Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 29, 2024, 04:42:52 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Search:     Advanced search
we're back, baby
*
Home Help Search Login Register
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Game Design/Development  |  Topic: Why are classes 1-1 in scale? 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Pages: [1] Go Down Print
Author Topic: Why are classes 1-1 in scale?  (Read 6131 times)
Fordel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8306


on: October 30, 2008, 04:34:51 AM

The Traditional MMO class is generally 1 person/ship/thing per player. Some have minor pets, some spawn retarded NPC minions, but the player to control scale is almost always 1 to 1.

Why?


I was reading ( http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=14620.msg515345#msg515345 ) and one line got me thinking.

"I think eve proved why single player flyable capital ships are a colossally bad idea."

Which in the context of EVE as it is, is certainly true... but it's only true because one player only controls 1 ship and the ships are not balanced in a 1 for 1 trade off. What I'm thinking, is if we expanded the scope of player control.

Using EVE as an example, instead of a player controlling 1 little fighter type ship, they fly a squadron, or a cruiser wolf pack, or a Heavy Crusier tandem. Each 'class' of ship being matched off 1 for 1, with size, scale AND numbers evening them out. I'm not suggesting a player controls a dozen individual fighters, rather the entire squadron acts like one unified "ship" to fly. The player IS the swarm, as a unified entity.

Hazy out of my ass numbers:

12 Fighters in a Squadron
6 Cruisers in a Wolf-Pack
2 Heavy's in a tandem
1 Cap/Battleship


Each fighter in a squadron can act like a customization point. This fighter jams, this fighter webs, this fighter has heavier weapons, this fighter has anti fighter weapons. They would work just like the modules on the larger ships do. Visually, each fighter would swoop in as they used their ability. Formations could be used to emphasize attack postures and bonuses. Maybe they fly in a V to ensure maximum fire concentration at the cost of maneuverability. They fly in a loose cloud to emphasize avoiding damage at the cost of some offensive power. Players can customize their formations and fighter specialties to some degree, to suit their playstyle and intended role. Mechanically, the entire squadron would be one single unit. Maybe players can target individual fighters the same way they could potentially target individual systems on a larger ship, BUT the overall health/ability/energy pool of the squadron would be 'linked' as if it was just one single ship.


Crusiers would be similar, but more customization points on each individual ship. Instead of having bee's buzzing around in swarms, you have screens and pickets (do they even picket with ships?). Again you can have ships in the wolf-pack performing certain roles, which are then reflected as abilities to the player. Maybe one cruiser is a fire support cruiser, another a knife-fighter, another a repair/shield ship, or some kind of ECM ship. Again the idea is that this Wolf-Pack itself is the class/unit. Visually you would have the cruisers in similar formations to fighters, but more appropriate to their ship size. Maybe the more defensive ships will move to the front/outside of a formation, guarding the more vulnerable ships (these would be reflected as offensive and defensive bonuses in game)


The Heavy Duo's, would probably be the most like controlling two actual ships at once, but again, they would still be one unit. Each ship would have multiple modules and systems. Formations would be less pronounced, maybe one ship would have the straight forward fire power, and the other ship would be its support. Maybe both ships are loaded out the same, and just work in unison. The idea being the Duo would provide most of the 'single ship' feeling, while still maintaining more mobility then the ponderous cap ships.


Then you have the the big single ship. The battle ship or the carrier etc... Just one massive ponderous entity. These are pretty straight forward. The customization would be in the systems and modules.



What I'm trying to do, is make a system where each type of ship, can be worth the same amount in terms of player control. Currently, when a Capital Ship runs across a lone fighter in EVE, there isn't much contest, if ANY contest. Half the time when ships of completely dissimilar classes face off, they can't dent each other either way.

With my hair brained scheme, the Squadron would be as powerful as the Cap ship, or the Wolf-Pack, or the Tandem. They would all play different, cater to different roles and tastes, but they wouldn't be mismatched in raw power.



Obvious problems and flaws.

Visuals and Pathing. MMO pathing sucks. Trying to create a well animated and coordinated squadron, that probably isn't trivial. Do we track the individual parts of the unit, or just the unit as a whole. Will the server explode if we track it all? Do we need to track it all? Or are the parts simply art and flavor, with the squadron having its own 'unit box'. (Maybe the squadron can 'flow' around a larger object, maybe that's a class feature)

The Details of how each individual part of the whole 'unit' actually works. How far can a single fighter be out of formation? Can we leave one behind at a moon? Should we? Do we just enforce every part of the unit to stick together? How many individuals actually make up the unit whole? 12? 8? 16? 24?

Customization. What extent? Do we want each little fighter to have it's own call sign and pilot (I can already see the horrible fan fictions  awesome, for real) ? Or would the player simply control "Skull Squadron" and/or be the squad leader. Does each individual ship reflect its actual customization, or do we just copy/paste the same one for resource/client exploding issues?

Will players actually understand what the fuck they are controlling? 



I wonder how rambly I sound. I bet very!  why so serious?

I'm going to go eat some Corn Pops, then maybe I'll spit out my version of this idea for Fantasy DIKU. Or maybe I'll be blessed with exhaustion and sleep.

So rambly!

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
ezrast
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2125


WWW
Reply #1 on: October 30, 2008, 10:58:44 AM

I'm going to go eat some Corn Pops, then maybe I'll spit out my version of this idea for Fantasy DIKU.
I had an idea a lot like this a while back - my version was that every player would have ~6 characters, and each character could be an adventurer (read: combat class) or a crafter (with at least one of each required). The crafters would sit at home and make stuff while the adventurers killed things. What this meant was that the player could choose to control one character with great gear or five dudes who swarm you and hit you with sticks, or somewhere in between.

Of course, weapons and armor can't be tradeable in a system like this or else there's nothing to stop somebody from having five guys and buying five sets of uber gear. Seems odd that a game where everybody plays a crafter would have no economy, but it could work in a combat-oriented game.

Another issue is with death penalties - a group of five or twelve or whatever is clearly going to suffer a lot more casualties than a single juggernaut PC, so balancing this could be difficult.
Slyfeind
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2037


Reply #2 on: October 30, 2008, 12:46:46 PM

Consider the old single-player party-based games, like Pool of Radiance or Bard's Tale. You could make a whole party of adventurers, never go looking for a healer or a tank, and just run around doing your own thing. I don't know how that could fit in a persistent world, though. Would you group up with other groups, and fight armies?

"Role playing in an MMO is more like an open orchestra with no conductor, anyone of any skill level can walk in at any time, and everyone brings their own instrument and plays whatever song they want.  Then toss PvP into the mix and things REALLY get ugly!" -Count Nerfedalot
Ingmar
Terracotta Army
Posts: 19280

Auto Assault Affectionado


Reply #3 on: October 30, 2008, 03:12:55 PM

They're called Masterminds and they're in CoV already.

The design I have kicking around for a WH40k MMO would definitely involve squad leader type roles rather than individual character classes.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
ezrast
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2125


WWW
Reply #4 on: October 30, 2008, 04:29:27 PM

Oh man, I could rant for hours on how much I hate masterminds, and I haven't even played CoV in over a year now. Without derailing the thread, suffice to say that MM pets fall under the "retarded NPC minions" category - they're just things you throw at the enemies, and not much more interesting or less expendable than your average magic missile. You can't have one of them distract the enemy with short range pew pew while the others provide covering fire, or split them into two groups so that one group can recharge their batteries while the others skirmish, or anything. An MMO with squad tactics ala MechCommander or something could be really, really cool.

Edit: I never actually played a Mastermind past like level 3 so if they actually can do stuff like this, then awesome, but all I ever saw them do was lag the fuck out of my PC with their 10 million different glowy things and talk about how well they can solo.
« Last Edit: October 30, 2008, 04:33:01 PM by ezrast »
NiX
Wiki Admin
Posts: 7770

Locomotive Pandamonium


Reply #5 on: October 30, 2008, 04:33:16 PM

Granado Espada did something like this where you could run around with 3 characters each being of a different class and you could unlock more classes by collecting cards of sorts. Either way, it didn't pan out well because people tend to avoid being social in any capacity when you can solo any dungeon.
Ingmar
Terracotta Army
Posts: 19280

Auto Assault Affectionado


Reply #6 on: October 30, 2008, 04:45:07 PM

Oh man, I could rant for hours on how much I hate masterminds, and I haven't even played CoV in over a year now. Without derailing the thread, suffice to say that MM pets fall under the "retarded NPC minions" category - they're just things you throw at the enemies, and not much more interesting or less expendable than your average magic missile. You can't have one of them distract the enemy with short range pew pew while the others provide covering fire, or split them into two groups so that one group can recharge their batteries while the others skirmish, or anything. An MMO with squad tactics ala MechCommander or something could be really, really cool.

Edit: I never actually played a Mastermind past like level 3 so if they actually can do stuff like this, then awesome, but all I ever saw them do was lag the fuck out of my PC with their 10 million different glowy things and talk about how well they can solo.

They're individually controllable, but the controls are not terribly sophisticated. I would expect future takes on the idea to be better implemented.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT.
Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
pxib
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4701


Reply #7 on: October 30, 2008, 05:23:47 PM

I don't know how that could fit in a persistent world, though. Would you group up with other groups, and fight armies?
Either way, it didn't pan out well because people tend to avoid being social in any capacity when you can solo any dungeon.
Together these criticisms cover it. The whole point of an MMO is getting people to play together so they have those sticky social relationships that keep them paying subscription fees. If everyone commands their own small army, not only does grouping lead to absurdly large numbers of individual actors, making it as much a hassle as a boon... it's hardly necessary at all when each individual player has all her character-role needs met on her own. Together they're the reason we don't see wildly successful massively-multiplayer realtime strategy games. What works in head-to-head deathmatch doesn't necessarily translate into persistant world fun.

I think we're more likely to see the reverse: multiple players controlling parts of a single actor (commanding a mech, a tank, a spacecruiser, a pirate ship), where the group is an entity rather than a gang.

if at last you do succeed, never try again
Fordel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8306


Reply #8 on: October 30, 2008, 05:55:57 PM

I'm not explaining myself terribly well, I blame the lack of Corn Pops. Let's try a standard Fantasy Diku example.  Head scratch

3 Melee Units.

Footman
Knight
Juggernaut.


The Juggernaut would be the base 'single' unit. Think of something like an Ogre, or Golem. Maybe a pseudo mechanical suit of armor that a gnome pilots (  DRILLING AND MANLINESS ). It would be the most traditional of the 3 classes. You get abilities, your characters acts them out. The End.

The Knight would be, well a mounted warrior :p . The Knight+Horse would roughly take up the same amount of real-estate as the Juggernaut. The Mount wouldn't be a pet, as much as it would simply be a extension of the Knight itself. Attacks would all come from the combined unit, it wouldn't be like the knight swings, then the horse kicks, it would just be the 'Knight unit' swinging or kicking. Special attacks could be flavored to come from the specific source, but it isn't like a hunter pet chewing on your face in addition to the person. Maybe when a Knight is CC'd, he is temporarily knocked of his horse.

The Footman, or Footmen I should say, would be a collection of 4+ actual people. They would work in pseudo unison, you would again play as the entire squad. Your stances would be literal. When you go into a 'defensive stance' your squad would form up for the situation. If you were DPSing, your squad would spread out and skirmish. If you shield walled, you would literally form a shield wall. Set up spears to prevent a Knights charge or surround a Juggernaut as a form of CC. Mechanically, the squad's attacks would be more like dual-wielding then four separate entities attacking. The squads HP and Resource pools would be unified. You wouldn't actually kill the individual members, but maybe when you CC the squad, one member would be pinned down. Maybe if you had a defensive debuff, there would be a hole in your shield line etc...



I'm not trying to suggest the 'every player is his own party' idea. It's more like, how can you let players be something big and powerful, and let other players be the 'everyday soldier' at the same time. Basically, in books and movies, there are always WAAAAY more mundane and normal soldiers, then there are super elite wizards and knights and what not. Fodder.

Can we make being Fodder fun? Can we make being Fodder seem like Fodder? I want to see Formations of soldiers holding lines, I want to see archers raining down arrows, I want to see cavalry charges.

Like, Can someone be a Jedi, then someone else be a entire squad of StormTroopers to even out the power difference?


People would still group and work together, I don't want to remove that... I'm just wondering why we seem to limit ourselves to that 1 'thing' per player.

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
ezrast
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2125


WWW
Reply #9 on: October 30, 2008, 06:18:07 PM

Yeah, I missed the unified HP/abilities thing in your first post, and therefore also missed the point. Now it makes more sense, although I think it would only work right with some sort of gradual diminishing of troops. The giant gnome armor is going to methodically trod upon the footmen one at a time, not hit one over and over until all four die simultaneously. Then you have the problem of compelling players to be the little squishy guys when the angry ogre is clearly so much more badass - this would probably be less of an issue with spaceships or robots or something than with standard fantasy, though.
Fordel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8306


Reply #10 on: October 30, 2008, 06:54:56 PM

Yea, that would be one obvious problem, how much fodder is needed to make it seem like your not just fodder? Maybe as the squads health decreases, individuals can fall 'unconscious' or stumble about. There would have to be a lot of clever fluff animation to deal with the situations and interactions.

Something like the Warhammer 40k RTS has. Individual squad members can preform 'finishers' and stuff, but it doesn't really impact the entire units effectiveness at all.

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
Nerf
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2421

The Presence of Your Vehicle Has Been Documented


Reply #11 on: October 30, 2008, 08:32:13 PM

It sounds like you're wanting combat similar to what you see in Civ:Rev (new console version, I never played PC civ).
You can wear down the enemy troops as well, so even if they win but lost 1/2 their army when you attack next time they're still wounded, unless they took the time to heal their units between attacks.
wuzzman
Guest


Email
Reply #12 on: November 01, 2008, 04:39:39 PM

MMo's would rather destroy your graphic card with big pretty graphics over a large persistent world instead of decent intelligent AI. If WoW or WAR or AoC gave you more then one character to command the crappy AI will make people quite. Sword of the New World a Korean mmo has an AI of sorts, instead of making you control directly one avatar you move 3 people as one team. You don't have direct control over individual group members, you can micro their movements by focusing on one char at a time but something like WASD isn't allowed, and your pretty much depending on AI path-finding for movement. But in return their monster AI is stupid as hell... If it wasn't for the grind, lack of content, and well...if it wasn't a korean game it would have turned out better. Guild Wars currently has the best AI, and that doesn't come at the expensive of having to uber micro one avatar to get optimal performance. 

Its not the lack of communication between players that kill an mmo, its the lack of reasons for the game to beyond solo mode (mostly because everyone wants to grind to the top as quickly as possible). that kills any chance of team based gameplay.
ezrast
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2125


WWW
Reply #13 on: November 02, 2008, 01:58:30 AM

its the lack of reasons for the game to beyond solo mode (mostly because everyone wants to grind to the top as quickly as possible). that kills any chance of team based gameplay.
It's this that perplexes me. The reason why grouping *should* be preferable to soloing is pretty blindingly obvious: because you can kill more crap that way. Two people should never advance more slowly than one, and "proper" party composition should be a a helpful bonus, not mandatory (with exceptions for endgame stuff if you must). If nothing else being in a party can simply give a big experience bonus. It's like the Diablo II thing where more people = more awesome despite the fact that everybody is DPS. This has probably been discussed to death in other threads though.

Come to think of it, City of Villains (never played Heroes but I assume it's the same) did a pretty good job of this with the mission difficulty automatically scaling for the size of the team. Running missions on anything but the easiest difficulty could be challenging without a tank, but one of my most memorable sessions from that game was getting into a group of three Dominators and being completely untouchable with all our ridiculous CC. Hell, people even organized and completed all-Dominator Statesman runs (when I played, Statesman was the hardest PvE boss, and doms were the squishiest and least damaging class, notoriously useless against bosses).

Anyway, I guess the point I'm making is that pxib is wrong. A game where I cannot progress quickly without exactly one healer, one tank, one melee dps, one nuker, and one cc is way less conducive to grouping than one where I can simply invite the first four names that show up in /lfg and then go kick ass. We do need a reason to from groups, but super-specialized rules and mandatory party composition are not that reason. The game just needs to be more fun in a group (this also has the advantage of letting people solo *if* they really want to, because nobody else is playing or they want to try out a new ability without getting made fun of or whatever).

Now I'm getting rambly. Sorry, I'm tired.
ajax34i
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2527


Reply #14 on: November 07, 2008, 04:19:30 PM

Multiple units have a control problem:  if the game is in realtime (MMO's are), and there's no pause to give orders / choose abilities, the controlling player must rely on AI, and AI sucks.

Take WoW, imagine you have a 10-man raid but with only 1 player (player controls all 10 toons), and imagine trying to do any of the Karazhan bosses with that setup.  Uh, yeah.
ezrast
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2125


WWW
Reply #15 on: November 09, 2008, 06:11:36 PM

Yeah, that's why there's never been a successful game where the player controls more than one unit.
Daztur
Terracotta Army
Posts: 51


Reply #16 on: November 19, 2008, 03:36:36 AM

Why not head in the other direction and instead of have one play command a group have really fucking big things (like Eve Titans) require a group of PCs to operate effectively. Make there be a couple posts in a ship such as Captain (the guy who can invite new people in to the ship and boot out people, whenever the Captain logs off the next person in line gets to be captain), Weapons Guy, Navigator, Shields Guy, Repair monkey, etc. etc. If there's no human at any given post those functions are carried out by a very brain dead AI so to get your money's worth out of a capital ship you need about 10 PCs manning it.

For even more fun don't let people log their capital ships off except during server down time...
Fordel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8306


Reply #17 on: November 19, 2008, 05:54:54 AM

Puzzle Pirates does just that. It works there because, well, it's a puzzle game, so each player has his own puzzle game to play.

In EVE, being the 'shields guy' would be exceedingly boring as the current game play stands.

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
Daztur
Terracotta Army
Posts: 51


Reply #18 on: November 19, 2008, 09:00:39 PM

Puzzle Pirates does just that. It works there because, well, it's a puzzle game, so each player has his own puzzle game to play.

In EVE, being the 'shields guy' would be exceedingly boring as the current game play stands.

Ya, don't mean Eve mechanics specifically, just the general idea. I'm sure you could complicate the mechanics enough to make it take one person's time to manage the shields of something as big as a titan.
Zetor
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3269


WWW
Reply #19 on: November 24, 2008, 01:14:24 AM

SWG (yeah, awesome example I know  awesome, for real) also has multiple roles for larger POB ships: gunner(s), pilot, and someone who manages shields, capacitors, etc.. they also need to run to various places inside the ship to put out fires, resolve malfunctions after some subsystem gets damaged, stuff like that.


-- Z.

Pages: [1] Go Up Print 
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Game Design/Development  |  Topic: Why are classes 1-1 in scale?  
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.10 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC