Goblin Squad Member
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@Being
I hate to delve into the politics of this topic but I felt something needed to be said. I feel the greatest factor contributing to such incidents is the publicity they receive. I'm sure everyone here knows people who crave attention, regardless of whether it's positive or negative.
I'm sure you've all noticed an absurd amount of shooting happening recently. All that's changed recently is how much publicity they are receiving.
Now lets call your attention to a new issue:
I couldn't find as good of a breakdown because homicide is so highly politicized and there is more analysis and handpicked statistics than hard and simple facts, but here is the best I found:
As you can see far more people die to cars than homicide, and if you rule out everything other than drunk driving and speeding related deaths it's still much higher.
Why isn't there more focus on that? It could save more lives and easily generate bipartisan support.
Anyway I think we should let the issue rest for now here in this topic but if you want to continue this in PMs or a more appropriate forum I would be glad to.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree that children should be taught that throwing fireballs around is wrong. The day my children begin casting AoE spells in the neighbourhood I shall have to sit down and have a long talk with them.
Seriously guys, a fantasy RPG is so far removed from real life that making comparisons is stretching reality to breaking point. Real reality I mean. It's the sort of thing that BADD and their supporters did in the 1980s - saying that people had lost their marbles because they'd been cursed in a game of AD&D, or claiming that pretending to be a wizard was a training ground for casting real spells.
If a child doesn't know that tossing a grenade into a classroom full of children is wrong and dangerous, then you have more problems than depicting Friendly Fire in a computer RPG. For a start, you evidently need to remove all weapons and combat from the game because you wouldn't want to teach them that swinging an axe at a fierce local dog will get them gold, a skinned hide and XP.
Whatever the arguments for and against Friendly Fire, wanting to educate children about the dangers of weapons is a very weak one.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What ? No, it's handled via the Meta Magic feat 'Selective Spell' ; which allows you to exclude a number of friendly targets from an area effect spell.
Also, there exists a 'selective channeling' feat that lets healers exclude the monsters when they burst heal.In PFO, this can be expanded and pre-set, so just knowing the feat you can turn FF on or off, depending on whether you are fighting a guild civil war or an orc horde.
The real issue isn't whether it can be explained, the question is whether it is good or bad for the game. In my opinion, in the average MMO right now, the total lack of friendly fire, leads to a pretty stale set of tactics... Wizards have a tendency to mindlessly spam the same AoEs as often as they can, largely due to the fact that ANY time there are more than 2-3 enemies, AoEs are ALWAYS better than single target more or less.
Secondly when we are talking P&P, selective spell is not a free bonus to attach to a spell to the point that it is the standard. It is a full spell level cost. A 6th level wizard who always uses selective spell, rather than any planning or strategy, has essentially made himself a 4th level wizard via burning up his 3rd level slots into 2nd level slots. (That isn't to say there aren't scenarios where that is better, but there is a big difference between by definition always better and thus the default, and better in some situations, at a cost that will hurt you in other situations)
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Goblin Squad Member
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How is friendly fire handled in the PF RPG PnP game?It's handled by being physically in the same room as the group of players you're about to fry to a crisp with your maliciously-tossed fireballs.
What ? No, it's handled via the Meta Magic feat 'Selective Spell' ; which allows you to exclude a number of friendly targets from an area effect spell.
Also, there exists a 'selective channeling' feat that lets healers exclude the monsters when they burst heal.In PFO, this can be expanded and pre-set, so just knowing the feat you can turn FF on or off, depending on whether you are fighting a guild civil war or an orc horde.
This will be real time. Tabletop can suspend time long enough for a caster to designate who to exclude for selective spells: in real time that would prove rather cumbersome for the player to engineer.
But of course you would respond there should be a mechanic whereby players in your party should be automagically excluded from negative spell effects and included for positive spell effects. My response is that in a sandbox game you must rely on your prudence and discretion instead. Sandbox means you are responsible for the things you do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...Whatever the arguments for and against Friendly Fire, wanting to educate children about the dangers of weapons is a very weak one.
I would say that since play is the most elementary and fundamental form of education for not only humans but nearly all forms of vertebrate it is desperately important to attend to what lessons our play might teach.
I would make the argument that what play is teaching is worth serious consideration for adults as well: if it weren't enjoyable it would be irrelevant, but if we have evolved distinct pleasure in our play then it is providing a function intrinsic to our natures.
Have you never wondered why we enjoy such an otherwise frivolous activity? Do you believe it has no significant meaning?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The lessons you hint at are learned so early on in development that linking them to a computer game is meaningless. Children know right from wrong long before they have the maturity and ability to play an online RPG.
I enjoy RPGs because it is a chance to experience a life outside my own, where I can be who I want to be and not who I have to be.
It is not an education, it is escapism.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It is not an education, it is escapism.
We each take from it what we wish. Personally, I am constantly looking for lessons from the Divine, and I'm constantly finding them, too.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The lessons you hint at are learned so early on in development that linking them to a computer game is meaningless. Children know right from wrong long before they have the maturity and ability to play an online RPG.
I enjoy RPGs because it is a chance to experience a life outside my own, where I can be who I want to be and not who I have to be.
It is not an education, it is escapism.
I'm not so sure about that. I'm no child and I would say my concept of right and wrong is constantly evolving. Not much but to small degrees on certain issues.
If our perception of right and wrong never changed you wouldn't have things like people who stood against the civil rights movement coming back and apologizing for it. I mean politicians would because they hand out apologies like candy from an unmarked white van, but not regular people.
Anyway anyone but a very young child should be able to handle the concept that just because games don't allow friendly fire doesn't mean you can shoot your buddy in real life without hurting him.
I think the reading level required to play this game effectively will screen those out even if the parents don't.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would honestly like to see FF included in the game. It makes being a caster a little trickier...but that's a good thing. Caster's will be more inclined to pick up single target spells and a few AoE's to supplement their offensive spell reportoire instead of loading up on AoE's and spamming them incessantly.
I agree with Being in that this is going to be a sandbox...so you're responsible for your actions...so be responsible...instead of having the programmers make it so that you don't have to worry about throwing a huge fireball into a room of your friends.
Also, since this is going to be pretty much wide open pvp...why wouldn't they include FF..??? It actually makes sense for it to be included instead of left out.
They have I believe already come out strongly in favour of friendly fire. I believe Ryan's stance was it is up to the caster to take the consequence of his aoe.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would honestly like to see FF included in the game.
I say give friendly fire a chance in EE, see how it works out.
It's in.
Melee-range and some other point-blank AoEs may not have friendly fire (as it's hard enough to deploy them and hit a lot of people anyway), but most AoE attacks will hit any target regardless of friendliness.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just another quick thought...if FF is not included, then how do you determine who get's hit by a spell or effect and who doesn't?
So say "Bob" and "Darrel" are grouped together. They attack a big Critter that already has a few people attacking it. "Bob" throws a flask of burning oil. "Darrel" won't be hit by "Bob" throwing a flask of burning oil becuase they are Grouped together...but there's more than just our group fighting this Critter...so does "Dave" get hit by my flaming oil (even though we're in the same "Guild" and he's right next to "Darrel")?? Or what about "Seth"..he's on my friends list and he's right next to "Dave" who is right next to "Darrel"...and "Seth" is grouped with "Dave" and I really like both of them...is he going to get hit by my flaming oil???
I say put FF in...it will be easier.
PS: Thank Nihimon (almost rhymes with diamond)
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Goblin Squad Member
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PS: Thank Nihimon (almost rhymes with diamond)
Excellent! In fact, if you sounded out "di" (like "die") - "a" (like "uh") - "mond" (not "mund", but rhyming with "pond") and dropped the final "d", you would have the pronunciation near perfect!
[Edit] Just because it's a subject near and dear to me...
If you said "Try him on" but dropped your "h" like Eliza Doolittle so that it sounded like "Try 'im on", then you would have a perfect rhyme with "Nihimon".
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Goblin Squad Member
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Auto-attack (Which this game will NOT have, praise be to Pharasma!) is a seperate issue than friendly fire.
Auto-attack is where is you attack an enemy your character has a basic attack they will constantly spam at them while not using skills. (Think WoW)
Most modern skillbar based games have done away with auto-attack in favor of granting the player free attacks and attacks that actually generate the resources used in more powerful attacks. (TOR, GW2, D3)
The second model has proved much more popular as it feels more involved and actually allows the player to choose which free attack they want to use in some cases.
Friendly fire is the ability to harm allies. So they aren't really related at all,
Allowing friendly fire means you have to be careful while using attacks that can strike multiple targets because you can hit allies. It also allows sparring without a sparring system, the ability to backstab your allies etc.
The general arguments against it, is that it is too much trouble, or it will lead to griefing. Of course this game's alignment system covers most ways it could be used to grief people.
AOEs will be targeted at specific characters and then spread out from there. How that will work in terms of friendly fire is up in the air.
So besides ruling out targetting general areas so as to catch enemies on both sides of the AoE center (you need to center on an actual character), this pretty much rules out 'fishing' for isolated Stealthed characters (since you can't target them directly), unless they happen to be nearby non-Stealthed characters who you can target?
Although either way there still potentially remains the PVP exploit scenarios including intra-group PVP/traitor scenarios (putting yourself in harms way of hopefully low-dmg AoEs in order to put the Attack flag on the other side and avoid repurcussions yourself/force unwanted repurcussions on other side). Perhaps those could be addressed if the Traitor flag ever gets more blog coverage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Allowing friendly fire means you have to be careful while using attacks that can strike multiple targets because you can hit allies. It also allows sparring without a sparring system, the ability to backstab your allies etc.
It also compels people aim their attacks selectively rather than spam them into the keyboard buffer in a general direction. Might even help reduce the tendency of some to macro their attack sequences. Eventually.
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Goblin Squad Member
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AOEs will be targeted at specific characters and then spread out from there. How that will work in terms of friendly fire is up in the air.So besides ruling out targetting general areas so as to catch enemies on both sides of the AoE center (you need to center on an actual character), this pretty much rules out 'fishing' for isolated Stealthed characters (since you can't target them directly), unless they happen to be nearby non-Stealthed characters who you can target?
Also, if you need a target to cast you won't be able to shoot a person you know is hiding behind a tree or a corner by aiming at the ground next to it.
I don't know the reasoning behind not allowing ground targeting, maybe it is a good one.
I will say this though, in TSW the option of switching between ground targeting and auto-center-on-selected-target as default for AOEs can be chosen through the game menu.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I actually like the overall combat mechanics in TSW...single target vs AoE, etc. I really hope you don't have to have a target for AoE's...unless they make object's target-able. If you can target the tree you think they're hiding behind..that would work...but how cumbersome would it be code-wise to make that happen?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I actually like the overall combat mechanics in TSW...single target vs AoE, etc. I really hope you don't have to have a target for AoE's...unless they make object's target-able. If you can target the tree you think they're hiding behind..that would work...but how cumbersome would it be code-wise to make that happen?
A tree is an object just as a player character is. I would think then it would not be much greater a challenge.
What I think would be more difficult is having the tree/targeted object becoming damaged as well. It would be très cool were PFO's environment destructible.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I actually like the overall combat mechanics in TSW...single target vs AoE, etc. I really hope you don't have to have a target for AoE's...unless they make object's target-able. If you can target the tree you think they're hiding behind..that would work...but how cumbersome would it be code-wise to make that happen?A tree is an object just as a player character is. I would think then it would not be much greater a challenge.
What I think would be more difficult is having the tree/targeted object becoming damaged as well. It would be très cool were PFO's environment destructible.
In terms of coding, making trees etc... selectable would be easy...
In terms of interface for the user... it could be a pain and add some horrible difficulty to the player. Imagine the fighter seeing the guy hiding behind the tree, attemping to quickly as possible click on him and initiate a charge when the guy comes out, fighters click was off by a millimeter, as the rogue comes out, fighter takes a powerful charge.... right past the rogue, delivering a fierce attack.... to the tree he targetted by mistake
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Goblin Squad Member
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...if the tree then slooowly fell over it might be worth it.
It might be a mechanic that leads to the usefulness of taking cover.
<tab> <tab> <tab> curses underbreath <tab> <tab>
The concept of a moderate miss, IE guy standing 1" from the tree getting directed to the tree could be good, the risk of say accidentally targetting a tree 15' behind someone, and charging right past them and keep on going... is a bit comical but too much.
@Being
The ability to target trees with AOE will definitely be needed else how am I going to clear those pesky druid groves out the way to build nice trade enhancing roads :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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It might be a mechanic that leads to the usefulness of taking cover.
<tab> <tab> <tab> curses underbreath <tab> <tab>
I'm torn about this. At first blush, I thought the idea was brilliant, but when I considered it more deeply, I realized it violated one of my core principles - namely, that the challenge of the game should never revolve around manipulating the UI.
For what it's worth, I think it's probably appropriate to have Evasion skills that cause you to be un-targeted.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm in favour of targeting area for AoE spells, it's the way such weapons work in real life, after all (you don't aim to hit an individual man with a grenade or mortar shell, you hit the area he might be hiding in or moving through). It also allows you to hit characters which have suddenly gone invisible but haven't yet moved off.
I also like the idea of breaking a targeting 'lock-on' by some evasive manoeuvre. I am sick of archers tracking my ducking, dodging and weaving characters as if they were using heat-seeking missiles.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also like the idea of breaking a targeting 'lock-on' by some evasive manoeuvre. I am sick of archers tracking my ducking, dodging and weaving characters as if they were using heat-seeking missiles.
I think evasive manoeuvres should reduce the chance of hits landing, like a temporary +X to missile saves or some such.
Having your target untabbed will be a minor problem for some (just press tab to retarget) but a major frustration to others (who use mouse targeting or alternative input devices). A fight in PFO should IMO be primarily between two characters fighting each other using their feats and skills, not between two frustrated players fighting each other by means of who has better command of their keyboard.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A fight in PFO should IMO be primarily between two characters fighting each other using their feats and skills, not between two frustrated players fighting each other by means of who has better command of their keyboard.
You're absolutely right, and this has been bothering me for a while.
If you have skills that make you harder to hit, that should manifest as a buff that makes you harder to hit, rather than as a manipulation of the UI.
I can see some abilities - like a Rogue's Vanish - that make you undetectable and also drop you from anyone's target. That doesn't seem bad since it's not like the other player can just hit tab again to re-target you. I can also see some abilities that limit the information available to the character who is targeting you, like not showing your distance or direction.
(( I sure hope there are indicators on the target that show distance and direction. ))
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Goblin Squad Member
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How is friendly fire handled in the PF RPG PnP game?It's handled by being physically in the same room as the group of players you're about to fry to a crisp with your maliciously-tossed fireballs.
What ? No, it's handled via the Meta Magic feat 'Selective Spell' ; which allows you to exclude a number of friendly targets from an area effect spell.
Also, there exists a 'selective channeling' feat that lets healers exclude the monsters when they burst heal.In PFO, this can be expanded and pre-set, so just knowing the feat you can turn FF on or off, depending on whether you are fighting a guild civil war or an orc horde.
This will be real time. Tabletop can suspend time long enough for a caster to designate who to exclude for selective spells: in real time that would prove rather cumbersome for the player to engineer.
But of course you would respond there should be a mechanic whereby players in your party should be automagically excluded from negative spell effects and included for positive spell effects. My response is that in a sandbox game you must rely on your prudence and discretion instead. Sandbox means you are responsible for the things you do.
I think FF needs to be in the game.
Yes there should be mechanics to make it possible to use AE responsibly. IF you put the time and effort into it.Make it a slot-able skill called 'Selective Spell'
Make it slowly expand in usefulness, from a list you have to specifically put names on at lower levels of training, to toggles like 'party' 'company' and 'alliance' as you progress to the top of the tree.
Maybe it's only usable when all slots are wizard skills, or useable only at certain alignment scores...
but there's a balance point out there to get this mechanic from PNP into PFO without necessitating UI manipulation at twitch gamer speed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think FF needs to be in the game.
Yes there should be mechanics to make it possible to use AE responsibly. IF you put the time and effort into it.
Make it a slot-able skill called 'Selective Spell'
Make it slowly expand in usefulness, from a list you have to specifically put names on at lower levels of training, to toggles like 'party' 'company' and 'alliance' as you progress to the top of the tree.
Maybe it's only usable when all slots are wizard skills, or useable only at certain alignment scores...
but there's a balance point out there to get this mechanic from PNP into PFO without necessitating UI manipulation at twitch gamer speed.
Personally I don't like the idea of selective spell for the MMO... I like the idea of friendly fire etc... for how it changes tactics, forces thinking, co-ordination etc...
I also like the idea of loopholes such as armor of high resistance to one element, possibly even with a weakness to other elements... so that a well organized group can strategize, plan their equipment along with the wizards spell selection etc... Meaningful tactics, reasons to organize and plan, all that good stuff.
Selective spell on the other hand... would completely eliminate the tactics side... what you can pretty much expect to happen is, once a handful of wizards have it, their mellee combatants will quickly get used to it, behaviors will revert to the normal MMO bunch everything up, have the wizard AoE repetition... and wizards who are trying to go outside this box, will pretty much be booted on sight...
Skills that you can expect parties to refuse to go without, should either be default and free, or not be implemented. Giving someone the choice to save a month of training, at the cost of being an absolute outcast, is not a choice at all.
TL:DR Selective spell, unless drastically nerfed would cause players to turn their brains off, and make it a "must have spell". Instead of being a tactical option, it would rapidly become a "you don't party with me if you don't have it".
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally I don't like the idea of selective spell for the MMO... I like the idea of friendly fire etc... for how it changes tactics, forces thinking, co-ordination etc...
I also like the idea of loopholes such as armor of high resistance to one element, possibly even with a weakness to other elements... so that a well organized group can strategize, plan their equipment along with the wizards spell selection etc... Meaningful tactics, reasons to organize and plan, all that good stuff.
Selective spell on the other hand... would completely eliminate the tactics side... what you can pretty much expect to happen is, once a handful of wizards have it, their mellee combatants will quickly get used to it, behaviors will revert to the normal MMO bunch everything up, have the wizard AoE repetition... and wizards who are trying to go outside this box, will pretty much be booted on sight...
Skills that you can expect parties to refuse to go without, should either be default and free, or not be implemented. Giving someone the choice to save a month of training, at the cost of being an absolute outcast, is not a choice at all.
TL:DR Selective spell, unless drastically nerfed would cause players to turn their brains off, and make it a "must have spell". Instead of being a tactical option, it would rapidly become a "you don't party with me if you don't have it."
Make it exactly like PNP, no one would get it for years, and it would just about cover one's party at max level.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Selective spell is from the advanced players guide, meaning there is a ton of stuff to get into the game before working on feats from other source books. Just my thoughts as adding abilities from the books beyond the core book should happen eventually i don't think they should be a focus from the beginning.
Just feels like friendly fire should be a part of the game. Especially in the first few years before they start adding the abilities from the other source books.
Side note in this topic as it is on area effects. I know folks are still working on divine spells, but what are they going to do with spells like holy smite (clr lvl4, area of effect spell) that targets people of certain alignments.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Make it exactly like PNP, no one would get it for years, and it would just about cover one's party at max level.
Why is it expected that no-one would get it for years, rather than player made constructs say it must be trained before you use AoEs, or expect to be kicked from your party...
OK but lets say hypothetically it is only available as the capstone for wizards, cannot be permitted to be taken until the full 2.5 years of training on the wizard have occurred. 3 years later a decent chunk of wizards will have it, at which point, high level fighters will refuse to ever work with wizards who do not have it.
At least from my understanding, the goals in pathfinder involved drastically lessening the standard MMO traits of you work with people your own level. To people more than 6 above you, you are a worm and anything you can actually have any impact on, are things they don't care about, and people more than 6 below you, can't hurt anything you might have a need to fight. When you add a dealbreaker skill that makes siding with a character of low level a huge risk compared to absolute safety of someone your own level... you create a flawed mechanic that harms this goal.
I think the tension between harming some allies to potentially swing a fight with an AoE is good.
Tactically, they are no-worries when the enemy is far enough from your allies that FF is not a worry,
and you tend to use them less when your allies are mixed up with the enemy melee'ing...
but AoEs CAN still be useful there, even if it comes with more risk to one's own side.
Saying that no tactic can have potentially negative side-effects for your own side just limits the richness of the game.
A group able to stealth up to another one and instigate melee should reasonably expect that AoEs will be less useful to the target group than they would be if they openly approached them from across an open plain. Of course, they themselves gave up the opportunity to AoE nuke the target group from afar, since that would give away their stealth attack plan.
I still probably prefer being able to target areas rather than targettable(visible) characters.
I still would like to hear GW's stance on the griefing tactics prieviously brought up with AoE's,
namely: stealth/invisibly introducing yourself to the AoE zone of other PCs who are farming low level monsters in order to manipulate the flagging/alignment/rep system (to kill them without consequence as they are the attackers). and intra-party PVP scenarios , similarly using stealth/invisibility to evade consequences (+traitor flag specifically). and on intra-party level, whether KNOWINGLY including ally (i.e. they are visible to you) in AoE would trigger attack flag.
That kind of breaks immersion though, besides making any amount of AoE damage a Stealth-killer.
(instead of having the damage force a Concentration check mechanism to remain in Stealth)
If a 20th Level Evoker is dropping the uber-nuke on an entire Hex, to have 1st level Stealthers survive unscathed but just lose Stealth makes no sense.
Besides, why should that not trigger a Flag? Casting Area Dispel Magic on an Invisible character should trigger an Attack flag.
Just because it is a de-buff and not HP damage doesn't make it less of an attack.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally, I'm all for Friendly Fire.
It means that Casters aren't just throwing waves of maximized empowered Sonic-Balls all over the place trying to kill those level 1 Goblins.
Spell Selection becomes important, but the need to have that big 'AoE' for a room-clearer or similar (What my group calls the 'Avon calling!' tactic, lob a fireball or chain-lightning into the room of mooks, just to see how tough they are and what their saves/resistances are) but also spells that can target a 'space' rather than a 'target', as some times a target might be evading too much, so you target the ground at their feet to get them.
I'm also hoping, although I know it's a false hope, that we get the whole volume of the spells. IE, casting a Fireball down a small tunnel means that the whole AoE is then expanded down the tunnel until A) there's no more room left or B) the amount of 'squares' the AoE would have 'taken up' is reached.
Seriously, does nobody else remember 'fishing for kobolds'?
Friendly Fire also applies to ranged attacks with bows, crossbows and throwing weapons (and SIEGE WEAPONS! Oh lord I can see it now ...), as well as 'melee' attacks, such as Cleaves, Charges and Over-run attempts.
Glorious.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A question might be, How does being spared FF "by the Gods" not break immersion?
Another question: is FF fun?
If yes: there should be no "selective AoE" ability
If no: it should be off by default and there should be no "selective AoE" ability.
My suggestion: let's try full FF for AoE spells and if it turns out it harms the game, remove it for everyone and not just casters who have reached the equivalent of level 20.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Friendly fire's vital to the "feel" of the game, as it's always been a part of the underlying rules-set. Haven't most of us experienced a newbie-player (I started D&D with White Box in '77) throwing a fireball into a small space and nearly wiping the party?
After you finish beating him to a pulp--character, not player (I hope)--you train him a bit better for next time. Same'll apply here.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There's also building your team of friends to take advantage of the Friendly Fire.
Nobody is expecting the Mage/Wizard/Sorcerer to start lobbing fireballs with the rest of the Party mixing it up in the melee, but characters who have expended time and monies on Fire-Resistance Gear might actually be planning on using Friendly Fire, counting on Potions, Spells and Enchanted Gear to nullify or at least mitigate the lion's share of the damage, allowing them to keep pounding away while their walking artillery piece can just keep on shelling out damage without fear of outright killing their allies.