For large scale PvP, whats a good avg for the "Time to Kill" in large scale fights?

MMOExposed

Been playing a lot of World vs World in Guild Wars 2. Over the years GW2 introduced a lot of new aspects to builds and balancing around them, which contributed to a sort of powercreep especially in large scale fights. Seem like you have no real time to react before you are downed in a second.

Some classes' damage spikes are like this.  
And in a Trinityless system like in GW2, this seem to be more of a contributing factor to their very short Time to Kill rate. 

But whats a good avg Time to Kill rate for a large scale PvP battle?

To me, large spikes in damage should still happen, but it shouldnt be something that is frequent as in every other second like it is in GW2.

Lot of people in that community are against reducing the damage in WvW. But I am in support of such a move so more combat actions can take place before players are eliminated. These extra actions can be battle changing, leading to more in combat strategy and more epic battles. 

Cryomatrix

Good insightful comment. I dont do large scale PvP, but i think you would want to have it so you dont instantaneously explode, so you at least have time to react, but then again, what happens when 10 guys target you at once. 

Either way, i wouldnt make a drastic change. Id just scale down slightly in PvP by small increments.

Scot

A tricky balance which should depend on what they are doing apart from killing each other. Are keeps being taken, flags raised? Presumably they is no time limit?

In that case you want each participant to feel they have been there long enough to have made a significant contribution. Be it fend of a keep gate attack or whatever, as long as you don't melt too quickly that's doable. Conversely if it takes an evening to take one keep because it is so hard to kill the opposition even when they have less numbers, you need to rethink things.

cameltosis

Short answer: minimum 5seconds, but preferably 10s+

Longer answer: totally depends on the combat mechanics and the objectives of the pvp. 

I want players to feel like they are contributing

I want players to have a good time, and dying too quickly really sucks

I want players to learn from their experiences, but you can't learn anything if you die instantly.

I want player skill to mean something, so there needs to be enough time for the player and their friends to be able to react. If they react well, there should be a chance to live, if they react poorly then they should die.

I want a smaller group of highly skilled players to be able to beat a larger group of average/lower skilled players.

In a perfectly balanced fight (yeh, i know, doesn't happen), players should still die, rather than it being a complete stalemate. It might take a while for the deaths to start, but its better than beating on each other endlessly.

How you achieve that is really difficult. Some general guidance for getting there:

1) Limit AoE damage.

If the game has too much AoE damage, then it means more and more players are dying quickly and at the same time. If most of the damage is single target, then even if TTK is really short when being focus fired, it's only short for that one person at a time, so everyone else can keep fighting and having fun, and potentially disrupt that focus fire.

2) Have deep combat mechanics

Depth is all about decision making, so a deep combat system should give lots of options, both for how to kill and how to save yourself or others. So, a deep system will allow the highly skilled players to react in the best way in order to save someone. Anyone can execute a rotation or wear good gear, but it takes good knowledge and communication to get the best out of a deep system.

3) Player Collisions

Admittedly, I've not played a game where player collisions works particularly well. WAR has it, but the collision boxes are tiny and skill reach quite long, so you can still have 20+ melee all beating on the same enemy. However, I feel that if you get player collisions right, then it will limit how many people can beat on an enemy at the same time, so focus fire won't happen as much which makes it easier to balance TTK.

4) Limited Resources

If you resource system regenerates too quickly (like WAR, or SWTOR) then you can end in stalemates when healing and damage balance. A bigger resource pool with slow regen (like LotRO) effectively puts a time limit on a fight as at some point, players will run out of resource and can no longer heal or kill. This adds additional opportunity for player skill to play a part - judging resource usage plays a bigger part in balanced fights, burn too quickly and the other side will outlast you and then kill you.

5) Multiple objectives

Just because you have a ton of players in PvP, doesn't mean they all need to be in one big scrum beating the crap out of each other. Have enough objectives (and make them meaningful) so that the zerg is more likely to split up into smaller fights. They'll all still be contributing to the overall outcome (e.g. some on the keep door, some scaling the walls, some operating the siege equipment, some guarding the resupply lines etc)

TwistedSister77

I haven't played GW2 WvW in a long time, but Warhammer Online (return of reckoning server) has a balanced TTK imo.

You can push, rez, retreat, get wiped... at key bottlenecks (e.g. keep doors)  things slow down. 

 It doesn't take crazy long to get back to the action if you need to respawn at camp (GW2 seemed liked a lot of travel).

The city sieges, which are 24 vs 24 are usually quick TTK unless you find your doppelganger warband on the other side.  

iixviiiix

cameltosis said:

1) Limit AoE damage.

If the game has too much AoE damage, then it means more and more players are dying quickly and at the same time. If most of the damage is single target, then even if TTK is really short when being focus fired, it's only short for that one person at a time, so everyone else can keep fighting and having fun, and potentially disrupt that focus fire.

Then how do you wipe a zerg rush ?

The thing that kill off most PVP for me is limited AoE damage and anti stun .

Specially anti stun , anti CC is a worst thing in mass PVP .

Next , you can never expect 10s to live in mass PVP when 10+ people hit you at same time .

What a good Mass PVP need is friendly kill . Because you have to use your brain instead of mindless careless button smash .

cameltosis

iixviiiix said:

cameltosis said:

1) Limit AoE damage.

If the game has too much AoE damage, then it means more and more players are dying quickly and at the same time. If most of the damage is single target, then even if TTK is really short when being focus fired, it's only short for that one person at a time, so everyone else can keep fighting and having fun, and potentially disrupt that focus fire.

Then how do you wipe a zerg rush ?

The thing that kill off most PVP for me is limited AoE damage and anti stun .

Specially anti stun , anti CC is a worst thing in mass PVP .

Next , you can never expect 10s to live in mass PVP when 10+ people hit you at same time .

What a good Mass PVP need is friendly kill . Because you have to use your brain instead of mindless careless button smash .

With limited AoE, plus decent player collisions, you beat a zerg rush through good placement, good use of skills to keep the front line alive longer than the zerg, and focus fire to burn down their numbers quicker than they take you down.

CC's a whole other issue. I'm actually a fan of CC in PvP, good use of it is a great way to beat the zerg, breaking them up through stuns and slows. I also love WARs punts, great for giving yourself some breathing space and just really fun to kick people off cliffs :P A well designed CC system also opens up tons of tactics and adds depth, you just have to make sure you aren't completely screwing over the enemy, no-one enjoys being perma-stunlocked. I like a diminishing returns system on CC, rather than immunity or anti-cc skills.

As for surviving 10s when being focus fired, that's all about balancing max health, damage and healing. Pretty easy to do if that's the goal. Just take any game, keep existing damage and healing and increase max health. That'll lengthen TTK. If you want an example, early years LotRO was like this (not quite 10s, but 5s when being focus fired was pretty common, and 5s gives you time to hit some escape skills or be rescued)

Problem with doing that is the TTK in a 1v1 will also be increased a lot. That's OK if you've got a great combat system with a lot of depth, a 2-3 minute 1v1 is awesome in such circumstances (my record was about 10 minutes 1v1, captain vs defiler during mines of moria. one of the best fights ive ever had, so close and tense!). However, if your combat system is shallow then a long fight just gets boring and repetitive.

Friendly fire, I'll be honest and say I've not played any MMO with friendly fire. In principle, I'm on board, but it would entirely depend on the rest of the combat mechanics. I can see how it could be done with first person action combat or shooters, but third person tab-target games? Would be really hard to do. Maybe a hybrid like Wildstar's telegraphs? I also kinda feel like if you get player collisions working properly then it would negate the need for friendly fire.

Aeander

I am generally of the opinion that slower times to kill are better in all competitive genres. However, when it comes to large scale RvR, that's much harder to nail down. You get 20+ people attacking one target, and they're gonna burst like a bubble very quickly.

Viper482

The problem with big pvp is there is no way to stop 20 players from hitting you at once lol. But TTK is ridiculous for some 1v1 too, like in ESO where people can practically one shot you then when you look at what killed you it is like 10 different types of damage all in a matter of seconds all from one person. That's bullshit imo. But yea, if 10 people hit me at once I expect to die in that same amount of time. 

LynxJSA

Short enough that it doesn't feel the battle is dragging. Long enough that the first to fall still feel there was something enjoyable or rewarding about the engagement. 

LynxJSA

iixviiiix said:

What a good Mass PVP need is friendly kill . Because you have to use your brain instead of mindless careless button smash .

Agreed, but people are kinda dickish to each other so that has long since been removed from most MMOs. From the dude that intentionally firewalls his own people to the jackass that rips into a teammate for accidental team damage/casualties, Friendly fire has been replaced with bullets, spells, traps, etc that magically know who to affect and who not to affect. 

ringdany

Champions of Regnum has a really excellent, intense and carefully thought out RvR pvp system.

I guess TTK in this game during battles depends on the circumstances. By TTK, i take it to mean how long does it take an attacker to score the first kill.

In Regnum it really depends on the encounter combination and circumstances. A high damage barbarian can score the first kill within seconds of the encounter starting, but only if the enemy makes mistakes or is out of position. In general, any character class has to hunt hard for their kills. So TTK can be minutes or even up to half an hour, if you are defending against a well coordinated enemy (ie: you are dying lots).

If you define TTK as the time taken to the first death in any encounter. Then i think it is generally up to 2 minutes or less (it is possible for no one to die in a running battle). Regnum is a very intense pvp fight. Every move counts and you really feel it. You can basically go back over in your head what you did and how to improve your reaction next time.

I did try WAR. I'm not a fan. It doesn't have the same depth as Regnum and WAR has gender-locked classes. The battlefield is not as diverse in WAR, compared to Regnum.

MMOExposed

Viper482 said:

The problem with big pvp is there is no way to stop 20 players from hitting you at once lol. But TTK is ridiculous for some 1v1 too, like in ESO where people can practically one shot you then when you look at what killed you it is like 10 different types of damage all in a matter of seconds all from one person. That's bullshit imo. But yea, if 10 people hit me at once I expect to die in that same amount of time. 

I feel GW2 suffers from this as well. Can be burst down by a number of effects in like 3 seconds. And In large scale PvP this is worst. The defensive stats dont really mitigate the melting burst in such an environment. 

cameltosis

What I'd love to see in MMOs that go for large scale PvP is group formations. Actual mechanics that let you set a formation for your group, then when players enter the formation it restricts their individual movement but gives them distinct bonuses too.

Form a 2-deep line? Defence bonuses (protect your neighbours) and knockback immunity.

Form a wedge? Charge bonus and ability to disrupt enemy formations.

Form a square? Can't move, but good charge defence and defensive bonuses.

Form a circle? Healing bonuses and knockback bonuses

Maybe enhance such things by adding more bonuses depending on the makeup of players. If your front line is all sword and shield, and second line all pikeman, maybe your defensive bonus is doubled. If they're all archers, then no defensive bonus (or maybe just knockback defence) but a buff to accuracy?

Or whatever, I don't know what specifics I'd want and it would take a lot to balance, but one of the biggest issues with large scale PvP is its just really hard to organise, so the zerg is inevitable. In a real military, all the troops would spend months or years practicing formations and ways to support team mates. But in a game you just don't do that (and devs shouldn't expect that), so something like set formations that you can join / leave would be a great way to help organise masses of players.

Iselin

It's hard for me to think of TTK in the context of large scale fights. If you get focused fired and/or get hit with siege equipment fire, you're going down fast and so you should. I see people die in ESO all the time standing in stupid despite having had a 2 or 3 second warning via a red circle from siege fire incoming.

I think of TTK as 1v1 thing and there it should be long enough to make you feel like your choices mattered but not so long as to be a boring stalemate.

But I'm also with @remsleep in this: we all like to one shot others but hate it when it happens to us.

ChildoftheShadows

TTK should be calculated in 1v1. Groups that focus fire deserve the benefits of faster kills, otherwise there's no point in it. Focus heals are the counter.