Goblin Squad Member
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I'm still stuck thinking about this, so I thought I'd add some more to the discussion.
Consider how this would differ if instead of better abilities over time, you unlocked different abilities, in a flexible order. A pure fighter doesn't know how to do moves which are better in all circumstances, he learns moved which individually are better in different circumstances. He could delve into rogue, which would provide other situational benefits.
He would still be limited by equipment: shield wall requires a shield, and spear throwing requires a spear, and a poignard enables armor piercing, but not Bash.
I think this is a great, succinct explanation of the 'feel' of the system I'm trying to hash out.
I'm still wary of implementing skills based on what occupies your hands, including shields (let a shield be a piece of equipment that adds to your stats and armor, and just include 'shoulder smash' and 'guard stance' abilities in lieu of 'shield bash' and 'shield wall'), but this is a point that I could concede, along with a separate working for spell schools, if people would find it too jarring not to have these iconic abilities and mechanics.
I could see this not being too constrictive if only 10 out of 100 abilities for a given class required a certain weapon/shield make-up. These abilities could allow people to identify what that character's focus may be based on what weapons they are carrying (or the person playing that character is trying to mislead you!).
This way, if you see a fighter that is dual-wielding, you know he would not be using at least a couple defensive abilities that a fighter with a shield might use. If you see a monk/fighter using a shield, you know he does not have available for use about 10% of his monk abilities.
I would not like to close the player off from class abilities choices based on the armor they wear. What is it about plate armor that keeps me from launching a fireball? Nobody knows. From wielding a bow? In a fantasy setting with lightweight metals and magically enchanted armor, I think we could find a way around this (magical elven lightweight mithril plate armor).
If we would like, in general, to have archetypes stick to classic garb, I think a system that differentiates armor with benefits and drawbacks would work (as has been discussed in other threads).
One possibility would be that all plate armor inherently gives a bonus to strength, medium armors give dexterity, and light robes give intelligence. Then, the materials used in construction would add to these 'base stats.' I imagine two plate armors that are otherwise equal, but one is made from mithril(+dex) and one is made from steel(+str), so the mithril one gives +dex and +str, and the steel one gives a large bonus to str. While a ranger in full leather armor would have a higher dexterity score, maybe the ranger in plate wants to focus more on melee abilities anyway; or maybe he also has a few fighter class abilities that he also makes use of; or maybe he wants his enemy to think he doesn't have much proficiency at ranged attacks; or maybe he just wants to be a ranger in a shiny suit of armor =D
This would allow players options to not only be eccentric, but also deceptive, rather than simply disallowing their characters from utilizing a specific class's skills based on what they decided to put on in the morning.
Note that I think weapon-based skills could be done in a similar way, which doesn't just disallow them for different weapons. I could hit you on the head with the blunt of my two-handed sword, but then it would only interrupt your casting/channeling, rather than stun you for 1 second; I could thrust my warhammer into your chest, but it wouldn't ignore your armor; I could slash at you with my rapier, but it wouldn't cause major bleed damage.
While this would allow yet more options, I would still be ecstatic to have the system as I described above.
Heck, I'll be happy to chip in for Ryan Dancey's new gold-plated bathroom vanity if PFO meets the goals the developers have already conveyed to us... a new system of character advancement and combat tactics would earn the toilet to match.
Sit on THAT!
^^ EDIT: Grammar, and a letter was removed for profanity. Twice in one day maybe isn't a good idea, even when used harmlessly (I'd hate to have to retype the post).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmm, what exactly is confusing? I'm trying to make my goals clear at first and then at the end of my posts, with examples to help illustrate my goals in the middle.There is nothing wrong with role-playing a rogue that uses a set of 30 abilities out of 80 (indeed, you could choose any 30 skills to rotate through your hotbar, and still always be viable!), just don't impose this restriction with the game system.It's statements like that that leave me confused about what you're trying to achieve.
I read your statement as saying you'd like Rogues to have the option of only equipping 30 skills on their hotbar, out of the 80 skills they've learned, but that you don't want this to be a requirement of the system.
That sounds like you'd be happy if Rogues could also choose the option of equpping all 80 of the skills they've learned on their hotbar.
But that sounds at odds with your prior statements that you'd like to see Andius's 'Guild Wars System'.
Thus, my confusion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd like a system in which I'm neither limited by the character development choices I made over a year ago, nor the roles or niche the game designers believe my class should fill. I'm limited by my choice of equally viable skills prior to the engagement, with more choices earned in time through skill training.
A light-bulb may have just gone on over my head, and I apologize for it having taken so long.
Let me try to rephrase what you said, and you tell me if I'm understanding you:
You would like a system where finishing training on a new Skill (and getting any Merit Badge) unlocked a handful of abilities that were all mutually exclusive on your hotbar, so that you could only have one of that handful of abilities equipped for any given encounter. But you would be able to switch those abilities out between encounters to change the flavor of your character.
You would quickly gain a large number of abilities to choose from, giving you a variety of ways to play, and giving you choices in how to configure your character, but you would not be able to use all of those abilities at the same time.
Is that close to it?
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I was specifically suggesting a system that didn't limit the abilities that you could try to use, but each ability would require a qualifying piece of equipment. With limited equipment slots, not all abilities could be used at the same time. I also like the idea that without the right equipment, those abilities would be usable, but not useful-stabbing with a mace, or using a double-bitted ax to channel arcane energy, or parrying a sword using a wand.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmm, what exactly is confusing? I'm trying to make my goals clear at first and then at the end of my posts, with examples to help illustrate my goals in the middle.There is nothing wrong with role-playing a rogue that uses a set of 30 abilities out of 80 (indeed, you could choose any 30 skills to rotate through your hotbar, and still always be viable!), just don't impose this restriction with the game system.It's statements like that that leave me confused about what you're trying to achieve.I read your statement as saying you'd like Rogues to have the option of only equipping 30 skills on their hotbar, out of the 80 skills they've learned, but that you don't want this to be a requirement of the system.
That sounds like you'd be happy if Rogues could also choose the option of equpping all 80 of the skills they've learned on their hotbar.
But that sounds at odds with your prior statements that you'd like to see Andius's 'Guild Wars System'.
Thus, my confusion.
Sorry, what I meant is that if somebody wanted to role-play a fire wizard, they could choose which abilities to equip from 30 fire + utility spells they had, and ignore the other 50 ice/arcane spells. They would still be equipping 16 abilities at a time. (Hmm, sorry for using spells again, Nihimon; just keep in mind I consider these the same as abilities for this example)
The benefits of a system where a person is not stuck with a choice they made a year ago is that they can test out all of the content (abilities) available to that class. The person that wants to stick to the backstory for their fire wizard can, and the person that wants to try out all the different magic schools can. This is one of the benefits of the WoW talent tree; you can respec, and your role is instantly changed, even if dictated by Blizzard. You have all your class content available to you, but not all at the same instant.
In the end, I imagine an individual will gravitate towards one or a few builds for one reason or another. Some will do it for RP (which is not penalized by a system of long-term choices), some will do it based on what they are familiar/practiced with, what they find is needed in group situations, or what they find engaging/fun (which is).
Personally, I imagine I would be trying out many different proficiencies and group roles. I imagine I will be constantly switching out 1 or 2 abilities in order to find that personal 'best-build'; that build of abilities that speaks to me and I find easy and fun to utilize.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd like a system in which I'm neither limited by the character development choices I made over a year ago, nor the roles or niche the game designers believe my class should fill. I'm limited by my choice of equally viable skills prior to the engagement, with more choices earned in time through skill training.A light-bulb may have just gone on over my head, and I apologize for it having taken so long.
Let me try to rephrase what you said, and you tell me if I'm understanding you:
You would like a system where finishing training on a new Skill (and getting any Merit Badge) unlocked a handful of abilities that were all mutually exclusive on your hotbar, so that you could only have one of that handful of abilities equipped for any given encounter. But you would be able to switch those abilities out between encounters to change the flavor of your character.
You would quickly gain a large number of abilities to choose from, giving you a variety of ways to play, and giving you choices in how to configure your character, but you would not be able to use all of those abilities at the same time.
Is that close to it?
We are getting much closer! I'm sorry my communication hasn't been incredibly clear yet. Like I said, I think we share some of the same goals, and for this reason I believe it's possible for us to dream up a system that is acceptable given the diverse goals that have been expressed in this thread.
You are right in that I want any time you earn an ability, to be getting a handful of abilities.
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I see the hybrid system I'm suggesting to be the logical extension of that. Let's make a comparison:
1.
You have a total of 100 abilities for your class (a small number compared to what Guild Wars did with this). Each time you earned a merit badge with abilities attached, you got 5 mutually exclusive, equal-strength abilities. For each encounter, you pick 1 out of 5 abilities 20 separate times, for a total of 20 abilities. There are 9.53x10^13 possible character builds.
2.
You have a total of 100 abilities for your class. Each time you earned a merit badge with abilities attached, you got 5 equal-strength abilities. For each encounter, you pick 20 out of 100 abilities, for a total of 20 abilities. There are 5.35x10^20 possible character builds.
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In the first case, the developers have much more control over how you play your character depending on which skills they choose to make mutually-exclusive.
You are again correct in that in either case, you would have a variety of ways you can play and can switch the flavor of your character between encounters, but you don't have all options available to you in a single combat. This is one of the desirable effects of this system.
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I'm also going to throw up a WoW example, for those that are unfamiliar and for comparison.
3.
You have a total of 40-50 abilities for your class. Each time you leveled, one or more of your abilities became more powerful, and you might get a new, powerful ability, that you put on your hotbar and were excited to start using. As you leveled, combat changed from using the same 3 abilities every combat (levels 1-20), to using the same 8 abilities every combat, with other abilities being used in certain circumstances. The abilities you used were determined by your level and your talent point distribution. There were optimal builds and methods of ability usage for almost every level, and these would change when the developers changed the talent trees and abilities. NOTE: What class, race, and 'spec' you played also had an impact on how many abilities you used in a typical encounter, YMMV.
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I would rather see all abilities equally useful at all times. I recognize that if effective ability usage is not limited by how proficient your character is at using them (talent trees), they are limited by how proficient the player is at inputting commands to his character.
This is the question that led me to believe that Andius might be on to something, because I don't see how else to fix this. I would like somebody to be able to have a meaningful role in combat without twitch reflexes. Even for somebody playing with a handicap, as in my experience, this is a disproportionate amount of the MMO community (virtual worlds are a great thing!).
So, the question then becomes how to avoid a character's usefulness being limited by my personal dexterity (fingers), intelligence (memorizing keystrokes), or wealth (purchasing advanced gaming technology).
With the hybrid system I imagine, you can give simultaneously give an MMO player more choices than they are accustomed to while also opening up meaningful game experiences to both casual and handicapped players.
This is because you no longer have to, in the heat of the moment, make the decision, 'I need my character to do X out of my 40 abilities,' and then try to recall how to make your character do X, find X's hotkey and then execute X's hotkey.
Instead, before battle (or before your caravan leaves town), you decide, based on past experience, 'I will definitely have use for ABCDE, I might need LMNO, and I'd like to have XYZ available.' Then, in battle, you need only have the personal dexterity to reach 12 keys and the memory to remember those 12 keys. Combat is then decided more by how you prepared and how you utilized the tools you prepared for yourself than other factors.
Adding this 'preparation' step is really exciting to me. We already prepare for battle by scouting, preparing ambushes, etc., this additional aspect of preparation and character customization places more emphasis on the preparation step (deliberate thinking), and less on twitch combat (ability to quickly translate your thoughts to character action through inputs).
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is a major difference between using only a subset of abilities for RP reasons, and only being able to use a subset of abilities because of arbitrary restrictions on how many abilities are available for use at the moment.
Yes. As I have explained, this 'restriction' is anything but arbitrary, though it may seem on the surface (indeed, this was my first instinct when Andius first suggested it).
When you delve deeper into the current systems we have, restrictions abound, as I have shown in ample examples.
These restrictions are placed on players by developers, by past player choices, and by personal handicaps.
Let the player determine his/her character's restrictions, rather than the other way around.
When you delve deeper into the Guild Wars system, you can see that overall, the player is given more choices, more often. The bulk of the choices added are simply nested out a level, making them deliberate, thought-out choices. You DO lose some 'in-the-split-second' choices; though, functionally, that is not the case for 50%+ of encounters for systems we are familiar with (YMMV, it is a much higher number for me and many others, I presume). If you have a choice of 40 abilities, and you typically choose 1 of 8 abilities, it's an empty choice. Heck, if you almost always choose 1 of 16 abilities, that is exactly the system I'm proposing!
Like I posted previously, I would be open to allowing characters to train skills that opened up more abilities on their hotbar in a single combat; players like me could choose to keep 8-10 and opt for abilities that keep the pace of combat fast, and others could choose to have 16 available and give them more in-the-moment choices.
It is anything but arbitrary for me to be restricted by my own decisions, which can be easily changed. Give more choices to the player at more times.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You are right in that I want any time you earn an ability, to be getting a handful of abilities.
I believe I understand what you're asking for.
I recognize that if effective ability usage is not limited by how proficient your character is at using them (talent trees), they are limited by how proficient the player is at inputting commands to his character.
And I believe that this might actually be the most important part of your argument.
Are you concerned that having access to too many abilities will result in a game where players with high twitch skills will automatically have a significant advantage over players with low twitch skills?
I believe we are simply going to disagree on this.
I would rather normally only get a single ability when I'm finished with a new skill, and I would like to choose which abilities I gain by choosing which skills I train.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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How about: when you gain access to a new ability, you select one from a list of possible selections. There are multiple merit badges that grant an ability or abilities from each list. Every learned ability is available for use at any time. There may be more abilities available than can be unlocked, ever.
I still like equipment choices effecting the usefulness of different abilities, by having abilities use either equipment keywords or properties to determine their chance of success and other numerical values.
Having gotten into DC Heroes recently, I particularly enjoy customizing your powers. You can choose a base ability (e.g. flight) and modify it so long as you have points to do so. You can give it extra abilities (e.g. electricity damage when you attack) which costs more and also drawbacks (e.g. you can only use an ability once per day) which makes the skill less expensive point-wise. I think a system similar to this would be like crack to me. As you level your skills you'd gain upgrade points where you could then modify your abilities. It's basically a skill tree with sub-trees. :D
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Goblin Squad Member
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Mathematically, the idea that you have more choices by limiting yourself to 20 of 100 abilities than you do by having access to all 100 choices is not sound.
In Guild Wars there are between 142 and 85 skills for every class. 85 being the classes released in Nightfall, the last expansion to come with new classes. Every character also comes with a secondary profession so not including the fact you can switch your secondary profession later in the game that a bare minimum of 170 skills per character with a maximum of 283.
I couldn't find numbers for WoW but I know for TOR you had 4 skillbars with 12 buttons each, and my max level scoundrel did NOT fill them all, and some of the slots were filled with things like no-cost toggle abilities, speeder summons, travel abilities, and out of combat self heals. So I would say being generous, 36 abilities including consumables, artifacts, and skills unlocked by my talent tree. I am guessing WoW has no more than 60 per class.
Personally I would like to see AT LEAST as many skills per class as guild wars. There is absolutely no way someone is going to manage that many abilities or more without being completely dependent on top of the line hardware and macros. Especially if they multi-class.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I recognize that if effective ability usage is not limited by how proficient your character is at using them (talent trees), they are limited by how proficient the player is at inputting commands to his character.And I believe that this might actually be the most important part of your argument.
Are you concerned that having access to too many abilities will result in a game where players with high twitch skills will automatically have a significant advantage over players with low twitch skills?
I believe we are simply going to disagree on this.
I'm starting to get frustrated with you quoting one sentence without the context that I painstakingly included and drawing conclusions from it >< Are you reading the full posts? I know it could be a chore =P. But I do it because I think this could be a really engaging form of character development and combat preparation.
So, the question then becomes how to avoid a character's usefulness being limited by my personal dexterity (fingers), intelligence (memorizing keystrokes), or wealth (purchasing advanced gaming technology).
'Twitch-skills' doesn't describe all of the factors that go into a person making their character do what they want to do. There could be a 5 second global cooldown and still be issues with having 40 equally useful abilities.
This is because you no longer have to, in the heat of the moment, make the decision, 'I need my character to do X out of my 40 abilities,' and then try to recall how to make your character do X, find X's hotkey and then execute X's hotkey.
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Mathematically, the idea that you have more choices by limiting yourself to 20 of 100 abilities than you do by having access to all 100 choices is not sound.
Orly?
I think my previous post adequately describes the idea of choices in plain detail. Maybe this wasn't up when you started this post; please check it out =) Here is further explanation, just in case.
Nowhere in any of my posts have I attempted to fool you into thinking 20 > 100. If I thought somebody was trying to say that, I would re-read what they wrote. I have no idea where you came up with that. What I was saying is that 5.35x10^20 choices pre-battle, and then 16 choices during battle, is of greater complexity than 40 choices during battle, with the added benefit that in the first case, your pre-battle decisions and plans and ability to execute them are a significant portion of your chance of victory. In the second case, the players' personal physical and mental capabilities (as well as what gaming gear they have) also play a significant role.
I know of no game which has 100 equally-viable abilities at a time. I think this is because after a certain point, a human can't be expected to fully utilize all of the options he/she has available while reacting to constantly changing conditions and dozens of other individual humans taking actions. This point is different for everybody.
This area of player skill is something that we can use to differentiate the good players from the bad players. There are games that do this, including RTS and FPS games, to different degrees.
I don't think this should be a factor in an MMO (and indeed, it isn't in WoW). Something that really spoke to me was when you announced that you would like a handicapped person to be able to play PFO and contribute meaningfully to combat. I think this is a worthwhile goal, and by moving important decision-making to a pre-combat phase, you can allow a physically or mentally handicapped player that does not have the ability to remember and press one of dozens of keybinds after a split-second decision to play meaningfully.
Give the player as much time as they need to make important, strategic decisions, then allow them to attempt to execute their plan flawlessly. If the player fails, they have learned something and can change their strategy, again making deliberate decisions before combat.
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I would rather normally only get a single ability when I'm finished with a new skill, and I would like to choose which abilities I gain by choosing which skills I train.
I think THIS is where we are going to have to disagree. I feel like after two and a half years and reaching capstone, my rogue should know how to do all things rogue-ish as well as any other rogue, not be just be an excellent backstabbing rogue. In EvE, it seems you necessarily trained in more than one role as you climbed the skill tree, so if you got that ship you really wanted, but decided you didn't like it, you would go back to one of your previous roles until you trained something new.
In what little you have put forth about what you expect of PFO, you are going to choose a role to be good at, or be a generalist. That's cool, and fitting to this type of a world. The problem that I identify is that with a character development system that spans across years, you can't change out of that skin and have a new set of abilities on-the-fly. If it takes a year to learn to effectively use a different set of skills within a class, it may as well be mutually exclusive. The WoW talent tree system at least gives you that ability, for a cost (go to city, pay trainer).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Mathematically, the idea that you have more choices by limiting yourself to 20 of 100 abilities than you do by having access to all 100 choices is not sound.In Guild Wars there are between 142 and 85 skills for every class. 85 being the classes released in Nightfall, the last expansion to come with new classes. Every character also comes with a secondary profession so not including the fact you can switch your secondary profession later in the game that a bare minimum of 170 skills per character with a maximum of 283.
I couldn't find numbers for WoW but I know for TOR you had 4 skillbars with 12 buttons each, and my max level scoundrel did NOT fill them all, and some of the slots were filled with things like no-cost toggle abilities, speeder summons, travel abilities, and out of combat self heals. So I would say being generous, 36 abilities including consumables, artifacts, and skills unlocked by my talent tree. I am guessing WoW has no more than 60 per class.
Personally I would like to see AT LEAST as many skills per class as guild wars. There is absolutely no way someone is going to manage that many abilities or more without being completely dependent on top of the line hardware and macros. Especially if they multi-class.
QFT
Nihimon, I came to see the benefits of this hybrid system only after deeply analyzing other options; I initially dismissed anything like this system.
Maybe it would help if you started outlining the PFO skill/ability/combat system as you imagine it, and I can point to parts that led me down this path.
I feel like maybe I'm starting to repeat myself, and I'm sure that's no fun for either of us, so give me something to compare to rather than just pointing to perceived negatives of my suggestion =)
EDITED for courtesy. Sorry! This is the first thing on the forums that I felt needed to be said that somebody else hasn't said better already! I am excited by the possibility to create my own, personal build unique to me =)
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is absolutely no way someone is going to manage that many abilities or more without being completely dependent on top of the line hardware and macros.
All I'm saying is that each player should be able to choose which of those abilities they want to use, rather than being artificially limited to some arbitrary number.
However, I could agree 100% that I wouldn't want the game balanced so that effectively utilizing that many abilities was necessary.
I'm starting to get frustrated with you quoting one sentence without the context that I painstakingly included and drawing conclusions from it >< Are you reading the full posts?
I trim the quotes to avoid walls of text. Yes, I am reading, and trying to understand, your full posts.
I quoted the part I did because when I read that, I felt like I had a minor epiphany and reached a better understanding of what you were trying to say.
At the risk of frustrating you further:
If the player fails, they have learned something and can change their strategy, again making deliberate decisions before combat.
This may not be something that's all that important to you, but it sounds like the mindset here is the typical raid mindset of repeatedly failing until you succeed at downing a boss. I've always really disliked that mindset. I would much rather have random challenges that I need to overcome in the moment without knowing what to expect. Since I don't want to know what to expect, I don't want to have to base my character build on what I expect to encounter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe it would help if you started outlining the PFO skill/ability/combat system as you imagine it
I'm happy to try, but it's going to be extremely shallow.
Let's consider a Rogue Archetype, and the player is deliberately pursuing the Capstone.
The Rogue Skill Tree would be somewhat pyramid-shaped, but still somewhat broad at the top (with more than just one or two skills), and with a very broad base. A Merit Badge in Rogue might have a requirement to train A, B, and C named skills, and 3 other optional skills. But it should be possible to reach the Capstone having trained less than half of the skills in the Rogue Skill Tree, and without having trained any of them to their maximum Rank. My goal would be to allow a Rogue to reach their Capstone in 2.5 years, but be able to spend another 25 years "maxing" out their skills, if they so chose.
I expect to have many opportunities to look at my training scheduled and think to myself "Ok, I've got 3 weeks before I get my next rank in Backstab, I'm going to take a day and a half now and train up a bunch of the 'low-hanging fruit' skills that I've been putting off."
For what it's worth, I think it's possible to give you and Andius what you're after, without requiring everyone else to play the same way. I'm surprised no one's mentioned it yet, but there's another game system that PFO will somewhat resemble with it's open-ended, skill-based progression that isn't locked into classes: GURPS. GURPS has "wildcard skills" where characters can purchase a set of skills all at once, at a significantly reduced cost. GW could certainly do something similar, and create Merit Badges that awarded a number of mutually exclusive (or effectively exclusive) abilities that would give you a variety of ways to play your character. However, I would hope that they wouldn't use this as the paradigm for ability acquisition.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is absolutely no way someone is going to manage that many abilities or more without being completely dependent on top of the line hardware and macros.All I'm saying is that each player should be able to choose which of those abilities they want to use, rather than being artificially limited to some arbitrary number.
As I have tried to make clear, if it's not an 'arbitrary limit,' as you're so fond of calling it, it's a limit based on player ability, character ability (decisions you made a year ago), and the smaller total number of abilities included by the game designers.
If you have a choice of 40 abilities, and you typically choose 1 of 8 abilities, it's an empty choice. Heck, if you almost always choose 1 of 16 abilities, that is exactly the system I'm proposing!
I suggested this to allow players of differing abilities to train skills to allow them some advantage (up to 200% of base hotbar size unlocked):
Like I posted previously, I would be open to allowing characters to train skills that opened up more abilities on their hotbar in a single combat; players like me could choose to keep 8-10 and opt for abilities that keep the pace of combat fast, and others could choose to have 16 available and give them more in-the-moment choices.
However, I could agree 100% that I wouldn't want the game balanced so that effectively utilizing that many abilities was necessary.
If this is the case, I imagine that either the developer is designing abilities such that given your skills, some are almost always better than others (making your choice for you/relegating choices to long-term decisions made in the past), or the person that can utilize that many abilities has a real advantage, especially in PvP.
If the player fails, they have learned something and can change their strategy, again making deliberate decisions before combat.This may not be something that's all that important to you, but it sounds like the mindset here is the typical raid mindset of repeatedly failing until you succeed at downing a boss. I've always really disliked that mindset. I would much rather have random challenges that I need to overcome in the moment without knowing what to expect. Since I don't want to know what to expect, I don't want to have to base my character build on what I expect to encounter.
I would like random challenges in which I don't know what to expect. But, obviously, you are going to fail sometimes if you aren't prepared for a challenge. Three of the ways we learn are from practicing, being taught, and doing (failing). I don't see how you can practice, and being taught is being told what to expect either in-game or from out-of-game resources. In a game, you must fail, or a win feels empty. I expect that dying in PFO will be a common occurrence.
We have very little concrete information on this, but I don't see that as being the norm in the open world of PFO, where for most content you could bring more people if you fail. This has nothing to do with a player failing an encounter once, and then being able to strategize a new set of builds with his group in order to overcome the encounter on the second try (hopefully! =P)
I think perhaps more specifically, you dislike the level of specificity required to defeat a raid encounter in WoW; I agree. Rather than everybody knowing exactly what to expect/do, and victory hinging on them executing the plan nearly flawlessly, we'd like to have the challenge in discovering what the mechanics of the fight are, and how to respond to them. Correct me if I'm wrong, though this isn't on-topic in the least.
In you're system, I see 2 possibilities:
1. If the sum of your group members can't adequately meet the demands of the encounter based on which skills they have trained, they fail. Then, they have to waste time finding another person, or give up (perhaps after 'trying it' a few more times, and failing).
2. Luckily, enough of the group members have trained for the utility abilities that they need for this encounter. They enter the encounter, not knowing what to expect. During the encounter, the group sees what needs to be done, but it takes a couple of the players a little longer to make their characters use their utility abilities (finding the correct button out of 40, hitting the correct hotkey, etc), and so they fail due to the seconds of inactivity from these characters. They head back, the players prepare for the encounter now that they know what to expect, and they overcome it.
In my system, there are 2 possibilities:
1. The group, led by Kakafika, charges laughing into the encounter with their highly-specialized builds. Since none of them knew what to expect, they wipe because they can't do enough X. After combat, they strategize and remake their builds in a way they believe they can overcome the obstacle. They keep this in mind for next time they encounter this type of mob/group of mobs in the dungeon.
2. The group, led by Nihimon, recognizes that they haven't ever encounter this type of mob. Nihimon asks everybody to wait a moment and pull up their 'general utility' builds, and to be prepared for anything (basing their character build on not knowing what to expect). During the battle, Nihimon saw what needed to be done, and directed the efforts of the group. The group flawlessly followed instructions, and defeated the challenge!
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Goblin Squad Member
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it should be possible to reach the Capstone having trained less than half of the skills in the Rogue Skill Tree, and without having trained any of them to their maximum Rank. My goal would be to allow a Rogue to reach their Capstone in 2.5 years, but be able to spend another 25 years "maxing" out their skills, if they so chose.
I expect to have many opportunities to look at my training scheduled and think to myself "Ok, I've got 3 weeks before I get my next rank in Backstab, I'm going to take a day and a half now and train up a bunch of the 'low-hanging fruit' skills that I've been putting off."
Yeah, I see this system of long-term immutable combat decisions as functioning equivalently to a WoW talent tree that you build over time, possibly complete it, but in which you can never change your point distribution.
If you are a backstab rogue, but you have trained a lot of the 'low-hanging fruit' abilities, that is getting close to what it means to be a backstab rogue in WoW. You have many abilities for different situations, but you want to press your backstab button, because backstab is where you put your focus, so it is overwhelmingly the best ability you have on the average.
If in a battle you discover that the boss is immune to backstab, you can still contribute, but at a reduced capacity. This is because not only is your character not proficient in those abilities, you personally are not used to accessing those hard-to-reach hotkeys and how to use those abilities effectively (since you normally try to just use your backstab and other character-proficient abilities).
In a game heavily geared toward player-player conflict, another issue emerges:
As players engage in combat with eachother, the knowledge of what abilities those players are using disseminates. This makes it so that if you become infamous, everybody quickly learns how to best to counter you (possibly for years at a time). If you have some other easily-trainable skills that they aren't countering, but you aren't any better with them than anybody else, your combat effectiveness has been reduced; you've been countered.
This may be acceptable, and I am extremely familiar with it, as I explained in my SWTOR example. I know what spells a healer is going to cast, and I know how to shut down that healer. In WoW, you know what tools a specific player has available based on their talent spec, which you can identify based on what role they are playing. There is no variation.
If, in SWTOR, every healer had 30 different heal abilities, 20 utility abilities, and had 10 total abilities available at a time, I would have much more to think about both before I engaged in combat, and during.
"Hmm, is this the most powerful heal he has equipped, or is this a feint to draw out my interrupt? Should I try to lock him down with stuns, or is he going to have that survivability ability that heals him massively every .5 seconds while stunned? Should I open up on him out of stealth and blow all my buffing abilities to burn him down, or is he going to have that instant-cast CC ability that I hate so much?"
Fun games have many different simple to understand yet engaging choices available to a player at many different levels. These choices must be clear, and their execution carried out flawlessly (it would not be fun to try to win a multiple-choice quiz if the answers constantly switched between the boxes you were supposed to click. Well, it could be, but that's no longer simply a quiz-game). Thus, when the player makes the correct choice based on what he/she has observed, there is a great sense of accomplishment. Likewise, when he/she makes the wrong choice, there can be a great sense of failure (depending partly on the penalty and how to rectify the mistake).
I'd like a system where you never have to feel like you failed based on decisions you made years past. A system where you wouldn't feel there was a benefit to 're-rolling' the same character in order to try new things.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As I have tried to make clear, if it's not an 'arbitrary limit,' as you're so fond of calling it...
You may not like my use of the term, but I feel it's accurate. If I don't have enough "ability slots" to equip Backstab right now, then that's an arbitrary limit, even if that number is based on my character's Race, Intelligence, Skill Training, etc.
I would like random challenges in which I don't know what to expect. But, obviously, you are going to fail sometimes if you aren't prepared for a challenge.
I just don't want to fail because I didn't know I would need Ability X equipped.
Your examples of group encounter attempts seem very shallow to me. First, I would hope that encounters aren't designed to require Ability X to complete. Second, if my party failed the encounter, I would hope the retry would not play out the same way.
Yeah, I see this system of long-term immutable combat decisions as functioning equivalently to a WoW talent tree that you build over time, possibly complete it, but in which you can never change your point distribution.
It's the simple fact that you are never limited in the number of "talent points" that makes it utterly different from a WoW Talent Tree in my mind.
For me, the choice is in which skills to train, and I'm happy with that. I will never feel like "re-rolling" is a good idea, because I can always start over right now with the same character and start training entirely new skils, and I'll never be worse off than I would with a new character.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is absolutely no way someone is going to manage that many abilities or more without being completely dependent on top of the line hardware and macros.All I'm saying is that each player should be able to choose which of those abilities they want to use, rather than being artificially limited to some arbitrary number.
However, I could agree 100% that I wouldn't want the game balanced so that effectively utilizing that many abilities was necessary.
But it will be necessary unless every skill beyond a reasonably managed amount is changed into summon oatmeal or non-combat spells (Which I have already expressed should not be limited.)
I want the player to have a skillbook full of MEANINGFUL abilities, not abilities tailored to not hand any advantage to them if they can manage more than most humans should be able to without outside programs and hardware. When you have to give up a slot to have an ability it means each ability is going need to have things that make it worth doing so. Just like if you are going to spend the time to use an ability in a heated battle, each ability needs to have something to justify doing so.
Their choice lies in that they get to choose EXACTLY which abilities to fill their slots with, and also in my proposed system they can adjust the amount of slots so it isn't just arbitrary. Its not like in TOR where I'll be left saying "CRAP! I still have the cover mechanic from being a smuggler? But scoundrels are a melee class! This is a waste of space!!!" If I don't like it, it goes. And gets replaced with something better.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Honestly,
I actualy LIKE systems where characters are forced to deal with situations where they have a sub-optimal skill set for the situation. It requires them to figure out how to apply the skills/abilities they DO have to usefully contribute in some manner in those situations. It also pushers the Developers into making play challenges deeper, where there isn't just one approach or skill set to use to solve a particular problem.
That's one of my problem with "infinite advancement" system...even if they go the "wider rather then deeper" route...as eventualy the player gets access to an optimal skill to deal with any given situation they might encounter. The "equip X number of skills/abilities" at a given time only PARTIALY mitigates that situation....as if the player can easly adjust thier equiped skills/abilities then it just imposes a minor delay before the player is optimaly equiped to deal with the situation.
If I can give an example from another MMO.... WWII-Online....if you are playing a Rifleman and you encounter an enemy Tiger Tank, there is not much you can do to engage it directly with your Rifle and Hand Grenades. Due to equipment/kit resource limitations, there may not be a localy available AT resource for you to respawn into in the nearest spawn point...as they may all be either checked out already..or depleted through combat losses.
However, as a Rifleman...there ARE things you can do to meaningfull contribute to your sides success in that situation....
- You can report the Tigers location and Mark it on the tactical map for other players on your side. This helps your sides Air assets and other AT assets to locate and target that Tank. You can even "Talk" a freindly plane or distant AT gun in...helping to direct it's fire.
- You can use a Smoke Grenade on the Tiger. This does no damage to it, but not only marks it's location making it easier for freindlies to spot...but obscures the Tigers vision, making it harder for it to engage freindly targets...and can even provide cover for a freindly Sapper to close in and plant a charge on it.
- Tank's have lousy situational awareness. One of the things they can do to mitigate that is to "unbutton" and have the commander pop his head out of the turret to look around...you CAN use your rifle to take out the commander in that case...thus denying the Tiger the ability to improve thier situational awareness.
- You CAN use your rifle to pick off the Tiger's supporting infantry, thus preventing it from having freindlies spot for it...and making it easier for your own sappers to sneak up on it.
- If your balsy and lucky...you can even try to draw the Tiger into an ambush by freindly AT's by using yourself as bait...and attempt to draw it into a bad spot without infantry support. Heck, I've even witnessed infantry draw enemy armor forward and into a river where they've gotten themselves bogged down....or purposefully drawn them into a narrow spot on a city street between 2 buildings where they didn't have room to turn thier turret around because thier gun barrel was too long.
All this sort of stuff becomes possible when players find themselves HAVING to deal with situations which they really aren't well setup for....and when Dev's have to anticipate that happening on a semi-regular basis in thier game-play designs. When players can simply pull up an optimal skill for any given situation ....that dynamic pretty much goes away.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As I have tried to make clear, if it's not an 'arbitrary limit,' as you're so fond of calling it...You may not like my use of the term, but I feel it's accurate. If I don't have enough "ability slots" to equip Backstab right now, then that's an arbitrary limit, even if that number is based on my character's Race, Intelligence, Skill Training, etc.
I believe somebody else already posted the definition of arbitrary, but I'll do so again, if we need to discuss it.
I googled 'arbitrary': Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
While at first glance it might seem 'arbitrary,' as I initially thought, a deeper understanding of this system makes clear that a lot of thought goes into it, and while restrictions are necessary in any game system as a basis for competition, this restriction puts more value on immediate player choices rather than long-term choices, developer design, and player mental and physical restrictions. All of this has been explained in depth. A restriction is not worse, whether arbitrary or not, if it enriches the experience more than other restrictions.
It sounds to me that you had a gut reaction to this the instant you read 'limited to 8-16 abilities,' and haven't put thought into the numerous limitations that other systems have in them by design. This limitation gives much more player freedom than others; my numerous examples of this stand.
I would like random challenges in which I don't know what to expect. But, obviously, you are going to fail sometimes if you aren't prepared for a challenge.I just don't want to fail because I didn't know I would need Ability X equipped.
Your examples of group encounter attempts seem very shallow to me. First, I would hope that encounters aren't designed to require Ability X to complete.
First, my examples are necessarily shallow, as we no code has been written, so we have little concrete evidence on which to base examples. At any rate, a shallow example of how things might play out is better than no example at all. You didn't even give a counter-example to show how you imagine things could work out in a better system...
Second, I never suggested they needed X skill, I specifically stated that the group didnt have the required skills. Maybe your class has 4 skills that would enable your group overcome the challenge. Maybe you use 2, and 2 other players use 1 each. I imagine there will be many instances where you don't know what to expect, and for those cases, you will have developed a build that can deal with any situation passably well. There could be many different sets of skills that could be useful. Giving each player 100+ abilities makes this possible.
You can isolate specific things and find the negatives of them if you'd like; I can refine my ideas (I have), and it is better for it. But if you are rejecting this proposal based on my inability to explain in full detail a game that has not been created, then I necessarily can't convince you, and this is not a meaningful discussion. Again, I ask you to add more to the discussion.
Second, if my party failed the encounter, I would hope the retry would not play out the same way.
That would be an ambitious goal, and if Goblinworks finds a way to make that happen, that would be awesome!
Yeah, I see this system of long-term immutable combat decisions as functioning equivalently to a WoW talent tree that you build over time, possibly complete it, but in which you can never change your point distribution.It's the simple fact that you are never limited in the number of "talent points" that makes it utterly different from a WoW Talent Tree in my mind.
For me, the choice is in which skills to train, and I'm happy with that. I will never feel like "re-rolling" is a good idea, because I can always start over right now with the same character and start training entirely new skils, and I'll never be worse off than I would with a new character.
Unfortunately, this choice of skills to train happened far in the past, when you were challenging yourself with content that required that level of character skill. To try something new, you have a road of a couple years ahead of you until you reach the same proficiency in the new path as your current, disliked path.
I'd rather have the option to try out a different path at my true power level if I so chose. This is the one saving grace of the WoW talent trees, that your example does not have. All class content is available, just not at the same time (for theoretical reasons already described).
I also pointed out that if you wanted to make the choice that your rogue uses only a subset of skills that fit in with your idea of who your rogue character is, that is completely viable and entirely on-par with somebody that wishes to be able to switch roles for a day. You may even best that person more often than not just because you have more familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of your builds, since you use them more often.
EDIT: Fixed quotes
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Goblin Squad Member
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GrumpyMel, I also agree that there should be 'more than one way to skin a cat' as they say.
I also recognize the very real problem of achieving this goal when using an infinite advancement system that does not restrict ability usage in some way. Most of my conclusions were drawn from asking 'what will happen in 5 years' rather than 'how will the game play in the first 6 months.' This is a necessary question.
This is just one of the many reasons I started thinking about how abilities have been limited in the past and how these systems would work with what we know of PFO.
I'd just like to point out that while it would only partially mitigate the problem, being locked into the choices you made before the battle until the battle ends is not in my mind a 'minor delay,' especially if you wipe. Also, the penalty for poor planning is also the same; it could mean the difference of life and death =)
Allow me to make the distinction that at that time the character could be optimally built to deal with the situation (assuming the player learned from his mistakes and his familiar with his abilities). The player still has to get used to a build that he is perhaps not accustomed to playing, and so may not use his abilities optimally.
The difference with just having all these abilities available at all times, is that the player also has to remember how to access and execute the multitude of abilities available to his character.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I googled 'arbitrary': Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
From Dictionary.com:
ar·bi·trar·y [ahr-bi-trer-ee] Show IPA adjective, noun, plural ar·bi·trar·ies.
adjective
1.
subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion: an arbitrary decision.
2.
decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law or statute.
3.
having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law; despotic; tyrannical: an arbitrary government.
4.
capricious; unreasonable; unsupported: an arbitrary demand for payment.
5.
Mathematics . undetermined; not assigned a specific value: an arbitrary constant.
I'm perfectly willing to accept that my assessment of the limits as "arbitrary" is entirely subjective.
It sounds to me that you had a gut reaction to this the instant you read 'limited to 8-16 abilities,' and haven't put thought into the numerous limitations that other systems have in them by design.
Could it be that I just don't find your arguments persuasive? Or is it certain that I'm just having a "gut reaction" and "haven't put thought" into it?
You didn't even give a counter-example to show how you imagine things could work out in a better system...
Example 1, which is a really shallow, and probably fundamentally wrong guess at what your system might entail:
My group is defeated by a dungeon encounter. The leaders analyze the combat logs and realize "Oh, this boss is casting Ice Block on anyone within 10 yards, so we need the mages to equip Resist Ice and cast that on the Tanks, and everyone else needs to stand back at least 10 yards." Mages re-equip the appropriate abilities, and the group re-engages the encounter, executes the new plan (or repeats until they do), and the boss is defeated.
Example 2, which I'd be much happier with:
My group is defeated by a dungeon encounter. The leaders analyze the combat logs and realize that the mages weren't dispelling ice block debuffs, and that some players weren't moving out of ground effects. The leader(s) give a pep talk, encourage people to be more aware of what's going on. The group re-engages the encounter, but this time the boss doesn't cast Ice Blocks. No worries, the players pay more attention, properly react to the new dynamics in combat (or repeats until they do), and the boss is defeated.
Second, I never suggested they needed X skill, I specifically stated that the group didnt have the required skills.
You may freely substitute X as a set of skills, without changing my logic or intention. I still don't want to fail because we didn't have X set of skills equipped.
But if you are rejecting this proposal based on my inability to explain in full detail a game that has not been created...
Not at all the case. In general, I reject the system I understand you to be proposing because it violates a fundamental desire on my part that, once my Rogue knows how to Backstab, he knows how to Backstab and I shouldn't have to "equip" Backstab in my limited set of "active" abilities in order to use it. It really is that simple, if you can hear me.
Unfortunately, this choice of skills to train happened far in the past, when you were challenging yourself with content that required that level of character skill. To try something new, you have a road of a couple years ahead of you until you reach the same proficiency in the new path as your current, disliked path.
I think this is significant. I believe I understand that you see the ability to "re-spec" as a fundamental benefit of the system you describe, and are loathe to do without this benefit.
Personally, I do not see it as a benefit. I believe I understand your arguments, but I am not persuaded that this is good.
To try something new, you have a road of a couple years ahead of you until you reach the same proficiency in the new path as your current, disliked path.
As I understand it, this will only be true if you decide to fundamentally switch your focus, and begin working on a brand new Archetype.
If you're simply switching roles within the Archetype you've already Capstoned, I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that it will take you anywhere near 2.5 years. I can see a bleed-damage Rogue switching to a burst-damage Rogue relatively quickly (2-3 months, maybe?). But the beauty of the system I envision is that the Rogue will not have to give up all of his bleed-damage skills, and can still utilize them if he chooses.
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In closing, I will remind you that I have championed in other threads a system whereby an Account would earn benefits over time, some of which could include being able to create a new character with some skill training points already earned, so that you could start a brand new character from scratch, but already be ready to earn Merit Badges to get you up to "level 10" or something.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The "equip X number of skills/abilities" at a given time only PARTIALY mitigates that situation....as if the player can easly adjust thier equiped skills/abilities then it just imposes a minor delay before the player is optimaly equiped to deal with the situation.
That is only a partially accurate statement. If the game allows skill switching on the fly then yes that is true. If the game requires you to find a place to rest, or go to a specific NPC, etc. you can't just say "Oh its an archer, I'm going to switch to my anti-ranged build real fast."
I would fully support characters being required to rest in a home, an inn, or possibly setup a camp in order to change their ability configuration. I think that would deal with the problem quite nicely.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not going to further argue about the definition of arbitrary. Regardless, my point stands:
while restrictions are necessary in any game system as a basis for competition, this restriction puts more value on immediate player choices rather than long-term choices, developer design, and player mental and physical restrictions. All of this has been explained in depth. A restriction is not worse, whether arbitrary or not, if it enriches the experience more than other restrictions.
Could it be that I just don't find your arguments persuasive? Or is it certain that I'm just having a "gut reaction" and "haven't put thought" into it?
You haven't yet addressed any of the positive effects of the system we are developing. I have done a lot of thinking about alternatives. I can't tell if you have.
I understand there are drawbacks to any system, and I have even changed the details of my proposal based on your and other players' feedback.
In general, I reject the system I understand you to be proposing because it violates a fundamental desire on my part that, once my Rogue knows how to Backstab, he knows how to Backstab and I shouldn't have to "equip" Backstab in my limited set of "active" abilities in order to use it. It really is that simple, if you can hear me.
Rgr that =P
First:
Would you feel the same way if instead of a Rogue, we were talking about a Wizard? It is my understanding that when you play a wizard on tabletop, you choose your spells at the start of each day, and then battles become about how to manage the abilities you decided to 'equip.'
Don't think of it as 'forgetting' how to do something, think of it as not being prepared to do something, or even not planning on doing something.
Second:
Rather than have 'backstab' and 30-40 other abilities, I'd like to have 100 abilities. The greater number of abilities leads to more uncertainty about what your PvP enemy is going to do (see my SWTOR example), adds nuance to abilities so that you can choose a selection that is fine-tuned to what you want to do, and leads to more unique build possibilities.
(Examples...)
I don't see how these two cases are mutually exclusive. Like I said, example 2 would be awesome =D
I think this is significant. I believe I understand that you see the ability to "re-spec" as a fundamental benefit of the system you describe, and are loathe to do without this benefit.
Personally, I do not see it as a benefit. I believe I understand your arguments, but I am not persuaded that this is good.
Fair enough. That leads me to ask, though, how is it negative? I've tried to address this in previous posts.
If you're simply switching roles within the Archetype you've already Capstoned, I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that it will take you anywhere near 2.5 years. I can see a bleed-damage Rogue switching to a burst-damage Rogue relatively quickly (2-3 months, maybe?). But the beauty of the system I envision is that the Rogue will not have to give up all of his bleed-damage skills, and can still utilize them if he chooses.
Hmm, this seems to contradict something you previously stated:
My goal would be to allow a Rogue to reach their Capstone in 2.5 years, but be able to spend another 25 years "maxing" out their skills, if they so chose.
I made my point about being stuck for years in one 'spec' because of the quote above. If the case is that you can attain a second proficiency at the cost of a few months (still significant, imo), then, while your character is (just as) proficient in using all those skills, the person's individual mental and physical ability to access and execute those skills becomes one factor of many that decide an encounter. I'd rather this not be the case, and more emphasis be put on developing a unique strategy tailored to your own strengths/weaknesses, and then executing it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------From the start, I've expressed that I hold some of the same goals as you, and confessed that I did not like Andius's idea initially. I'm sorry if I mistakenly attributed my initial reaction to you.
I think the above quotes are a good example of why I feel frustrated.
I feel like I am defending this suggestion against the positives of a few different systems that you are proposing. Some of these are mutually-exclusive. In most of my posts, I tried to address the drawbacks of many different systems, acknowledge those of my own suggested system, and explain how I came to see this system as the one that addresses most concerns.
Yes, every other system does something better than the one I propose, but I have yet to think of a single system that is generally better.
EDIT: Tried to make it clear that 'exactly as' proficient is the important benefit of a 'respeccing' system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You haven't yet addressed any of the positive effects of the system we are developing. I have done a lot of thinking about alternatives. I can't tell if you have.
I haven't addressed the positive effects of your system generally because I don't object to them.
What I have been trying to really understand is the core problem you are trying to solve. Honestly, I don't see a problem that needs solving. My best guess of the way PFO will implement skills and abilities seems Right & Proper to me. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Would you feel the same way if instead of a Rogue, we were talking about a Wizard?
Not only would I not object to a Wizard having to prepare spells, I am hoping that is the case.
But what about the Sorcerer? I will object strenuously if a Sorcerer is also required to "prepare" spells.
Fair enough. That leads me to ask, though, how is it negative? I've tried to address this in previous posts.
It's not so much that it's universally "negative". In fact, I hope that you and others actually do have some way to "respec" your characters and play the way you want to.
I don't desire the ability to respect that way. It's not so much that it's bad or wrong, it's just totally undesired on my part. If I'm forced to work within a system that requires "specs", then I'm going to be somewhat frustrated because of the "end-game" mentality that this will engender, which I have discussed in previous posts.
Hmm, this seems to contradict something you previously stated...
What I mean is that, if you're 2.5 years into your bleed-spec Rogue, it's probably only going to take a few months to get to the equivalent of a burst-spec Rogue. The 25 years "maxing" Rogue skills would largely be spent acquiring all the specs. So it's really never possible to be 25 years into a bleed-spec Rogue.
Does it still seem a contradiction?
I feel like I am defending this suggestion against the positives of a few different systems that you are proposing. Some of these are mutually-exclusive.
It's really just a mental exercise at this point. I hope I don't offend you with anything I say. I feel like we're gradually coming to a mutual understanding.
I'm curious, though, where you think I'm advocating mutually exclusive system aspects.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I must stress again that I believe that being able to 'improve' skills both In-Game and Out would be a nice touch.
In-Game improvements is, naturally, the skills you are using right then and there.
Out-of-Game are skills you are choosing to increase, enabling you to build a character with a skill set that you desire.
Hell, if you're a combat-machine, set your combat skills to improve while Out-of-Game, or offline.
But as things stand, I believe actual combat abilities are unlocked by acquiring the 'Badges', rather than sitting there for five hours slaughtering wild boars, looking for that ever-elusive liver.
'Skills', on the other hand, rarely apply to combat, from what I am reading of the Blog. They might increase your damage or your blocking or even your speed, but having an extra five ranks in a skill isn't going to make you a PvP Rock God. From what Ryan Darcey has stated, it's a minor improvement, seemingly a tiny percentage increase (.1% as an example, in my minds-eye view of the situation) to combat at best.
openworld pvp is a turnoff for 75% of gamers and most RPGers. No one attacks party members in a game, so why would an online game have it?
Eve has it and they just celebrated their 9 year anniversary. :D
You get warnings though when you go into open PVP areas so you don't go in unaware unless you've turned off that notification.
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Goblin Squad Member
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openworld pvp is a turnoff for 75% of gamers and most RPGers. No one attacks party members in a game, so why would an online game have it?
The main reason that PFO will include open world PvP is so that the players themselves can be the content of the game.
It's very expensive to make Theme Park content (some estimate Star Wars: The Old Republic cost over $300 million). By allowing players to vie with each other for control of territory, the developers don't have to create anywhere near as much content, and the players still have plenty of content to keep them busy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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openworld pvp is a turnoff for 75% of gamers and most RPGers. No one attacks party members in a game, so why would an online game have it?The main reason that PFO will include open world PvP is so that the players themselves can be the content of the game.
It's very expensive to make Theme Park content (some estimate Star Wars: The Old Republic cost over $300 million). By allowing players to vie with each other for control of territory, the developers don't have to create anywhere near as much content, and the players still have plenty of content to keep them busy.
Yes, let me second what Nihimon says, themepark content can get "used up" by players devastatingly quickly and costs time/money for development. So if you have players as the content, you are hoping to achieve real emergent gameplay which potentially can last much longer.
Also to be precise, openworld pvp is not one category of all inclusive pvp: For eg in safe areas without a declaration of war, players cannot murder each other iirc? Also there are degrees of safety from civilized areas where militia will attack players attempting to pvp here with fading intensity the further away you go, namely to lawless zones.
This is brilliant also, because it allows chance to play a hand but leads to a reduction in the incidence in pvp and rate of prevalence where and when you would expect it and to prepare accordingly or not worry accordingly.
nb: Thanks Nihimon re tags guidelines.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Comment on post topic which ended on May 4 2012 in this thread:
Im quite split on whether you should limit the amount of ability slots but I think I favor having it not limited. I have the choice to specialize fully into a fighter character, which has numerous abilities that I will choose from. However, if i decide to not only be a diverse character in regards to that "class" but I dabble in every single class becoming exceptionally broad, and given enough time (a long time) I can theoretically become quite proficient in each and every one of them.
If i am proficient in the skills of a ranger, rogue, fighter, barbarian, paladin, etc, Shouldn't I be able think of many more things to do in combat than a person who specialized much more. I put 6 years into becoming proficient at every class, and another person puts 1 year into being a proficient fighter. Lets say the cap at ability is 16 slots. I am under the impression that a 1 year fighter will have 16 different abilities. However won't I be able to do MUCH more than he does, using any of the abilities from any class that I am proficient in, without having to switch out abilities from a list in preparation.
What makes me hesitant to have that position is the fact that having 100 or so abilities that one could use at any moment is absolutely insane. But hell, I chose to be an incredibly diverse character that can do so many things. If there is a battle that I participate in I should be able to do anything I know. However, there has to be a better way to sort abilities to make it so it isn't incredibly ridiculous to manage.
For spell casters like wizards who prepare their spells I do wish there to be a hard limiting number. However, if they can cast 30 spells of various levels per day, and one wizard wishes to prepare 16 spells of various amounts, and another wishes to have 30 different spells. Why not? (If a spells per day system is implemented which I am indifferent about)
I doubt that this will be implemented in the game because the amount of people who want to keep track of an obscene amount of abilities at once is quite low, but I think it makes sense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I doubt that this will be implemented in the game because the amount of people who want to keep track of an obscene amount of abilities at once is quite low, but I think it makes sense.
It's not even that. If you do the ability to run every ability at once, I know I at least will be running auto-hotkey unless it violates the EULA. If it does violate the EULA, and we have a system with 100 or more abilities that can be used at the same time, I likely won't play the game because I know they won't be able to effectively detect whether people are using it or not, and it will give a huge advantage to those who do, leaving us in a cheat or lose situation.
Nihimon has already stated an intention to use Auto Hotkey in another topic so it doesn't surprise me he favors a system that is impossible to manage manually.
Call me crazy but I want to spend more time managing abilities in-game and less time programming code for auto-hotkey and trying to figure out the right time-buffers to make my macros operate smoothly. I also don't want to have to operate a system I have to turn on every time I want to participate in combat and off every time I want to operate other programs or even type into my chatbar.
I strongly believe that if a game requires me to write script to play it effectively there is something fundamentally flawed in it's design. It's the main reason I talk badly about Darkfall's combat system. Everything about it was fun except the fact you could literally use every single weapon and ability in the game on one character at any time. It sounds fun until you try it. After you invest 80$ in a new mouse and spend days worth of playtime working on marcros to increase your performance just to keep up with the other people doing so... it's not so fun anymore.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Everything about it was fun except the fact you could literally use every single weapon and ability in the game on one character at any time. It sounds fun until you try it.
Makes perfect sense. Its an absolutely fine concept in theory, but god awful in practice. I'm sure with all the great ideas here and examples from other games they can strike a nice balance. I hope that some fashion of balancing "having many options available at one given time" and "I need to develop macros to compete effectively" can be realized.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nihimon has already stated an intention to use Auto Hotkey in another topic so it doesn't surprise me he favors a system that is impossible to manage manually.
Perhaps you'd do me the honor of letting me explain my own positions. Your characterization is unflattering and untrue.
I want to use AutoHotKey to solve a particular problem I've encountered in virtually every MMO I've played where, as I gain new abilities, there isn't room to add them to my Hotbar in an organized manner.
I can't imagine AutoHotKey making me any better able to manage 100 abilities than my current use of a Belkin Nostromo. It's simply not a question of being able to activate that many abilities as it is a question of organizing them.
And I only ever considered using AutoHotKey as a workaround if Goblinworks didn't see the value in implementing Better KeyMapping with Chords.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nihimon has already stated an intention to use Auto Hotkey in another topic so it doesn't surprise me he favors a system that is impossible to manage manually.Perhaps you'd do me the honor of letting me explain my own positions. Your characterization is unflattering and untrue.
I want to use AutoHotKey to solve a particular problem I've encountered in virtually every MMO I've played where, as I gain new abilities, there isn't room to add them to my Hotbar in an organized manner.
I can't imagine AutoHotKey making me any better able to manage 100 abilities than my current use of a Belkin Nostromo. It's simply not a question of being able to activate that many abilities as it is a question of organizing them.
And I only ever considered using AutoHotKey as a workaround if Goblinworks didn't see the value in implementing Better KeyMapping with Chords.
Perhaps your 47$ piece of hardware is sufficient with 100 abilities. And if they bump it up to 150 my 80$ piece of hardware combined with your 47$ piece of hardware might be able to manage it all. What happens you you're four-eight years in and you have 250 or 500 or 1000 abilities?
Don't mistake my intention. I consider auto-hotkey a tool which is just as valid as my naga or your nostromo. I'm not insulting you for using it. I simply think a game in which the use of any of these three tools is practically a REQUIREMENT is overly complicated.
You may be able to manage 100 abilities with auto-hotkey, and you can probably manage them better with the use of a naga and a nostromo. But how is that fair to the guy who has a standard keyboard and a 5 button mouse, who doesn't run outside programs to manage his abilities?
I'd prefer to only bind very simple movements and let me choose how to combine them. For example, in a typical WASD configuration, W would be a "swing up" action, A would be "swing left", S is "swing down" and D is "swing right." From there I can choose how to combine these movements. Given timing, you can pull off attacks, parries and disarms. You could defeat a shielded opponent with a simple S and W combination to swing down and remove the shield then followed by an upward stroke across the torso, face, and depending on the blade, the throat. Or, assuming a right handed shield bearer a double tap to D to knock the shield out of the way then to swing around and stab into the torso would work as well. Proficiency with all these things and determining any outcomes such as seeing if you trip over your own two feet would be determined by your skills, feats, etc. I'm just a huge fan of giving basic components (in this case those being simple swings and movements) and letting them choose how to combine them. Then again, I actually think like this from day to day and can see how it could be frustrating for people who don't. /shrug
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Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps your 47$ piece of hardware is sufficient with 100 abilities. And if they bump it up to 150 my 80$ piece of hardware combined with your 47$ piece of hardware might be able to manage it all. What happens you you're four-eight years in and you have 250 or 500 or 1000 abilities?
I actually managed for many years with nothing but a keyboard and mouse.
At any rate, I fervently do not favor a system that is impossible to manage manually.
As for how most players manage 5 or 6 hotbars full of abilities - I believe most of them simply click the hotbar buttons.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps your 47$ piece of hardware is sufficient with 100 abilities. And if they bump it up to 150 my 80$ piece of hardware combined with your 47$ piece of hardware might be able to manage it all. What happens you you're four-eight years in and you have 250 or 500 or 1000 abilities?I actually managed for many years with nothing but a keyboard and mouse.
At any rate, I fervently do not favor a system that is impossible to manage manually.
As for how most players manage 5 or 6 hotbars full of abilities - I believe most of them simply click the hotbar buttons.
Then you have finally broken down to the heart of the issue I favor the Guild Wars/limited ability slot system. With the WoW system there is a cap on how many abilities your average or even exceptional player can manually manage.
With the Guild Wars system there is no such cap. You could have 10,000,000,000 abilities. While it would take awhile to read through them all and construct a build, once that build is constructed and you are using 8-100 abilities (Depending on how high you are willing to go.) they are actually pretty manageable. This really gives the designers some room to play with the abilities they are creating. They can create versions of a nearly identical spell allowing the user to choose which one, or even multiple versions of it if they allow it. They can also go for some pretty obscure style abilities you don't see in other games. In no other game have I seen abilities like backfire and scourge prayers (Such as scourge healing) in Guild Wars that heavily punish people for doing certain actions, but have no penalty at all if they don't do those actions.
These kind of situational abilities really force you to be more aware of what is happening and less concentrated on your combos. I killed more than one enemy caster with backfire when I put it on them and they continued through their combo, dealing massive damage to themselves. Sure you need to adapt to the situation in WoW, but can you literally take yourself from full health to dead by not paying attention based on a single debuff? That is the high paced action of the Guild Wars system.
I also managed up until the last year or so with a keyboard an mouse. I also noticed a DRASTIC improvement in my abilities after I got my naga. Freeing your left hand from the need to activate numbered abilities REALLY increases what it can do. I can only imagine how powerful a naga-nostromo combo would be. They are neat tools but I would prefer something that doesn't make the advantage the offer so drastic, and I say this already owning the 80$ naga.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps your 47$ piece of hardware is sufficient with 100 abilities. And if they bump it up to 150 my 80$ piece of hardware combined with your 47$ piece of hardware might be able to manage it all. What happens you you're four-eight years in and you have 250 or 500 or 1000 abilities?I actually managed for many years with nothing but a keyboard and mouse.
At any rate, I fervently do not favor a system that is impossible to manage manually.
As for how most players manage 5 or 6 hotbars full of abilities - I believe most of them simply click the hotbar buttons.
I manage 3 bar by 10 buttons mostly with just the keyboard and some clever shift+ . Of that, about 9-11 are frequent use, another 9-10 are slightly lower priority and the remainder are stuff I might use infrequently. In addition to all that are another 15 or so that i might use whenever but not usually under pressure.
With this setup I find I get slightly frustrated when I have more than 4-5 abilities competing for my attention in some arcane priority list thats difficult to anticipate and determine what is actually important. In this there is the trick. Keep me happy with enough options of doing stuff, but keep the design of the stuff tight enough to avoid too much overlap between the abilities.
Seems like its almost worth getting into what sort of abilities there might be (cone, aoe, cleavey, hard hit but slow, slight hit but fast, etc etc), and what should/shouldn't compete, but that more or less relies on specifics we just won't have for a while.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Seems like its almost worth getting into what sort of abilities there might be (cone, aoe, cleavey, hard hit but slow, slight hit but fast, etc etc), and what should/shouldn't compete, but that more or less relies on specifics we just won't have for a while.
I favor all of the above and more. I just don't think those abilities should be forced on anyone. I fully hope that if you are a cleric specializing in healing, you have your burst heals, area heals, heal over time, burst followed by heal over time, cheap heals, expensive heals, medium cost heals, long casting time heals, instant heals, condition removal removal for poison, condition removal for disease, condition removal for magical effect, condition removal for poison and disease, condition removal for magical effect and disease, condition removal for magical effect and poison, condition removal for magical effect, poison, and disease that costs and arm and leg and has a long cooldown, fast resurrect that brings your buddy back into the action with very little health where they died, slow resurrect that brings your buddy back into the action with a lot of health where they died, slower resurrect that brings them back with a lot of health right next to you.
I favor MANY, MANY, abilities as long as you have the choice "Which abilities do I actually want, and which ones do I not want?"
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Seems like its almost worth getting into what sort of abilities there might be (cone, aoe, cleavey, hard hit but slow, slight hit but fast, etc etc), and what should/shouldn't compete, but that more or less relies on specifics we just won't have for a while.I favor all of the above and more. I just don't think those abilities should be forced on anyone. I fully hope that if you are a cleric specializing in healing, you have your burst heals, area heals, heal over time, burst followed by heal over time, cheap heals, expensive heals, medium cost heals, long casting time heals, instant heals, condition removal removal for poison, condition removal for disease, condition removal for magical effect, condition removal for poison and disease, condition removal for magical effect and disease, condition removal for magical effect and poison, condition removal for magical effect, poison, and disease that costs and arm and leg and has a long cooldown, fast resurrect that brings your buddy back into the action with very little health where they died, slow resurrect that brings your buddy back into the action with a lot of health where they died, slower resurrect that brings them back with a lot of health right next to you.
I favor MANY, MANY, abilities as long as you have the choice "Which abilities do I actually want, and which ones do I not want?"
You forgot "Remove curse", unless you meant to include that under 'magical condition effect removal'. You also didn't mention fizzle chance- the very-high-cost, slow AoE revive and heal that only succeeds 30% of the time can be a gamechanger in larger battles.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Andius, as I've stated earlier, I am deeply opposed to any system where I can't do something I know how to do simply because I didn't "equip" that ability.
As I've stated earlier. I'm not. I guess we will have to just agree to disagree.
I think that is an unnecessary limitation on the combat system that achieves little actual good for the player based on a single idea with minimal game impact.
I would prefer to see them try to tailor the combat system around major concepts like:
1. Skill based enough to allow skilled players to overcome a zerg.
2. Low barrier entry.
3. The ability to customize your character to play how you want it to play.
4. Does not require extra software or hardware to use effectively.
These are things players are actually going to notice that will make a huge difference to how the game plays for most people. I really don't think most players are going to see a limitation on the number of abilities they can use and have it deeply impact their experience one way or the other.
If they decide the best system for this is unlimited abilities then go with it. But I really don't see unlimited abilities serving to further any goal other than making the game unnecessarily cumbersome or limited in the scope of abilities they can implement and therefore the level of control you have over your character.
It's highly surprising to me you can't see the benefit and logic in implementing limited ability slots even if the limit in itself is fairly high such as 50-100 abilities.
You forgot "Remove curse", unless you meant to include that under 'magical condition effect removal'. You also didn't mention fizzle chance- the very-high-cost, slow AoE revive and heal that only succeeds 30% of the time can be a gamechanger in larger battles.
I could go on quite awhile. AoE heals that heal a lot in small area, or a little over a large area. Ones that hit both allies and enemies for a high amount of healing or hit just allies for a lower amount of healing. Ones the temporarily increase the target's maximum hitpoints. If I have the time I have no doubt I could easily sit here and come up with 1000 spells revolving around healing without even going into ones that steal life from opponents, or do damage to opponents and healing to allies, or prevent damage as opposed to healing it.
That is what is so beautiful about the GW system. It can provide you ANYTHING you want. Do you really hate ground targeted AoEs? Great! So do I! Don't put them in your build! Can you just not get enough of healing over time? Great! Take a ton of it!
A healer is so much more than a healer. DPS is so much more the DPS. And utility can be TONS of things! Why limit ourselves?
I would like to start off that I do not know about Pathfinder, other then that it is based off of 3.5 DnD and is a continuation of that rule set, to the best of my knowledge. I am very familiar with DnD and the 3.5 system in general. I just found out about this project from kickstart.com and I am debating on if I should support it or not.
I have read almost all 6 pages of this tread, (The first five, and then a quick gloss over the 6th) and it amazes me that, out of the entire depth of complexity that goes into a game of this nature; it is the PvP and Combat that are focused on almost exclusively. And on both camps, I hear very few constructive positive solutions.
I played EVE Online for 3 years, EVE had many positive and negative elements; for the sake of the developers let me focus on the positive elements that I actually liked about the game.
One of the primary draws of EVE Online, IS its player driven sandbox style of play. It draws people to it, who want to feel like their actions have impact, that they can grow with and shape the world with their growing. That they can construct empires, influence politics, actually make something, breathing life into until it starts to take off on its own. They are addicted to their Investment, to the idea that they can someday create this sprawling empire if things align just right, if they just get the people to support them; or, they see themselves one day playing part in a decisive battle that will change the course of the game in some lasting way.
My biggest criticism of EVE, is mostly that they are shallow. They didn't find a way to effectively allow the player to become a free radical in their world, AND tie them in to the story, the environment. Their is no Co-Creation, and the only RPG elements of the game, are mostly found outside of the game itself, in the blogs that lead up to major game changes, and a few in game events. It leaves a disenchanted feel overall, and the only thing you are actually getting out of the game IS your investment, and being the small dog on the block, it makes it increasingly difficult for new players to see those grand dreams becoming reality. So it initially generates a RABIDLY loyal user base, built around their various interests, their various investments. But as with most games, eventually you are going to feel capped and stagnant, like many people do in real life, even in a sandbox player driven world, where the people are constantly every day writing their history on those digital pages.
Writing their history they are too, I think their are more news stories about the internal politics of EVE, with more of a user base following those stories, that history, then in any other game. Because the players matter. That is the primary draw of EVE.
When they finally announced that CCP was going to do World of Darkness Online in partnership with White Wolf? OMG I did a little happy dance JIG. I love eve's immersive game play if you can get over how shallow its content is and focus on the player driven aspect of it. I am not really a fan of Space Games (One of the primary reasons I left EVE, it just couldn't hold my attention or desire since I wasn't a mover and shaker and the actually game play was hollow.) But put that same player driven concepts into a fantasy setting or an urban fantasy setting... You have me frothing at the mouth hook line and sinker. A sand box style MMO, built with the partnership of table top storytelling masters, with the promise of having both and Immersive player driven game world, and game play; with the feel that you were taking part in something majestic, something greater. EVE's skill based system where the older you are the more powerful you become makes PERFECT sense in that setting also. It is those dynamics that make the game take on a life of its own, that bring a whole new level of politics and social community that is the GLUE to games like this. Pillars of the community, so to speak. And while a group of novices should be able to bring one of these pillars down, shaking up the status quo. It should still feel like something special.
No one should be untouchable, like in WoW, where you could have 1000 lvl 1's beating on a lvl 85, and he could fart and kill half of them. But those who have put their blood sweat and tears into becoming those pillars, leaders, the glue of nations. They shouldn't be trivialized either.
That being said, if the Dev's want it to be both player driven, but risk free (no permadeath/sever death penalties) Then this sandbox style RPG is going to need STRONG RPG elements where the players feel like they are co creating a story, and a damn good one; or the politics isn't going to be anywhere near as stable or epic in scope. It is that element of risk that draws people together and creates communities, and it is communities that make most sandbox style games fun, communities that keep people coming back. If I hadn't been in my Corp, working toward a common goal, I would have left EVE alot sooner then I did, alot sooner. It was only when the Corp fell apart after some betrayals and hard times that I actually left the game for good, and if it had been set in a fantasy setting, or had an immersive single player draw where I could still feel like my actions mattered, and I could still take place in the co creation of the history that scares and marks the world of EVE, I would have stayed.
Creating the perfect storm, of allowing players to feel like their actions matter, that they are taking part in something grand, allowing the flourishing of a player driven economics, with the appropriate understanding of economics to plan for sink holes so money generated doesn't over flood the system. Having a high degree of customization on all levels over the aesthetics and abilities of the characters to increase their overall attachment to their avatar, and increase individualism. Balancing political tension, and the development of factions and communities, and many many more elements, are what could make a promising Sandbox RPG into a truly AMAZING experience.
Combat will play a role in that, and it may even play a very important role as that is how nations shape and change their boarders, but it is no more important then many of the other aspects that could also be discussed. Lets not forget at the rich environment and game play itself and how they are going to introduce the PVP such that it engages and helps this model succeed rather then fail.
The Pefect Storm has more then one element, things truly have to be just right. Over emphasis on one element will throw the entirety of the projects scope off balance.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I for one hope for a system more akin to Guild Wars 1 (or 2, perhaps), where you have a quite large amount of available abilities (at any point in time), but only a limited amount of slots for active abilities.
In GW2, you have 3 abilities from your mainhand weapon, 2 from your offhand, 1 healing ability, (up to) 3 utility abilities, and 1 elite ability. And perhaps 1-4 extra abilities from your class. You can switch them freely out of combat, in combat, you can only swap weapons between two sets. The total number of available abilities is much, much larger.
Or take the way combat in EVE works: you can use what equipment is slotted into your ship at the time. If you have a shield, armor repairer, targetting system, 4 lasers, a remote repair system and an expanded cargohold, that's what determines what you can do in combat. Switch them freely while docked in a starbase, and your skills only determine what equipment can be put on your ship (and what ship that might be), they do not directly determine "skills", just unlock ships and items, and (usually) get you some sort of bonus. "Fly ship type X, and get 5% bonus on ship armor for each level of skill".
So maybe you have mastery of the sword+shield way of fighting, and you get 5 (or 3 or 6 or however many makes sense) "active" skills out of that (say something like hit, block, swipe, massive blow, whirling blades), when you swap to a bow you get 5 different ones (snipe, pin, multishot, x, y). Maybe different ones for a shortbow and a longbow, for 2-handed sword+dagger or 2-handed axe+axe. And your trainable skills give you access to a weapon or fighting style (or both). And give you bonusses on top of that ("Each level of sword+shield fighting gives +5% block and +5% damage", almost literally lifted out of EvE in this case).
And "You need Skill 4 in 1-Handed sword to be able to train 2-handed fighting" or something like that.
In the end, I'd like to see a manageable interface WITHOUT having to use macro's or special hardware to play. I remember early Age of Conan, where you not only had a large amount of abilities (with quite unclear descriptions), but you also had to use them in the right order to unlock combo's. It worked quite well to macro those sequences to the buttons of a gamepad (which also made you a sometimes (if you were lucky) PvP god -- not the way I'd want that to work).
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Silveran
Great post!
Yes, this thread focusses on a narrow aspect of what EvE/Sandboxes are all about. The reason for this is that disappointment is often felt because of single actions (such like loosing an "unfair" fight) rather then about an abstract system where many reasons and feelings take part.