It's all about choices. If you don't choose to be a soldier, no harm, no foul.
This is the best thing for me to hear about this feature,
because anything like some DDR/Guitar Hero mini-game to 'organize' mass combat just doesn't float my boat AT ALL.The whole concept really concerns me at different levels, from Alignment (Law/Chaos) 'feel',
(regardless of whether this playstyle has in-game Lawful implications, it would feel rather 'fake' for roleplaying of many 'Chaotic' types)
to simply a dislike for high-handed imposition 'making sure' that 'mass organized combat' rules the day...
I mean, table-top rules PRPG is basically skewed to modelling small group skirmishes,
yet good group tactics (small or large) are a HUGE force multiplier... WITHOUT any 'special favors' to make that so.
I'd rather just have good mass tactics/organization NATURALLY emerge as the best approach,
which I believe it almost always WOULD given a rich enough ruleset/game.
Events like the Goon Swarm in EVE can and should happen, but those events really just emphasize the over-all dominance of good hierarchical group organizations... again, 'special favors' shouldn't be needed to establish that.
Constructively, the concept that was floated re: Fatigue interested me, since it sounded like Fatigue had primary relevance within the Mass Combat sub-system... So I could forsee that besides 'Healing'/managing Fatigue levels to keep troops in Mass Combat as much as possible, there would be a certain point where it may be just as effective to let Fatigued troops return to fight 'normally' (outside of Mass Combat sub-system, i.e. skirmish style) until their Fatigue drops to levels where Mass Combaty is preferred... That would let battles be more interesting than just ones where each side is reduced to single actors where individual players are just cogs of variable efficiency, but have a battle where fully active PCs are mixing it up, against both 'skirmishing' enemies and Mass Combat units.
Goblin Squad Member
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This seems interesting. It's definatly a gamble, this could go really well and move mass PVP into a new era, or this could be horrible and practically kill this game.
I say good for GW for taking that gamble though. Companies unwilling to take risks is why we have 5000 WoW clones dominating the MMO market. These kinds of risks are what we need to drive the industry forward. You should have a back up plan for if this doesn't work out though, I would hate to see this bold move fail and kill all the other wonderful things PFO is promising to deliver.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I think you lost a lot of people with the 'magic with regards to units' discussion. Are you suggesting that there will be specific actions which are only available to units that have multiple members who are trained and equipped for coordinated magic? That a fireball aimed at a squad in turtle formation is likely to hit a shield at the front line and be largely ineffective? That a fireball aimed at the middle of a squad of archers in volley fire formation will be less effective than a fireball aimed in the middle of a bunch of individual archers firing independently?
I'll admit, balancing AoE effects in very target-rich environments is really, really hard. It's also a really, really hard sell to remove all of the ranged AoE spells from spellcasters. I think the standard method used by MMOs is to either limit the number of mobs that can be usefully fought at once, or to limit the number of mobs in the area that can be hit with a given attack. The first doesn't work when the targets are players, and the second feels wrong (I only hit three of them, even though there are ten in the area?!).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Its great to see another fun element added to the game. I hope that forces of spellcasters will be able to form unit, and perhaps use collaborative casting to hurl mighty spells around the battlefield. It would also be very fun if army unit's also included siege engines. That was a group of well trained engineer can have fun causing mayhem around the battlefield.
I look forward to seeing how this will actually pan out in game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Great news. So far PFO has been the best ideas of existing MMOs put together into a great package, but now here is the real selling point- the innovation. I'm very interested to see how this turns out.
Regardless, this has inspired me to play Shogun2 some more to begin to master fast paced medieval combat!
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Goblin Squad Member
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So I have a question for you Ryan.
In another topic you mention soldiers training separate skills than an adventurer who specializes in killing some form of NPC such as aberrations. How can we expect the breakdown of skills to go given this new information. Is it:
Player A: Skilled at fighting aberrations. No advantages in fighting in small groups or as a part of a mob.
Player B: Skilled at fighting in armies. No advantages in fighting in small groups or as a part of a mob.
No specializations exist for fighting in small groups or mobs.
OR
Player A: Skilled at fighting aberrations. No advantages in fighting in small groups or as a part of a mob.
Player B: Skilled at fighting in armies. No advantages in fighting in small groups or as a part of a mob.
Player C: Skilled at fighting in small groups and mobs. No advantages to army, or PVE content.
Or is it something else entirely?
Basically as far as it concerns my company, are our players patrolling for griefers and bandits going to require different training than our seasoned soldiers, or will our seasoned soldiers be effective for small group patrols as well as major battles?
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Goblin Squad Member
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-snip-"be a soldier for mass PvP or we have some other stuff over here for you to do". If it is all about choices, why does it come off as not being a choice? Your final line is just a slap in the face of what should be done with PvP.I think this is the logical approach to mass combat/battles vs zergs, where let's remember you're surrounded by buckets of players and effects going off on-screen: Usually it's a mess in my experience? Eg in World vs World PvP in GW2 it looks like a lot of fun (2< factions finally!) but still looks like a mess with random players doing their own thing. Not like a battle choreographed as it were in LOTRs movies?
And I think soldiering is one career. Maybe banditry is more ambush/smaller combats-scale that is interesting pvp just as much? As said, I prefer smaller combats from my previous mmorpg experiences, but perhaps PfO will change my mind from the bandit career?!
That is the thing though, there is a world of difference comparing how something was scripted for a movie and how the acceptable computer world PvP experience works when you toss things into the mix: internet connections on both client and server side, varied numbers of players, particle effects, server/database load, etc. The more complex you make an underlying system the more those basic things have a chance to just make that unravel and become just another mire of people running into each other as the best method available to your average player.
So the short answer is: More complex systems are never the answer to offset an acceptable play experience.
Using EVE as an example, go ask Jita players how well that beast of a server handled player loads in the past and that isn't even touching on areas that had similar numbers in blob warfare in the middle of 0.0 space. They may have fixed it since I played but it was still an issue for such a long time and I doubt GW will have similar servers from the start as EVE did.
It's a truism that more complex can lead to more headaches in terms of what designers engineer the players to be doing and what players actually do (All congregate at one single point in the world!). But I wonder if there is a way around that. So if units are considered as one big entity for purposes of server loads and such like, that could be a way to actually make mass combat of large numbers more possible, overall (ie lots of little actions become a big action representation)? That's a guess, networking begins to go well over my head at this point.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I will likely play a Soldier because it is very much what I wanted RvR MMOs to be all about ever since disappointed to bits by Warhammer Online.
In DAoC we were an elite group of 8, able to kill 40 opponents at once because we knew our roles, we could assist each other and we did what our group leader told us to do. That was awesome.
Mass combat in MMOs so far has been hardly satisfying and never been the focus anyways.
The only caveat is that I think that ranged combat will be king.
Interesting read, would be great in a single player war game such as Mount & Blade (F1 & F2 were simply enough in M&B none siege combat >_>). However, in a mmorpg, wouldn't this further promote more players to join larger guilds?
Since larger guilds have more people, they are likely to have characters who are devoted to none-magic profession.
From what I read, magic seems to be undesirable in a war either against a cohered troop (magic resistance), or be participating in a cohered force (cannot cast independent spells which are their main abilities).
Larger guilds have more members, so it's easier to from a troop. Unless there are exceptional things smaller guilds can do (such as banditry mentioned above), it seems a new disadvantage against them. The only drawback of a troop is when the leader dies, (s)he receives the leader penalty.
ps. this somehow reminds me of cranium rat
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Goblin Squad Member
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More responses:
Magic Resistance
Golarion is a world filled with supernatural and spell-like abilities. And characters of all types who gain them. Is it so hard to imagine that in the 10,000+ years of recorded (human) history people have figured out how to combine "being a soldier" with "dealing with magical attack"?
Why is it so hard to imagine character abilities of a supernatural or spell-like nature that can reduce or counter the effects of common spells that would be virtually certain to be deployed in any mass combat environment?
To think otherwise seems .... rather narrow-minded.
Cohesive Magic
I can imagine all sorts of stuff having a spellcaster in a cohesive unit would enable the leader of that unit to activate. Perhaps the 'caster gives all the attacks an energy type for a few rounds, or makes all the arrows fired in a flight poison or holy.
I can also see a whole cat & mouse game like electronic warfare on the modern battlefield. Spellcasters trying to drop the magic resistance of opposing units, and those units trying to reinforce those resistances.
Casters could also give a unit mobility - d-dooring from point to point, levitating the unit, etc. They might be able to make a unit ethereal for a limited time. Or invisible. Or illusionary so that it appears different than what it is.
Cohesive Action
I giggle a little bit about people who think "Guitar Hero" style actions would somehow ruin a combat experience. I giggle because I have played thousands of hours of MMOs and anyone who has knows that in most MMOs combat is pretty much all about hitting a series of keys with the right timing to optimize attacks and defense, interspersed with movement to maintain optimum positioning.
In other words, playing Guitar Hero.
Server Load
Generally speaking the ideas we've discussed in this blog represent no significant server load issues and may in fact reduce them somewhat.
Determining if a unit is or is not cohesive and is or is not taking cohesive action and to what degree that generates effects and Combat Power is a trivial amount of work. Having that happen in the context of a formation means it may actually be possible to reduce that load somewhat because the formation constraint makes it easy to eliminate a lot of cases where the unit has failed to maintain cohesion.
Loaded servers are almost always a function of the number of active objects on the grid. And the load comes not from processing the movement of those objects or their state changes, it comes from the communication overhead between the server and the clients to keep the client in synch with the server. As I've said before, it's an N^2 problem - the amount of bandwidth consumed increases with the square of the number of communication pipes.
So the battle against server lag is a really a battle to keep that amount of information being exchanged as small as possible, to make the ability to exchange it as fast as possible, to recover gracefully from desynchs and disconnects, and to manage the "heartbeat" of the system - the number of times in any interval that state changes occur.
On the other hand, client lag is almost always a factor of video card processing power. Video cards have a limited amount of memory to hold textures and a limited amount of polygons they can render per time slice. As a battle gets more crowded the demand on the videocard goes up really quickly and when its limits are exceeded the client goes into slide-show mode. Metagaming the quality of your army's video cards is not a bad strategy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Andius - I envision a branching system of skill training, merit badges and abilities. Specialization will always be better at whatever you have specialized in than generalization.
Being a soldier should represent as robust a development path as being anything else in the game. Specializing in it should be worthwhile, and time consuming. Trying to be a solider AND something else will always be slower than just being a soldier OR something else.
At the lower levels of skill, a lot of careers will overlap. A rookie solider, a rookie bandit and a rookie adventurer who are all following the Warrior archetype path may look pretty similar. But they'll quickly begin to diverge from that common start.
I like the idea of armies, squads and formations a lot for territory domination and control. Though I worry that the system will break down once in the hands of players, as we tend to break things. My main concern is about how magic and armies will be handled.
Mainly because a magic user is much the same as technology is for us, and the effect it has on military tactics. It's a game changer. If formations of units are simply "magic resistant" because they are a cohesive unit (assuming they perform well), I'm left with a feeling that can only be described as "Really? That's what you're going with?". A magic user of appropriate level should be a devastating force to a unit of, cohesive or otherwise, non-magically supported soldiers.
A level 1 wizard would be a kin to someone with a semi-automatic weapon. Dangerous but overall can't do enough damage before being overrun or running out of ammunition. A level 5 would be like a soldier with an automatic weapon, and an assortment of grenades (explosive, smokes, flash bangs). A level 20 would be like a stealth bomber, aircraft carrier, nuclear bomb, and a tank combined and had a baby hell spawn of mass destruction. The point is, magic is a major force and simple cohesion shouldn't be enough to significantly impact that force. At least not without assistance from magic itself, whether that be an allied wizard countering spells, casting protective magic, or magically enchanted items.
Without knowing the exact details on skills, mechanics and spells, it's very hard to understand how it will all mesh together. In the table top game, a caster is limited by his spells per day, as well as how effective those spells are due to caster or spell level. Casters can't necessarily win wars on their own, but their impact should be significant when employed. Any limitation or reduction in impact needs to come from a logical, lore based, source.
Tactics, strategy and preparation should thwart casters, not a mechanic born from the necessity to make a desired format of PvP viable. Regardless of my concerns, I really like the overall direction.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Mainly because a magic user is much the same as technology is for us, and the effect it has on military tactics. It's a game changer. If formations of units are simply "magic resistant" because they are a cohesive unit (assuming they perform well), I'm left with a feeling that can only be described as "Really? That's what you're going with?". A magic user of appropriate level should be a devastating force to a unit of, cohesive or otherwise, non-magically supported soldiers.
Uhm... Are you willing to carry that argument to the next logical step and say that individual magic resistance on characters is also a "Really? That's what you're going with?" solution?
Are you willing to say that a "magic user of appropriate level should be a devastating force" to "non-magically supported" individual characters, too?
I don't think that's the way most games work, and I don't think that's what most players would expect.
Uhm... Are you willing to carry that argument to the next logical step and say that individual magic resistance on characters is also a "Really? That's what you're going with?" solution?
Are you willing to say that a "magic user of appropriate level should be a devastating force" to "non-magically supported" individual characters, too?
I don't think that's the way most games work, and I don't think that's what most players would expect.
If an individual has some sort of magic resistance through a logical source in the game, it doesn't pose a problem to me. Generally that is an established racial trait, innate feature, spell, or magic item. If a fighter without the assistance of something to explain why they get magic resistance gets it by simply standing there and moving in coordination with someone, that's a problem, unless that coordination involves getting the hell out of the magics way.
And yes, a magic user of appropriate level can and will devastate an individual, non-magically supported character. A level 20 fighter with no magical items or magical abilities would have to work incredibly hard to achieve victory. At lower levels the gaps are much smaller since casters have such limited resources, but higher up? Non-casters need a lot of assistance, luck, and surprise.
edit: fixed quote
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Goblin Squad Member
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If an individual has some sort of magic resistance through a logical source in the game, it doesn't pose a problem to me.
Why do you assume there won't be a "logical source" for the unit's magical resistance? Why do you assume there won't be "magical items or magical abilities" at play?
In general, players don't expect a magic user to be able to devastate other characters in "normal" PvP. Why should there be an expectation that they should be able to do so in "unit" PvP?
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Goblin Squad Member
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If an individual has some sort of magic resistance through a logical source in the game, it doesn't pose a problem to me.Why do you assume there won't be a "logical source" for the unit's magical resistance? Why do you assume there won't be "magical items or magical abilities" at play?
In general, players don't expect a magic user to be able to devastate other characters in "normal" PvP. Why should there be an expectation that they should be able to do so in "unit" PvP?
Indeed the formations sound to be based on the leader, what's to say it isn't a spell or ability of the leader cast in formation shape etc... or even an ability for a wizard in his position in the formation etc...
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Indeed the formations sound to be based on the leader, what's to say it isn't a spell or ability of the leader cast in formation shape etc... or even an ability for a wizard in his position in the formation etc...Why do you assume there won't be a "logical source" for the unit's magical resistance? Why do you assume there won't be "magical items or magical abilities" at play?
In general, players don't expect a magic user to be able to devastate other characters in "normal" PvP. Why should there be an expectation that they should be able to do so in "unit" PvP?
You have a point, my fear is based on assumptions. My opinion of casters is colored by my experience DMing and as a player in the table top, and I'm pulling more from that then from other MMOs.
Perhaps I'm just taking his wording too literally, as in by saying "Units get magical resistance for being part of a cohesive unit" I should take it as "Individuals in a cohesive unit get a bonus to resist magic". My brain just railed against the idea of 20 guys standing in tight formation somehow becoming better at not dying to a circle of death or other AoE magical attack.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Casters can't necessarily win wars on their own, but their impact should be significant when employed. Any limitation or reduction in impact needs to come from a logical, lore based, source.
Sure. Look at Galorian lore- how much impact do the many spellcasters have on wars there? If anything, the PHB is wrong about how powerful a spellcaster is, since most of the things that would be true if every wizards has the abilities of a PC wizard aren't true.
Units are resistant to mind-altering spells because they have trained to think as a unit, not as individuals. They are resistant to AoE spells (if in a ranged-damage-resistant formation) because they provide mutual cover and protection. Since training as a monk grants magic resistance, even in the PnP rulebook, I don't see why training as a soldier can't.
Units are resistant to mind-altering spells because they have trained to think as a unit, not as individuals. They are resistant to AoE spells (if in a ranged-damage-resistant formation) because they provide mutual cover and protection. Since training as a monk grants magic resistance, even in the PnP rulebook, I don't see why training as a soldier can't.
You also have a point. You see, that all makes sense to me, coordinated actions to resist specific types of effects; using shields to provide cover from a fireball, or chanting a mantra to resist mind-effects, are sound ideas. I was interpreting it as some sort of general resistance to any and all magic. But I've come or at least am coming out of that frame of mind.
Though, monks to me aren't the best choice for a counter to my original argument, only because I've considered their spell resistance a fairly magic oriented ability gained through a balance of spiritual, mental and physical meditations and training not commonly found in military training. But it is still an example of gaining spell resistance through intense training, so it's a valid example.
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Well my fears are alleviated for the most part. You all did a good job of countering my points on the subject, my point of view was skewed. Thanks for helping me in correcting it guys.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's a waste of dev time -and- cycles for something that is both immersion breaking and lame.
Since we're voicing our opinions, I'd like to formally register mine that this system is neither immersion-breaking nor lame.
Let the players figure out how to best make their threat walls, and earn the rewards for ingenuity, or punishment for getting outsmarted.
This seems strange to me. It's kind of like saying "No, don't give characters a bonus to damage if they have high strength, let the players figure out how to do extra damage themselves."
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Goblin Squad Member
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... there should be no reason to make the server concerned about which formation, specifically, that you are in.
Are you suggesting the game system should give a unit a Combat Power bonus based on its cohesion in a formation without knowing what that formation is? Because that would be, literally, impossible - unless it gave the same bonus for any formation.
Or are you suggesting the game system should never give a unit a Combat Power bonus based on its cohesion in a formation? This is what I thought you were saying earlier. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that there are already inherent benefits for characters to organize themselves in formations in mass PvP, and that the game system doesn't need to add any more bonuses on top of that. Is that close?
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Goblin Squad Member
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No.
The purpose of a unit, in any military, any time, any where, is to
1) Provide a basic organizational structure.
2) Deny the enemy an advantage in some physical region of space.
I don't know exactly how this applies to game design, but as a claim about militaries, that's both reductive and incorrect. Units exist for multiple reasons: administration, command and control, accountability of materiel, etc. But even cursory research shows that units exist for a particularly important reason: community. It is your squad/platoon/company (maybe battalion) that members know, bond with, and fight for.
I was interviewing a Marine yesterday, trying to get him to unpack why he acted the way he did during an ambush--his articulation of why you move towards danger rather than away. I asked him about citations and warrior studies--the stories we tell about Marines like Lt. John Bobo, Dan Dailey, Dakota Meyer, Sgt. Major Kasal, etc. Do those inspire you, do they set up some kind of standard you have to live up to? He said not exactly, or not directly, because they're not real to you. It's the Marines in your unit he said, the ones you have real bonds with, that make sacrifice real.
Again, not sure how this would inform game design, but that's what units are "for."
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd like to suggest not having "turtling up" be a defense against AoE attacks--dispersion would be a better choice. So, to use the classic example for combined arms, infantry closing up is a good defense against cavalry, and dispersing is a good defense against artillery fire. The dilemma comes when the two are combined, forcing you to make a choice.
If a good defense against melee attacks is closing up, and a good defense against an AoE is a closing up and packing in tight, then I don't have to make a choice.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Do those inspire you, do they set up some kind of standard you have to live up to? He said not exactly, or not directly, because they're not real to you. It's the Marines in your unit he said, the ones you have real bonds with, that make sacrifice real.
I've never served (much to my regret), but even I can feel most acutely the emotional bond that's created when you get to know another person and find that you care about them - that you want them to be safe and to prosper. It's a very powerful thing.
I can't imagine how it might play out via game mechanics, but I certainly hope I manage to find it in PFO.
The dilemma comes when the two are combined, forcing you to make a choice.
If a good defense against melee attacks is closing up, and a good defense against an AoE is a closing up and packing in tight, then I don't have to make a choice.
Shield Turtling The ultimate defense. Stops swords, arrows, and fireballs! Why use another tactic to stay alive when you can be an unkillable ball of steel! Train your squad today!
Over use of exclamation points to emphasize seriousness!
I've found that choices, even the illusion of choice, is generally a good part of what makes for satisfying game-play.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Interesting read, would be great in a single player war game such as Mount & Blade (F1 & F2 were simply enough in M&B none siege combat >_>). However, in a mmorpg, wouldn't this further promote more players to join larger guilds?
Since larger guilds have more people, they are likely to have characters who are devoted to none-magic profession.
From what I read, magic seems to be undesirable in a war either against a cohered troop (magic resistance), or be participating in a cohered force (cannot cast independent spells which are their main abilities).
Larger guilds have more members, so it's easier to from a troop. Unless there are exceptional things smaller guilds can do (such as banditry mentioned above), it seems a new disadvantage against them. The only drawback of a troop is when the leader dies, (s)he receives the leader penalty.
ps. this somehow reminds me of cranium rat
They never truely implied that magic won't be desirable. At least no more or less than individual swordsmanship etc... It is also fully possible that some of the skills could be requirements for eachother, They haven't said that wizards functioning in a unit won't have similar spells, to their norm, and there could be pre-reqs, IE to get the soldier spell casting ability, the wizard must first know how to do the individual spells first.
The main thing that GW has stated that they don't intend, is for a handful of non-formation wizards, to pose a threat to a large unit in formation.
@Ryan: Maybe this is way off base, but in my mind, magic should be an incredibly dangerous force but easily countered by other magic.
A platoon of well-trained soldiers going up against one wizard might be in a lot of trouble - he can grease under their feet, shoot a fireball that hurts their whole group, and so on.
However, a platoon of well-trained soldiers with a wizard on their side, going up against one wizard, would have no problems; any magic the wizard is able to conjure up is easily countered by the wizard on the platoon's side.
This is why I really like your idea of cat-and-mouse; each team's magic users are trying to find and exploit weaknesses in their opponents, while simultaneously trying to cover and protect their own side from magic.
I don't know if this is what you're going for, but in the way I see it, if two armies were going up against each other with two teams of magic users who were doing everything PERFECTLY, there would be very few visible or noticeable effects of magic. However, one team having a more skilled, talented, or simply more lucky team of magic users could wreak havoc.
Is this anything at all in mind with the role you see magic playing on the mass-battlefield of Pathfinder Online?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem with that system is that it becomes pointless to be a foot soldier instead of a wizard. A wizard should be equal in effectiveness to a soldier on the battlefield. If that means that soldiers in a squad are more effective against magic, so be it. In some cases, gamism must trump reality.
In some cases, gamism must trump reality.
I agree, if you mean that the MMO rules won't mirror the PnP rules.
it becomes pointless to be a foot soldier instead of a wizard.
I have been thinking on this myself. I only used casters in my AoE example because they were convenient to use. I certainly don't want casters to be the de facto kings of the battlefield, and Ryan's comments suggest that he doesn't either.
Good soldier builds are what should make people most effective on the battlefield. Having a good build should not require being a caster.
turtling
A turtle could deal no damage and still take some damage--making it impossible to maintain for long periods. The choice can be try to maintain a stalemate (with the increasing risk of having your cohesion break or everyone eventually dying) or do something else.
Terrain could also make turtling an interesting option. If scattering under AoE/ranged attack meant your squad can't effectively defend a bottleneck, then turtling becomes an interesting choice--turtle to try to mitigate some damage and maintain position, or scatter to mitigate more damage but lose position.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem with that system is that it becomes pointless to be a foot soldier instead of a wizard. A wizard should be equal in effectiveness to a soldier on the battlefield. If that means that soldiers in a squad are more effective against magic, so be it. In some cases, gamism must trump reality.
Equal in effectiveness is something I think they should shoot for in a very general way rather than soldier = wizard in terms of effectiveness.
I like the balance of EVE. Which is more powerful, a Rohk (Long range railgun platform) or a Scorpion (Electronic Warfare)? You can't answer that because it depends entirely on the situation. What I can tell you is that if you bring a fleet purely composed of either to them to the battlefield, you will get rocked by a well balanced fleet that includes DPS, logistics, EW, tackling, fleet boosters, etc.
IMO making it so a good army requires spellcasters is fine, as long as they make it so a unit of pure spellcasters will get rolled by a mix of spellcasters and martial characters. Then neither is useless, and the balance is fine.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem with that system is that it becomes pointless to be a foot soldier instead of a wizard. A wizard should be equal in effectiveness to a soldier on the battlefield. If that means that soldiers in a squad are more effective against magic, so be it. In some cases, gamism must trump reality.Equal in effectiveness is something I think they should shoot for in a very general way rather than soldier = wizard in terms of effectiveness.
I like the balance of EVE. Which is more powerful, a Rohk (Long range railgun platform) or a Scorpion (Electronic Warfare)? You can't answer that because it depends entirely on the situation. What I can tell you is that if you bring a fleet purely composed of either to them to the battlefield, you will get rocked by a well balanced fleet that includes DPS, logistics, EW, tackling, fleet boosters, etc.
IMO making it so a good army requires spellcasters is fine, as long as they make it so a unit of pure spellcasters will get rolled by a mix of spellcasters and martial characters. Then neither is useless, and the balance is fine.
Equally effective, just at different tasks. Sounds perfect.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My main concern is if full-blown flight is in the game. Levitation - okay, there are mundane ways of handling an enemy that does that, or has wter-walking, the ability to move through unwarded stone, and what have you.
Anything else is open for balance, I think. Balancing the ability to fly is a serious issue.
Fully agreed, that is also a part of why fly and teleport if implimented, will likely have to have noteworthy differences from their P&P counterparts. Water walk etc... I don't particularly see much of an issue with, at least from my imagination of warfare that involves armies one side is going to be working with siege weapons to protect, the other side a settlement/castle to protect. A single guy, or even 50 guys standing in the lake out of reach, will have little to no effect on the battle.
Actually even flight in seige warfare would have minimal impact. At least from my grasp of formations, there will certainly be ranged characters within the formations, possibly even range boosts for them. Flyers will still have to get in reach of said army to have any effect on them.
Flyers (basing flight on PF mechanics) are a much bigger issue of balance when we are talking smaller game PVP, IE they have waay to much capability when it comes to getting away from battles, avoiding small scale ambushes etc... However this is not a point saying flight absolutely cannot work, just that other limiters need to be in place, maybe short duration with limited repeat-ability, or long cast time, options for non-casters to take them down or have a reasonable shot to keep them from taking off to begin with.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why is it so hard to imagine character abilities of a supernatural or spell-like nature that can reduce or counter the effects of common spells that would be virtually certain to be deployed in any mass combat environment?To think otherwise seems .... rather narrow-minded.
Reading this it sounds like you're saying once fighters come up with a defensive tactic that its impossible for spellcasters to come up with a counter-tactic. As you're well aware the whole history of human warfare points that simply isn't the case. Side 1 comes up with tactic A. Side 2 develops tactic B to counter it. Side 1 counters with tactic C... rinse, repeat for 10,000 years and you go from sticks to unmanned drone fighters armed with smart bombs.
What I am trying to get across is to not succumb to the temptation to permanently say one side is better than the other. Put in place multiple tools that will allow us to maximize strategy and tactics. (We're going to do that anyway, despite your best efforts ;)) Someone once said that the first casualty in a battle is the plan - that definitely applies here.
The more I think about it, the more I think that mass combat will more closely resemble squad based WW2 warfare than medieval warfare. Nevermind mages - what about fighters armed with wands of fireball or necklaces of fireball? In any logical fantasy kingdom you're going to have magic proliferate not just through mages, but down into the ranks. Cheap 5d6 area of effect spells (area effect lightning bolt grenades) or how about grenades that save or stun, grenades that tangle or web, grenades that cast dimensional anchor or make an A-M field? This is all going to be death to massed infantry. Its also going to make mass combat incredibly interesting!
You start getting into that yourself in the "cohesive magic" section. Think about it some more and I'm sure you'll come to the same conclusion. Btw I think that in this world unit discipline is even more important. There would definitely be morale bonuses to having your squadmates present when hit with a save vs fear spell (or similar). So I do have hope that we are, in fact, talking about the same thing from different angles.
And regardless, in the end its your game to design. I'll probably play it no matter how you decide on this matter :)
John
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Goblin Squad Member
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Reading this it sounds like you're saying once fighters come up with a defensive tactic that its impossible for spellcasters to come up with a counter-tactic. As you're well aware the whole history of human warfare points that simply isn't the case. Side 1 comes up with tactic A. Side 2 develops tactic B to counter it. Side 1 counters with tactic C... rinse, repeat for 10,000 years and you go from sticks to unmanned drone fighters armed with smart bombs.
It sounds to me like you are interpreting soldiers as fighters etc...
From my interpretation soldiers/squads/formations, as combination of groups. This isn't fighters vs mages, this is unit in formation vs disorganized individuals. Wizards in formation will likely have their own offensive and defensive spells that work with the formation having solid effect on the enemy units. A cohesive mix of archtypes with the soldier abilities is the counter tactic to another formation.The idea isn't to make wizards useless in warfare, it is to allow the formations and lines to work, without a formation of 30 from being split in half with a single maximized fireball or lightning bolt by 1-2 rogue wizards. Wizards that are part of a formation will almost certainly have spells they can make use of, they just might not be the same spells they use when clearing dungeons or fighting off bandits.
They never truely implied that magic won't be desirable. At least no more or less than individual swordsmanship etc... It is also fully possible that some of the skills could be requirements for eachother, They haven't said that wizards functioning in a unit won't have similar spells, to their norm, and there could be pre-reqs, IE to get the soldier spell casting ability, the wizard must first know how to do the individual spells first.
The main thing that GW has stated that they don't intend, is for a handful of non-formation wizards, to pose a threat to a large unit in formation.
I might misinterpret something I read (English isn't my mother language). The examples give me a vibe that spellcasters seem to be supplementary supporting roles within a troop that boosts physical attackers' damages / defenses / movement.
There was one NWN online module my friend invited me to play for a while. On that server many enemies and all bosses have magical immunities because they want the spellcasters to be always on secondary role, boosting physical attackers' damages / defenses.
If an army is composed of spell casters, would there be some kind of army command that allows them to cast spells other than "buff?" An army of evil cleric may cast some ritual-like spells and summon a small horde of demon/devil. An army of druids (though it sounds silly) may summon treants and alike. An army of illusionist can create illusions & mist that temper others movements, and so on.
Also, how about classes like rogue / rangers? How will their trap skills do against a cohered troop when they act individually, would it disperse the formation for a short while or simply become being resisted as well? I would imagine low level characters act as the "suicidal scouts" that search for small traps in order to have formation be maintained easier in such situations.
An army of rogue/ranger could setup huge traps that only trigger against enemy troop (giant pit hole for example). Varieties in an army makes them more versatile and well-rounded, while devoted one-class army represent specialty and do well under certain circumstance.
There could be some kind of temporary minor penalty like DAO if a character dies imo, it's not severe enough to break the game but dying over and over in a short period of time would make characters noticeably weaker. Well it's just my thoughts anyway. >_>
ps. for the general granting magical resistance argument, I found it hard to swallow as well at first thought, so I changed my logic and think those generals are Battle Heralds alike in disguise and grant some saves.
Goblinworks Founder
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This is a really cool Idea, but how will the Dance Dance Revolution style Precision movements work with latency? I know things like Dancing/Spellweaving in Age of Conan was nigh on impossible for me to do from Australia, as are many other "Click here at this time or die!" features from some MMOs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Reading this it sounds like you're saying once fighters come up with a defensive tactic that its impossible for spellcasters to come up with a counter-tactic.
Why is it so hard to imagine character abilities of a supernatural or spell-like nature that can reduce or counter the effects of common spells ...
I highlighted the part you seem to be ignoring.
Resist Energy is a 2nd level spell for Wizards and Sorcerers. Communal Resist Energy is a 3rd level spell for the same.
At the same power level that a Wizard gains Fireball, a trained solider in a leadership role should gain access to a reasonable counter.
Because it just makes sense that over ten thousand years armies would develop those kinds of leadership training.
And characters trained to fight as a unit, on a battlefield where Fireball should be a regular tactic of opponents could learn counter-tactics that work like Evasion or other effects that reduce Reflex-savable damage or Fortitude-savable damage. Maybe a Unit acts like an object and gains a Hardness rating while it is cohesive.
I'm just saying that it is only reasonable that these things exist, or the whole of Golarion rapidly ceases to make any sense. Why build castles, why have armies, why don't wizards rule all the kingdoms? The ability for trained armies to deal with magical attacks is an inherent assumption baked into the setting. You don't see it in the tabletop game because the characters aren't fighting as units in an army. The tabletop game is scaled for small parties of adventuring heroes. The MMO is a bigger game with a more diverse universe of characters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is a really cool Idea, but how will the Dance Dance Revolution style Precision movements work with latency? I know things like Dancing/Spellweaving in Age of Conan was nigh on impossible for me to do from Australia, as are many other "Click here at this time or die!" features from some MMOs.
This is an absolutely legit question. I suspect that what will happen in development is that we'll find that the heartbeat of Units needs to be slower than that of individual characters so that most players can consistently get their input to register in synch with their unit companions.
It will certainly require playtesting. I don't think it will be a deal-killer to have a high latency connection, but "high latency" may be a relative term. I've seen some folks with multi-second latency, and that's probably too much for any system to overcome.
The problem with that system is that it becomes pointless to be a foot soldier instead of a wizard. A wizard should be equal in effectiveness to a soldier on the battlefield. If that means that soldiers in a squad are more effective against magic, so be it. In some cases, gamism must trump reality.Equal in effectiveness is something I think they should shoot for in a very general way rather than soldier = wizard in terms of effectiveness.
I like the balance of EVE. Which is more powerful, a Rohk (Long range railgun platform) or a Scorpion (Electronic Warfare)? You can't answer that because it depends entirely on the situation. What I can tell you is that if you bring a fleet purely composed of either to them to the battlefield, you will get rocked by a well balanced fleet that includes DPS, logistics, EW, tackling, fleet boosters, etc.
IMO making it so a good army requires spellcasters is fine, as long as they make it so a unit of pure spellcasters will get rolled by a mix of spellcasters and martial characters. Then neither is useless, and the balance is fine.
In my experience and in my opinion, this is exactly the way it should go. It honestly sounds perfect.
Simultaneously, I know the execution on this sort of thing, and getting the balance down properly, can be a bit of a nightmare because of all the variables involved.
Still, I definitely think it's what GW should shoot for; equally "effective," but effective in significantly different ways/environments, for significantly different goals/purposes.
@RYAN: Will "squads" have to be units all of the same type? IE all magic users together, all archers together, all melee together? I can certainly see why you might want to go in this direction, and I know that extra variables would make coding and building the game much more complex, but... I think allowing players to make more diverse squads could lead to a much more interesting metagame and the development of advanced tactics and strategies. Then you can come up with ideas like having a small group of powerful spell-slinging mages, but protected by a large ring of steel (IE melee fighters), having one healer for every soldier, having TWO healers for every soldier, having a large team of casters buff up a small group of melee fighters, and so on.
Regarding the DDR-style combat... sooo, will there be a "right" move to make, and the effectiveness of that move will be based on what proportion of the squad made the "right" choice at the "right" time? Do the units necessarily all have to act in the same way do the "right" thing? and gain cohesion? If I was a general, and I wanted my mages to all cast "true strike" on my archers, who would then launch off a volley of arrows, and I wanted that to be our "move" done on a certain "beat," ... is that the kind of thing we could do? Or are we limited to "everybody ranged attack. everybody defend. everybody melee attack. everybody heal." and so on?