Here is another blog from Mr. Davis. Guaranteed to get PvPers and Carebears alike, all riled up!! Enjoy! Check it out at Gobbocast!!
**The opinions expressed in this blog are not necessarily that of Gobbocast or it's staff**
I'm not sure I could point out anyone promoting any of those four arguments on these boards. Not since the last kickstarter ended anyway.
What about PvE takes no skill? I could certainly get behind that.
Edit: And PvP takes no skill? I don't think anyone's ever said that.
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm not sure I could point out anyone promoting any of those four arguments on these boards. Not since the last kickstarter ended anyway.What about PvE takes no skill? I could certainly get behind that.
Edit: And PvP takes no skill? I don't think anyone's ever said that.
Both PvE and PvP require skill to be good at them.
I have very little experience with PvP, but I still know it requires skill to be good. As for PvE, I have a lot of experience and have helped form many strategic plans for Raids and such in other games which required skill from its participants.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
What about PvE takes no skill? I could certainly get behind that.You can make that claim if you run across the finish line.
And I just made him do the splits. Well. That game is easy.
Oh, I'm supposed to get a non-negative distance? Sheesh.
Yea, I guess the programmers can make their encounters require some skill if they want, but they'll never require the kind of skill necessary to outsmart another player.
I find PvP annoying because the AI is too erratic. And it always seems to be running around in circles jumping.
Yea oddly enough, this is a big problem and nobody's bothered to solve it (that I've seen). All they'd need to do is implement some small cost for jumping (like stamina/endurance) so jumping around like that hurts the newb, instead of helps them.
Also a /stick and /face command for the strafing. Once you have those basic anti-retard measures in place, PvP can be a lot of fun.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I find PvP annoying because the AI is too erratic. And it always seems to be running around in circles jumping.Yea oddly enough, this is a big problem and nobody's bothered to solve it (that I've seen). All they'd need to do is implement some small cost for jumping (like stamina/endurance) so jumping around like that hurts the newb, instead of helps them.
Also a /stick and /face command for the strafing. Once you have those basic anti-retard measures in place, PvP can be a lot of fun.
The Devs have actually said that there would be a stamina loss for movement and jumping in combat. Sure, you can still run in circles and jump, but at the expense of your overall actions like attacking or healing yourself.
Pathfinder Online Doesn't Need PVP
I would argue that the following is also true
Pathfinder Online DOES need PVE.
That would make the whole settlement game pretty interesting. First come first serve.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Yea, I guess the programmers can make their encounters require some skill if they want, but they'll never require the kind of skill necessary to outsmart another player.
PVE can be impossible to defeat and they an adjust the goal line to make it more difficult and more easy as desired.
The difficulty of PvP depends upon the circumstances and the players involved.
Both PvP and PvE can be stupidly easy, and both can be nearly impossible to overcome. Unfortunately most MMOs do not offer PvE that is very challenging because people will cry if they can't overcome any obstacle by grinding enough. I hope PFO amps up the difficulty of some of the PVE content so that people can pursue excellence in every field.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I hope PFO amps up the difficulty of some of the PVE content so that people can pursue excellence in every field.
The problem with ramping up PvE encounters is that it eventually all boils down to gear checks - if you don't have the gear, you can't overcome that deficit with skill.
The mobs are ALREADY controlled by humans. The difference is that the programmed behavior is unlikely to adapt to a strategy that beat them last time, which makes them almost puzzles to be solved once.
In most games, that puzzles is solved by getting their hit points down to 0 without your hit points getting down to 0 by doing damage, absorbing damage, and hopefully getting healed, if you have a healer in the group.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I think the key to making it skill-based but not a gear check is giving the most powerful monsters abilities that are basically "counter, dodge, or big time ouch." I'm sure everyone has seen those kinds of abilities in theme-park raid bosses and old school video games. Unfortunately they tend to give a single ability per phase of the fight that is easy to counter if you wiki the trick for doing it.
Now imagine a dragon has five such abilities it can use at any phase of the fight (and will use frequently), each of which gives you barely enough time to react if you're really good at it.
That's how I hope the most powerful PVE enemies in the game are. Not everyone will be cut out to face those kinds of opponents, which is why highly skilled dragon slayers would be honored heros who's services are widely sought after.
Everyone else still has ogres, and goblins, and things that won't trash you if you aren't at the top of your game the whole fight.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I think "boss mechanics" as we know them from most MMO's are something that could be rethought and a place where a lot of great changes can be made. Unfortunately I'm not very creative, but I'm sure someone an think of good ways to make PvE boss fights more than simply memorizing attack patterns. Someone already put forward having some of them controlled by players, which would be a cool thing to do. But what else could be done?
@Andius, I dunno, those ogres are pretty darn tough from the sound of it. :P
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Now imagine a dragon has five such abilities it can use at any phase of the fight (and will use frequently), each of which gives you barely enough time to react if you're really good at it.
That sounds like it's well on the way to being a "twitch" game...
Don't get me wrong, I like challenging PvE. I just have enough experience with it, and with programming, to have a pretty good understanding of the possibilities. If the AI can't adapt, then the only real way to make it more difficult is to reduce the players' margin for error, and there's a wall where you just can't reduce it any more or it's literally impossible.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
The actual challenge, especially for developers thinking of pushing out a one server game, is making challenging PvE content that doesn't rely on quick reactions. If you have Move or Die attacks that are difficult to avoid for local players, you rapidly begin to run into issues when you introduce higher ping players.
What might be a difficult but possible dodge for a US player can quickly become an impossible dodge for someone from the EU. I imagine that most non-US players have experienced this in some otherwise easy US based games. There are methods to minimise that, of course. Well written netcode can adjust for small discrepancies. You can process AoE attacks locally rather than on the server (though, as with all local processing, this opens up an arena for hackers). But I can see this being a constant thorn in the side of GoblinWorks when conceiving their design space.
I would really rather not have all 'high difficulty' PvE content be gated away from anyone not in the continental US, which Move or Die mechanics have the possibility of doing. PvP is already going to be enough of a chore for us.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
A quick run through a dragon fight for those curious what I'm envisioning. Thorgrim the paladin, Elendiil the druid, and Brogur the rogue are up against an adolescent red dragon. Thorgrim is a specialized and renowned dragon slayer who's specifically equipped himself to face red dragons since that's the reason he was brought in to help with this escalation. Elendiil and Brogur are just two of the best fighters from the nearby settlement sent to help him.
They charge the dragon and it opens it's mouth. Brogur immediately does a sideways tumble and tosses a knife, Elendiil falls in behind Thorgrim and Thorgrim raises his fire-proof shield blocking all damage from the dragon's breath attack that would hit him or Elendiil. There is a quick moment in which Elendiil tosses a javelin and Brogur tosses a knife while Thorgrim charges forward. Then dragon does a tail sweep that Brogur and Thorgrim jump over but Elendiil gets clobbered by interrupting his current action and taking over a third of his health. Elendill backs off a bit and starts healing up while Thorgrim finished closing and Brogur continues making ranged attacks with knives. The dragon then draws back a massive arm to make a swipe at Thorgrim who responds by using his "devastating thrust" attack that disrupts the attack and inflicts massive damage.
You get the idea. Super powerful but avoidable attacks with dragon slayer skills enabling the use of specialized attacks and equipment that makes the job easier but still requires you to use quick responses.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Now imagine a dragon has five such abilities it can use at any phase of the fight (and will use frequently), each of which gives you barely enough time to react if you're really good at it.That sounds like it's well on the way to being a "twitch" game...
Don't get me wrong, I like challenging PvE. I just have enough experience with it, and with programming, to have a pretty good understanding of the possibilities. If the AI can't adapt, then the only real way to make it more difficult is to reduce the players' margin for error, and there's a wall where you just can't reduce it any more or it's literally impossible.
I'm not opposed to twitch/low margin for error combat when fighting massive creatures who's movements would understandably be slow enough to allow good reaction time. I imagine most opponents could do the standard trading blows style combat and people who hate twitch could go fight tough medium sized opponent if they want it to be the standard stat vs. stat of a tab targeted game.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
Ramping up the difficulty by giving the enemy higher HP, more damage, a shorter time limit, or otherwise increasing the numbers while keeping the nature of the fight the same is really just a gear check.
Ramping up the difficulty by requiring that the players coordinate, engage and defeat all four opponents within a short timeframe, or four different opponents sequentially, each of which has different strengths and weaknesses (to the point that some builds are excellent vs one but fall quickly to another, consuming limited resources when they do), or divide their attention among several different aspects of the encounter... None of those are gear checks, even though with better gear the skill required to win is lower.
Plus, many MMO raids that are believed to have a gear requirement have a much lower gear requirement with much higher skills.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
None of those are gear checks...
If you take people who have been raiding complex PvE encounters for years (which probably includes a lot of the posters here, and will definitely include a lot of PFO players), there's really not a lot of room to increase the difficulty of PvE encounters in PFO via the methods you mention. These players already know how to coordinate to focus on multiple aspects with complex timing requirements.
When Andius said "I hope PFO amps up the difficulty of some of the PVE content so that people can pursue excellence in every field", I assumed he was talking about ramping up the difficulty for these types of players.
|
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
None of those are gear checks...If you take people who have been raiding complex PvE encounters for years (which probably includes a lot of the posters here, and will definitely include a lot of PFO players), there's really not a lot of room to increase the difficulty of PvE encounters in PFO via the methods you mention. These players already know how to coordinate to focus on multiple aspects with complex timing requirements.
When Andius said "I hope PFO amps up the difficulty of some of the PVE content so that people can pursue excellence in every field", I assumed he was talking about ramping up the difficulty for these types of players.
Amp it up to eleven: Can you coordinate Four? Ten? Fifty? Can you solve an NP-hard problem regarding the abilities which are most effective versus each aspect of an encounter?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
@DeciusBrutus, you're right that there's an alternate route of "amping up" the difficulty that doesn't devolve to a gear check, and that's to simply require an ever-increasing number of participants. To me, though, that doesn't qualify as allowing people to "pursue excellence in every field".
Perhaps making the events less predictable might make some difference, for a limited time. But eventually, once the strategies are discovered and the variations understood, the only real method of increasing difficulty is to reduce the margin for error. If you and your group know the strategy, and are capable of executing it at near 100% efficiency, the only place to go is a gear check.
Don't misunderstand me, though. I am extremely hopeful that there will be some challenging PvE encounters, and I expect to partake of them heavily. There's a social challenge in coordinating a group to work towards that "near 100% efficiency" of execution without being a jerk that I've always enjoyed. I'm not trying to argue that there aren't innovative ways to provide new challenges. I'm merely expressing my opinion that the devs simply can't stay ahead of experienced PvE Raiders, so the raiders catch up and the existing encounters become rote exercises.
|
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
@DeciusBrutus, you're right that there's an alternate route of "amping up" the difficulty that doesn't devolve to a gear check, and that's to simply require an ever-increasing number of participants. To me, though, that doesn't qualify as allowing people to "pursue excellence in every field".
Perhaps making the events less predictable might make some difference, for a limited time. But eventually, once the strategies are discovered and the variations understood, the only real method of increasing difficulty is to reduce the margin for error. If you and your group know the strategy, and are capable of executing it at near 100% efficiency, the only place to go is a gear check.
At the point where the strategy is known and execution is well-trained, the only way to shake things up is to change which strategy must be known. A predictive AI which takes actions intended to counter the expected next actions of the players is sufficient, provided that the AI learns, doesn't cheat, and every AI action is counterable by some player action taken simultaneously with it. (A "sufficiently fast reaction" just makes it a reflex/bot game- the player needs to decide to deliver the "throat blow" attack at the same time that the dragon decides to breathe fire, not during the time that the dragon breathes fire; likewise the dragon is not permitted to cheat and decide to breathe fire only after it is known that it will not be interrupted.)
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I must admit, I agree with that blog.
I don't mind PvP, but I loathe with a deep and profound feeling, the giggling, faceless man-children that will find an easy target and just wail on it and lock that person down.
That's not what a PvPer does, that's Griefers ABUSING the PvP system to feel like 'real men'. These are people who get off on upsetting other people out of some twisted sense of humor, and after years of fighting them in WoW, I can tell you the instant that a Griefer can't reliably use PvP to do this, they leave.
A PvPer will rise to the challenge and keep fighting.
And yes, auto-turn and 'face-lock' on PvP targets, please and thank you, and jumping and running to decrease your stamina faster. If I can jump over a player's head and dodge an attack, whoo, go me. If I can run through a guy and stab him in the back of the neck ... that's kinda cheap.
If the PvP system can handle some sort of mild collision-detection system, or bascially ensure you are always facing your PvP target, then it cuts out a lot of the b+~#~@+& we see in MMO PvP like WoW where people run through you and can somehow immediately 180 and get you while you're turning yourself? In an instant? That's either an auto-aim hack or they've got their sensitivity turned up to The Flash levels.
Carebears ... I am a Carebear, and I agree with that blog.
Whiners are not Carebears. Carebears complain when the Griefers are ABUSING the PvP system. In a game like Pathfinder Online, it's out the gate before we even set foot inside: PvP will happen. You will die. You will lose your stuff.
If that's too much for some folks, WoW, Everquest and Guild Wars offer a no-risk route to your gear.
Everyone enjoys a good b&&$@ing when they've lost something precious and it's set them back considerably. It's natural to vent, and it's good to get it out rather than repress it and have it come back later and bite you.
Whiners will fill the airwaves with 'how unfair' each and every single failure they encounter is, and how the offending party (PvE mobs, PvPers, Gankers, Griefers, Node-Ninja's, the RNGods, etc etc) is the most horrible thing in the multiverse and how everyone should pity them and give them stuff.
PvP and PvE both take a lot of skill.
Doesn't matter if you're fighting a player or a NPC Boss, knowing what abilities are coming, and either taking steps to dodge it, stop it or mitigate it are crucial. If you're that over-geared that you can stand there and eat the Great Wyrm Red Dragon's full attack and not take a single point of damage, whoo-hoo, good for you ... still try to dodge/stop/mitigate it next time, because the other people may not be so fortunate.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
On that last bit; considering what's been said about the progression of player power in general and how tough the PvE mobs are going to be, I would be shocked if any one character could effectively tank a dragon for a long period of time (especially something like a Wyrm, which in TT would easily be capable of 1-round killing just about any character in the power range we'll be playing in). It's my hope that nobody will be that overgeared in this game, and fighting an ancient dragon will be the job of a small army of players rather than a small group.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yes, and that's what I'm hoping for. PvE will be extremely challenging, and PvP is widespread, so we'll see bleed-over between the two.
Two groups of players whacking away at each other get jumped by a pack of Gnolls and have to put their own personal conflict on hold to put the Gnolls down, and then after the battle with the Gnolls ... what? Do they bandage their wounds and walk away, or do they continue the fight to the bitter end, brutally wounded with most, if not all, of their friends dead or dying on the ground?