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Combat Pacing and Time to Kill: Prime Importance in PvP/RvR
Sornin
Member Posts: 1,133
Many PvE games that bolt PvP or some pale imitation of RvR on suffer from combat mechanics that do not lend themselves to PvP. PvE and PvP are so different that a combat system focused on PvE is inevitably going to be subpar for PvP.
The two aspects I feel are of prime importance are pacing and time to kill, which are somewhat related. There are of course other things, such as control powers, etc., but those are not as fundamental and can be changed as balance requires, whereas altering the actual pace of combat and the time to kill is much more difficult as that involves altering the entire combat system. Thus, it must be done right from the beginning.
Since PvE is predictable, as enemies follow a script, which ranges from "fight back" for a common enemy to "follow a hokey WWE script complete with fake deaths and extra combatants added at set intervals" for raid bosses, combat can and should be quite fast-paced. Since enemies do not maneuver much, nor do they employ clever tactics or actually coordinate in packs, quick combat makes sense. It helps hide the tedium and make the difficulty a bit higher, though not much. The goal is to simply plow through enemies as quickly as possible, spamming abilities as quickly as possible, to attain some sort of reward, like a level or an item.
Combat rounds, where one combat round is loosely defined to be the length of time between an average weapon swing, should be short, perhaps 2 seconds at most. Ability cooldowns should also be brief. The time to kill a normal enemy should be perhaps 5 or 6 combat rounds, or around 10 seconds.
In PvP/RvR, this all falls to pieces. Suddenly, there is no script, and your enemies are (theoretically and hopefully) intelligent and capable of advanced tactics and coordinating in packs. Combat is no longer about spamming abilities as quickly as possible against a stationary foe, but rather about making smart, moment-to-moment decisions to keep yourself and your allies safe and in a position to win.
I feel a slower pace ultimately makes this a better experience, coupled with a much longer time to kill. Slowing down a combat round by necessity makes one invest more thought in their current action, and also allows them more time to decide a proper action. Also, by increasing the time to kill, it increases the longevity of battles and makes it more about thorough strategy and tactics rather than an assist train or some one-shot wonder combination of abilities that decimates an enemy before a reasonable defense can be made. That is not fun for either side, in my opinion. What is fun is a good, long battle where victory rests not on a few short moments, but on a series of good decisions. I do not mind losing battles like that at all.
Basically, I hope the combat in Camelot Unchained tailors itself to PvP/RvR, since PvE is not even an issue. This will allow them to make all of the right choices and make that experience perfect, or as near as possible. Dark Age of Camelot, for example, did very well. Combat was paced more slowly, and the time to kill an enemy was somewhat reasonable. Building on that will be great, going backwards to spammy combat would not be.
Comments
I do agree that combat should be longer, but I think combat should be a bit faster than DAoC. I am not saying it needs to be a lot faster, but a bit faster. My Armsman had a Polearm with a 5.8 second reuse time. Grant it, that was for auto-attacks and didn't take in account buffs to make him faster, but that is a long time! If I remember, my Scout also had to take 5 seconds between shots.
Aspiring Game Musician <<>> Inquiring ears, feel free to visit: http://www.youtube.com/user/vagarylabs
See, I actually liked that. I know people are inevitably going to say, "That is because you have slow reactions and suck at games, newb!" Well, I do not claim to be the best gamer, but I assure you this is not the case - my reactions are fine and I can keep up just fine. I felt the time between attacks in DAoC was pretty good; I could agree with it being a bit faster, but I do mean "a bit." If it gets sped up too much I truly feel it compromises the best part of group PvP/RvR, which is the tactics of working as a team and making crucial decisions in each combat round, because the weight of each one is greater since the time between is, too.
Oh I know! It was just a matter of getting the right group together that made or broke that class. :-) I liked that polearm, because it hit hard! I could take down Paladins with him, dueling of course. :-) I am wondering if MJ is going to bring back certain things like being buffs speeding your casting/swing weapons. I think that was one thing that made DAoC unique, because I can't recall seeing it in any other MMO.
Aspiring Game Musician <<>> Inquiring ears, feel free to visit: http://www.youtube.com/user/vagarylabs
It is in lots of other MMORPGs! In fact, it is probably in more MMORPGs than it is not...
I did like the synergies and dependence the buffs created, though. However, I did not like and still do not like "buffbots." I am glad Mark said the system would be designed around these not being practical.
Hmm, well then! Perhaps I have gotten used to it, I don't even recognize it anymore! Yeah, I may not be a big fan of them either, but there was thread about that a few days ago and someone mentioned that one way to help with the problem: to have buffs effective within a range. That way, if a group wants a "buffbot" in a group, they would be a person down. I think that's a valid approach to it.
Aspiring Game Musician <<>> Inquiring ears, feel free to visit: http://www.youtube.com/user/vagarylabs
If CU's pace and TTK are similar to DAOC, then I'd be very happy.
I don't like really long TTK like some recent MMOs have. There needs to be some urgency to combat. You need to fear dying if you or your group don't play well. Your healer needs to have to react quickly to heal you. Fights need to end quickly enough that it is possible to have a 1v1 or group vs group fight without other players adding in being a certainty. A tank needs to die if a caster starts nuking him from max range and he gets no heals. A caster needs to die if he gets assist trained and gets no heals but not so quickly that his healer or group has no chance of saving him.
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
so basically like in daoc.
We just have to avoid things like in WAR: caster in front of zerg having healers behind killing everything. 4 tanks on a healer who is keeping up entire group spamming grp heals / HoT's.
I feel a slower pace ultimately makes this a better experience, coupled with a much longer time to kill.
I disagree, although this sort of discussion requires a lot of explanation of context.
I believe that a 1v1 glass cannon versus glass cannon afk (no defensive reactions) should be as low as 2.0 seconds.
2.0 may seem pretty low, but don't forget the conditions I outlined -- they are pretty severe. I believe an assist train should evaporate a glass target who has no defense in less than 1 second.
This is all because at the other end of the spectrum, you have active defenses, teamwork, etc that can pull TTK up into the >45 second range for a "medium defense" target being attacked by 3+ players.
The larger the variety of tools available to players, whether we're talking about class abilities (burst) or tactics (like assisting / focus fire), the larger the spread of TTK between a glass v glass and defensive v defensive scenario.
Warhammer provides a simple example of this: a glass on glass TTK could, in fact, be 1.5s or 2.0s. However, strong 6v6s could see no player die for over a minute -- 6v6s with the best players in the game, with a high degree of coordination and focus fire, target swaps, etc. Over a minute for a single player to fall down once.
So bottom line: TTK is really a player perception issue, and frankly I find it stupid. Many players want a TTK of 10 seconds in a glass cannon fight. Really? How does that translate to a composite team of skilled players? Will they be immortal?
This is after they ruined archery.
remember...you picked your weapon and its speed
That's true i really didn't like Time To Kill in other games like warhammer / wow /rift and especially gw2. It should be faster.
Something around daoc. I think that TTK should be 20% slower than in daoc. In daoc it was kinda sometimes too fast at least in the game right now. But it shouldn't be as slow as in GW2 etc. If someone makes misstakes, if the healers are interrupted die!
Ttk was fine with most classes. I wouldn't see a need for two tanks killing one another any more slowly.
As a person who generally runs healer class toons, I loved WAR for that reason. Makes healer class so important to a group's survival. I can't count how many times I see a healer or shaman in DAoC battle grounds go solo because no one wanted them in their group. Skald's, OTOH, never have a problem getting a group.
Midranki - To us, Thidranki Faste is not just some center keep, it's our field Guild Hall.
Camelot Unchained's Kickstarter - Warrior Forever
Well i'm OK with TTK as is in daoc. But I know many ppl who didn't like it
IT shouldn't be tooo slow thought.
So you say that cleric is not important in grp in daoc? Don't be ridiculous. Grp without cleris isn't possible. They've been always important. In battlegrounds in daoc it might happen because everyone has got buffbots and they want to solo or because ppl nowdays don't grp anymore lol. Skald didn't have a problem, because everyone wanted to move faster.
This is mindless if you have on you ppl and you still cast spells.
Maybe healers needed to have more insta heals/hots, or not have new classes(Valkyrie) infringing in their domain?
Valks were the third healer Midgard had been asking for forever. They were a little over the top, but that probably had more to do with trying to get them integrated into a mature game than anything else. Too weak and nobody would've given them a second look.
As for the idea that healers, druids, clerics weren't important in DAoC, I don't know what to say to that.
Giving mids a third healer wasn't needed just to say we have three. Then making the Valk with all that utility went overboard.
I never really played one but Midgard healer seemed about the best of any realms, except maybe bard with speed
That and Locks have made healers unattractive to many BG groups. Shamans are pretty much reduced to either playing buff bot or going cave. If healers can't mix it up in melee combat, they need the high healing/HOT spells like in WAR to keep a party up to make them critical team members at all levels.
To me, DAoC TTKs are a too short, there is very little slack built into the system for a player to recover from making a unperfect decision early on in combat. This because even more so as you enter into the top tier of RVR which is the reason I play almost exclusively BGs and not NF.
Midranki - To us, Thidranki Faste is not just some center keep, it's our field Guild Hall.
Camelot Unchained's Kickstarter - Warrior Forever
Hopefully with interrupts this will be less common.
I really enjoyed the pace and TTK in DAOC. I've never played a more enjoyable PVP experience.
THIS
Warhammer had 2 major issues with the combat.
1) AoE spells were FAR to beneficial and viable compared to their single target spells healing + DPS. A Warrior priest could sit and spam his AoE heal abilitiy if they were in the thick of a fight and being attacked. This is broken.
2) Too many instant cast abilities. BW's i'm looking at you. EDIT: also instant cast abilities which can proc other abilities... broken. Scorch for example.
True it was too easy to heal in warhammer, it's because of almost not being able to interrupt + grp heals were more worth then single heals. Grp heals in WAR should be like 40% worse then now and single heals should be like 20% better and this game would be pretty good.
Its interesting though. Some of WARs mechanics I hated such as those I listed but the various Knockback distances I loved.
MY BG based on my HATE could knock a target WAY out of range causing quite a healing range issue.
Also the heal debuff was was great and made my class super viable when it came to group on group encounters.