Goblin Squad Member
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So this game will already have a strong PvP focus creating a higher barrier to entry than most MMOs. Adding a reactive dimension to combat would raise the bar even higher but also provide something that other MMOs for the most part lack.
For example, the selection circle at a mob's base will glow red indicating it's about to attack. This would give you about a second to hit a hotkey that readies a defensive maneuver. If you succeed, you parry the mob's attack and break its defenses for a couple seconds, allowing you to retaliate with a devastating counterattack. This would probably be made less ez-mode in PvP by removing the glowing red circle by forcing you to focus on what the player is actually doing and having the proper muscle memory to hit the corresponding hotkey. (To practice for this when fighting mobs, you would be able to turn off UI attack indicators in settings.)
To prevent abuse of this, use of this sort of ability would perhaps be limited to once every 10-15 seconds. I think a cool way to implement this would be to change what WASD does in combat if you hold down the left and right click buttons simultaneously. If you're a "fighter" type character for instance, you might see something like this on the screen:
|- pre-emptive counter
W
parry left - A S D - parry right
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reactive counter
Where a pre-emptive counter is a lightning quick strike that interrupts the enemy's attack, breaks their defenses and advances you forward; parry left and right are defensive abilities that block the incoming attack and reposition you to the left or right; and reactive counter is a maneuver that causes you to dart backward dodging the enemy's blow and then quickly counterattack during that vulnerable moment where they have missed you and need to reposition their weapon.
I would be over the moon if something like this could be implemented, as it would put an end to the button-mashing fest that is MMO combat today.
Would you guys like to see something like this? Would it be feasible? If you wouldn't like something like this, why not?
Note that reactive abilities could extend to things like counterspells, sudden defensive/healing spells, and other things.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would be over the moon if something like this could be implemented, as it would put an end to the button-mashing fest that is MMO combat today.
That is a blight that hit gaming about 10 years ago now. It has a number of sources. One issue is marketing people seemed to have realized that there are a lot of people out there prepared to pay if they can be awesome without actually needing to learn or do anything. Another is reviewers who are too lazy to learn a complex challenging game before reviewing it.
The "dumbed down" to sell well issue has effected offline gaming as well and is partly why Pathfinder (which remained challenging) became so successful.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Would you guys like to see something like this? Would it be feasible? If you wouldn't like something like this, why not?
As long as it's not excessively twitchy (this is supposed to be an RPG, not an action game, after all) then I'm fine with an deep combat system using counters and such.
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twitch fest is the first thing i thought of while reading this. I like games as much as the next guy but I'm to damn old to play twitch games with 10 yr olds
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Goblin Squad Member
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yeah it does sound twitchy...
However, it seems like they have a different system in mind (see the blog. They talked about you getting an amount of action points in 6 seconds to use for your actions.) that doesn't really involve so much twitching (as it sounds like just finding the skills you want to use) as it does strategy.
On that note, I think it would be interesting for there to be a parry option (as you've said) you can spend the "AP" on for which if you do successfully parry, your opponent loses that attack and you do some more damage. With that said, I think combat could involve some form of rock paper scissors so that people don't just queue up parry only. For example, you could do parry (slash) to parry slashing attacks or parry (bludgeoning) to parry bludgeoning. Blocking could work similarly, although with a shield, it might be better (despite the low AC the PnP version of Pathfinder gives for shields, shields can have a big impact in melee)
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With the countering out of the way, I really think that something similar to the surprise round in PnP could be used for engaging. As in if you are aware of an aggressor, they would get no bonuses, but if they manage to sneak up on you, they could get a small round of actions (maybe instead of the 6 seconds worth of AP, they'd get 2 or 3 seconds worth of AP to do surprise attacks or the like.)
No clue how this would work, but I did think of maybe if you see someone suspicious, you could right click them and choose a "Suspicious" option in which if they attack you, they don't get a surprise round. To exclude twitch, I was thinking of it could have a short "casting" time (wouldn't interrupt any actions and wouldn't show an animation) which when it's done, you'd be aware if they start combat against you (or alternatively, someone else for guards.) I would think, depending on the characters' skills, the target may or may not know that they are "suspected" (Thinking along the lines of a chat line: "Merchant is suspicious of you." This may also last only so long (a minute or more) and can be renewed every so often (say near the end of the duration.)
Just my thoughts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Twitch gaming + a 3000 player battle = death by lag.
Not worried though, Pretty sure based on Dev quotes that twitch will not be a factor in PFO.
Edit: Found the post I was thinking of here.
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.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wouldn't like to see abilities that are reactive on this level. What I would like to see is abilities that give major rewards for not sticking to a set damage rotation, and punish those who do.
The abilities I like to give as an example are from the original GW:
"Backfire" for X seconds whenever the target of this hex casts a spell they take a CRAP TON of damage.
"Sheilding Hand" the next damage the target of this enchantment would receive is done as healing instead.
"Healing Hands" for the next X seconds target is healed (moderate amount) every time they take damage.
So if you are just sitting there going "A,B,C,A,B,C,A,B,C,D" and not compensating or reacting to these kind of abilities, you could kill yourself, or heal your target for a ton of health.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you read this blog post, it's actually sounds pretty cool. Here's the proposed combat system.
A Three-Headed Hydra
Still something to note: Everything in the blog is subject to change. This is just the most recent thing about the combat system.
I think they have a point on making it not twitch-based. It eliminates player skill, so combat is based on character skill (and I guess player strategy.)
I like twitch based games. For one thing, it cuts down on macroing, and boring repetition. Also, I'm too young to play bridge at the old folks' home ;)
I'd bet i was playing Avatar and Moria on CERL/PLATO before many of the people here were a glimmer in dad's eye :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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So if you are just sitting there going "A,B,C,A,B,C,A,B,C,D" and not compensating or reacting to these kind of abilities, you could kill yourself, or heal your target for a ton of health.
Patterns of pixels on the screen showing specific buffs/debuffs will not lead to me pressing "A,B,C,A,B,C,A,B,C,D", but rather just "A", then sit back and watch. The .ahk macro will decide the rest, and do it with better timing and coordination than I could personally manage.
if the systen takes one command every "x" seconds and stores commands in a cue, so a macro could work, would also be a death trap without a method to instantly clear that cue. No clear = no macros
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Goblin Squad Member
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A pause and/or reload hotkey is is a fundamental part of any .ahk script. No matter what you're doing, you pretty much always start with that. Theoretically you could write a script without that, but that would be foolish.
It can also be programed to stop whenever a specified criteria disappears.
I've written macros that repeatedly run quests over and over in DDO. Your xp per run drops each time you repeat a quest, but that penalty bottoms out after 20 runs, and a 90% penalty still amounts to a little slice of xp, which is plenty if it's not taking any of your own personal time.
I've levelled up a TR character in DDO through level 4 without completing a single quest myself - all macro'd. And I'm not a professional programmer either. Given that, responding to specific buffs/debuffs, or a simple stop key or scenario is a piece of cake. Anybody here on these forums can have it figured out in not time by just reading up on .ahk
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Goblin Squad Member
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So if you are just sitting there going "A,B,C,A,B,C,A,B,C,D" and not compensating or reacting to these kind of abilities, you could kill yourself, or heal your target for a ton of health.Patterns of pixels on the screen showing specific buffs/debuffs will not lead to me pressing "A,B,C,A,B,C,A,B,C,D", but rather just "A", then sit back and watch. The .ahk macro will decide the rest, and do it with better timing and coordination than I could personally manage.
But when these kinds of abilities are frequent and powerful enough your reactions to them make up a significant part of combat. Because there are so few skills you have access at a time if you set up your abilities to do nothing but amazing damage rotations you don't have a very good arsenal of reactive abilities.
You can be a good player if you set up your abilities to all work off of each other but the GREAT players work off of what their opponents do.
When a great player comes up against a good player, the good player does their rotation, and the great player disrupts a central ability then does something to convert their huge finisher blow into healing.
When a great player comes up against a great player, they don't have a rotation dependent on that disrupted ability, and they likely traded that massive finisher blow for a bag full of tricks or wait to use it until right after you just blew your counter to it.
I'm not sure how Guild Wars 2 was, but I was very impressed with just how skill based Guild Wars while still being tab targeted. I still favor smart targeting over tab targeting but Guild Wars is a good game to look to when trying to make ability based combat that can't be macroed very effectively.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yea like others have quoted, dont expect actiony/reactiony/twitchy combat. For this game Id like my numbers to matter. And mix it in with a broad set of skills and abilities, but with the strategy to use them in unique and different ways, all while limiting my load out selection to about a dozen or so abilities (makes you think about the situation and what abilities you NEED most for that particular event).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yea like others have quoted, dont expect actiony/reactiony/twitchy combat. For this game Id like my numbers to matter. And mix it in with a broad set of skills and abilities, but with the strategy to use them in unique and different ways, all while limiting my load out selection to about a dozen or so abilities (makes you think about the situation and what abilities you NEED most for that particular event).
I know Ryan has said some things that indicate they wont be doing much that way, but I'm still going to make my wants clear - and that is for both character and player numbers to matter.
@Andius you're just talking more complex macros. Anything a player does different will come with pixels on your/their status bar to show what has changed. If you look into .ahk macros, you'll see they can be written with if/and/else expressions that can check your screen for those buffs/debuffs and use that. Combine that with a little number crunching to determine ahead of time the best reaction to every symbol that may appear on yours or your target's status bar, and you have a macro that always does the right thing at the right time. The only way around that is at least slightly action based combat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Your macro will never be able to react to every situation like a human could. Lets say I have a light debuff with a fairly fast cool down that makes you bleed. "Deep Wound" well say. Now a common cookie cutter Barbarian build works off of deep wound to to use other abilities that do very nasty thing if your target is bleeding. So your macro is set to always cast "cure condition" on that. My druid hits you with his spear inflicting a deep wound. You auto/remove it. But I was using it as a ploy to get you to blow your cure condition. He then follows it up with "Collar of thorns" spells with verbal components take twice as long to cast and deal 300 damage per second while casting. You are a mainly verbal caster sooo..... A human is not going to make that mistake again. Your macro... will fall for it every time.
Also, there will always be some people who use macros and other outside programs to get an edge no matter what you do. In Darkfall there were macros to jump up in the air, turn 180 degrees, fire a fireball (small AoE knock back w/ decent damage) behind you and continue to turn until you reached a full 360 degrees and landed facing forward. And then of course there were the aimbots and ways to intentionally create lag spikes.
Macos should be the easiest to detect actually, because the time interval between actions is always the same. I think GW should perma-ban people using non-aprooved outside programs as they find them being abused and the problem should be pretty minimal.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If a human won't make a given mistake again, then the human can program the macro not to. Like I said, as long as you know the correct way to respond to any given icon, then so can a macro. If the "correct" way to respond is to not fall for a specific ploy, then it can be programmed.
Keep a list of possible scenarios: when A happens, respond like this. If B happens, depending on whether A and/or C have happened, respond like this. That's the play method you're talking about without macros, but the thing is, that's all you need to do with a macro as well. The macro will reflect the skill/knowledge of the person who wrote it - only it will be quicker and more consistent.
The above is of course depending on the assumption that the game uses status bars and icons to show different effects. Failing that, it might be possible to read the combat log. If there's no combat log, and no fixed position on screen where effects can be sought (and they can be sought in multiple places using if/or expressions), then it may not be possible to macro it with AHK, but otherwise it can recognize any situation, any trap, any ploy its programmer could recognized.
The time interval is not always the same. This was one of the issues I had to work around to macro quests in DDO. AHK can give very accurate time intervals for keystrokes, but the server lag always meant there was a slight difference each time in what the server received, which meant pressing the forward button for a precise time did not always translate to moving the same distance. Hard to notice while playing with your fingers, but very noticeable when macroing. I got around that in DDO by walking further than needed into corners to set an exact position, turning only when absolutely necessary, and using occasional cues in game to readjust my heading from time to time.
Also, if timing is an issue, the wait times between keystrokes can be randomly varied.
I really doubt that will be an issue though, as GMs will have to pay some very serious attention to minute detail to even suspect something like that. Seems doubtful given what Ryan's said about not expecting to have a ton of GMs.
And since AHK doesn't interact with the game client, but merely simulates keystrokes and mouse operations, and reads screen pixels rather than info sent to the game client, there is no way for the server or client to detect it. A policy aimed at people using outside programs would more likely just hurt people using Logitech keyboards or mouses.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Having said all that, if the game involves a lot of cycling through hotkeys then macros will likely start off as just a single key that you hold down to go through a given cycle.
If combat gets more complex, then the simple cycles will serve as starting points to build up more elaborate responses to more complex scenarios.
Just take a screenshot when something new happens, and work out how to read and respond to it based off of color and location later on.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Blaeringr
I can't tell if you're trolling or not.
I sure as heck hope that those macro's are not going to work because turning combat into a cyber macro programming war doesn't sound that attractive to me.
Buy a macro, leave you computer running, level up endlessly. Make sure you leave the screen off to save power. Doesn't sound like something I'd be interested in :/
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Meadhros nope not trolling.
It would take time, but as long as there are visual cues in a set location to what's happening to your character (and ideally what's happening to your target), then it's very possible to make such scripts work and to make them work well.
Now since PFO will be more PvP oriented, and you train skills in real time, not based on how much you play, you won't level up any faster. So it won't make sense to write stuff to level you up faster.
But if combat is anything like Guild Wars, or WoW, where you cycle through hotkeys and wait for cooldowns, and wait for specific things to happen, then players using macros/scripts will have a slight edge.
And it may also make sense to have a script for low risk/low volume resource gathering as well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If a human won't make a given mistake again, then the human can program the macro not to. Like I said, as long as you know the correct way to respond to any given icon, then so can a macro. If the "correct" way to respond is to not fall for a specific ploy, then it can be programmed.
But see how would you respond to it? If that cookie cutter barbarian uses it, then you really should remove the condition because it's central to their build. Having it removed means all their abilities that gain extra effects if the target is bleeding only have a normal effect.
My druid is only using it because it's a cheap ability with decent damage that is likely to cause you to blow your condition removal early.
Given this game is unlikely to specify classes how will your program know what to do? My builds are always original and usually unique so it won't be like you see druids doing this all the time.
A player can look and say "Hey he's wearing all fur and leather and has a wolf. He's some form of a druid!" Will your program be able to identify that? With any type of armor, on any type of character, from any angle?
What will your program do if you face a druid/barbarian that actually does make heavy use of that condition?
Replace this barbarian in this scenario with another druid with a different build.
This game will have hundreds of class combinations, likely hundreds of abilities per class, and thousands upon thousands of character builds that can be played millions of different ways.
In the end you are left with 3 options:
1. Have the program run much slower than human reaction time due to the amount of information it constantly has to be processing.
2. Buy a super computer.
3. Have a program that only knows how to react to commonly used cookie cutter builds.
If you want to make a program that dominates cookie cutters then have at it. I would actually consider that a good thing. And it wouldn't hurt me at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well if the training windows gave visual cues then one could ensure one was training all the time rather than having to wake up at 3 in the morning when your traing ran out, as you say you could also resource farm.
Thinking about it one may have to leave the screen on it the hack relies on 'visual' cues?
I still can't tell if you're trolling so I'ma stop contributing to this tread :p
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well with respect to the Stamina system and working out what other player abilities are doing to your attacks:
In addition to the slots that require the player to hit a button or click to activate, there are a number of passive slots players can use to slot in permanent abilities that are always running. These are divided into three groups:
- Defensive: Abilities that protect the character like Evasion or Uncanny Dodge.
- Reactive: Abilities that activate when something sets them off, such as Diehard or Stand Up.
- Aura: Abilities that affect characters in a radius, such as many Bard abilities or a Paladin's various Aura abilities.
This for eg "Defensive" might be set off with the appropriate animation (I hope?) reducing/negating damage and using up the opponents stamina in that round. So sounds like there might be some of this involved albeit more about tactical choice and reacting to your opponent and learning what they are doing during rounds of combat? I'm not so familiar with pathfinder and the combat system there, but this stamina system is apparently attempting to "refer" to that system via this "6 seconds" of stamina usage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well if the training windows gave visual cues then one could ensure one was training all the time rather than having to wake up at 3 in the morning when your traing ran out, as you say you could also resource farm.
Thinking about it one may have to leave the screen on it the hack relies on 'visual' cues?
I still can't tell if you're trolling so I'ma stop contributing to this tread :p
It uses the colors sent to the monitor, not the actual colors on your monitor. It's reading the signal going to the monitor, not positioning a camera in front of it to read it. So it doesn't matter whether the monitor is actually turned on, or if the color shows up a bit differently on one monitor from another. It comes down to the signal going from your graphics card to your monitor.
If you want to know whether I'm trolling, just look up AutoHotKey yourself, and you'll see everything I'm saying is possible, and within the grasp of anyone regardless of programming experience.
@Andius if you're right, and combat ends up being as complex and similar to some of the systems you're referencing (which I suspect may be wishful thinking), then it's as simple as stopping the script and switching to one more appropriate to the situation.
As far as PvP combat scripts, if it wasn't clear before now I wasn't implying botting the whole thing, but making shortcuts to make cycling abilities less tedious, and give a slight edge in response time. If I notice the situation calls for something different then the end result will be me letting go of the A button and holding down B or C instead. Like I said, it would be foolish to make a script that can't be stopped.
Rather than frantically reacting, it's about having a plan scripted in advance. A plan A, a plan B, a plan C...however many plans are needed. If the combat system ends up looking like you are implying, then you better believe people will be writing up spreadsheets about the best way to handle different scenarios. All I'm talking about is taking those spreadsheets one step further and scripting various plans to various hotkeys, and when possible using visual cues to combine several plans and let the script sort them out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I know things like AutoHotKey exist, and people will use them. I see it as cheating. It's against almost every game's terms of service, and if anyone is found using them, they should be banned. I know it's almost impossible to detect, and it won't be a deterrent to anyone who does use them.
I just hope that those of us who want to play combat manually instead of botting it will be able to stay close enough in performance to be competitive.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just as some love to fight more than they love to play, so too are there those who love to win more than they love to fight, and prefer fighting to playing.
Those people will not evaluate whatever it takes to win as cheating.
It is similar to the problem with people who believe in some kind of absolute good trying to converse with those who only think there can be a relative good: It is like they are speaking wildly different languages that use the very same words and grammar.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just as some love to fight more than they love to play, so too are there those who love to win more than they love to fight, and prefer fighting to playing.
Those people will not evaluate whatever it takes to win as cheating.
It is similar to the problem with people who believe in some kind of absolute good trying to converse with those who only think there can be a relative good: It is like they are speaking wildly different languages that use the very same words and grammar.
Not at all.
They'll know it's cheating, but do it anyways. The reason you think otherwise is because of a little thing called "lying". Just like the stats that say 70% of college students cheat - they get those stats because that 70% are willing to admit anonymously that they cheat, but not openly admit it to their college.
I bring the matter up not to encourage cheating, but to influence what the end product looks like. Ryan has made it clear that some game mechanics will have to be simplified to make cheating impossible (the whole stealth discussion), and I'm merely pointing out that if that's a priority, then putting at least a little action into combat is just as important.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In more general terms, if not reactive abilities, it would be great if combat had some sort of visual cue that required your attention and severely punish macros.
As for twitchiness, I will take that any day over the ABCD button cycle fest that bores me to tears. This game has many different spheres of advancement, so if "twitchy", skill-intensive combat is not your thing, there are still many others areas that compensate and make it a fun game. IMHO, people who dismiss this idea as twitchy have been brainwashed by the premise that MMO combat is supposed to be "easy".
My 2coin...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another suggestion to make macros less worthwhile to use is to make battles shorter. Don't give players substantially lower damage output than hitpoint pools. Keeping combat short and sweet, sort of along the lines of table top rules, takes out the temptation to script long sequences for combat.
There needs to be a balance point though - you also can't make a game where everyone dies in one or two shots, but taking out a single player shouldn't be a siege.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just as some love to fight more than they love to play, so too are there those who love to win more than they love to fight, and prefer fighting to playing.
Those people will not evaluate whatever it takes to win as cheating.
It is similar to the problem with people who believe in some kind of absolute good trying to converse with those who only think there can be a relative good: It is like they are speaking wildly different languages that use the very same words and grammar.
Not at all.
They'll know it's cheating, but do it anyways. The reason you think otherwise is because of a little thing called "lying". Just like the stats that say 70% of college students cheat - they get those stats because that 70% are willing to admit anonymously that they cheat, but not openly admit it to their college.
I bring the matter up not to encourage cheating, but to influence what the end product looks like. Ryan has made it clear that some game mechanics will have to be simplified to make cheating impossible (the whole stealth discussion), and I'm merely pointing out that if that's a priority, then putting at least a little action into combat is just as important.
I think you have made some very valid points Blaeringr and you have convinced me for the time being, thanks.
so if making macros is the answer to everything, why not play macros online instead?
Nothing personal Blaeringr, you sound like a pretty sharp guy actually, but the gaming experience you describe doesn't sound like much fun to me, and that's still the point of playing.
There really is no winning in an online game. With the exception of a small number of players who go on to actual game design/production nothing anyone does in an MMO is going to get them a prettier spouse,a happy marrage, a better job, a bigger house, or a better car.
I'd say that if your to the point in any MMO that it's just as fun to make a macro that will play the entire game for you while you take a nap, then to actually play the game, it's probably time to move on.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do not think Blaeringr was advocating using macros, only pointing out that some will. According to GW previously stated design philosophy - anything that some will exploit should be treated as if everyone will exploit, and therefore should not be part of the game.
Case in point, Ryan argued "meaningful darkness" as traditionally done could be exploited, therefore everyone will exploit it...hence it should not be in game. Same philosophy nixed the suggestion of "improved stealth" (although not traditional stealth).
So...Blaeringr was pointing out how the non-twitch system is exploitable with simple macros...therefore, using the same meter stick, GW should assume everyone will use those macros and therefore the system should be redesigned so the exploitable feature is gone.
Blaeringr offered up the suggestion that a minimal amount of "twitch" would greatly reduce this.
EDIT: Please correct me if I have misunderstood your intent Blaeringr.
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Goblin Squad Member
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so if making macros is the answer to everything, why not play macros online instead?
Yeah as kitnix said, you are massively misinterpreting what blaer was saying. The fact is this is a PVP game, in PVP games a decent portion of the gamers will use what they can to get an edge, which will make people who don't use that edge unable to compeat.
The game needs to focus more on human level tactics, than speed of how fast you can hit multiple buttons, or else it will be dominated by people using macro's.
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Goblin Squad Member
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so if making macros is the answer to everything, why not play macros online instead?
Yeah as kitnix said, you are massively misinterpreting what blaer was saying. The fact is this is a PVP game, in PVP games a decent portion of the gamers will use what they can to get an edge, which will make people who don't use that edge unable to compeat.
The game needs to focus more on human level tactics, than speed of how fast you can hit multiple buttons, or else it will be dominated by people using macro's.
+1
Bearing in mind that a $100 gaming keyboard will assign a sequence of keystrokes to a single key. You don need to be some sort of software "hacker" to use macros.
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough, I totally get what he said
I've written macros that repeatedly run quests over and over in DDO. Your xp per run drops each time you repeat a quest, but that penalty bottoms out after 20 runs, and a 90% penalty still amounts to a little slice of xp, which is plenty if it's not taking any of your own personal time.
I've levelled up a TR character in DDO through level 4 without completing a single quest myself - all macro'd. And I'm not a professional programmer either. Given that, responding to specific buffs/debuffs, or a simple stop key or scenario is a piece of cake. Anybody here on these forums can have it figured out in not time by just reading up on .ahk
again I say whay play? if I'm so bored with a game that I would rather make a macro to play for me then actually play, my time could be much better spent elsewhere
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Goblin Squad Member
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again I say whay play? if I'm so bored with a game that I would rather make a macro to play for me then actually play, my time could be much better spent elsewhere
Oh I certainly agree that macros can and usually do suck the fun out of the game. The thing is whether you chose to use them or not, the game has to be made so that the macro's aren't useful, because macros will suck the fun out of the game for those who don't use them as well. Simply because regularly getting killed by someone with "perfect" keypressing ability will basically force you to either start macroing yourself, quit, or accept that you will regularly be picked off with no hope of defending yourself.
That being said, it could be worked around via greater depth of tactics required. IE so it's not the same order of keystrokes to win, but rather regular changing of tactics to match your opponents actions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@okimbored tell me you won't get bored if you can't keep up the precision button mashing that people using macros can. Tell me when you keep losing fights, knowing the other guy is playing in a way that seems more "boring" to you but is giving him an edge that you won't get bored of the nonsense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the idea of a more 'involved' combat system, but I wouldnt want it to turn into a new kind of FPS or require extreme twitch reflexes. My main concern would be latency, lag and the skill of the character versus the player.
For example, my average latency precludes me from enjoyably playing most online FPS and RTS games, but not MMOs. Theres just too small a window of response time in the former.
As far as player skill vs character skill, player skill should undoubtedly be important but in an RPG its more about knowing what to prepare, what to use and how to use it and less about clickfests and twitch response.
Given all of that, Im not in favor of the OPs suggestion. Id lean more towards the Guild Wars examples provided earlier in the thread.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So this game will already have a strong PvP focus creating a higher barrier to entry than most MMOs. Adding a reactive dimension to combat would raise the bar even higher but also provide something that other MMOs for the most part lack.
For example, the selection circle at a mob's base will glow red indicating it's about to attack. This would give you about a second to hit a hotkey that readies a defensive maneuver. If you succeed, you parry the mob's attack and break its defenses for a couple seconds, allowing you to retaliate with a devastating counterattack. This would probably be made less ez-mode in PvP by removing the glowing red circle by forcing you to focus on what the player is actually doing and having the proper muscle memory to hit the corresponding hotkey. (To practice for this when fighting mobs, you would be able to turn off UI attack indicators in settings.)
To prevent abuse of this, use of this sort of ability would perhaps be limited to once every 10-15 seconds. I think a cool way to implement this would be to change what WASD does in combat if you hold down the left and right click buttons simultaneously. If you're a "fighter" type character for instance, you might see something like this on the screen:
|- pre-emptive counter
W
parry left - A S D - parry right
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reactive counterWhere a pre-emptive counter is a lightning quick strike that interrupts the enemy's attack, breaks their defenses and advances you forward; parry left and right are defensive abilities that block the incoming attack and reposition you to the left or right; and reactive counter is a maneuver that causes you to dart backward dodging the enemy's blow and then quickly counterattack during that vulnerable moment where they have missed you and need to reposition their weapon.
I would be over the moon if something like this could be implemented, as it would put an end to the button-mashing fest that is MMO combat today.
Would you...
This will prevent people over forty from enjoying the game.
I can draw a parallell between EverQuest and World of Warcraft, EverQuest were a slow paced game where you had time to chat while fighting monsters and the community grew and was filled with helpful and generally nice people and then came World of Warcraft which is a much faster paced game... button mashing even.
The older player who transitioned from EverQuest to World of Warcraft couldn't handle the faster pace of the game so they quit and tweens took their place in roleplaying guilds and whatnot and it wasn't long before those roleplaying guilds fell apart completely and World of Warcraft became what it is today.
Starting to feel like I'm beating my head against a wall here
@okimbored tell me you won't get bored if you can't keep up the precision button mashing that people using macros can. Tell me when you keep losing fights, knowing the other guy is playing in a way that seems more "boring" to you but is giving him an edge that you won't get bored of the nonsense.
I won't get bored because IF captain macro gets his jollies by repeatedly killing me he'll have a heinous flag in a day and be hunted like an animal, or he'll be banned for griefing.
Look I don't have an issue with simple macros that remove hours of tedium while crafting or whatever, but at some point in a combat situation it should have VERY LITTLE to do with my macro building or button mashing and 99.9% to do with the skill levels and abilities of my toon.
If a level 1 toon walks up to a lvl 5 toon and takes a poke at him the lvl 1 SHOULD DIE 99.999% of the time PERIOD, if not the game is essentially broken because char skill means nothing and it's really just macros online with a bonus to whomever has the fastest internet
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan Dancey has said that it will have a "heartbeat" timing mechanic and a stamina system that will promote efficient use of actions. Additionally I think he supports the idea of time dilation from EVEONLINE + some kind of amalgamation of CIV & RISK formations for massive combat. He has said he likes the conventional hotbar (f1/f2/f3) of actions for use in PFO. He is also fully aware of the malfeasance of online players, and has repeatedly supported the development of solid game concepts to transcend these issues for fairness and fun game play.
For fairness, it would make the most sense to allow players to select scripted behaviors for reactive game play.
if: non-response from player, or loss of connection, or behavior selection
UO had a self defense reactive game play mechanic, where the player wouldn't move, and would defend himself against any constant attacks until he successfully logged out from inactivity.
Baldurs Gate allowed multiple behavior scripts, such as Thief Cautious(attack in self defense, if < 50% health, then hide from enemy), Mage Berserk(cast most powerful spells on sight of an enemy, once out of mana, then move to melee) and so on.
Eve Online allows you to set behavior of drones or autopilot behavior. But still has problems with bots.
WEBL Boxing allowed players to create boxers and build a huge fight plan with logic and AI.
I am really hoping the game will be like a chess match on hexagon tiles, with 6 second forced moves for players to plan each action. Like parry next turn, or try to riposte, or prepare this spell, everything that is already defined in pathfinder mechanics but in an MMO setting.
Additionally since the introduction of visual lego like programming languages like blockly from google, im sure they could easily allow players to build their own reactionary behavior for their characters, or write them down in scrolls or books in game and sell them to other players as fighting tactics or whatever.