Deliver us from Healer/Nuker/Tank

[Numtini]

Get rid of the destination and focus on the journey

That's up to the players, not the game. EQ is a great example of a game that is completely about the journey. There are some simply incredible dungeons and encounters all through the levels. But people refuse to take it. Instead they sit in the high xp zones and pull.

[Hellinar]

Get rid of the destination and focus on the journey

That's up to the players, not the game. EQ is a great example of a game that is completely about the journey. There are some simply incredible dungeons and encounters all through the levels. But people refuse to take it. Instead they sit in the high xp zones and pull.

But the designer is responsible for the environment. And environment changes probable behaviour. If you implicitly design the game as "reaching the next level as fast as possible", then people will min/max. Complaining about optimal groups in an uncapped game is ignoring the effects of the environment that has been created. Its like covering a playing field in ice, then complaining that most people are playing ice hockey not soccer. If you provide a high speed skating surface, most people will put on skates and try and speed. If you provide a MMORPG where speed is rewarded, most people will speed through your content.

[Krakrok]

They are actually more like tank mages than pure tanks given how powerful they are.

The way I see it though is every infantry loadout is a tank mage in Planetside. If a medium infantry can kill a max with 2-3 decimator shots it wasn't much of a tank. UO didn't have the tank/nuker/healer trinity either for the same reason.

But they are a true tank class because of their high armor.

I don't think Planetside infantry loadouts can be pigeon holed into RPG tank/nuker/healer roles based on armor alone. The reason being is that regardless of armor all the weapons are created equal and therefore it doesn't hold true in the skill based FPS environment. For example, in Guild Wars if I am a healer and I'm firing my wand at a warrior I'm doing maybe 0-1 damage. So the warrior is a true tank because I can't even kill him with my healer. Whereas in Planetside if I had a support loadout I could also kill a max at the same time with a decimator. But if that same support loadout ran into a medium infantry guy with a lasher the most likely outcome is the support guy dieing.

Hence the uberness of "Max Crash Teams".

If there was the same fast run/jump/fly mod for heavy infantry as there is for the max you could max crash with heavy infantry guys. Or even medium infantry guys. Max crashs are more about speed than armor in my view.

[AOFanboi]

Find a way to replace combat as the only real mode of experience gain.

Maybe drop "experience" with the dropping of "hitpoints"? Honored jury, we present Exhibit A: EVE Online.

Hitpoints and experience are there because somehow the players have become trained to watch the numbers. So the game is reduced to the numbers.

When a player kills a mob it should be for a "story reason", not just because it's a 3D model wrapped around a packet of experience points. But game designers focus on the system (hitpoints, levels, experience) because that's what they can make and that's what they see sells. So it's further between the original idea in the MMO world than elsewhere - we're unlikely to experience the MMO equivalent of Katamari Damacy or Frequency/Amplitude.

So hitpoints, levels, experience points and the Trinity will continue for as long as we players keep putting the money in their hands when they use them.

[Arnold]

Asheron's Call 1 didn't have a dedicated healer class, since it was skill based on class based.

All melee could heal themselves with healing kits (including in combat) if they bought that skill.

A melee class could even buy the Life Magic skill and heal themselves and others.   In fact almost every standard template included Life magic, but more for the debuffs than for the healing.  Potions were also fairly common, and endlessly usable in combat.

I don't think anyone played as a pure healer, you technically could if you wanted to.   Also you could kill mobs using only Life magic, since it had drains and damage spells also.

This was all countered in AC1 by NOT having insane hitpoints at high levels like every other game.  In AC1 you started with between 5-50 hp (your choice based on attribute allocation), and grew when all buffed around 400ish.

It was also balanced by having to break combat, do a healing animation, then restart combat, during which you were more vulnerable.  So one had to decide when to do it.  Also heal was likely to fail if healing from low health.

Much of the same could be said for UO.  Almost every combat character had mutliple ways of healing.  Caramon Fey was the only PvPer I knew who had ZERO magery.  But then again, he had healing wands to use for when his bandages and potions weren't enough.  So I guess that qualifies as "multiple ways" too.

Playing a dedicated healing in AC1 was pointless because

1. The fellowship system didn't show the party stats and you had to be looking at a specific person to see their health level.
2. Everyone had at least one way to heal, and once you got past the early days, most characters had 3 ways to heal.

[Arnold]

What I want to see is a MMORPG that focuses on how you get to the next level, not how fast.  A MMORPG with really different classes and races, with quite different ways of getting to the experience cap. Soft cap experience and loot gain to something not far above the expected average leveling speed. Sure, someone can focus on being the highest level around, but they won’t be months ahead of the curve.

When I played Diablo, I didn't care about level; I just cared about making it all the way through the entire dungeon.  It was, you know, FUN.  MMORPGs need to be more like this and less like they are now.

[Arnold]

"There’s nothing inherently flawed with the 'three boring classes', it’s a tried and true formula that’s been in existence since Tolkein first put pen to paper and has served well ever since."

WTF is this guy from Lum's web page talking about?  Gandalf hardly ever (never?) cast a combat spell, and he was pretty badass with a sword.

[stray]

Fuck Tolkien.

[Morfiend]

Find a replacement for hit points.

HAM?

[Samwise]

Gandalf hardly ever (never?) cast a combat spell, and he was pretty badass with a sword.

He threw some mini-fireballs in The Hobbit.  That's the only instance I can think of.

There's also a distinct lack of instant magical healing in Tolkien.  Or almost any literary fantasy setting, really.  Maybe because fights are less dramatic if you know the hero can always bounce back from the brink of death with a swig of a potion.

[stray]

Either way, I still say "Fuck Tolkien". Somehow, he's still responsible....How ever indirectly.

He directly influenced most fantasy fiction, and in turn, fantasy fiction directly influenced fantasy games. Many (not all, to be fair) fantasy oriented, Tolkien influenced writers don't give a care about three dimensional characters and settings (that goes for Tolkien himself). They just care about settings and archetypes (both of which can be charming to an extent, I guess). That kind of thinking rubs off into video game translations of the genre, I think.

To see a good fantasy game with real class and gameplay depth would require a paradigm shift in how fantasy is thought of in general.

[eldaec]

I really don't thing heal/tank/dps is actually the problem. The problem is that heal/tank/dps is implemented in an uninteresting way; of all forms of entertainment I can't imagine a battle less interesting to watch than a MMOG battle.

I tend to think that the biggest mistakes rpg cpmbat makes is that it designers insist on paying homage to the wearing-down-a-big-tank-of-HP D&D system and haven't compared their processes to how either combat sports or movie battles play out. They could also learn a lot from board and card games.

Some characteristics of fun battles either on screen or in sports or in board/card games that are missing from rpgs...

- Battles should be about wearing away defences and then hitting the killer strike, not about wearing away a tank of HPs, where each HP is exactly the same as the last one.
Think about every movie battle ever, think gaining board advantage in a ccg, think about a boxing match. Early exchanges are usually about developing your resources and attacking the resources of the protagonists, not about hitting your opponent directly. Resources might be your stance, positional advantage, endurance, rage, defences, whatever.

- Position should matter. Formation should matter. Pushing forward/back should matter.
Jedi on the high ground pwn. If I'm pushing you down the stairs I expect to hit you more easily. Collision detection should let me protect the caster behind me. Most of what we can actually see in a mmog combat situation (or a movie, or a sport) is the position of the protagonists, we know who is winning a movie fight because he usually pushes the other guy back, and is better able to select his ground. Gaming is mostly visual, yet in a MMOG, position means nothing.

- As the battle develops, action should get more spectacular, not fade away.
RPG systems tend to favour early co-ordinated alpha strikes (when everyone has lots of mana/endurance/hps) and then slowly fade out into individual players repeating attack chains. Combo-chains and rage-meters are turning up in some games; but compare the way mana builds up in a game of M:tG, or the way chess pieces become more powerful as the board clears, or the way a movie battle ends with the big build-up to the spectacular all-or-nothing maneuveur to finish the boss off. Ever been on a mmog-raid where the tanks have to hold down the bad guy while the casters have to build up some complex but delicate ritual to blow the uber-monster apart? Despite the fact that this sort of thing is a movie staple for cooperative victory, I haven't ever seen anything like it in a MMOG, it's usually 'all whittle the life bar down for an hour while healers perform a rotation system for keeping main-tank alive'. Dull.

The way I would do things if I were to design a simple shift from the current structure of the rpg battles that would include some of the above, while remaining in the realm of the achieveable.....

You start with 3 bars...

HP - enough to survive about 3 typical direct hits, can be healed by the cleric archetype, but it's slow and hard. Zero HP = fall down.
Defence - starts out full, some of your moves can replenish it partially, but they require you to give up other resources like attack points, position, time etc. Some abilities might use defence points as part of their activation cost. Whenever an opponent hits you, you roll a save against your current defence bar, a successful save stops you taking HP damage but reduces your defence.
Attack - starts out empty, fills during battle, this resource is used like endurance or mana in a current rpg. Empties fast when not in combat.

Activated abilities mostly cost attack points, more aggressive attacks that open your stance to a counter may also cost def points.

Isn't 'defence' just like more 'HP'? A little bit, but unlike a typical MMOG, we are using defence as a measure of your stance and position, and making clear that instead of instant magic healing being provided solely by a cleric we're making the individual responsible for replenishing it by giving up opportunities to attack (either in terms of losing time or losing attack points). Having this second bar also allows us to add secondary effects when a hit gets through def to the HP bar (eg. wounding a target to prevent them using a certain ability) and allows us to have early-battle attacks that do more def-damage, and late-battle attacks that do more HP-damage or that have secondary effects at a cost of being easier to block if your target has high def. At the very least this introduces more decision making and risk assessments during a battle, it should help move us away from spreadsheets that calculate the best possible attack chain, and it gives devs a way to encourage simple attacks at the start growing into more and more impressive moves as the battle develops.

Isn't this like 'HAM'? No. HAM didn't allow damage from different spec'd players to stack, and HAM was set up such that every move with a single weapon damaged the same stat, and any of the stats could incap you. The fact that HAM left every player working solely with one bar prevented it having any advantage over HP/end/mana, you were still just looking for the best attack on whatever your chosen stat is and repeating it ad nauseam. The purpose of this system is to ensure decision making skills are used to determine which move is best at which point in the battle (how far do we seek positional advantage by using skills that attack def before we switch to the big hitting aggressive HP attacks that may drain our own def?).

[Dren]

I like the defense instead of HP idea.  Make combat significant yet only allow "healing" (strategic positioning or reflex enhancement) in a very limited way.  It may well work out better if your avatar was not repeatedly returned to full health over and over during combat. 

While real life is not always fun in a game, this makes sense.  I've often tried to picture my avatar going from near death to full health over and over during a fight.  What would that look like?  Wouldn't that be very strange?!

I CAN visualize my armor getting worn down slowly, my exhaustion getting the better of me, my reflexes wearing down, my mental abilities lacking, etc.  While those things would be easily remedied in between combat, during combat those things would be very difficult to improve/heal.

There is a lot more to be investigated, but it does show that there are other opportunities for gauging your avatar's procession towards that final killing blow.

[HaemishM]

Either way, I still say "Fuck Tolkien". Somehow, he's still responsible....How ever indirectly.

Your hatred is misplaced. Blame Gary Gygax for wanting to roll dice to have a reasonably realistic interpretation of combat if you have to blame someone. Shit, blaming Tolkein for hitpoints and classes is like blaming the Madonna for Jesus's crucifixtion.

[Dren]

Hell in Tolkien's stories I don't remember hitpoints or magical healing doing much for people.

In fact, most people just died when stuck through with a sword or arrow.  The one wound that I remember almost killed the hobbit and through several days of rest was able to continue, but it NEVER really healed.  I didn't feel like people were invincible in that story at all.

Hell if you want hardcore, craft the game after Martin.  Nobody lasts past their 40th birthday and the res sickness just makes you one vindictive bitch!

[El Gallo]

It's even a bit hard to blame Gygax.  He went out of his was several times to talk about HP being an abstract representation of a hero's defense/luck/favor from the Gods/mitigation/whatever rather than an actual chunk of health.  I always thought of healing a damaged player as asking the Gods to boost a guy who had become exhausted/overwhelmed/had used up his political capital with his deity and was about to get punked.  Then again, I am all about self-delusion, so I can understand if others can't suspend this much disbelief of game mechanics.  And, of course, in-combat healing was not as common in D&D. 

[Sky]

I don't blame Gygax a bit. He was just expanding rpg rules for miniature combat and an entire new genre of game was born. That guy deserves a lot of credit, whatever the legacy may have turned into.

[Samwise]

My view of things is that D&D was based off the lowest common denominator of a number of fantasy works (I consider Fritz Leiber to be a heavier influence on D&D than Tolkien - we wouldn't have barbarians and rogues if not for Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser).  And MMOGs in turn are based off the lowest common denominator of D&D games.

To its credit, D&D ended up growing in some interesting directions from its Chainmail beginnings, even if MMOGs derive most heavily from the basic "whack foozles in a dungeon" style of D&D game.  The difference is that MMOGs haven't gone through a similar period of growth yet, mainly because there's not as much room for creativity in an industry of that nature.

[HaemishM]

I don't blame Gygax a bit. He was just expanding rpg rules for miniature combat and an entire new genre of game was born. That guy deserves a lot of credit, whatever the legacy may have turned into.

I don't either, but it's just as retarded as blaming Tolkien for inspiring people. We should really blame the system wonks and catass munchkin powergamers, who refused to play anything different from the D&D style games.

[Sky]

I was going to start name dropping the old pre-D&D stuff, but my memory was shaky, I couldn't remember what I had in addition to Chainmail, there was Swords & Something...so I did a GIS and mmm...I love memory lane.

Chainmail
Supplements

Used to have all of those, albeit later prints (late 70s). I got into AD&D via miniatures->Chainmail->D&D Basic Set (which I hated and really didn't play, I instantly bought...)->AD&D 1st Ed. Still remember walking into the hobby shop in 1976 or 77 and seeing some Ral Partha minis, I was hooked instantly. Reading the original print Dungeon Masters Guide in 6th grade: priceless. Still have it, though it's pretty marked up now.

Haemmy: yes.

[stray]

Your hatred is misplaced. Blame Gary Gygax for wanting to roll dice to have a reasonably realistic interpretation of combat if you have to blame someone. Shit, blaming Tolkein for hitpoints and classes is like blaming the Madonna for Jesus's crucifixtion.

No, Tolkien doesn't speak of hitpoints. I'm just talking about the kind of thinking he's instilled in the fantasy genre as a whole (and some science fiction to an extent). It's a genre and writing style more defined by it's focus on setting, with plot and character depth taking a backseat (more or less). A genre that devotes entire chapters to geography, weaponry, races, history, languages, and the like, but very rarely gets inside characters' heads or tries to flesh them out beyond their roles and relationships to the rest of the "party of adventurers".   

It all begins with LotR. None of these characters depart from the same archetypal role you see them represent the moment you meet them. The Frodo on page 1 is the same as the Frodo on page 1000.....Just a little more homesick perhaps. The plot/story in the end is the same one that you were told on page 1 as well (i.e. Sauron's ring must be destroyed). Everything in between is just sightseeing in Tolkien's world.

Tolkien may not have created hitpoints, but he did set a blueprint for group/archetypal dynamics, and how the world the characters move in is given more focus than the characters themselves. And with each successive Tolkien wannabe over the decades, it just gets worse.

I think any game designers who are already immersed in this category of literature are going to take that with them into how they design and implement games. Whether that be consciously or subconsciously.

That isn't to say that it's impossible to crawl out of these limitations though. That isn't saying that Tolkien is directly responsible either. I just think certain ways of doing things have loomed over the genre for years, and that it takes a truly well rounded person to step out of the mold.

[HaemishM]

Your hatred is misplaced. Blame Gary Gygax for wanting to roll dice to have a reasonably realistic interpretation of combat if you have to blame someone. Shit, blaming Tolkein for hitpoints and classes is like blaming the Madonna for Jesus's crucifixtion.

Stuff about Tolkein

See, that's why you SHOULDN'T blame Tolkein. He wasn't writing a fantasy novel, he was writing an imaginary history. He was writing mythology. As such, the way he wrote was suited to the style. The way you suggest would not only not have been suited to the style, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb. It wouldn't have made sense.

Blame the talentless Tolkein sycophants who can't break out of that mold, just like you should blame the munchkins. Because their dollars are really the ones to blame.

[Samwise]

Tolkien said once that he wrote the Middle Earth stories because he wanted to create a world where a standard greeting would be elen sila lumen omentielvo (a star shines upon this, the hour of our meeting).

It's interesting to read the books with that in mind.

[El Gallo]

It all begins with LotR. None of these characters depart from the same archetypal role you see them represent the moment you meet them. The Frodo on page 1 is the same as the Frodo on page 1000.....Just a little more homesick perhaps.

If Saruman and his henchmen had rolled into the Shire on page 1, Frodo, Sam, Pip, and Merry would have been falling over themselves to lick his boots clean when they weren't sniveling in the corner like little bitches.  In the last chapter, they straight up kick their asses.

This is a little nitpicky, because I think it is generally true that Tolkien was more interested in creating a mythology (iirc, his main goal was to write a Catholicized replacement for the Anglo mythology wiped out by the Normans, with sturdy little british yeomen saving the universe and all that) than a character-driven story.  We don't really get inside the mind of Beowulf, either.

[Samwise]

If Saruman and his henchmen had rolled into the Shire on page 1, Frodo, Sam, Pip, and Merry would have been falling over themselves to lick his boots clean when they weren't sniveling in the corner like little bitches.  In the last chapter, they straight up kick their asses.

Good point.  Lots of people disliked the "scouring of the Shire" chapter, but I thought it was a good ending, bringing everything full circle while at the same time demonstrating how the characters had grown (literally in some cases).

Another example of character growth (maybe the only one that they didn't cut from the movies) is the relationship between Legolas and Gimli, which goes from distrust to good-natured rivalry to friendship as each gradually put aside his centuries-old prejudices against the other's race.

[Ironwood]

I'm eagerly awaiting something from Stray about Tolkien that I can actually agree on.  You know, something that isn't total bollocks.

Oh, and Lt Dan won this thread ages ago.  The trouble, I think, is the age old one that when developers try new things they usually royally fuck it up.  Like HAM in SWG - which sucks the marrow of the earth - and various other departures over the years.  What I'd like to see is a lot more realism in these games, which the original D&D had in abundance, despite the 'game mechanics'.  You try taking 10,000 worth of gold out of the dungeon without a pony and sack, bitchcakes.  Hitpoints were just a translation of all the things that were HARD to translate in the game.  Positioning, endurance, luck, etc.  Hell, the whole AC and HP system was just taking complicated mechanics and making it easy.

The problem, years and years later, is that now we can make complicated systems we don't.

Lazy fuckers.

[Sky]

The problem, years and years later, is that now we can make complicated systems we don't.

Don't get me started on AI programming.

[5150]

Find a replacement for hit points.

HAM?

Indeed, and look at how many other areas SWG dared to be different in

and look where it got them.....

[tazelbain]

Adding a second set of hitpoints is hardly replacing them.

[MorJadedThnU]

If Saruman and his henchmen had rolled into the Shire on page 1, Frodo, Sam, Pip, and Merry would have been falling over themselves to lick his boots clean when they weren't sniveling in the corner like little bitches.

Really? I thought only one family/tribe joined with Sauman and his (outsider) hirelings - the same family that the "snitch" early in Fellowship was from and that noone trusted.

It's been a while though.

But at least Tolkien doesn't have priests going around healing people. And magicans are VERY rare. Not at all like in fantasy RPGs really.

[Bunk]

The problem, years and years later, is that now we can make complicated systems we don't.

Lazy fuckers.

You've obviously never tried DMing a large party fighting multiple opponents in 3.5 rules.

[Samwise]

Really? I thought only one family/tribe joined with Sauman and his (outsider) hirelings - the same family that the "snitch" early in Fellowship was from and that noone trusted.

Only one family actually "joined" with him - the rest just bent over and accepted his rule.  A few of them make token attempts at resistance and got locked up for it, after which the rest of the population was completely cowed.  Hence the hirelings' complete and utter shock when the Fellowship members didn't seem scared of them in the slightest.

But at least Tolkien doesn't have priests going around healing people. And magicans are VERY rare. Not at all like in fantasy RPGs really.

Wizards in Tolkien are absolutely nothing like wizards in fantasy RPGs.  Mainly because Tolkien's wizards are closer to angels than mortals.

[Roac]

It all begins with LotR. None of these characters depart from the same archetypal role you see them represent the moment you meet them. 

Tolkien's interest was entirely in language.  He worked on his elvish language the way a shade tree mechanic works on the same car for 20 years.  The main purpose of LotR was to frame his pet language in a setting, and to in a way bring it to life, not to do a character study.  He didn't even want to write the thing initially, except for being pestered by his friends.

[stray]

I'm eagerly awaiting something from Stray about Tolkien that I can actually agree on.

Creating a Middle Earth with that much detail and history is cool in it's own right.

He wrote good poetry.

Either of those good enough for you?

[tazelbain]

You know how the LotR board game creates alternate history of the Fellowship's journey?
Fatty the Hobbit, anyone?
I'd like an MMOG that plays out a variety of alternate histories depending player choices simular to how WWWIIOnline plays out different histories of WWII.  Not Like SWG, where players are stuck in a meanless time slice of the Star Wars Saga.