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Ranged OP? Easy fix.
3-4thElf
Member Posts: 489
I mean in real combat, even now, having superior range even with moderate accuracy is the way to go into combat. That's a real problem for folks who like to get up close and personal when fighting.
I think the problem with a lot of MMO PVP is that the speed and amount of ranged damage that can be done is monsterous. Arrows and spells fly without much discrimination.
Games don't require you to buy arrows very often or carry a quiver any more. Regents and casting times are a thing of the past because everyone wanted combat at a fast pace.
I think developers could offer a trade off. Bigger boom takes more time to aim or chant a n arrow or a spell. RIFT had a real problem with this and I think GW2 feels the pinch as well. It's fun, but really ranged in the whole genre needs a nerf.
You don't have to agree with me, but I think it'd be more fun for all involved if there was more thinking to be done. War being volley, volley, charge, fight. Rather than everyone kiting in pve, pvp, pv all.
a yo ho ho
Comments
PvP ruined every game I liked. Gimp my ranger. Gimp my ranger. I don't even PvP!!!!!
The game isn't designed well if they don't give proper means for the melee to get into direct contact with the ranged, and it also isn't designed well if they don't give the ranged the means to escape. It should be skill and quickness reliant, I honestly feel WoW did a good job with the balancing in the sense of classes being able to engage/disengage, maybe some numbers are off, but overall they did a good job, not every game you can say that for. So in essence, I feel it shouldn't be a variable of the range having too much of an advantage over melee in power or ability, but melee having too much of a disadvantage over ranged in the sense of gap closing, or available long range CC.
So you're saying rangers should shoot arrows faster than someone can stab with a knife and have unlimited ammo to be fun?
a yo ho ho
Alternatively <- My incoherant blog about something closely related.
Anwhow 3-4th, You've seen the WOW Warrior at work? That class is a problem, it can waste any class on a bad day. Or have they fixed rogue stunlock? I think, in general, combat in all MMO's is illogical and needs to be fixed. Ranged and melee alike are completely broken in one way or another.
Yes, exactly this.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It really is a balancing thing. But sure, limiting number of arrows a player can carry is one way to balance things. Another is having a miss percentage based on how far away the oponent is.
The most fun would be to have 17th century pistols and muskets with huge damage but realistic loading time, that would really encourage people to shoot once and switch to blade afterwards.
This is inaccurate except in very specific circumstances.
Otherwise, I agree with some of the spirit of the post. Melee needs an advantage to compensate for its smaller engagement envelope compared to ranged combatants.
I think that most games, that I have played at least, have made an effort to provide this advantage.
When all has been said and done, more will have been said than done.
He has a point when it comes to modern warfare. According to Jeremy Scahill the US is doing very well in a lot of their smaller wars simply because of the UCAV.
EDIT: I can't remember which game gives you the UCAV as a boon, but it was broken in there too. You could just win round after round with it.
The UCAV is an aircraft armed with, primarily, short range attack systems. It is an example of a short ranged attack system, in some cases, replacing longer ranged systems, much like the M4 replacing the M16.
When all has been said and done, more will have been said than done.
All things being equal, ranged will always have a tactical advantage. Let me break it down.
Ranged classes can always strike first (unless the melee class uses stealth, though many games do not have such classes).
Ranged classes can focus fire. Melee classes can almost never focus fire, as rushing in together and being bunched up presets several problems for them (AoE effects being one).
Ranged classes can practically ignore movement penalty effects. Melee classes can be rendered almost completely impotent by simply slowing their movement rate, even by a small amount.
Ranged classes can take advantage of terrain. Melee classes are almost utterly powerless in the face of a small wall, tower or sometimes even just a rock.
I have seen many game developers try to balance these, and other such issues, without success. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it isn't anywhere near as easy as you want it to be.
Give melees better block, dodge, parry, and dmg mitigation with armor stats/skills/traits.... whatever
Give magical resistance tanks/builds viable resist rates or magic mitigation etc....
Bring back longer cast times, don't give clothies a ton of invisible shields that are immune to melee dmg, and the arrow suggestions others have stated in this thread sound good too.
It's a balancing issue for sure. Hopefully someone can find the magic formula!
It's still armed with Hellfire missiles, pretty far range if dealing with ground troops. It's no ballistic missile but still, what sniper can guarantee an 8km shot?
Number of players in the engagement also affects melee viability. Large engagements vs. small engagements.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Make people have to use arrows, make people have to actually aim, make distance/gravity count. You have arrows, regents and casting times in Darkfall and combat is anything but slow.
The trouble with ranged combat in mmo pvp is that you can tab target people. Make people actually aim.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
That does not come free. Aiming demands more from the netcode and engine not to mention it makes the game more vulnerable to lag.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Not many things come for free. Doing it from the ground up for a new game is fine, adding it to an existing game would be too problematic. Also pretty sure lag is no longer a viable excuse for not doing it these days.
Making people actually aim makes more sense then tacking on yet more CD's, builders, snares, roots and the like whilst letting people tab target and spam.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Tell me about it. It took months to get projectiles working smoothly, and another two weeks to get aim direction networked with enough precision to actually hit something.
What's cool is the ability to step out of the way of an aimed shot. At 100 meters a laterally moving target is very tough to hit.
i find it lame that my range class gets nerfed because the meele cry, buff the meele insted!
Its not an excuse, the amount of traffic is so much more than with a conventional tab-targeting combat and it has to all go through the server. Any hitch and players will complain. The game could become virtually unplayable if the amount of players in one combat area rises. It may not crash but it sure wouldn't be fun to play either.
Its tricky.
Naturally one server solutions would be out of the question because it would give players closer to the server a noticable and unfair advantage.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
It is tricky, but it is also doable. PS2 will manage to have large scale FPS combat, Darkfall manages to have smaller scale (due to the population) FPS combat, on a shoe string budget. With the kind of numbers we see in most mmorpg combat situations is really should not be an issue.
Yes there would have to be EU/US server splits.
Making people aim is the most natural method of reducing any inbalance in ranged vs melee. It also promotes player skill. That is not to advocate it for all games mind you.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I don't really like to talk about all of this so forgive me.
But seeing a .50 cal vs a SVD outside of a Battlefield 3 game is pretty solid proof having superior range can turn things around.
a yo ho ho
I don't mind aiming, but you know I don't really think it'd work for a good magical feel aiming like it's a rifle.
I think just adding casting times and having those become part of the decision as a caster on a battlefield would make all the difference.
"Do I want to 50% this guy and chant for 6 seconds? Will my team protect me? Okay how about a 1.5 cast, run a bit, and hit him with a 2 second stun?"
GW2, WoW, a few other games have a nice fast pace to them. But the ranged classes seem quite rollface.
a yo ho ho
Different strokes for different folks but why wouldn't aiming give a "magical feel"? You lob a whacking great fireball and aim it in the rough area you want it to go. Seems far more natural than pressing tab and then pressing a simply attack button.
You should have casting times as well as having to aim, in my humble opinion that is. You have to ponder your tactics on the fly AND aim.
There would be quite and art to hurling a fireball into the right area at the right time to scatter the enemy. Or unleash an arrow from your bow to take down a moving, mounted target at a distance. At range it is harder to do, which balances it nicely giving melee players the chance to close in if they move around and don't steamroll forwards like a great deal of the tab target crowd does.
Aiming also allows for more use of the terrain over and above simple LOS tactics. Standing on objects for example, if you are above someone and they are aiming up at you, if they miss their AOE will scream on harmlessly into the sky. If you are below someone it will hammer into the ground hitting them. It just adds more as far as I can see.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
My take is that rather than making sure that each class is balanced 1v1, you make 1v1 fights irrelevant and just make all classes equally useful/necessary in the overall conflict. In League of Legends, nobody cares whether Graves can beat Irelia if they faced off in the middle of nowhere with no teammates or turrets or minions. (I mean, some people care—"meet me in mid 1v1 noob"—but those people are idiots.) Even the champions who are incredibly good at one-on-one fights are nothing special in the grand scheme of things.
I think I was saying PvP can go.
As far as unlimited arrows I kinda like that in a way but overall I feel like it takes to much reality from a game. I like Mabinogi where I carry a quiver. That feels real like I would do irl if I was an archer. But I don't want so much reality that I can only carry 20 arrows in a quiver. You can craft your own arrows to get better quality in Mabinogi.
Did I mention I was PvE ONLY?
As far as "someone can stab" that sounds like a rogue. My RIFT char was a ranger/rogue. That was hot.
Did I mention I hate PvP???
Now if 10 mobs get on me and I'm all alone with no party yeah I think being able to, how did you put it, "shoot arrows faster than someone can stab," would suit just fine.
Affirmative!