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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  MMOG Discussion  |  Topic: Dreaming of a World Without PvE 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Dreaming of a World Without PvE  (Read 16530 times)
Johny Cee
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Reply #70 on: July 10, 2006, 10:08:30 PM

For the record:  I'm also a DAoC player.  Other than that,  I play Magic Online.  The bulk of the rest of my gaming is Turn-based/Strategy games in single player.

Thoughts:

1.  "Skill".  As has been pointed out,  there are more than one type of skill.  Twitch is skill, sure,  but it's also reflexes, concentration, and learned heuristics.  I still almost remember the mantra from Warcraft II on Kali:  What, 3 peons mining, then build farm, then wood chopper, then barracks?

Magic Online is skill as well.  Long-range planning and effective use of sideboarding.  Deciding when to use resources (counter that spell, or save the counter?).  Bluffing.  Analysis of opponents decks and threats.  The same can be said for any Turn-based or Real-time Tactical game.

I think that Wizards does a good job pushing multiple formats,  so that different types of skills come to the fore.  I'm a pretty good constructed player,  and a mediocre drafter.  Drafting tests card knowledge and interactions, and long-term planning, as much as play skill.

MMO's generally reduce the reliance on concentration and moderate the reflex elements.  That's why the target demographic is so often people that have a million and one things going on.  Kids running around, talking on the phone, dizzy from 10 hours working, whatever.

I don't think most MMO players are less skilled:  they have more distractions.  When I go into a Battleground with guildies,  a guy might sit out a round or two because his daughter needs something,  or another guy needs to do something for his wife,  and I'm generally hopped up on insomnia and 12 hours tax work.

2.  Specialization.  I'd rate more then moderate specialization as a very bad thing for a game.

A basic axiom of economics is the increased gains to specialization.  Having 8 guys that do a bunch of things poorly will always lose to 8 guys who each do one thing very well.  That's the grist behind the dominance of carefully min/maxed RvR Gank Guilds in DAoC.

This creates bottlenecks in group design:  There is always going to be one or two roles that are necessary to be filled by a skilled player,  and generally,  that role will also be as much fun to play as punching yourself in the face. (For the majority of players)

I play Hibernia, mostly.  You can't beg, borrow, blackmail or coerce a good Bard (crowd control, speed, end regen) to join you Pick up Group (PUG).  Hell, most players refuse to play the class.  You also need at least one very good healing druid.  You might as well sit in as safe zone as go out without one.  Basically, that's speed, crowd control, and good heals out the window for most players.

Everyone is running around playing the "fun" damage dealing classes.  It's a bottleneck in good group creation.  Hell, gank guilds will sit in a safe zone or at the portal keep for upwards of an hour if they need to fill in a "required" role,  waiting for someone good to log in rather than pick up another class or an unknown player.

I don't play FPS games,  but I imagine it's the same thing in the more specialized ones?  50% of the players in a "random" (non-organized by guild or clan) game want to run around as Timmy the uber-sniper, even if you actually need more team players or medics or engineers? 

3.  Organizational rank and hierarchy.  I actually think some good stuff could be done here,  at least in recognizing what already takes place in massive side on side fighting.

In DAoC,  how you do as a realm is dependent on population, realm balance, and a much more nebulous organization/morale.  All Realms have had raid leaders that are at least competant,  but more importantly respected and listened to.

These people can generally throw together a realm defense or keep takes,  or a relic take, based solely on their ability to get people to listen to them.  A good leader, who keeps his side organized and spirits up,  can lead a side to gains despite having a population or power imbalance.

Don't attach any real benefits to a rank,  but make it something that can be voted or acclaimed by the players.  Give the chosen general a different color voice chat,  or some limited moderator abilities in general chats in contested zones.  Set a limit of term.  Make a significant number of players able to vote him/her out of the rank.

4.  Zerg/population imbalance.  I'm of mixed opinion about this.  Having twice as many opponents running you down, farming you, or camping your body is obnoxious.  On the other hand,  an organized zerg or greater population is sometimes required in the face of poor realm balance.

In DAoC, to generalize: 

Albs had he population advantage for much of the game.  They also had the shittiest "built" gank group set up.  Roles were spread out between too many classes.  A couple of classes that are very strong in certain situations.

Mids had the best 8-man set up.  High damage classes with god specials,  solid support classes.  Famous for having at least one DPS class that was completely unbalanced (pre nerf zerkers, pre nerf savages, pre nerf warlocks).  Low amounts of aoe, charm and "siege" abilities.  A bunch of very subpar classes (Thanes!)

Hib had pretty good 8-man and siege/aoe abilities.  Concentration of abilities on a few necessary classes (mostly bards) meant there was a big discrepancy between casual/PUGs and dedicated 8-mans in realm.


This sorted out to alb generally zerging around,  mid running lots of gank groups, Hib running good 8-mans and the PUGs getting run over by mids or the alb zerg, until the PUGs run together.

The hib or alb casual player is forced into a situation where they have to zerg or be run over by gank crews/opposing realm zergs.  And casual mids are just sort of out of luck. 

The present DAoC situation is pretty different,  with hib's massive siege abilities really pounding the other realms.

Heh, I'm not sure if this rambling point is communicating what I mean....  I might be channeling Hrose.

5.  Fun & Winning (Losing).  Without sidetracking the debate too much, I hope, into the gutters of "what is fun?"

Playing as a casual,  I'm enjoying myself if I have the opportunity to win, or at least impose a cost on the winner.  I have just as much enjoyment from a fight where my opponent goes limping off almost dead from my corpse,  or my group kills half the opposing team before getting wiped up, as winning. 

In group vs. group fights,  some of my most enjoyable we maybe killed one guy.  The 5 minutes it took for the opposing group to wear us down,  or the fact we almost tipped the scales, make it memorable.

It's when you repeatedly play out situations where you had no chance from start to finish of even an outside shot of winning that the game loses alot of it's flavor.  If you're predetermined to lose,  and lose badly.

Running into a zerg of opposing players,  or getting run down from behind by the same ranked out min/maxed uber group who dump high cost realm abilities if there is trouble, or getting jumped by 5 stealthers whenever you try to leave a safe zone solo.
Chenghiz
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Reply #71 on: July 11, 2006, 05:09:26 AM

I'm going to have to agree with Kail and Johnny Cee here; they're saying pretty much what I wanted to get across.
- Being a soldier is not very fun
- Doing one thing is not very fun
- Skill is not just twitch; it involves player knowledge and analytical thinking.
- I don't think MMO and RTS-style gameplay are compatible; they serve different interests on different levels
stray
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Reply #72 on: July 11, 2006, 05:33:59 AM

Fuck a bunch of "player knowledge" and "analytical thinking". In this context, those phrases really just amount to some circle jerk discussion about class builds and/or prepping. It has nothing to do with actual in game actions and player skill.

Perhaps if you had said "tactical thinking", I'd agree...But you didn't.

Player skill, as far as combat and action is concerned, is simply anything that requires actual in game player control and participation. It has been this way since fucking Space Invaders and Pong. It could very well apply to puzzle solving and the like, but most of the time, it really has something to do with "twitch". For example, the difference between "player skill" and "character skill" is having the timing and coordination to jump out of the way of danger, instead of relying on your +5% to dodge racial skill, or your uber "Boots of Escaping". When people say they want more "player skill" in a combat system, they want more of the first. Anything else is just more RPG wankery.
Chenghiz
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Reply #73 on: July 11, 2006, 05:46:49 AM

Quote
It has nothing to do with actual in game actions and player skill.

Mage opens with a frostbolt - analysis says he's frost-specced, he'll try to freeze you and unload from range. Fireball or pyro tells you that he's fire spec, maybe with arcane power. He'll go for as much burst damage as possible, and probably burn cooldowns on you. Hey look, I just analysed - and this will have a direct impact on how I fight them. Sure, that's tactical. Let's not split hairs here. Any PVP encounter is tactical.

I agree with the rest of your statement. Did you assume that just because I didn't say 'apply it in-game' that I didn't mean that you applied that knowledge and thinking ability in game?
tazelbain
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tazelbain


Reply #74 on: July 11, 2006, 08:30:45 AM

> it changes the rate of the game imbalance (probably slows it down), but doesn't do anything to fix it.

If you give out a resource, like iron from an iron mine, then at some point the team that wins all the time is going acquire more iron than they could use.  If a PvP instance is giving free iPods to the winners, the iPods eventually become worthless except as item to sell to people without iPods. More likely they'd move on to another node with a resource they don't have in abundance. Anyway the result is that people who can't win consistently to get their ore are going have to work harder or learn fight better. But it’d never be impossible to get the resources they need.

>This sounds like you're basically suggesting that we add mobs to our "World Without PvE".

I have no problems with npcs being in the game.  I have problems with NPCs as central foil (ie PvE).  PvE villains just stand around with their thumbs up their butts waiting for the players to kill them. NPCs fight in predictably which make killing them challenge in only the most trival sense.  NPCs in a PvP game should be used in a utilitarian fashion.  In this case, the NPCs are the Washington Generals sent in to put up a half-assed effort to defend when a guild is unable to fight.  A guild that relies on the Generals too often is likely to lose control of the mine.

>it would be impossible for anyone to take an instance without fighting them.

That was the whole point of item number two.
 
It’s hard to talk about how all this would play out without more specifics.  One thing that would reduce lockout is a craft system that doesn't rely on a few resources.  So if 1/5th of recipes rely on iron ore, the uberguild that did manage to lock down the iron mines in spite of all the above precautions would only be locking down a small subset of the crafting tree.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2006, 10:22:35 AM by tazelbain »

"Me am play gods"
Johny Cee
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Reply #75 on: July 11, 2006, 08:58:55 AM

Fuck a bunch of "player knowledge" and "analytical thinking". In this context, those phrases really just amount to some circle jerk discussion about class builds and/or prepping. It has nothing to do with actual in game actions and player skill.

Perhaps if you had said "tactical thinking", I'd agree...But you didn't.

Player skill, as far as combat and action is concerned, is simply anything that requires actual in game player control and participation. It has been this way since fucking Space Invaders and Pong. It could very well apply to puzzle solving and the like, but most of the time, it really has something to do with "twitch". For example, the difference between "player skill" and "character skill" is having the timing and coordination to jump out of the way of danger, instead of relying on your +5% to dodge racial skill, or your uber "Boots of Escaping". When people say they want more "player skill" in a combat system, they want more of the first. Anything else is just more RPG wankery.

Two groups are a approaching each other.  You have an insta speed interrupt.  Who do you interrupt?  After you interrupt,  who do you nearsight?  Or do you stop, drop a speed warp, and prekite?

Yes, there's twitch in there.  But there's alot of analytical and strategic thinking.

If you're a caster heavy group running into a tank heavy group, you're going to extend and draw the opposing players away from thier support.  Two caster groups, and it's more important to mess up their primary CCer and have your own primary CCer dump a nice mezz on where they're concentrated.
Akkori
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Reply #76 on: July 11, 2006, 01:19:53 PM

So then, doesn't this all come down to something that has been said many times before...... No one game can ever be the end-all be-all game? Doesn't this all mean that all a company can do is to make a game that works well in its niche? I honestly dont get why WoW has so many people playing it, but I many never "get it". I think it all boils down to "to each his own". Mine might be a pre-CU SWG and BF2. Someone else Planetside and WoW.

But I still think its too bad they cant layer SWG/BF2/Eve. I think that would rock!

I love the position : "You're not right until I can prove you wrong!"
edlavallee
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Reply #77 on: July 12, 2006, 08:12:38 AM

So then, doesn't this all come down to something that has been said many times before...... No one game can ever be the end-all be-all game?

I think that is true. There never is one... anything where people's opinions and tastes are concerned. Coke or Pepsi? Or RC, Faygo, Sam's Club, or any other small brand cola for that matter... people are so fickle and carry so much other baggage and various decision factors that it is silly to think there is just one holy grail of a game out there waiting for someone to discover the magic formula. It just doesn't and won't exist.

But, I was thinking about the whole PVP/BF2/General MMO thing and wonder if there could be a gentle merging of some of the stronger features of both. PVP generally does not make me happy. It provides some of my greatest memories of triumphs, but also my darkest feelings of frustration. MMO's are a more pleasant experience, however the boredom, been there done that feeling, starts to appear faster and faster the older and more experienced/jaded I become. Repetitive AI just makes my eyelids droop.

I agree with one poster here in that the DAoC battlegrounds PVP (not the high level where RR's rule the day) is about as close to a perfect PVP scenario as I have seen in any game. I have played BF2 (quite extensively) and what irritates the hell out of me are stupid little things like how someone with many more hours under their belt can do that little bunny hop-to-prone, shoot me dead with one shot kinda thing. Makes no sense to me why hopping does not take stamina like sprinting, but even if they eliminate that, it is only a matter of time before some other game capability is found to provide some advantage like that. Besides that, there is no death penalty aside from the respawn timer. It is only a matter of time before my never-ending assault of full health cannon fodder can overwhelm your Audie Murphy ass in the machine gun nest. [WoW PVP is so gear dependant that I am doomed before I even start out and I have limited other PVP experience outside of those.]

But I digress.

What BF2 has is a decently balanced set of player roles. What it is lacking is a sense of persistance and little to no death penalty. What DAoC had (for me) was persistance, however it was gear and RR dependant at the highest levels. I think a scenario for success is blending that persistance and balance, while at the same time rewards players for staying alive (rather than penalizes people for dying).

So, what about if there were benefits for staying alive such as slight increases in atributes or abilities (with diminishing returns)? There would have to be some "threat" assessment to keep people from entering a game and then going to hide in the corner or going AFK in a keep (similar to Oblivion's skill increase function for stealth where you only gain skill if there is someone who has a possibility to see you). How about using some thing to reward over time to add persistance such as kill to death ratio, which could add either some status increase like a rank or unlock some small, incremental special abilities or perhaps add a mount?


Is there a game out there like this? Is there one in the works?

Zipper Zee - space noob
Rhonstet
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Reply #78 on: July 12, 2006, 12:48:51 PM

Quote
>This sounds like you're basically suggesting that we add mobs to our "World Without PvE".

I have no problems with npcs being in the game.  I have problems with NPCs as central foil (ie PvE).  PvE villains just stand around with their thumbs up their butts waiting for the players to kill them. NPCs fight in predictably which make killing them challenge in only the most trival sense.  NPCs in a PvP game should be used in a utilitarian fashion.  In this case, the NPCs are the Washington Generals sent in to put up a half-assed effort to defend when a guild is unable to fight.  A guild that relies on the Generals too often is likely to lose control of the mine.

You can use PvE objects in a PvP game: the trick is to make mobs player-controlled, player-summoned, and never name them.

Making them player-controlled and player-summoned is nothing new.  Planetside calls them 'deployables'.  WoW calls them 'Pets'.  EVE calls them 'drones'. 

Making them unnamed is a rarer trick.  PvE mobs shouldn't be the stars of anything, and naming a Mob busts immersion.  You can kill 'Evil Cultists' all day long, but when you kill 'Bob The Evil Cultist' ten times in a row, any sense of immersion is officially gone. 

A real tricky concept for most games to handle is player-controlled mobs.  EVE took almost two years before they settled on their drone-control interface, and even that feels crude.  Most games take the coward's way out, and make player-controlled mobs limited to a single pet, rather then admit that their basic hotkey interface can't handle the challenge.

We now return to your regularly scheduled foolishness, already in progress.
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