee "interlock", where once you locked in on someone your focus was on controlling the combat, and not your character's movement, since your character would automatically animate and move in opposition to the person you "locked on".
It got me thinking of what's wrong with MMO combat in general, and much of it is movement and behaviors that don't make sense in real combat. Like constantly for example (running through) someone in order to stay out of their line-of-sight in standard model, or "jousting" in a more realtime model.
An interlock type of system resolves that goofiness, and leaves the player free to focus on controlling the actual combat instead of juggling multiple responsibilities. Thus, combat can be much more involved without being overwhelming.
Also, range is a huge advantage that having aiming mechanisms and interlock type systems can move more towards balance.
Anyways, just some random thoughts. In my experience the standard derivative MMO combat is just as unplayable with a 250 ms ping in PvP as a 200 player match of Battlefield is with the same ping.
I think the idea of momentum and stamina could solve the ridiculousness you see in most kind of MMOs. The real reason you don't see people running all over on the battlefield is it would be craziness If you go charging at someone at full speed something has to bring you to a stop, be it collision with the other person or bringing yourself to a stop. Go out in your yard, run as fast as you can, and then come to as sudden of a stop as you can from full speed. It isn't instant because if you just stop on a dime your top half will keep going and cause you to fall over. Likewise try running full speed around something in a circle while jumping. See how fast you can actually go, how dizzy you get, and how fast you wear out. The act of turning is really going to slow you down. You aren't going to be able to make well placed blows on the target in the middle, and you will tire out REALLY quickly.
So you implement things like momentum and inertia, stamina loss for sprinting and jumping, and accuracy penalties if you are trying to attack a target not directly in-front of you while running. That makes it so people who stands stationary and focuses on proper ability use are going to have the advantage against another melee opponent, unless its perhaps a class like a monk that has bonuses to moving like a ninja.
I think it would be really cool to see a model that encourages classes like paladin and fighters to use a proper fighting stance and focus on movement like side-stepping or just skilled swordplay while classes like rouges and monks do more tumbling and fancy maneuvers.
Also I like the idea of defensive abilities but would be very concerned to see how they are implemented. If its "If your opponent attacks from the right you can block them by blocking to the right" I'm not a huge fan. If its skills that are like "If your opponent attacks you with something that would inflict more than 100 damage you block that blow and counter with a quick 25 damage strike." that would be kind of cool. I would rather see something that has you anticipating your opponents moves than reacting to their moves. I see the former being WAY too complicated and a total mess if the server lags at all. Xsyon used a reactionary system and to me it seemed to be a horrible mess that made it so you are really better off just going 100% offense, much like parrying in Darkfall. Nobody parried unless they were rushing a ranged opponent with a melee weapon.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd like clarification on how this
"...and hotbar-tab target-timer based combat ends up being rather "twitch" anyways"
has any relationship to this
"heavily gear dependent"
the UI and method of input really has no dependent relationship to whether a game is gear dependent or character skill dependent or player skill dependent. Its just a UI element that allows for a broad access to multiple play styles.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the idea of momentum and stamina could solve the ridiculousness you see in most kind of MMOs.
I love this idea.
Nobody parried unless they were rushing a ranged opponent with a melee weapon.
That sounds to me like the balance was just off.
My instincts for designing combat systems would center around:
1. Making it very, very bad for you to be attacked from behind.
2. Giving heavily armored characters abilities that centered around trying to force their opponents to yield ground.
3. Creating lots of short-duration "buffs" that represented different actions in combat, such as block, parry, feint, etc.
I tend to think maneuver is far more important than DPS, so it wouldn't really bother me as a Paladin to have the role of holding up my shield, getting the mob's face, and waiting for an opportunity to drive my sword into it. Let the Rogues and Rangers run around the edges of combat, looking for clean shots, or opportunities to dart in and bloody the opponent. I would not think it wise for a Rogue to stand flat-footed behind a powerful enemy, since that enemy could quickly turn and deal a powerful blow, but it would be phenomenally successful if the Rogue could harass the enemy enough to make it turn its back on the Paladin for more than a fraction of a second.
I may be a little biased in some of this, though :)