| Aquilus |
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So, as per this post we can be certain that technical constraits and market potential makes "twitch"-based combat with manual aiming undesirable to Goblinworks. However, this does not mean that the combat needs to be as detached as what has been the standard since Everquest. The popularity of games like Guild Wars 2 and TERA show that this isn't just the desires of a small niche, but rather the direction the genre is taking.
Traditionally, MMO combat is very distant from the player. It works more like giving orders to a person than being in control of its actions, and the success of said actions are mostly based on the characters inherent statistics coupled with some randomness. The opposite of this is would be FPS games, where the player is fully in control, and what determines success is the players reactions and a steady mouse-arm, as well as skill-based movement such as the concept of "Strafe Jumping" in Quake.
So, how can combat be engaging without the concept of twitch? The answer is fairly obvious, by transferring the chance-based elements to the player. This provides a consistent behaviour that allows for both more tactical play while also providing a more engaging experience. This especially goes for the defensive aspects of combat, which is highly automated in traditional MMOs. Instead of having a 23% chance to dodge, your Rogue has the ability to Tumble out of the way. The same can be applied to blocking, parrying, and so forth. Note that this doesn't have to deviate from the "hotkey bar and tab-targetting" control scheme, it is merely about moving the defensive capabilities from the realm of chance to a consistent result based on player input. These defensive measures would of course need to be limited by a resource such as Stamina, and suffer from diminishing returns to encourage tactical and well-timed use. Guild Wars 2 is a good example of this kind of gameplay, and while the input is essentially identical to your traditional MMO, the feel of combat is completely different, just from these minor changes.
For the offensive side of combat, things aren't as bad. Players are mostly fully in control of when to execute their attacks, with even World of Warcraft moving away from the "auto-attack" mechanic that has been a staple of the genre for ages. As previously mentioned, the problematic aspect of offensive combat is the lack of player impact on the outcome of attacks. The player selects a target, presses an attack button, which results in damage being done. If no target is selected, or the target is out of range, nothing happens. Allowing attacks to be fired whether or not they are capable of hitting the target may sound insignificant, but it makes a large difference to the feel of the combat. For melee attacks, this could also include the addition of tactical depth, by adding the concept of reach (which is also a core aspect of D&D tactics), making positioning important, both because of long edged weapons being able to hit multiple foes with a single sweep, and by making use of reach to hit your opponent while he is unable to retaliate. Age of Conan is an example of this being implemented successfully. Ranged combat is more difficult to improve without implementing manual aiming, which is unfeasible as per the developer post, but solutions could include making attacks miss based on the vector of the target in relation to the shot. From my limited playtime, Guild Wars 2 seems to be based around something like this.
So, I'm curious about what you, the rest of the potential playerbase think about these ideas, especially the ones who have tried games that explore similar concepts, such as Age of Conan, TERA, Guild Wars 2, and Dungeons & Dragons Online. Do people want to see something like this in Pathfinder Online, or would you rather have the more traditional MMO combat we see in titles such as Everquest or World of Warcraft? Additionally, a system like this could be made fast-paced and exhilarating or slow-paced and tactical, simply by tweaking the pace. Which option do you think is preferable for a game like this? Personally, I'm partial to the latter, but I definitely see the appeal of both. I would also love some brainstorming about possible mechanics to emphasize the aspects I've mentioned, as this is just what came off the top of my head, so it's probably flawed in some way I haven't thought of, or missing factors which could improve it further.