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Author Topic: Features that only game X has that more MMOs should have.  (Read 20911 times)
Telemediocrity
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on: August 12, 2006, 04:42:00 AM

This post has been a while in the making.  The question is simple:  What features/systems does your favorite MMO have that are present only in that game, that you wish the industry would make more widespread?  I'm curious more about specific, self-contained concepts, as oppposed to the general "feeling" of a game such as, say, pre-Trammel UO, that we've already discussed to death.

My shortlist for Asheron's Call:

1.  Patron/Vassal allegiance system. Giving a powerful player an incentive to take you under his wing and be your mentor is a powerful social too, and IMHO it puts the standard "guild of equals + officers" setup to shame.

2.  Use of prefabricated parts in dungeon construction.  By snapping together pieces like lego bricks, AC now has somewhere on the order of 1,000 dungeons - and you can still make really interesting designs.

3.  Massive amounts of ingame lore.  Being able to walk into one of the game's city libraries and buy a 20-page book fleshing out the world's history is a really cool feeling.  Readable books (of lore and whatever else) take time, but they provide a unique immersive hook.

3b.  The ability to write your own ingame work.  When I joined my first allegiance in Asheron's Call six years ago, my monarch let me borrow a book in which she had written the allegiance's entire history.  Sure, you can do stuff like that on a website, but the option to do so ingame is nonetheless impressive.

4.  The ability to physically dodge magical and missile projectiles.  If someone shoots at you, and you run out of the attack's path, and the outcome is still determined by a dice roll, it's somewhat demoralizing; without that level of control, it's very hard to make a game where a character can be more than the sum of his spreadhseet.

5.  A graphics and gameplay engine that permits one player to take on massive odds at once.  Being surrounded by 20 creatures and winning the battle is cool; being able to do so without your FPS grinding to a halt is even better.

I'm sure more will come to me later.  I'm interested in hearing what you guys find unique in your favorite MMOs.
lamaros
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Reply #1 on: August 12, 2006, 06:26:11 AM

Not to disparrage, because the general idea of this thread is ok. But most/all of those features are old hat.
Strazos
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Reply #2 on: August 12, 2006, 05:14:52 PM

Most of that list is...eh, I don't like it.

1. - Um, doesn't CoX have this kind of setup? Other games as well?

2 - Ok, this is a decent feature to try, but as I don't play AC, I can't say how the dungeons play.

3 - Practically worthless. Doesn't make a game better. If I want to read fantasy stuff, I'll pick up a book. Also, it's been done before.

3b - See above.

4 - Ok, this is a nice feature.

5 - This is just as much a product of mechanics and client than it is your PCs preformance.

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Telemediocrity
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Reply #3 on: August 12, 2006, 05:33:15 PM

Quote
1. - Um, doesn't CoX have this kind of setup? Other games as well?

No, it doesn't.  CoH sidekicking is a temporary arrangement suited for a single play-session; it's not an ongoing arrangement.

Quote
3 - Practically worthless. Doesn't make a game better. If I want to read fantasy stuff, I'll pick up a book. Also, it's been done before.

On this, we disagree - I think this is an essential part of making a world feel like a world, rather than just a playground, a-la WoW.  Being able to spend a day tracking down lore instead of going after loot or XP gives the player some additional freedom of action, rather than making him railroaded into a specific playstyle/advancement path.

Just curious: Which other games do this?

IMHO, 3b (player-writeable books) is one of the best 'sandbox' features ever created.


FWIW, though, I'm interested in hearing what unique features you guys see in your favorite MMOs that nobody else has done - what sets them apart to you?
Strazos
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Reply #4 on: August 12, 2006, 05:52:56 PM

Quote
1. - Um, doesn't CoX have this kind of setup? Other games as well?

No, it doesn't.  CoH sidekicking is a temporary arrangement suited for a single play-session; it's not an ongoing arrangement.

What's to stop anyone from activating the function whenever they play? I don't see the difference.
Quote
Quote
3 - Practically worthless. Doesn't make a game better. If I want to read fantasy stuff, I'll pick up a book. Also, it's been done before.

On this, we disagree - I think this is an essential part of making a world feel like a world, rather than just a playground, a-la WoW.  Being able to spend a day tracking down lore instead of going after loot or XP gives the player some additional freedom of action, rather than making him railroaded into a specific playstyle/advancement path.

Just curious: Which other games do this?

IMHO, 3b (player-writeable books) is one of the best 'sandbox' features ever created.

We definately disagree, because when I log into a game, I want to play a fun Game, "virtual world" be damned. I don't care if you have (insert favorite fantasy/sci-fi author) writing the lore, if the game itself is not fun, then the lore was just a waste of time. It can make a good game better, but it can't make a bad game good.

And what other games do your lore thing? Well, a certain Mud I've always liked (but which shall not be named, cause Schild hates me going into it) does the whole "lore thing" infinitely better than any MMO I've ever seen. Arguably, EQ had decent lore, as does WoW. Besides, what is "lore" exactly?

Also, things like books have been done in the same Mud I would mention, and UO (for starters).

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Telemediocrity
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Reply #5 on: August 12, 2006, 06:19:13 PM

Quote
1. - Um, doesn't CoX have this kind of setup? Other games as well?

No, it doesn't.  CoH sidekicking is a temporary arrangement suited for a single play-session; it's not an ongoing arrangement.

What's to stop anyone from activating the function whenever they play? I don't see the difference.


The two are completely different systems.  In Asheron's Call, a newer player swears fealty to a more experienced player, and becomes part of his allegiance (guild).  As the newer player gains experience, a % of the experience he gains goes to the high level player as bonus XP (it's not taken away from the low level player).

As a result, more experienced players have an incentive to take new players - even total strangers - under their wing, introduce them to the game, help them out, things like that, and new players naturally find themselves recruited into a clan with more experienced players.  The XP that the vassal passes up to his patron adds up significantly over time - part of the equation for determining how much XP is passed up is how long you've been sworn in RL time, placing a premium on long-lasting patron/vassal relationships.

CoH sidekicking, by contrast, allows a lowbie to fight at a higher level temporarily.

The two systems have almost nothing in common.

Quote
We definately disagree, because when I log into a game, I want to play a fun Game, "virtual world" be damned. I don't care if you have (insert favorite fantasy/sci-fi author) writing the lore, if the game itself is not fun, then the lore was just a waste of time. It can make a good game better, but it can't make a bad game good.

We agree on that last sentence; but I have a hard time finding a MMO that's really "great", rather than just "good", without it.  I'm huge on the sandbox.

Quote
Arguably, EQ had decent lore, as does WoW. Besides, what is "lore" exactly?

From what I remember of each, lore in each game was just NPCs talking to you.

What is "lore"?  Well, to give you an example; in many of AC's thousand or so dungeon crawls, you might find an optional puzzle or trap or out-of-the-way path that leads you to a less discovered part of the dungeon.  Going down that path, you might find a lore object; an old book or parchment or something like that.  It'll usually be in a language you don't speak; find a translator who speaks the appropriate language, and you'll be handed back a translated book.

It makes sense in AC because it's in the midst of an ongoing, monthly-updated storyline.  I might find a book one month that translates into a note from a few thousand years ago about some big nasty force trapped in an underground prison, and then a few months later we might have what appears to be a simple dungeon, but thanks to my having read that lore book and putting 2 and 2 together, I know it's actually a mechanism to release the big bad guy.  And then, assuming you're playing in a PvP world, by persuasion or force I could try and convince you and the other players not to unleash the big bad guy from his prison.

In Asheron's Call, some quests might have an ancient undead guardian that will kill you unless you could answer questions proving you knew the lore of his thousands-of-years-old race - lore you might have picked up in bits and pieces all over the place, doing quests and coming upon old books.

Quote
Also, things like books have been done in the same Mud I would mention, and UO (for starters).

UO had writeable books?
Strazos
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Reply #6 on: August 12, 2006, 06:32:25 PM

I thought it did. I know I played on emulated, altered shards that did at least. I assumed that UO itself made the feature.

And on the lore thing, both games had books and things as well.

But anyway, you're looking for something else. I just want a fun game with good, solid, balenced mechanics. Maybe I used to care about the less tangible stuff in the past. I remember exploring EQ for exploration sake. I've already tried sanbox stuff. Now I just want fun games.

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Telemediocrity
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Reply #7 on: August 12, 2006, 07:17:08 PM

What you consider tangential to the fun, I consider to be the fun itself.  Fair enough.

I want to hear your list, though. ;p
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Reply #8 on: August 12, 2006, 07:30:12 PM

My list? I don't have a list.

Why? Because I don't see anyone doing anything "unique" at the moment...or at least, unique and good.

Right now I'm playing Eve Online, (name of MUD I've played on and off for about 10 years), and little bit of Baldur's Gate, War Rock, and Age of Empire III.

None of these games do anything that's really unique...but the things that they do do, they do well. That is what I think is key. I don't need someone to reinvent the wheel or something, I just need them to do it well for me to enjoy the game.

Arguably, this is what Blizzard did with WoW - there's nothing new with WoW. They simply cherrypicked a bunch of concepts and put them in a better package.


But I just thought of some things that I might want to see....combo/synergy combat.....sort of kind of in a way that the stupid combos in EQ2 work...but in a way that's not stupid and makes actual sense. Such that, lets say, I'll have much different combat options as a rogue when I am duoing with a mage than I have if I am with a warrior, or something. I don't have a problem with class/archetype games, and I'd like to see a game in which group make-up matters, but not in the stupid divine trinity way the classes have mattered before...I'm not describing it very well, of that I am sure.

But who cares what I think - I'm not the one making the games. If I had great ideas, I'd be putting them into action, instead of paying to play the creations of others.

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Telemediocrity
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Reply #9 on: August 12, 2006, 09:40:38 PM

Arguably, this is what Blizzard did with WoW - there's nothing new with WoW. They simply cherrypicked a bunch of concepts and put them in a better package.

But that's precisely the problem with WoW, IMHO - sure, they put a bunch of concepts into a better package, but they didn't pick a single fun concept from the bunch.  All the polish in the world won't save you if the underlying game (kill things, get better loot so you can kill things with more grandiose names) is a load of crap.

Of course, they did sell a lot of units.  But then again, so did Deer Hunter and Myst.
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Reply #10 on: August 13, 2006, 03:47:38 AM

WoW is great at what is does, but that doesn't neccessarily make it a great game.

Another idea I'd like to see explored is more...involved combat mechanics. Instead of hitting a hotkey to swing a weapon or cast a spell, make my actions determine how I attack with a weapon. Make spellcasting more...complex. Not sure how to do it in an MMO, but I actually really like the system from Lost Magic on the DS. I also really like the melee mechanics in Mount and Blade, though I'd like to see more of it.

Also, more twitch combat. If I physically hit, then I hit. You can have seekrit dice rolling for damage in the background, but enough of the stupid "whiff" shit from Diku muds. This would also help alleviate the problems of "levels" killing open PvP - a lowbie with skill could Hit a higher level toon, but he would certainly have trouble Killing him (though it should be reasonably possible). The combat from Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, in an MMO, would be fucking awesome.

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Koyasha
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Reply #11 on: August 13, 2006, 08:36:33 AM

EQ: Bard.  By which I mean the specific EQ-type bard, not to be confused with any other class called Bard that has ever been concieved in any other game.  The bard has far too many unique characteristics to go through them all, really.  This will never happen, though, and no one will ever again come close to the EQ Bard.

FFXI: Environmental effects that make a difference.  Fire/Ice/Etc. days, for example.  They should perhaps make even more of a difference.

FFXI: Elemental effects that work with/against each other.  Renkei being the obvious example, but it should be added upon so that coordinating certain kinds of attacks together will be more effective, not just specific moves.  Just a general Fire + Water don't work so well, but Water + Ice do.

CoH: Sidekicking and Exemplaring.  So far I haven't heard of any other game that does this, though I may have just missed some.

Planetside: VR training.  Something that lets you experience at least a little what your character will someday be like when he gets X or Y ability.

Probably more, I might think of them later and come back.

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Strazos
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Reply #12 on: August 13, 2006, 08:56:08 AM

What was unique about bards? The use of songs as buffs? That's been done before.

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Margalis
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Reply #13 on: August 13, 2006, 09:57:56 AM

FFXI: Job system.

Amazing that more other games don't do this. It's a fundamental feature that makes the game much more interesting and playable and much less tedious. (FFXI is plenty tedious as it is)

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Reply #14 on: August 13, 2006, 11:04:02 AM

I've always liked the Guild Wars system of being able to constaly switch up your abilities and skill builds, for free.

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Telemediocrity
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Reply #15 on: August 13, 2006, 11:04:23 AM

If you could, could you elaborate on EQ bards, FFXI's job system / fire and ice days / combining attacks?

How do those things work, exactly?
Margalis
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Reply #16 on: August 13, 2006, 11:38:00 AM

Job system means you can switch classes at basically any time. Sick of playing White mage/black mage? Switch to Samurai/Ranger. With the same character.

In most games if you want to change classes you have to re-roll, which means a different name, you have to do all sorts of stupid quests again, etc.

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Reply #17 on: August 13, 2006, 12:02:20 PM

Butting in, but stuff that I like:

From EVE: Offline skill ups.  Gives the persistent character advancements that devs like (gives people a reason to keep paying subs), without giving much advantage to the hardcore catasses.  It doesn't matter if you play twenty hours a day or two, you get the same skills (money is another matter, of course).  Lets me feel like I'm making progress in the game even if I can't play much.

Also from EVE: Single shard worlds.  A huge community where everyone can interact with everone else is neat (EVE Radio has always struck me as an excellent example of something that only really works on a single shard world).  Not having to argue with friends over which server we're going to play on is nice.  Knowing that somewhere off in the distance, badass huge PvP guilds are having massive wars and stuff is exciting, and being able to add that "off in the distance" part is important.

From Guild Wars:  AI Henchmen.  They're not as effective as other players (not even close), but it's nice to have some option aside from spamming "LFG" for twenty minutes.  It's nice to be able to feel like you at least have a shot without having to wait around for a pickup group to form.

Also from Guild Wars (though I think FFXI does this, too): Sub-classes.  Gives a lot of diversity to the gameplay to be able to choose a combination of two different classes rather than just being railroaded into one class.
Telemediocrity
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Reply #18 on: August 13, 2006, 12:09:42 PM

Quote
From EVE: Offline skill ups.  Gives the persistent character advancements that devs like (gives people a reason to keep paying subs), without giving much advantage to the hardcore catasses.  It doesn't matter if you play twenty hours a day or two, you get the same skills (money is another matter, of course).  Lets me feel like I'm making progress in the game even if I can't play much.

I totally agree with this.  AC had this for the first few years, but it was more of a "happy accident" than intentional policy.  It always struck me as A Good Thing to be codified in some form.

Quote
Job system means you can switch classes at basically any time. Sick of playing White mage/black mage? Switch to Samurai/Ranger. With the same character.

If you're a level 25 WM/BM, do you instantly become a level 25 S/R?  How does it handle the different gear you need, etc.?  Still, sounds like an interesting concept.
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Reply #19 on: August 13, 2006, 01:14:27 PM

The way it works is that each of your classes is leveled up independently, and only levels up when set as your primary class. The level of your sub is, at max, half your primary class.

And when you swap classes, you must swap gear.

In the end, this resulted in a bigger grind, because to be "effective," you had to use a sub, and had to keep it in line with your primary class' level. So, as a Ninja/Warrior, for every 2 ninja levels, you have to go back and grind up another warrior level.

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Reply #20 on: August 13, 2006, 01:31:45 PM

Yeah, but that's just a consequence of the subclassing. It also means that if you have a main job that has 3 good sub-jobs people might expect you to have all 3 levelled.

But the job system I'm talking about is just the ability to class-change without starting over.

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Telemediocrity
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Reply #21 on: August 13, 2006, 04:34:35 PM

Hmm.  I somewhat prefer AC's system, where there's an unlimited but timered respec ability.  (As in, you can completely respec your character an unlimited number of times, but after the first time or so, you'll have to wait a couple of months in between complete revamps of the character)  At least, it works well for AC because there's relatively smaller differentiation between classes.

FFXI's system does sound nice, but it strikes me more as a way to avoid having to roll alts than as a means of trying different classes without duplicating your work.

Which, I suppose, is the intention.
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Reply #22 on: August 13, 2006, 07:03:39 PM

Yes, that sounds much much better. Instead of changing what you want to be, wait a couple of months and then change.

That's clearly far superior.

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Telemediocrity
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Reply #23 on: August 13, 2006, 11:08:50 PM

Uh, you don't have to level twice.  You go from being level 100 sword to level 100 mage, without having to level again.

Therein lies the advantage.  Or am I not understanding something about the Job system where you can transfer levels from one job to another?
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Reply #24 on: August 13, 2006, 11:11:18 PM

If you could, could you elaborate on EQ bards
It's hard to fully appreciate the wonder that is the EQ Bard unless you've played EQ and played an EQ Bard but I'll try to explain some of the basics. First a disclaimer: My main was a Bard but I haven't played since right before Planes of Power came out so some of this may no longer be accurate.

In EQ the Bard is the epitome of the expression "Jack of all trades master of none". Bards are technically a hybrid class (melee fighting + some magic) but they aren't a hybrid in the traditional D&D/DikuMUD sense like a Ranger is a Fighter with some Druid spells or a Paladin is a Fighter with some Cleric spells -- Bards are their own special class. On the melee side of things Bard's can wear Plate armor which is the toughest of the armor categories (Plate > Chain > Leather > Cloth) and dual wield your typical one handed fighter weapons. On the magic side Bard's have songs which, with a few exceptions, work differently than EQ spells in that they don't require mana to "play" or "sing". Since they don't require mana (exceptions excluded) you can in effect play or sing forever which was quite a bit different than your traditional mana consuming spell caster in EQ which spends much of her career sitting on her ass regening mana (very) slowly. To balance this out the designers typically made a Bard song weaker than its rough spell equivalent (i.e. the "master of none" part) and they made it so you can only be actively playing/singing one song at a time. However they also made it so that for many if not most songs the effect lasts for a few seconds after you stop playing/singing it. This means that you can in fact have multiple song effects active at one time by repeatedly starting and stopping a sequence of songs since, if your timing was right, you could start up a song again after stopping it earlier before the effect ran out. This is called "twisting". Though some people claim to be able to twist up to four songs the practical limit (taking into account interruptions and song startup failures) is three.

Each Bard song is associated with a particular musicanship skill such as Singing or Percussion or Stringed and you can equip instruments to boost of the effect of songs (Singing being the exception, ignoring the Bard epic) and there are a variety of magical instruments you can acquire that have bonuses to the boost effect. There is a tradeoff, though, because equipping an instrument means you can't be wielding any weapons (there are some one handed instruments but those are rare). So you have to decide if it's worth the drop in DPS to get the bonus to the song effect. You can also twist instruments along with songs. In other words as you switch songs you can switch out instruments right before you start up a new song to get that instrument boost into the song effect. Twisting songs and twisting instruments is, as you might imagine, a lot of work and I only did it in special situations.

The versatility of the Bard stems from the fact that the Bard songbook, so to speak, covers a wide variety of spell effects -- arguably the widest of any spell casting class. This, combined with the fact that the Bard can tank (in a pinch) and melee as well, means the Bard can fulfill a large number of roles in your typical group setup.

Now for some EQ background. In EQ there are a number of roles a player can fulfill depending on what class they are playing. The main roles are "tank", "healer", "DPS" (damage dealing), and "crowd control". There are other roles as well including things like "puller", "travel facilitator", and "efficiency expert".

I won't go into the first four since those are pretty obvious to anybody who has played RPGs.

A puller is somebody who goes out and brings back mobs to the group. The premier class for this in EQ is the Monk cause they can "Feign Death" which means they literally drop to the ground like they were dead. Any mobs that were chasing the Monk will stand around confused for a bit and then slowly wander back to where they came from. If you timing is good you can stand back up when some but not all of the mobs have wandered far enough away and only the closest ones will come chasing after you again. This is referred to as "splitting" mobs. You can also split mobs if you can run fast enough by moving far enough away from some (but not all) of the mobs that they give up and head back to where they came from.

A "travel facilitator" is somebody who makes traveling around EQ faster. I stopped playing EQ right before Planes of Power came out where they made it easier for everybody to get around but before that point the Druid was the premier class for this since they not only could teleport people around (an ability shared with Wizards) but they had a variety of spells that could make you run faster (sow plz!).

An "efficiency expert" I'm defining as somebody who increases the amount of experience a group can earn per unit time through the use of spells (or songs). The primary way this is done is either by helping the group kill faster and/or decreasing the amount of downtime between kills. The Enchanter is the premier class for this sort of thing. The Enchanter can, among other things, increase the attack speed of the meleers (kill faster), increase the mana regen rate of the casters (less downtime) and decrease the attack speed of the mobs (less healing needed and therefore less mana is expended and therefore less downtime). Plus they can do crowd control which means the puller can bring back more mobs at once which means less time waiting for the puller to bring stuff back to the group.

A Bard can basically fulfill all the above roles and more. They aren't nearly the best at any of the roles, except in some special situations (like intra-zone travelling described below) but they can do them. In a typical group setup the Bard replaces the Enchanter handling the CC and efficiency roles. A Bard's not as good as an Enchanter in those roles (I had an Enchanter as well, yes I'm a control freak) but a Bard is also doing more DPS than an Enchanter and can do a lot of other things as well.

As a plate wearer, Bard's can tank in a pinch. Their defensive skills are capped lower than true tanks so they will take more damage even if they have similar AC but they can do it. Perhaps more importantly a Bard is a lot less fragile than a Enchanter when doing CC which means if somebody in the group breaks mez or the mez wears off before the Bard can reapply it, a Bard really doesn't care that the mob is now beating on her since she has the armor (and HPs) to handle it.

Bard's also have a very good group HP regen song which, in a very tight pinch (like your healer is dead or you are waiting for one to join your group), can be used for general purpose healing. This requires some coordination in a group since you need for the tanks to spread the damage (aggro) around rather than concentrating it all on one player which is the typical strategy.

Bard's can also do CC, as mentioned above. They can't "lock down" as many mobs as an Enchanter can (4 being the practical upper limit for a Bard, at least when I played) but they also don't need mana to do it (unless you are charming as well) so they can do it indefinitely (assuming it isn't resisted too many times) whereas an Enchanter might run out of mana, depending on the situation. I still remember the time I helped our guild recover from a near wipe on the Plane of Sky. We were fighting some killer bees (bzzts) and somehow most of the Clerics picked up aggro and everybody started dying. A Cleric managed to rez me before camping out and I was able to mez the two remaining bees for like a half hour while everybody else recovered from the near wipe. Now an Enchanter with full mana should be able to hold two mobs for an half hour but not after a rez where you start with 0 mana.

Bard's aren't that great on the DPS side of things cause their skills cap out before the other melee classes do (just like their defensive skills) but they can dual wield and they have some damage songs which can add a bit to their DPS so they don't embarrass themselves when meleeing (and I've certainly out aggro'd other tanks at times when I played but part of that is the aggro from the Bard songs).

Outdoors Bard's are very good pullers because of their uber run speed songs. In fact their run speed got so fast at one point it literally wrapped the run speed variable around so that you were running slower than you should have been, and making outdoor trains is a Bard speciality (Google "Fansy the Bard" for some entertaining reading).

Those run speed songs mean that Bard's are "travel facilitators" as well. Though they don't have any inter-zone teleport songs, for outdoor intra-zone travelling (the run speed songs don't work indoors), the Bard is arguably the best class for this (the only thing they are "best" at) since at higher levels they have a song that not only boosts run speed (faster than a Druid can boost), it levitates you *and* makes you invisible. With the levitation you can literally "run" at the top of the zone from one exit to another and if you have to travel on or near the ground the invisibility hides you from most creatures (undead being a notable exception).

The Bard is also one of the three efficiency expert classes (Shaman being the third, though they don't have a mana regen spell making them less useful in certain setups) since they have songs that can increase the attack speed of the group, slow down the attack speed of mobs, and increase the mana regen rate of casters.

But wait there's more!

Bard's have songs that boost resistance (by a lot if you use the appropriate instrument) to special damage types such as magic, fire, cold, disease, and poison making them very desirable in raid situations since a lot of the really big mobs have AE attacks using the above damage types. They also have songs that decrease the above resistences on mobs.

Bard's have special purpose attack speed boost songs that can boost your attack speed above the normal speed cap.

Bard's get the track skill which allows you to see a list of mobs in a certain radius around you. While the Bard track skill has nowhere near the radius of the Ranger's skill (much lower cap) given the Bard's outdoor travel abilities it's a toss up which class makes the better outdoor scout (Ranger are better at "spotting" a mob but may have trouble reaching it to pull it or whatever).

Bard's also get an invisibility song which makes the entire group invisible (which works indoors as well). And they get an underwater breathing song as well (though that's really only useful in emergencies).

Bard's have a song that allows them to "see" through the eyes of another player or an NPC. Though this is mostly a "gimmick" song, it can be very useful in places like Veeshan Peak's where you need to track the location of the wandering dragons.

They even get a song that boosts Int which makes Bard's popular among those trying to increase their tradeskills (higher Int means greater chance of a skill increase).

And there are songs for other stuff as well such as locating corpses, identifying items, curing poison and disease, and so on and so forth.
Engels
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Reply #25 on: August 13, 2006, 11:16:01 PM

Heh heh, someone misses their EQ bard. Its ok, I miss my EQ sk. Ah, those days won't ever come back, sad to say.

I should get back to nature, too.  You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer.  Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached.  Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe

I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa

Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Reply #26 on: August 13, 2006, 11:18:07 PM

EQ: Bard.  By which I mean the specific EQ-type bard, not to be confused with any other class called Bard that has ever been concieved in any other game.  The bard has far too many unique characteristics to go through them all, really.  This will never happen, though, and no one will ever again come close to the EQ Bard.
I agree that there probably will never be something like the EQ Bard again. However, while writing up my Bard treatise I realized that one of the reasons why I like my Illusion/Kinetics controller in CoH so much is that she is very "EQ Bard-like" meaning she can fulfill a lot of roles. She's a controller, obviously, so she can do the typical CC stuff. But Illusion controllers can also tank with Phantom Army so there's no need for a true Tank unless it's like an AV or something and even then that's only if you are having trouble doing damage fast enough (e.g. I "tanked" Jurassic with just my PA and lots of running around once). Kinetics gives me the efficiency part with powers like Speed Boost and Fulcrum Shift. Tranfusion works well as a heal power for meleers and I picked up Aid Others to heal the ranged and I've been in plenty of groups where I was the primary healer (and nobody died :D). And with Superior Invisibility and a variety of travel powers I get similar Bard-like exploration abilties.
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Reply #27 on: August 13, 2006, 11:25:11 PM

Heh heh, someone misses their EQ bard. Its ok, I miss my EQ sk. Ah, those days won't ever come back, sad to say.
Yeah  0.0 DPS

SK's were fun too. I took over an SK from a guild member who quit and in a typical group an SK is/was the best tank -- better than a Warrior. SK's have much better aggro tools *and* they have Feign Death (two in fact). It's just too bad that in raid situations the Warrior's Defensive Discipline screwed over all the other tank classes similar to the way the Cleric's Complete Heal screwed over all the other healing classes.
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Reply #28 on: August 13, 2006, 11:29:55 PM

Uh, you don't have to level twice.  You go from being level 100 sword to level 100 mage, without having to level again.

Therein lies the advantage.  Or am I not understanding something about the Job system where you can transfer levels from one job to another?
I liked AC2's system where you could reallocate points at the cost of gaining a certain amount of experience points.
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Reply #29 on: August 13, 2006, 11:35:00 PM

CoH: Sidekicking and Exemplaring.  So far I haven't heard of any other game that does this, though I may have just missed some.
I believe EQ2 has something similar but my understanding is that the design isn't as "clean" as CoH's since CoH was built from the ground up to support "scalable" powers while EQ2's was tacked on after the fact.

Quote
Planetside: VR training.  Something that lets you experience at least a little what your character will someday be like when he gets X or Y ability.
Yeah that is cool. I wish CoH had something like that (hello Danger Room?) so I don't have to keep transfering characters over to the Test server to try out new powers.
Righ
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Reply #30 on: August 13, 2006, 11:38:54 PM

The feature from WoW that more MMOGs should adopt is being compiled to run on Mac OS.

The feature from AC2 that more MMOGs should adopt is being canceled.

The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
Trippy
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Reply #31 on: August 13, 2006, 11:42:42 PM

The feature from AC2 that more MMOGs should adopt is being canceled.
Oh, can't forget the musical instruments in AC2!
Righ
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Reply #32 on: August 13, 2006, 11:53:11 PM

The feature from AC2 that more MMOGs should adopt is being canceled.
Oh, can't forget the musical instruments in AC2!

I've yet to see a better musical instrument implementation than in Clan Lord, where it was possible to compose original music and play it in concert with other players.

The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
lamaros
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Reply #33 on: August 14, 2006, 12:03:12 AM

Should change this thread title to: Re: Features that game X has that more MMOs should have.

Because hardly anything mentioned has been original.
Righ
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Reply #34 on: August 14, 2006, 12:20:40 AM

Because hardly anything mentioned has been original.

That's true enough, and they certainly haven't been unique. However, its also evident that Tele would continually split hairs to try and claim that all his suggestions were only available in AC no matter what examples were given, and would claim that the minute difference between the AC implementation and that of other games was crucial to his enjoyment. So, given that he created the thread, its unlikely that the title will change short of an admin or mod griefing him.

The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
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