Tab-Targeting


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Goblin Squad Member

No target assist promotes meaningful communication. I approve.

Scarab Sages Goblinworks Executive Founder

I agree, one thing though and I don't have any research on it, but your suggestion of terrain providing cover and effecting targeting as well as things like LoS targetting may be resource intensive because basically what they have to do is do a raycast out in all directions of your LoS, see if it hits anything, return that it hit something, what it hit, where it hit it etc and then do the rest of the calculations.

Just something to keep in mind in the discussion as the more raycasting, and blocking and differentiating between objects and NPCs etc the more resource intensive it becomes.


Dakcenturi wrote:

I agree, one thing though and I don't have any research on it, but your suggestion of terrain providing cover and effecting targeting as well as things like LoS targetting may be resource intensive because basically what they have to do is do a raycast out in all directions of your LoS, see if it hits anything, return that it hit something, what it hit, where it hit it etc and then do the rest of the calculations.

Just something to keep in mind in the discussion as the more raycasting, and blocking and differentiating between objects and NPCs etc the more resource intensive it becomes.

Yea, that's going to be the critical factor that limits concepts such as this. We just don't know what won't be possible. This might be easy to code and not a resource hog, I certainly have no clue.

I know software has gotten pretty good at helping game makers overcome hurdles like LOS.

Goblin Squad Member

Sounds sort of like the system Tabula Rasa ran with five years ago. That system was fun.

Scarab Sages Goblinworks Executive Founder

@Valandur The great thing is they should be able to figure these types of things out pretty quick as far as how resource intensive things are as Unity Pro has some really great functionality around profiling the game.

Unity Profiler

Goblin Squad Member

I think the main things we want are to keep combat interesting, easy to use, not twitch based, and not based purely on a "lock onto this target and come walls or tall minions, hit it no matter what. As well as being flexible and catering to multiple playstyles. We want enough targeting assistance to ensure no one, whether due to lack of skill or lag can't hit anything, but not so much as to making gameplay a passive or repetitive experience.


Dakcenturi wrote:

@Valandur The great thing is they should be able to figure these types of things out pretty quick as far as how resource intensive things are as Unity Pro has some really great functionality around profiling the game.

Unity Profiler

That kicks butt! Seems like it'll allow a lot of leeway for the devs to be able to play with concepts and try different things much easier then it used to be.

I'm impressed with unity's functionality.

Goblin Squad Member

I read that Unity only renders things within LoS. Wouldn't you be able to tap into that to find out which things are in LoS? I think it would depend on how much leeway they have with modifying or pulling data from objects in the core Unity code. They might have to overload one or two of the functions in a module that they wouldn't otherwise really interact with.

EDIT: After thinking about this for a second, I realized that Unity probably would only calculate LoS for rendering client-side, which would mean that it would be a huge security issue. Someone could easily spoof that LoS approval by injecting or modifying packets. Back to the drawing board, I guess, but I wonder if the back end could have something that's not that resource intensive to constantly keep track of things, maybe auto-updating vector calculations? That would be ok for a few or even a few dozen objects, but in a large scale pvp battle it would really slow things down.

Goblin Squad Member

The original thread title was "A Question For Ryan and Lee"

Have they given any feedback on this?

I'd like to hear what there feelings are about targeting in PFO.

No offense to anyone in the thread, but what any of you want is ultimately irrelevant as there have been so many conflicting methods proposed, with some people from each of the sides "dug in the sand" as to what they will, or won't accept that its become just white noise at this point because it looks like whatever GW does, some people won't accept it and simply leave.

What GW is going to provide is all that matters.

I'd like to know what that is.

Goblin Squad Member

This was precisely the question I asked on the kickstarter and was told "why don't you go to the forums and start a discussion"

And here we are discussing it again :p

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Part of the reason I keep posting here is to keep this topic floating where Lee and Ryan can see it.

If the capstone debate is any guide they are probably skimming this and waiting to weigh in until they have a better idea what they are thinking .

Goblin Squad Member

Summersnow wrote:
I'd like to hear what there feelings are about targeting in PFO.

You may have already seen this, but just in case...

From What will combat be like?:

Ryan Dancey wrote:
Valkenr wrote:
The target/ability bar has really been done to death and i think a lot of people are looking for a new feel.
I don't disagree with that. I think there's a huge design space to be explored. We just won't be exploring the one where you aim with player skill and twitch in response to stimuli.

Goblin Squad Member

Summersnow wrote:

The original thread title was "A Question For Ryan and Lee"

Have they given any feedback on this?

I'd like to hear what there feelings are about targeting in PFO.

No offense to anyone in the thread, but what any of you want is ultimately irrelevant as there have been so many conflicting methods proposed, with some people from each of the sides "dug in the sand" as to what they will, or won't accept that its become just white noise at this point because it looks like whatever GW does, some people won't accept it and simply leave.

What GW is going to provide is all that matters.

I'd like to know what that is.

No offense taken; these sorts of discussions are good for the devs see where people are in their expectations and preferences based on various experiences and degrees of understanding: All useful I imagine to see played out in discussion with a possible bright idea here and there.

Tbh, combat is likely too far off for specifics to be nailed down apart from the few bread crumbs we've seen mentioned eg Nihimon's reference above: We do know it is sort of tab-target for a variety of compelling reasons (N^2; design intended to scale 00's possibly even higher; variety of PvP types, PvPvE & PvE etc). Though none of that precludes the devs commenting further if necessary.

Where I'm at: Tab-target has been around for a while and could easily feel stale; it's a half-way house between not being dynamic enough ("real-time") & not being as tactical as perhaps some TT games I've enjoyed with time to think about moves and weight up probabilities etc. Or put another way: Tab-target solves some issues but if real-time and targeting is auto, you're loosing some of the reasons that make real-time worth experiencing; unless targeting can be made more interesting decision-process instead of execution process. Etc.

Goblin Squad Member

I was wondering about target-locking contexts: eg

1v1 - to face your opponent, but also if you "get" a lock then that forces them to make a decision and lock back on you to keep their stamina normal or take a stamina penalty or some other suitable context change?
1v1< - perhaps priority target or target-lock several targets that come into vicinity in melee.. not sure and how does that alter between: "Skirmish" formation and "Unit" formation of players:-

Either way if "skirmish" perhaps has it's own set of targeting and formations with groups of friendly players might modify that/scale it so everyone targets the same object/zone and "contributes" their own target for the unit's set of skills... not sure how that might work; some way of giving players the ability to operate in unison: Perhaps Unit's set of skills are different from each players when in a unit? Maybe a leader is delegated the targetting function and players more the movement/facing role and timing of use of skill?

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

there are a lot of related but different topics here. Forgive me for trying to unclutter my mind a bit. What I have seen so far is at least:

1: The original question: how should you select targets: tab-cycle through a list or having to actually click on/near them (ie have LOS and be aware), or something else.

2: should you even have to select a target to attack what's in front of you, or should at least melee attacks hit whatever you are facing (whether closest to cursor, closest to lower middle of the screen or whatever).

3: should you be allowed to target someone behind you (either by target cycling or by targeting and then turning your back)?

3b: Should you be able to use target cycling to detect enemies?

4: should we have 'assist'? (most voices say no)

5: how will/should cover and concealment be implemented? Some seem to assume tab-cycling means no cover/concealment applies. The relevant questions should be whether cover/concealment should restrict targeting itself or just hit chance, and how the server will know.

6: discussions on how alternate targeting systems may affect friendly fire etc. (but with assumptions made for how (soft) cover is implemented with various targeting systems.

7: should formations affect what/how you can target? (ie should being in a formation allow you 'assisting' or tab-healing your squad?)

8: should combat be more reflex/skill based? (this is really a separate discussion where GW has stated that it is not going to be twitch-based)

thanks for your patience.

for reference, my own opinions are
1: tab-cycling between what you can actually see, or tab (or other key) to select target closest to cursor (and lock onto that for as long as it is a valid target).
2: no
3: no
4: no
5: whatever they can implement without wars breaking the server
6: separate topic independent of target selection
7: formation should give some type of advantage
8: planning>>twitching

Scarab Sages Goblinworks Executive Founder

Uthreth Baelcoressitas wrote:

I read that Unity only renders things within LoS. Wouldn't you be able to tap into that to find out which things are in LoS? I think it would depend on how much leeway they have with modifying or pulling data from objects in the core Unity code. They might have to overload one or two of the functions in a module that they wouldn't otherwise really interact with.

EDIT: After thinking about this for a second, I realized that Unity probably would only calculate LoS for rendering client-side, which would mean that it would be a huge security issue. Someone could easily spoof that LoS approval by injecting or modifying packets. Back to the drawing board, I guess, but I wonder if the back end could have something that's not that resource intensive to constantly keep track of things, maybe auto-updating vector calculations? That would be ok for a few or even a few dozen objects, but in a large scale pvp battle it would really slow things down.

The LoS functionality you are refering to is Occlusion Culling which is a really neat feature, but from a multiplayer perspective I'm not sure how well it works since you have lots of people with different cameras.

As you noted though, it is open to possible hacking. Using raycasts and vector calculations seem like to most logical thing, and they may not even be that resource intensive, as far as how much processing it actually requires but it will still require additional processing to calculate things like LoS and cover etc.

Goblin Squad Member

Interesting reading from people with a good understanding of Unity.

My question is: What about "target priority" based on position? That would be a simple implementation of who you can tab-target for range attacks eg and position is already factored in? And for cover bonus, that's again just position info?

@randomwalker: Great summary, tidies things up.

Goblin Squad Member

@randomwalker, I like your write-up, and generally agree with most of your personal preferences.

However, I think it's important to keep in mind that the UI is there to allow the player to quickly convey their intent to the server. As such, I don't see any reason why an Assist key is bad.


AvenaOats wrote:

Interesting reading from people with a good understanding of Unity.

My question is: What about "target priority" based on position? That would be a simple implementation of who you can tab-target for range attacks eg and position is already factored in? And for cover bonus, that's again just position info?

@randomwalker: Great summary, tidies things up.

I'm not a Unity user, so I may be way off here. But in checking out their site I came across this page AI that might help with positioning, cover and LOS. Perhaps Dakcenturi can lend his knowledge of this feature and help answer that question for us? :)

Scarab Sages Goblinworks Executive Founder

This is more in regards to NPC's then players and how they react to the environment and being able to find paths around/over/under/etc objects. It's actually a new feature in Unity 4 which is pretty cool because it allows NPCs to dynamically update their paths based on dynamic object placement. In effect creating even more realistic AI.

I'm by far no expert in Unity programming, as like I've mentioned, my experience has been more in regards to board game mechanics rather than 3D space but I have delved into it a bit while working on some side projects for my own RPG that may someday in the distant future see the light of day :P.

I expect that the raycasting and determining whether the ray hits or not is going to be the route but the more rays you send out and the more hit checks you do and the more differentiating between types of objects hit all adds extra calculation. Whether it is significantly noticeable extra calculation or not, I couldn't say, just something to consider.

Target priority should be a lot simpler as I wouldn't think you would have to check whether you can actually hit a target you simply have to check if a target exists in 3D space within a certain distance.

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:

@randomwalker, I like your write-up, and generally agree with most of your personal preferences.

However, I think it's important to keep in mind that the UI is there to allow the player to quickly convey their intent to the server. As such, I don't see any reason why an Assist key is bad.

The reason I'm against the assist function is that it makes things more boring. Thhe tank targets something and then tells everyone to assist. Then he switches targets and repeat. Without it, the leader needs to communicate better. The other squad members have to learn to interpret his or her orders. I believe it will improve the group's ability to coordinate.

Goblin Squad Member

If like to draw on my experience in TERA here for reasons I enjoy this style of gameplay.

I was a healer on my main, so when we were in dungeons especially, my job was to keep people alive. As there is no targeting, I couldn't just watch healthbars of my well organised team standing nearly in a group in front of me. The nature of the game Meath they actually had to move, to avoid getting crushed or smashed, they'd all be on the move, often in different directions. Since I can't target them, I have to actually pay attention to what they are doing, so that I can get close enough to get a heal lock on them or throw a healing aoe on them. It also meant I wasn't just standing back watching health bars, I was running around, dodging monsters, blasting the sometimes, and generally playing as though I too was really part of the fight.

In many dungeons there were also traps to avoid, and in several there were monsters that didn't move, but either struck thinks in an area around them or created a storm or something at a location, so just dodging around to keep your team alive was just as exciting and frantic as the fight. That's what made it so fun, there was nothing passive about the gameplay.

Now because of the different mechanics for PFO this isn't directly copyable, and perhaps even could be a bit easier, but I think anything that keeps you focused on the game rather than the healthbars is a definite bonus to a game. You should be paying attention to what is going on in the world, and solid targeting, assists and tabs tends to take away from that. The game tends to degenerate into "follow the leader and keep him targeted." You end up hardly actually doing anything at all except bashing keys in whatever sequence you find best works over and over for hours. And suddenly you realise "I have been doing exactly the same thing for three weeks with no variation" and suddenly the game is boring, and the "variety" is that this skin and model you're fighting a attack is red rather than swiping lines and the damage debuff it gives you is a DOT rather than reducing your damage, and again you realise that even though the attacks and creatures are different, you're facing the same thing over and over again with no real variation.

TERA did fall into that too, and it became that the dungeons and bosses were the only varied content, but that may also have been because in modern mmos you look over an area and you see the same 2 monsters over and over as far as the eye can see that do the same things over and over, and you do the same things over and over.

So as a side issue, I'm hoping we see variety in monsters, you know, them carrying different weapons, having different arrays of skills, a bit of randomization in their stats, this one might be a bit stronger than that one you fought and use different weapons. That was the beauty of UO, there was randomization, you'd fight more different things in an area, their stats, colours and weapons would vary even when they were the same monster, and monster types would also vary. Eg in a ratmen dungeon, you'd get ratmen, archers and mages, and they all had names rather than "a ratman Mage" or "an Orc" and "an Orc captain", and there would be other things that could spawn, not just the same things in the same place, but I digress...

Goblin Squad Member

Far and away the best system for combat I've seen is Dark Souls, a neat improvement over the earlier Demon's Souls.

  • It allows you to lock-on to a target within a reasonable distance that you can see.
  • Locking on immediately provides a point of reference from which your movement is based upon.
  • You can roll forward/back/sideways in an effort to get out of the way of getting hit.
  • The same lock on provides a reference for spells to be aimed at, as well as ranged weapons such as longbow and crossbow.

While I doubt this would provide the best fit for something like PFO, I definitely think it offers a very promising point from which to start from. The rest of the system handled how much damage was taken when you were hit, how much damage you dealt when you hit someone, etc.. but a lot of the system relied on proper positioning.

Goblin Squad Member

I think it's perfectly reasonable to look at how different systems handle things and come up with the best fit for PFO from a blending of styles if that's what turns out to fit best. I think showing various systems and how they work as we've done in this thread is a good way to get the sort of spirit of combat, take the features that will work and replace the ones that won't from a variety of systems.

So I don't think it's a case of "TERA or dark souls or eq" I think it's about finding the happy medium that best suits what they are trying to achieve.


Darcnes wrote:

Far and away the best system for combat I've seen is Dark Souls, a neat improvement over the earlier Demon's Souls.

  • It allows you to lock-on to a target within a reasonable distance that you can see.
  • Locking on immediately provides a point of reference from which your movement is based upon.
  • You can roll forward/back/sideways in an effort to get out of the way of getting hit.
  • The same lock on provides a reference for spells to be aimed at, as well as ranged weapons such as longbow and crossbow.

While I doubt this would provide the best fit for something like PFO, I definitely think it offers a very promising point from which to start from. The rest of the system handled how much damage was taken when you were hit, how much damage you dealt when you hit someone, etc.. but a lot of the system relied on proper positioning.

Have you seen this on a video? I don't have a PS3, so can't check the game out. But it does sound promising as a template.

Goblin Squad Member

Meh. It sounds pretty "twitchy" to me.

Goblin Squad Member

@Valandur I've played a few hundred hours of Demon's/Dark Souls .. Dark Souls is on PS3 / 360 / PC. At its finest it rewards skill above all, at its simplest it is easy to understand and effective to employ, as well as being easy to use in group situations.

@Drakhan While I would love to see the responsiveness this system offers, if Tera qualifies as "twitchy" then I'm sure this one would as well. My point was that the combat system was exceedingly well crafted and the design team ought to take a few cues from it when coming up with an end product. I believe I said "point from which to start from".

@Devs If you don't want a combat system like Tera for being too twitchy, something derived from this could be a good compromise. It offers a style of play for those inclined to squeeze out every ounce of performance; as well as for those not inclined to do so, in using the lock-on for easy target acquisition, which can lead to simple back and forth combat that could still be effective against the performance buffs when adapted to a slower style of play. It also has the value of being a 1:1 for attacks. No auto-combat; if you want to attack, you push a button. Ditch the dodging and stamina systems and put in whatever pace of combat you desire.

Goblin Squad Member

Personally I prefer a little bit of twitch to dodge and parry, to a passive "chance to evade" or parry... Probably because they ARE twitchy things. Isn't that what dodging is? But at the same time I recognize that it's not always the best system for everyone, not everyone has a good connection (myself for one) and not everyone is good or interested in twitch. Although it still doesn't have to be hugely twitchy if you have a decent amount if time to respond.

So while I like it for some things, I'm not gonna advocate it. Even the TERA/raiderZ system isn't spectacular. It works, but it's not brilliant. I do really like that the primary form of attack for boars in raiders is to charge at you, knock you over and slash/trample you, so bracing or dodging makes perfect sense... Much more than just a saving throw that means they missed. To me it's nicer, but not everyone's favored mechanic.

Goblin Squad Member

Jameow wrote:
I'm not sure where you got that, the only thing I've seen on targeting system is Ryan saying "tab targeting has been done to death"

So you didn't actually read the full quote? He wasn't even the one who said what you quoted, he just agreed with it.

Drakhan Valane wrote:
It's also the most accessible system. Y'know, for those of us who have trouble aiming (perhaps due to disabilities). I'd like my hero to be better at keeping track of combat than I am. She's a professional, after all.

Dumbing down a game to make it accessible to everyone doesn't make it exciting or fun at all. There's tons of shovelware games produced every year that are super-easy for anyone to pick up and play, but they never get Game of the Year awards. Facebook games are very accessible but completely uninteresting to me as a gamer.

Dario wrote:
Sounds sort of like the system Tabula Rasa ran with five years ago. That system was fun.

A game so fun they had to shut down the servers because people were having too much fun!

Drakhan Valane wrote:
Meh. It sounds pretty "twitchy" to me.

Auto-aim systems are far more "twitchy" in regards to reaction time than manual aiming systems. EVE is a great example.

Think about it:

You do x amount of damage. Enemy does x amount of damage.

Whoever locks on and starts attacking sooner will always win, if we ignore RNG factors, because there is no way to get an edge on your opponent by aiming better or avoiding attacks. Player skill is a non-factor.

This, of course, is also a great aid to goldfarmers and botters. A huge burden of programming is removed as the game can take very simple instructions to operate optimally.

Another set of players that get great benefit are those who are bad at the game but have played it longer, or are bad at the game but looks up a build online of the currently most OP whatever and just uses that.

If you reduce gameplay to simply pressing tab and 1234 on your keyboard, you put a much greater stress on game design and especially balance. You also have to add a ton of different attacks for every type of character, no matter if he's just plinking enemies with arrows or casting incredible spells, because otherwise the gameplay just gets too boring.

Another factor to think about is sneakiness. Sneakiness is impossible if you can just tab target and get a target indicator or even a simple error saying "target out of range". In a game without targeting you can be sneaky, hide in foilage, dress like the background, etc, to make enemies not see you. In a game like WoW you will easily detect people no matter what.

Auto-aiming is a sad old relic that needs to die. It brings so much more limitations and hassle than the problems it solves are worth. I want fights to be decided as I'm fighting and not based on spreadsheets done weeks beforehand.

Goblin Squad Member

I did read it, but I didn't commit it to memory.

So you don't think Ryan agreeing tab targeting has been done to death means they would like to try something else?

That's kinda like expecting a theme park when he says sandboxes are the future. I think it's a strange interpretation.

I don't think they have decided, or they would just up and tell us what they have in mind. There have been about 6 or 7 threads in the past 2 months covering combat, and no official line on what they have in mind. Maybe they were waiting on finalizing middleware to announce it though, who knows.


I think they won't know till they begin coding the combat mechanisms. Ryan mentioned they will be utilizing a bunch of other programs to help make the game. Who knows, one of those might provide a combat suite they can just plug in and tweak where desired. We might be able to get an idea where they want to go with certain combat aspects by submitting a video question though.

Goblin Squad Member

Jameow wrote:

I did read it, but I didn't commit it to memory.

So you don't think Ryan agreeing tab targeting has been done to death means they would like to try something else?

That's kinda like expecting a theme park when he says sandboxes are the future. I think it's a strange interpretation.

I don't think they have decided, or they would just up and tell us what they have in mind. There have been about 6 or 7 threads in the past 2 months covering combat, and no official line on what they have in mind. Maybe they were waiting on finalizing middleware to announce it though, who knows.

Since honesty isn't your strong suit, I'll provide the full quote:

Ryan Dancey wrote:
Valkenr wrote:
The target/ability bar has really been done to death and i think a lot of people are looking for a new feel.

I don't disagree with that. I think there's a huge design space to be explored. We just won't be exploring the one where you aim with player skill and twitch in response to stimuli.

How you can question whether or not there will be auto-aim after this quote is beyond me. I mean I hope you are right and that this isn't another EQ clone, but everything sounds so far (and looks like it in the tech demo) like another EQ/WoW/SWTOR/Rift/Aion/etc/etc affair when it comes to the fighting:

Something most people buy, play the first free month, then go back to WoW once the next expansion comes out. PVP rulesets and all that is nice, but does it keep people interested more than a solid, exciting combat system does? If you want auto-aim, there's one game that everyone plays, has tons of content both PVE and PVP, polished for almost a decade and hasn't budged from the #1 spot since forever.

Almost all hype I hear about new MMORPGs are about the combat. Tera and GW2 most recently were supposed to turn away from the boring old auto-aim style, but of course neither delivered what it promised. Why should people be excited about playing WoW in a different skin with slightly different rules? Is Pathfinder more recognizable than Star Wars, which flopped dramatically?

Valandur wrote:
I think they won't know till they begin coding the combat mechanisms. Ryan mentioned they will be utilizing a bunch of other programs to help make the game. Who knows, one of those might provide a combat suite they can just plug in and tweak where desired. We might be able to get an idea where they want to go with certain combat aspects by submitting a video question though.

Can you give an example of such a middleware? I've not heard of any licensed combat systems like that.

Goblin Squad Member

Wow. rude.

I don't consider TERA to be "aim with player skill" for one. It doesn't take skill, it's harder to miss your target than to hit it, but it's more interactive than tabbing.

A little twitchy perhaps, but then you could argue cures for DoTs is twitchy too.

Goblin Squad Member

Trikk wrote:

Auto-aim systems are far more "twitchy" in regards to reaction time than manual aiming systems. EVE is a great example.

Think about it:

You do x amount of damage. Enemy does x amount of damage.

Whoever locks on and starts attacking sooner will always win, if we ignore RNG factors, because there is no way to get an edge on your opponent by aiming better or avoiding attacks. Player skill is a non-factor.

This, of course, is also a great aid to goldfarmers and botters. A huge burden of programming is removed as the game can take very simple instructions to operate optimally.

Another set of players that get great benefit are those who are bad at the game but have played it longer, or are bad at the game but looks up a build online of the currently most OP whatever and just uses that.

If you reduce gameplay to simply pressing tab and 1234 on your keyboard, you put a much greater stress on game design and especially balance. You also have to add a ton of different attacks for every type of character, no matter if he's just plinking enemies with arrows or casting incredible spells, because otherwise the gameplay just gets too boring.

Another factor to think about is sneakiness. Sneakiness is impossible if you can just tab target and get a target indicator or even a simple error saying "target out of range". In a game without targeting you can be sneaky, hide in foilage, dress like the background, etc, to make enemies not see you. In a game like WoW you will easily detect people no matter what.

Auto-aiming is a sad old relic that needs to die. It brings so much more limitations and hassle than the problems it solves are worth. I want fights to be decided as I'm fighting and not based on spreadsheets done weeks beforehand.

Agree with all these points. Tab-target is too much of a half-way house imo: Not dynamic and not as interesting as turn-based for decisions and analysis of your opponent's options affecting your own and vica-versa.

The small caveat that sandbox has more interactions than just combat is true, but nonetheless combat is still a very big slice of the cake. ;)

As said above (Valandur), various factors mean it's further down development how combat will be in part Middleware and in part how all the various combat scenarios are considered. I do like the idea that balance is not the essential principle given the numerous variables that will contribute to combat. :)

Also Trikk, no need to question Jameow's honesty: Keep it genial moight! ;)

Goblin Squad Member

Trikk wrote:

It's sad that his will be an auto-aim MMORPG, the least exciting combat system possible. I kinda feared that it would be, due to the backgrounds of the creators from Spreadsheets in Space which has possibly the least entertaining combat of any MMORPG.

If you want an auto-aim MMORPG you play World of Warcraft. Release after release of high budget games have shown us that. Even if you get literally millions of pre-orders, once the free month is done, everyone goes back to WoW.

Another issue is of course that you have a full PvP ruleset in which time played trumps everything because there's very limited player skill involved. How you built your character will be more important than being able to aim your abilities and dodge incoming attacks.

I'm just glad I didn't pledge yet (looking for announcements on the combat system was partly reason why) and I'll be sure to wait for reviews before getting this game. Many people here seem eager to support and purchase due to brand loyalty alone.

I totally see where you are coming from, here. But the rest of the design is awesome and there IS a chance combat is going to be interesting (& the fact they can't confirm that much so soon in development), so I pitch in personally. I also hope to provide my preference opinions for combat also that it may influence it for the positive directions.

(Also happy to finally hear about the Middleware (another big factor and expect more in today's blog posting)).


Trikk wrote:


How you can question whether or not there will be auto-aim after this quote is beyond me. I mean I hope you are right and that this isn't another EQ clone, but everything sounds so far (and looks like it in the tech demo) like another EQ/WoW/SWTOR/Rift/Aion/etc/etc affair when it comes to the fighting

Huh? The tech demo was created to secure the funding for the game. Not to showcase their graphics, combat or mob AI. Likely they shouldn't have ever shown it to potential players but being the cool guys they are, they went ahead and put it out there. From the start they laid all this out, but if your jumping in here without looking at all the info you wouldn't know that. Also the tech demo did not use anything software, or middleware wise that they will use to build the game. They are just now getting the software finalized prior to beginning work creating the game.

Quote:
Combat middleware

I'm not aware of any either. But I'm not a game designer so that's not surprising.

Goblin Squad Member

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I think you could approach targetting rather differently than is common, even using traditional tab or auto target acquisition methodologies.

When the player focuses on a target, instead of making all attacks strike that target alone no matter the actual facing of the character, you might just build it so that the character is always facing the target at the distance optimal to the weaponry being used (in the case of melee, or within optimal range for projectile weaponry or ranged spellcasting. Proximity-based spells should be treated as melee weaponry. The player could manually dodge back out of optimal range but would stride back asap. A lateral dodge would still describe are arc around the target, and a strafe would also arc around the target while keeping the autofacing orientation unless the player specifically used, say, the right&ctrl key to suspend autofacing.

Character collisions should be effective, such that if I try to doge laterally but another player, monster, or wall is in the way I would not dodge effectively. I would be blocked from that dodge attempt.

The damage, in the case of melee, should depend on attack type: slashes/bashes are a local cone damage. Thrusts should be target-specific, but may inadvertantly strike anyone jumping into the way.

Pole arms would target similarly, but with a longer arc or range.

Grand Lodge Goblin Squad Member

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I treat games like this as a social and strategy game, not a reflex game. While there are certain elements of skill in choosing how to move and when to press buttons it shouldn't dominate combat or game-play in general.

I'm a huge fan of attacks of opportunity being in the game where moving too quickly around a threatened space would mean taking more damage. The idea that running circles around someone in a real combat situation would be more helpful than not is ludicrous.

I play reflex games all the time, but a majority of my friends do not, and as a social game I'd rather have the game be open and comfortable to play for everyone. Reward good skill use and smart play, not button pressing reflexes.

In tabletop you generally aren't rewarded for how quickly you roll the dice.

Goblin Squad Member

Valandur wrote:
Huh? The tech demo was created to secure the funding for the game. Not to showcase their graphics, combat or mob AI. Likely they shouldn't have ever shown it to potential players but being the cool guys they are, they went ahead and put it out there. From the start they laid all this out, but if your jumping in here without looking at all the info you wouldn't know that. Also the tech demo did not use anything software, or middleware wise that they will use to build the game. They are just now getting the software finalized prior to beginning work creating the game.

I have a few issues with this:

- tech demo clearly uses stock Unity assets and was likely built in that engine
- the whole purpose of a tech demo is to demo... the tech...
- why would someone fund a game based on a non-representative tech demo?

Being wrote:
When the player focuses on a target, instead of making all attacks strike that target alone no matter the actual facing of the character, you might just build it so that the character is always facing the target at the distance optimal to the weaponry being used (in the case of melee, or within optimal range for projectile weaponry or ranged spellcasting. Proximity-based spells should be treated as melee weaponry. The player could manually dodge back out of optimal range but would stride back asap. A lateral dodge would still describe are arc around the target, and a strafe would also arc around the target while keeping the autofacing orientation unless the player specifically used, say, the right&ctrl key to suspend autofacing.

This is sort of a mix between the Dark Souls system mentioned earlier and, again, EVE Online where you usually "orbit" the enemy and activate your weapons.

The less execution is a factor, the more mechanical dominance you will see. This might sound fun as you can scrape goblins from your boots, but in a PVP environment this could be extremely enervating.

Just imagine if some notoriously big bad meanie group like Somethings Are Aweful's goonies would amass a large amount of power. How would you stop them?

Of course, if the game is more favored to player skill the reverse could also be true, that your mighty cavalier of the order of the cockatrice gets run into the ground by a commoner with a club, but at least then there is a chance to improve. A mechanical advantage is just there regardless of what you do and is just frustrating.

Athansor wrote:
I treat games like this as a social and strategy game, not a reflex game. While there are certain elements of skill in choosing how to move and when to press buttons it shouldn't dominate combat or game-play in general.

As a social game, there's The Big Name and everything else is irrelevant. I still fail to see how Pathfinder would be more popular than Star Wars. Everyone always thinks that the next auto-aim MMORPG will be the one that slays WoW because of this neat feature that WoW lacks and then it completely fails to and everyone acts surprised or confused.

Meanwhile there are tons of thriving online games without auto-aim that are doing great. It seems obvious what the proper approach is. I like WoW and would probably enjoy WoW with a different ruleset too, but not if nobody plays it. That's the key issue here: can you get everyone who likes auto-aim fantasy/melee MMORPGs (who right now most likely play WoW) to abandon their game for more than a free month. It has yet to happen.

Also, as I said earlier, reflexes/reaction time actually becomes more important if all attacks aim for you automatically. In Mount & Blade, the player to swing first or shoot an arrow first doesn't win. If you have a cheat that lets you hit every attack though, then reaction time is the sole factor that determines the victor.

Auto-aim combat is not at all "more casual" in that way, neither does it put less emphasis on choosing when to use abilities. In fact, it is way more important to use an ability as fast as possible, to counter or dispel something as fast as possible, to react immediately to an ambush. Once you are down in the HP race, it's much harder to recover.

Goblin Squad Member

Trikk wrote:
..Just imagine if some notoriously big bad meanie group like...

If I am rolled by a big bad meanie group it will matter little what targetting mechanism I use.

Would you expand your point using a better scaled encounter please?

Goblin Squad Member

Trikk wrote:
- tech demo clearly uses stock Unity assets and was likely built in that engine
Lisa Stevens wrote:
Suijin wrote:
Was the tech demo made using Unity?

No. Details about this in Wednesday blog.

-Lisa

Grand Lodge Goblin Squad Member

I'm not sure why Pathfinder would have to be more popular than star wars to be relevant. These days my friends are all split. Very few of the people I played WoW with upon release are still playing wow today, and most are unsatisfied with the changes and the lack of character customization from the last few expansions. I have friends playing Secret World, Guild Wars 2, torchlight 2, and Rift right now. All separately and all having a good time in their individual games.

There's this perception that in order to be successful any mmo release has to be the WoW-killer, the next big thing, but that's not accurate. Rift is a very successful MMO and they're almost a carbon copy of WoW features and gameplay.

Having Eve and Ultima Online features in a game with WoW style gameplay would be fine and it would carve it's own corner out of the market. That's not what goblin works is going for and there will be further innovations that make Pathfinder unique.

They don't need to reinvent the wheel, just have fun rolling theirs down the hill.

Ultimately I believe that Auto-aim or no auto-aim will make very little difference in the relevancy of the game and building the online community and social game that they're trying to make. I personally prefer that the game is auto-aim for the simple fact that in my experience getting friends addicted to games it's much more fun for the large majority of people to adapt to mastering skill sets and which buttons to push rather than adjusting to the frustrations of reflexive movement and aiming properly.


Drakhan Valane wrote:
Trikk wrote:
- tech demo clearly uses stock Unity assets and was likely built in that engine
Lisa Stevens wrote:
Suijin wrote:
Was the tech demo made using Unity?

No. Details about this in Wednesday blog.

-Lisa

Ah thanks Drakhan, saves me the trouble of linking that :).

Quote:
- why would someone fund a game based on a non-representative tech demo?

Why don't you ask GW's investors?

Goblin Squad Member

Valandur wrote:
Quote:
- why would someone fund a game based on a non-representative tech demo?
Why don't you ask GW's investors?

That's us, Val =P

Goblin Squad Member

Dario wrote:
Valandur wrote:
Quote:
- why would someone fund a game based on a non-representative tech demo?
Why don't you ask GW's investors?
That's us, Val =P

No it isn't. Goblinworks has secured funding from other groups to make the game. This Kickstarter is just to help it along faster.

Goblin Squad Member

@Drakhan, we're not the only ones, they certainly have significant traditional capital funding as well, but we *are* investing based on the tech demo produced, and the blogs and feedback of the developers.

Goblin Squad Member

Valandur's point was that the "real" investors haven't just pitched in $5000 dollars a piece. They've put in a lot more. It takes a lot more faith to give over $100,000 than it does to pitch in $100 on a kickstarter.


Drakhan Valane wrote:
Valandur's point was that the "real" investors haven't just pitched in $5000 dollars a piece. They've put in a lot more. It takes a lot more faith to give over $100,000 than it does to pitch in $100 on a kickstarter.

Yep, that's what I meant.

Patio is one investor, but they also secured other investors with the tech demo who's investment will allow them to make the game. But it'll take a lot longer. With the KS they can hire more people which will drastically reduce the development time. God knows what the total investment costs, in the millions at least. Maybe more, I'm not a game designer.

Goblin Squad Member

My 2 coppers,

I would like PFO to be challenging from the standpoint of the player determing effective tactics to use in a given situation, I would NOT like PFO to be challenging in terms of the player relaying his INTENT through the interface to the system. In fact, anything that makes it EASIER for the player to relay his INTENT is desirable (IMO).

I've played plenty of FPS games that are all about aiming and manual dexterity and enjoyed them but I don't want PFO to be that sort of game.

I therefore would be in favor of tab-targeting as I believe it provides an EASIER way for the player to relay his INTENT to the system.

Note that I really think we are talking about 2 seperate issues...the GUI or how the player relays his intent (tab targeting or click targeting) to the system and what the players character is actualy able to DO within the system.

Just because you can use tab to select targets does NOT mean the character has line of effect to attack any given target.

Modern and well programmed MMO's can and do make calculations whether a character can take a given action on a given target. If you have a target selected that is across the field from you...you can't bonk them with your sword. If you have a target selected that's on the other side of a wall from you....most MMO's won't let you shoot at them. There are even MMO's that do use real-world physics models (WWII Online, Planetside, etc) including bullet drop.

Now alot is going to be dependant upon what the capabilties are of the engine that PFO is using....and that I just don't know at this point.

But things like concentrated fire aren't GUI problems, they are combat system problems. For example, why would everyone be able to have a valid line of effect to 1 goblin shaman in the back of a mob of goblins?
Using aimed selecting doesn't solve that issue...it just narrows it to groups of players with greater manual dexterity?

Heck, in many PnP games I often didn't allow ranged characters to fire through squares occupied by other characters (obviously these were different rulesets). The question of whether that is/should be possible or not is a gameplay (and technology) question....not a GUI question.

Goblin Squad Member

It may be a relatively trivial exercise to allow the player to select their targetting mode preference.

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