Mists of Pandaria

[Malakili]

People think they want skill-based reflex-gameplay until they get it.  Then they say "Oh, fuck this shit" because you can't ever get better and wind up permanent fodder.  

Trinity-MMO gameplay (In fact.. just use DIKU, it's the convention.) reflects what the audience wants from that market; Time invested = ability.  Just because YOU don't find it exciting or engaging doesn't mean that it isn't.  I find it plenty of both when done right, as do others.

Well, fair enough, its fine that some people like it.  My point is, and I should have been a bit less gung ho,  that for the people who don't like it no amount of changing abilities, numbers, and even roles is probably going to fix their issues because I think they are more fundamental.  As for the first part of what you say, I totally agree.  Most people, despite what they say, don't actually want their individual skill to matter and obviously the more you make combat about stuff the player is doing (instead of what the character is doing) the more you are going down that path.  

I would clarify, I wasn't using Trinity to be synonymous with DIKU, in fact part of my point is that they don't need to be.  I would imagine a PvE encounter in TF2, for example, which relies on medics as healers, heavies as tanks, soldiers/demos as DPS.   In fact, you see exactly this when people are trying to take out sentries in that game.  

[Soulflame]

Hard enrage timers are an execution and DPS problem.  I think.

[Paelos]

Hard enrage timers are an execution and DPS problem.  I think.

Of course they are, but here's the problem with enrage timers: Damage has to be X during Y time, or the fight fails. Nothing about excution by the tanks or healers can save that unless DPS are dying. It creates a situation where your best players in the tank or healer role absolutely cannot win the day, even if they could extend the fight by another minute through their gear or skill.

[Typhon]

All computer-based game play is turn-based.  "Twitch" games just have turns that are in the milllisecond range, and is frequently faster than a human can push a button.  "Turn-based" games have turns in the half-second to seconds range, which is typically enough time for a larger percentage of the population to decide upon a reasonable action/reaction.   Upon this core you can layer a number of other systems, for example resource based actions (need rage, mana, energy, fluffy bunnies to perform action X).  This is orthogonal to trinity or levels.  I think you can have interesting gameplay in a game where the turn length is short and still attract the "but I can't react that fast crowd" if you layer a decent resource system on top and make combat take a larger number of successful hit to reach completion (e.g. smaller energy bars and larger health pools).

Trinity is an easy/obvious solution for how to foster group-based gameplay.  I get that, I just don't like playing a healer and I hate waiting for someone who's willing to take one for the team to come along (and cry about how they aren't appreciated).  I'd like for there to be a game that tries to foster group-based gameplay using different roles.  Something new would be nice.

Level / gear arms race: Saying that time spent replaces player skill only applies to players fighting players/mobs of a certain level (i.e. less or much less then themselves).  I guess there are some folks that choose these games because it allows them to poop-sock their way to victory for that period of time where the poop-socker has a level or gear advantage.  But I think most folks like these games because they convey a sense of character advancement.  Regardless, the end of the race ends with everyone similarly geared, and if you are a player that isn't able to choose a good skill to use at the right time you are going to lose (where 'lose' can mean, 'die', 'use your cheaty get-away ability' or 'run to the nearest guard'). 

Making a game that rewards a player for choosing an action that is a counter-thrust to an opponent's action is what I think Malakili is calling interesting, and I agree, those games are interesting.  A game that rewards stringing several actions together in a sequence is also fun (combo!), especially if there are different combos with the same starting point.
Something else that is interesting to me are abilities that "charge up", the player must decide which ability to use, and how long to charge it.

Why am I posting this in a WoW thread?  I don't know, I got lost. Sorry!

[Malakili]

All computer-based game play is turn-based.  "Twitch" games just have turns that are in the milllisecond range, and is frequently faster than a human can push a button.  "Turn-based" games have turns in the half-second to seconds range, which is typically enough time for a larger percentage of the population to decide upon a reasonable action/reaction.   Upon this core you can layer a number of other systems, for example resource based actions (need rage, mana, energy, fluffy bunnies to perform action X).  This is orthogonal to trinity or levels.  I think you can have interesting gameplay in a game where the turn length is short and still attract the "but I can't react that fast crowd" if you layer a decent resource system on top and make combat take a larger number of successful hit to reach completion (e.g. smaller energy bars and larger health pools).

Unless we are defining the word "turn" in totally different ways, I don't think this can be right.

[caladein]

Hard enrage timers are an execution and DPS problem.  I think.

Of course they are, but here's the problem with enrage timers: Damage has to be X during Y time, or the fight fails. Nothing about excution by the tanks or healers can save that unless DPS are dying. It creates a situation where your best players in the tank or healer role absolutely cannot win the day, even if they could extend the fight by another minute through their gear or skill.

That's just not true.  The better your healers are (and by extension the better your group as a whole is at avoiding/mitigating damage) the more damage dealers you can bring.  It's not a smooth transition between N healers and N-1 healers, but it exists and is an issue on all cutting-edge fights.

The ability for a tank to single-tank something because of cooldown management or gear is also an input in the above.

And you're (again) completely ignoring the damage that healers and tanks can do when they don't need to focus 100% of their time and gearing on staying upright.  (AKA: Fuck yeah, Searing Totem DPS.)

[SurfD]

Hard enrage timers are an execution and DPS problem.  I think.

Of course they are, but here's the problem with enrage timers: Damage has to be X during Y time, or the fight fails. Nothing about excution by the tanks or healers can save that unless DPS are dying. It creates a situation where your best players in the tank or healer role absolutely cannot win the day, even if they could extend the fight by another minute through their gear or skill.

That's just not true.  The better your healers are (and by extension the better your group as a whole is at avoiding/mitigating damage) the more damage dealers you can bring.  It's not a smooth transition between N healers and N-1 healers, but it exists and is an issue on all cutting-edge fights.

The ability for a tank to single-tank something because of cooldown management or gear is also an input in the above.

And you're (again) completely ignoring the damage that healers and tanks can do when they don't need to focus 100% of their time and gearing on staying upright.  (AKA: Fuck yeah, Searing Totem DPS.)

The answer to "How can healers (or tanks) improve the dps output of a raid" should never be "Become so good that you can exchange a healer for another DPS".   The situation should always be looked at from the perspective that a full raid (lets take 10 man) always has 20% tanks, 30% healers and 50% dps (or similar static figure) that never changes.

[Ingmar]

Yeah when it becomes about telling a person to sit or whatever that doesn't sit well with me design-wise. Granted dual spec helps with that but it assumes you have people who don't want to keep their primary role.

[Paelos]

And you're (again) completely ignoring the damage that healers and tanks can do when they don't need to focus 100% of their time and gearing on staying upright.  (AKA: Fuck yeah, Searing Totem DPS.)

Here's a newsflash, I didn't pick a tank to worry about my damage output. There are entire classes, jobs, and the majority of raids who should be handling that aspect.

Also the goal of a tank is to be so good we're swapping out other roles? That's ridiculous, and it doesn't address the fact that you'd still be defining fights by dps.

[caladein]

The answer to "How can healers (or tanks) improve the dps output of a raid" should never be "Become so good that you can exchange a healer for another DPS".   The situation should always be looked at from the perspective that a full raid (lets take 10 man) always has 20% tanks, 30% healers and 50% dps (or similar static figure) that never changes.

That's a fine stance to take but this game has never worked that way.

On top of that, I think it locks you into always needing to design fights around using that second proper tank when I doubt it's necessary from a "fun fight" perspective most of the time.  There's also the issue of scaling between the two raid sizes.

That's ridiculous, and it doesn't address the fact that you'd still be defining fights by dps.

Of course I'm defining fights by damage, that's how you win almost all of them.  Make the boss's health go to 0, not last X minutes.

Hard or scaling or healer-longevity-based enrages, trying to get by with the least amount of healers and tanks is how fights are approached.

Edit: I'll add that killing off threat as a relevant mechanic unmoored tanks from the traditional balancing act of the raid.  Tanks had to balance defensive stuff to allow the healers to do their jobs and threat generation to allow the damage dealers to do theirs.  Damage dealers had to do their own job as much as possible without interfering with the healers' job by requiring too much attention and putting others at risk and the tanks' by pulling off of them.  And the healers of course had to keep everyone upright and triage effectively.

Without threat, tanks have to balance defense and their own damage instead of simply facilitating other players'.

[Simond]

Another quarter of a million beta invites just went out.
Also, if anyone is having patcher/launcher problems: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1108038-Solution-if-your-launcher-is-stuck-at-0-or-10

[Paelos]

Of course I'm defining fights by damage, that's how you win almost all of them.  Make the boss's health go to 0, not last X minutes.

Hard or scaling or healer-longevity-based enrages, trying to get by with the least amount of healers and tanks is how fights are approached.

That's how fights are approached NOW. I don't want 18 hour fights like Final Fantasy. I also don't want 8 minute DPS races. It's a crutch to design your fights around tightly wound DPS timers because you don't understand how to affect fights through mana generation on healers.

[Malakili]

Of course I'm defining fights by damage, that's how you win almost all of them.  Make the boss's health go to 0, not last X minutes.

Hard or scaling or healer-longevity-based enrages, trying to get by with the least amount of healers and tanks is how fights are approached.

That's how fights are approached NOW. I don't want 18 hour fights like Final Fantasy. I also don't want 8 minute DPS races. It's a crutch to design your fights around tightly wound DPS timers because you don't understand how to affect fights through mana generation on healers.

Its just insanely hard to balance mana regen across an entire expansion.  If it is too low, fights are impossible at the beginning, but then once you gear up, it quickly gets to the point where it is nearly infinite.  This has been a problem with WoW since day 1.  I'm not aware of a game that does it better, but my raiding experience is admittedly limited in other games.

[Ingmar]

The obvious idea is that regen rate/size of pool for your healing resource is unaffected by gear.

[Lantyssa]

Madness!

[Fordel]

Finite mana can suck my balls.


The best enrage timers are soft ones, where the fight just keeps ramping up till it spirals out of control (BEHOLD THE LEGIONS AT MY COMMAND guy in Kara for example. Most fights in Kara really).

Hard Enrage timers suck balls 9 times out of 10, the exception being the token Patchwerk fight, where the enrage timer IS the fight.

[Paelos]

Let me preface this by saying I'm fine with enrage timers like Patchwerk where it is the fight and it's an occasional use of the mechanic.

I'm not in favor of them on every fight. Although soft enrages are much more tolerable because that does actually give your tanks and healers credit for being better than most.

[Malakili]

The obvious idea is that regen rate/size of pool for your healing resource is unaffected by gear.

Considering that this is one of the main ways in which healers have "progress" taking it away would likely just piss healers even more and make less even less people want to do it.

[FieryBalrog]

The obvious idea is that regen rate/size of pool for your healing resource is unaffected by gear.

That removes a lot of the feeling of progression, it also kills one of the two defining features of mana vs focus/energy.

Size of pool will be unaffected by gear in MoP though.

[Nevermore]

The obvious idea is that regen rate/size of pool for your healing resource is unaffected by gear.

Considering that this is one of the main ways in which healers have "progress" taking it away would likely just piss healers even more and make less even less people want to do it.

I don't get that.  Do Rogues feel no sense of progression because gear doesn't increase the size of their energy pool?  Gear will still increase the size of their heals (aka damage for damage dealers) and the speed they can cast (though I could see that as a double-edged sword with finite mana pools).  Apparently I must play the game 'wrong' because when I was putting together my heal set in Wrath, I never thought "wow, look how much more mana that gives me!".  I just liked seeing bigger heals.

[FieryBalrog]

I too would like to see fewer hard enrages on fights. Especially a fight like Ultraxion. There's no need for a hard enrage at all, because his Instability is already a huge soft enrage. You wouldn't get past 6:30 or 7:00 anyway. So the 6 minute timer isn't adding anything in terms of preventing infinite extension of the fight; it's only adding the arbitrary "fuck you" limit if you happen to be a few seconds behind.

I'm glad that Spine doesn't have an enrage, and it's one of the reasons I really like that fight (while also hating it as a disc priest, the debuff is particularly terrible for us).

[FieryBalrog]

The obvious idea is that regen rate/size of pool for your healing resource is unaffected by gear.

Considering that this is one of the main ways in which healers have "progress" taking it away would likely just piss healers even more and make less even less people want to do it.

I don't get that.  Do Rogues feel no sense of progression because gear doesn't increase the size of their energy pool?  

Rogues already have infinite regen. Mana* isn't modeled the same way, it's meant to be managed carefully and when you run dry, you're dry for a while. That would be the remaining distinction between mana and energy if both regen rates and pool sizes were fixed independently of gear, and it's also what would make that change kinda suck.

*healer mana. Blizzard has basically made DPS classes mana pools into a more active energy like system. As a shadow priest, I have 4 different active methods of regaining large chunks of mana, but my costs are also relatively large compared to my pool, so my mana model is very different from a healer. This is because the traditional mana model makes very little sense for DPS.

[caladein]

The size of pool thing in MoP is more about balancing static regen versus percentage-based regen which has gone out of whack the past few expansions.  Something like Glyph of Water Mastery starts out good but ends up as relatively useless.  The reverse is true for mechanics like Divine Plea or Rapture.

As a healer though, I like the differing constraints that regen rates pose throughout an expansion.  Regen is sort of the only mechanic that I feel I interact with directly as the size of my heals don't really increase relative to health gain or increased damage taken.  Much in the same way that I might switch from Arcane Shot to Aimed Shot hardcast as Marksmanship once I reach a certain gear level.

[Nevermore]

The obvious idea is that regen rate/size of pool for your healing resource is unaffected by gear.

Considering that this is one of the main ways in which healers have "progress" taking it away would likely just piss healers even more and make less even less people want to do it.

I don't get that.  Do Rogues feel no sense of progression because gear doesn't increase the size of their energy pool?  

Rogues already have infinite regen. Mana* isn't modeled the same way, it's meant to be managed carefully and when you run dry, you're dry for a while. That would be the remaining distinction between mana and energy if both regen rates and pool sizes were fixed independently of gear, and it's also what would make that change kinda suck.

If Rogues had 'infinite regen' their energy would instantly be full again after they made an attack. 

I don't see a problem with Energy = smallest pool with the fastest regen, Focus = middle sized pool (which it isn't atm, iirc) with moderate regen, Mana = by far the largest pool but with the slowest regen.  You still retain the unique resource management of each pool, which is the main distinction anyway.

Besides which, the point was being made about the 'feeling of progression', not about how 'distinct' they feel.  And didn't you already say Blizzard is making the mana pool independent of gear in MoP anyway?

[Malakili]

Besides which, the point was being made about the 'feeling of progression', not about how 'distinct' they feel.  And didn't you already say Blizzard is making the mana pool independent of gear in MoP anyway?

The difference is that a shiny new sword means a lot more to a rogue than a shiny new staff means to a priest.  Progressing as a healer has been about balancing output and longevity.  Take out the longevity part and now I just get to see bigger green numbers than before..woo hoo.  There is a reason I didn't choose to play DPS in raids...

And they already took out downranking, so you can't even use +healing as a substitute for mana regen anymore.

[Ingmar]

I think a good rule of thumb for Blizzard is probably to ignore input from someone who thought that downranking was a great bit of design. 

[Malakili]

I think a good rule of thumb for Blizzard is probably to ignore input from someone who thought that downranking was a great bit of design. 

I honestly never saw the problem with it.  Their stated reason was that is gave healers an infinite mana pool, which is basically exactly what we are discussing.  I'm not saying mana should be infinite, but what I'm saying is that the interesting part of playing a healer was managing mana while keeping people alive.  It was a constant battle to eek the most healing out of the least bit of mana possible.

Mana regen was always the most interesting stat for this reason, it made it all the more important to try and sneak in those extra few ticks of regen outside the 5 second rule for example.   Given the fact that "whack a mole" isn't a very intresting thing to do, these kinds of little edge cases are what made the entire thing interesting.  Taking away the item progression of mana regen would basically nuke that entire part of the game for healers.

[caladein]

Downranking was a decent-enough analogue for having various different healing spells, especially in the era of tiny health pools relative to heal size.  It was arcane and unintuitive, but it served a good gameplay purpose.

There was no need for it in Wrath because that was the "push best buttan" expansion for healers and we have pretty big toolkits now.

[Nevermore]

The difference is that a shiny new sword means a lot more to a rogue than a shiny new staff means to a priest.

That's a problem with how staffs are implemented in WoW, not with your mana pool growing or not.  Never understood why they never at least experimented with a system where a mana user's main hand item had a set damage/heal amount, with the spells cast modifying that.  Same as how a Rogue's attack skills generally modify the base damage on the weapon.

[Malakili]

Downranking was a decent-enough analogue for having various different healing spells, especially in the era of tiny health pools relative to heal size.  It was arcane and unintuitive, but it served a good gameplay purpose.

There was no need for it in Wrath because that was the "push best buttan" expansion for healers and we have pretty big toolkits now.

I haven't raided in Cataclysm at all, most I did was heroics as a healer in this expansion and don't currently have an active subscription, so I admittedly can't talk about the current state of the end game, but what I was talking about had more to do with a general principle anyway.  In general more decisions = more interesting.  Taking decisions away (by having less gearing options, less ability options, less ways to play in general) is (almost) always going to make games worse in my opinion.

[FieryBalrog]

The difference is that a shiny new sword means a lot more to a rogue than a shiny new staff means to a priest.

That's a problem with how staffs are implemented in WoW, not with your mana pool growing or not.  Never understood why they never at least experimented with a system where a mana user's main hand item had a set damage/heal amount, with the spells cast modifying that.  Same as how a Rogue's attack skills generally modify the base damage on the weapon.

I actually think it has more to do with WoW's casting animations.

Staff is sorta equivalent to a melee weapon because of the massive amount of spell power that any caster weapon has, but it's just a piece of wood that sits on your back.

Although, this isn't even a WoW thing, more of a D&D + its RPG descendants thing. Wizards have never been as excited by their gear as Warriors and Rogues are.

[luckton]

MMO-Champ's got some more data-mined info for the upcoming patch.  If true, then GC was serious about Metamorph 'locks not supposed to be main tanking, as they're taking it up the ass again.  Once again, why spend the time trying to balance something that's not going to be really effective doing anyways?  If you're going to make them a tank, MAKE THEM A TANK.  Hell, they went so far as to retain the 6% crit-proof buff in Metamorph.

Fun for me is tanking.  If I can't tank it, it's not worth playing.  If they're gonna waste this much time farting around with 'locks, let's just go full circle-jerk and give Shamans a few more things they can claim are 'tank-specific' skills/talents and drive this shit into the wall.   

[Paelos]

Looks like they just bumped up warrior prot damage a bunch in the recent beta change.

[El Gallo]

People think they want skill-based reflex-gameplay until they get it.  Then they say "Oh, fuck this shit" because you can't ever get better and wind up permanent fodder. 

Trinity-MMO gameplay (In fact.. just use DIKU, it's the convention.) reflects what the audience wants from that market; Time invested = ability.  Just because YOU don't find it exciting or engaging doesn't mean that it isn't.  I find it plenty of both when done right, as do others.

Exactly, 100%, voted 5, would read again and again, etc.

[Pantastic]

The real problem is that combat is still a real time interpretation of D&D turn based combat.  Until we get RPGs which get beyond that and have some real iteration on the ideas which might come out of that direction, we are going to be stuck with boring combat one way or another.  It has less to do with the trinity and more to do with the fact that no matter what you do with the numbers of it, this kind of combat just isn't especially exciting and engaging for its own sake no matter how you cut it.  

While MMORPGs come from pen and paper RPGs, D&D combat was never holy trinity based. It's never had mechanics for threat, aggro, an taunting at all. There's traditionally been very limited 'make him fight me' controls, starting with 'if you move away from someone they get a free swing' in 1e and 2e, then more detailed attacks of opportunity in 3e, then in 4e adding some 'if you don't swing at me, I hit you harder' abilities. You also don't really have any separation between Damage Dealers and tanks, with fighters and barbarians maxing melee and health, then at high levels mages just sort of take over as demigods. In traditional D&D rogues weren't even a DD class, they did scouting, lockpicking, and an occasional backstab, not significant damage in a prolonged fight.

A game using holy trinity like WOW has tanks with five to dozens of times the effective health of anyone (that's raw HP multiplied by chance for stuff to get through mitigation and avoidance) and healers who heal the tank for multiple times their HP pool over the course of each fight. D&D classes are all pretty durable; you don't see the huge HP pool differences, and non-fighters tended to have plenty of protection options, especially clerics. You also don't to zip through multiple HP pools each fight, there's really only so many heal spells a cleric can throw, and they often have other tasks than just spamming. There's also a lot of incapacitation and instant death effects in older versions.

I think trying to relate MMO combat back to D&D combat is a mistake, D&D combat always involved more tactics (put several tough guys between the enemy and your clothies, not just have the tank use magic high-threat hits) and roleplaying (have the thief try to distract one guy, try to convince the prisoners to help you raid the boss) while MMO combat is pretty static (you know about any 'attack from the rear' in advance and don't really do much maneuvering) and programmed. I don't think there's any chance of WOW changing the basic game anywhere near that much, I'm just pointing out that the the 'grinding a huge hit point pool down by spamming damage abilities while your healer(s) spam healing abilities on the tank(s)' didn't come from traditional D&D.