For many of us it is actually more fun to kick Mr badass heroes ass with the cowardly wimp toon. I love playing the underdog where my abilities as a player make an impact over playing an unbeatable character where my actions mean little to nothing.
Isn't playing the underdog against overwhelming odds being heroic too?
Absolutely! But as I pointed out in my last post, theres nothing really overwhelming when the devs just reduce NPC stats and abilities for every NPC they add.
I have! I remember back in the days when I played DAOC with my defensive specced Paladin in Darkness Falls and saw a small group that wiped. I went in and had a bunch of dangerous mobs on me that many classes had problems with 1 vs 1. I twisted my chants so that my fingers bled and won, so yeah, I felt heroic and got a few " - Wow!" when I rezzed them.
But you're right, nowadays all games are so easy. You just jump in there and kill the mobs. That is why I often try to fight more opponents to atleast get some excitement from the PvE.
I don't see any difference in fighting off 10 easy mobs or one badass mob in terms of heroism or epicness. If the devs want us to fight a solo mob and be challenged they can. In order for us to feel the same level of challenge against multiple mobs, they either have to increase our power or decrease the NPCs power. The end result will be the same though.
I think this as well. I think heroic is defined ( to me obviously ) by other factors.
Some examples to illustrate.
Defeating a Dark Jedi Master NPC in SWG pre-cu with 20 other people felt heroic while 10 people taking 5 minutes to kill an unarmored Imperial Officer on the Corellian Corvette instance felt just stupid and silly. The first was a good experience, the second felt like I was playing a pointless game.
How about NHL series for consoles. In 2001 one, when you scored, you got a couple of people cheering, the red light came on and you and two teammates celebrated. That felt like a game. Later on in later versions of the series, the crowd started to cheer during the rush into your opponents endzone, and it got louder. When you shot the puck and missed the net, there was a huge " OHHHHHhhh" from the crowd, or if you scored they went absolutely bananas. Loud cheering, a light show, the works. It felt awesome to score, more heroic I guess.
How about Bioware examples.
In Dragon's Age, I thought the boss fight against the Dragon at the end was sort of boring, but there was a scene with a great touch right before that. Before the last battle, you pick which groups you are taking with you and then you run up this road on the way to the gate to the castle. As you run up, there are soldiers standing on the sides of the road, and they start cheering wildly as you run past until there is a huge roar as you enter the castle. That gave me a huge rush and made me feel heroic.
My point is, for me, its the immersion, not the combat. If I am immersed into the story, I will probably be more inclined to feel heroic if Bioware adds those immersion enhancing things to the game, which they have in their old games. The numbers of opponents is irrelevant if at the end of the fight, it took 5 minutes and I am at 25% health every time. That was Champions Online for me, and it was just tedious. I didn't feel great after beating up easy mobs by myself. It felt like a game, and I don't feel heroic if it feels like I am just grinding through a game.
It isn't so much the feeling of being heroic that I care about. It's the adrenaline rush you get from taking on a large number of evenly matched NPCs, not knowing if you will walk away alive or get pummeled to death.
Fighting one NPC at a time, even if they are a bit stronger than yourself, just doesn't give the same rush because you are both just trading hits and you can pretty easily feel out the situation and adapt.
Having several NPCs attacking you at the same time give you the rush because while you are knocking one down you have to worry about the others.
If the large number of NPCs were truly evenly matched, then yes that would be a fight worthy of an adenaline rush. The problem is no game company is going to make a game where you are fighting solo against large packs of evenly matched NPCs. They will most likely have fewer abilities, reduced stats, and a very simple AI or else everyone is going to be screaming that the game is too hard.
Aye, they end up being like linked NPCs in EQ2; Sure they are the same level as you and all, but 2 hits can kill each of them as opposed to the 10+ it takes to down the singular NPC of the same type.
There are 3 types of people in the world. 1.) Those who make things happen 2.) Those who watch things happen 3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
My point is, for me, its the immersion, not the combat. If I am immersed into the story, I will probably be more inclined to feel heroic if Bioware adds those immersion enhancing things to the game, which they have in their old games. The numbers of opponents is irrelevant if at the end of the fight, it took 5 minutes and I am at 25% health every time. That was Champions Online for me, and it was just tedious. I didn't feel great after beating up easy mobs by myself. It felt like a game, and I don't feel heroic if it feels like I am just grinding through a game.
Sounds like combat is exactly what makes it heroistic for you.
If you feel like you're just grinding through a game, that's not heroistic. That's also combat done poorly.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
My point is, for me, its the immersion, not the combat. If I am immersed into the story, I will probably be more inclined to feel heroic if Bioware adds those immersion enhancing things to the game, which they have in their old games. The numbers of opponents is irrelevant if at the end of the fight, it took 5 minutes and I am at 25% health every time. That was Champions Online for me, and it was just tedious. I didn't feel great after beating up easy mobs by myself. It felt like a game, and I don't feel heroic if it feels like I am just grinding through a game.
Sounds like combat is exactly what makes it heroistic for you.
If you feel like you're just grinding through a game, that's not heroistic. That's also combat done poorly.
Actually I liked the combat mechanics in Champions Online, I didn't mean to beat on the game. It became tedious at around level 10 when I realized that my hero could handle a boss and 2 henchmen, or 4-5 henchmen. So that was the remainder of the game until level 40. Other than the odd 5 man dungeon, that was what the game was for me.
I can't describe immersion without writing a long winded answer, but again it just little things, not necessarily combat. I can use Bioware as another example. In KOTOR, at least the first half of the game, you encountered Sith Apprentices or force users rarely. But there was always a build up to them. You fought through areas, and then entered a room, and there would be one meditating, and he would stand up, and his saber would turn on. The hair on the back of my next would stand up. Having said that, the fight against him was similar to fighting his 4 guards outside his chamber. But it was that rare occurance, with the build up that did it for me. When I killed them, I was like 'Yes'!
So again, its not the combat for me, or number of opponents, its the immersive events surrounding the combat. So I don't agree with Bioware thinking 1 vs many is heroic, but they do immersion very well historically, so I still think SWTOR will achieve its aims at the end of the day.
One player or a small group of players fighting a larger group of mobs can be great--if, as others have said, the mobs are not total pushovers. If I go up against ten mobs all at once but I can walk all over them, wackity wackity wack, and kill them all without any trouble then it's not very interesting.
The key to making this sort of thing satisfying is to require the player to really pay attention and use all the tools at his disposal to survive. Make the mobs dangerous but give the player abilities which, if he uses them in the right way at the right times, will allow him to win. Make it chaotic and hectic and unpredictable and it'll be even more interesting. The more the player is required to "be on the ball", paying attention and reacting appropriatly and quickly the more interesting and satisfying it will be. Throw in a stinging death penalty so the player has something at stake and it just got even more interesting.
The problem with this is that the more demanding the fights are on players the more players there are who will have trouble with it. So then you get people who are upset because it's too hard. Have a death penalty which stings and you get complaints from all the people who don't want there to be any consequences for their mistakes.
So, ultimately, it's a safer bet to make the mobs pushovers and to have no consequences for mistakes. It might make for a bland and uninteresting game but you can always try to keep people interested by throwing lots of story at them.
I'm sure you want 10 minute downtimes inbetween groups as well. Then you can run away after every fight and stand around for 10 minutes waiting for your health/mana to regenerate. But you can't go AFK, of course, because one roaming mob and BAM! You just lost that last hour of XP, or all your items, or whatever you define as a "stinging" death penalty.
Difficult or story-related mobs should be as you describe. Trash mobs for quests or grinding should not.
Ten minutes would be a bit much but, yes, I do think there should be some downtime. But make it so that if a player manages his health/mana/stamina efficiently he will have less downtime. And look, now you're rewarding people for playing intelligently instead of just blundering through everything.
-----"But you can't go AFK, of course, because one roaming mob and BAM!"
You would prefer if a wandering mob walked up and gave you a lollipop?
-----"You just lost that last hour of XP, or all your items, or whatever you define as a "stinging" death penalty."
And not only that but if you get yourself killed stupidly, for example by parking your character in the middle of a dangerous area while you go afk, then your character should be forced to wear a dunce cap for a week.
-----"Difficult or story-related mobs should be as you describe. Trash mobs for quests or grinding should not."
I see. In other words you're saying that 90% of the game should be bland, boring, and uninteresting and only 10% of the game should actually be fun.
A lot of you automatically assume mobs will be 'braindead' and extremely easy, while that might be so in some cases, people who played the game have accounted of a rather smart AI: one mob tries to 'tank' the player while others get at his back, some mobs engage in melee while others retreat and fire at the player, some NPC's pretend they are dead, only to rise up again and attack the player while he engages the next group, some npc's ran off to fetch friends etc.
And while the combat wasn't described as very difficult, you have to remember this was at lvl 5 or so in one of the first quests given with gear that was well above the standard for that level.
If you look at other games by BW, like DA:O and play that one at highest difficulty, you'll see that a lot of the fights where you find yourself dying are when you enter a room full of mobs who attack you in different ways: archers stun you, mages throw AOE spells and take out one of your partymembers very quickly, while melee combatants knock you off your feet.
Beating these encounters certainly does feel heroic, maybe not so much because of the numbers, but because of the toughness and strategy that you need employ.
Another game where you can see this in is WoW: while big bosses were prevalent there, a lot of the hardest fights were the ones that required a great deal of control over a mass of other elites / monsters; not the fights were the boss had some abilities like summoning volcanoes under your feet, which anyone with half a brain memorizes quickly.
Finally, it's not really Star Wars to have these big fights, except in the rare case of facing off against some mechanical contraption or towering creature (though not always in that last case).
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Another game where you can see this in is WoW: while big bosses were prevalent there, a lot of the hardest fights were the ones that required a great deal of control over a mass of other elites / monsters; not the fights were the boss had some abilities like summoning volcanoes under your feet, which anyone with half a brain memorizes quickly.
Agreed. Moroes in Karazhan was a tough fight. Four sidekicks, which changed each time in. Everyone was undead, so my Polymorph CC was useless. We had no high level Priests for CC or Paladins to remove his garrote. Most tries were with three survival hunters, who did a damned good job of trapping in a tough situation. Hard as hell, but a lot of fun for me.
I think we all would have had fun if the repair bills weren't so brutal. That's one thing that would make dungeon content a lot more fun in the game - getting rid of the repair bills. No one wanted to take chances on party make up, due to the gold cost of wiping.
I like a reasonable death penalty as a rule, but not when it kills the fun.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Another game where you can see this in is WoW: while big bosses were prevalent there, a lot of the hardest fights were the ones that required a great deal of control over a mass of other elites / monsters; not the fights were the boss had some abilities like summoning volcanoes under your feet, which anyone with half a brain memorizes quickly.
Agreed. Moroes in Karazhan was a tough fight. Four sidekicks, which changed each time in. Everyone was undead, so my Polymorph CC was useless. We had no high level Priests for CC or Paladins to remove his garrote. Most tries were with three survival hunters, who did a damned good job of trapping in a tough situation. Hard as hell, but a lot of fun for me.
I think we all would have had fun if the repair bills weren't so brutal. That's one thing that would make dungeon content a lot more fun in the game - getting rid of the repair bills. No one wanted to take chances on party make up, due to the gold cost of wiping.
I like a reasonable death penalty as a rule, but not when it kills the fun.
You see, to me, that isn't combat. It's just puzzle-solving - as is much of WoW's raid-end content. Fighting the twin valkyrs in the TOTGC, for example, isn't a fight at all, it's an arcade puzzle game - so too is EoE. I personally did not enjoy those aspects of WoW's PVE.
You see, to me, that isn't combat. It's just puzzle-solving - as is much of WoW's raid-end content. Fighting the twin valkyrs in the TOTGC, for example, isn't a fight at all, it's an arcade puzzle game - so too is EoE. I personally did not enjoy those aspects of WoW's PVE.
Really? Then what is combat?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
You see, to me, that isn't combat. It's just puzzle-solving - as is much of WoW's raid-end content. Fighting the twin valkyrs in the TOTGC, for example, isn't a fight at all, it's an arcade puzzle game - so too is EoE. I personally did not enjoy those aspects of WoW's PVE.
Really? Then what is combat?
Personally I'd enjoy combat where you do whatever you have to to survive for 5 seconds and spend those 5 second figuring out whatever crazy thing you have to survive for the next 5, which gives you enough time to figure out how to live for another 5 seconds beyond that...etc. Well, there need to be breaks so your head doesn't explode.
I don't care for Raiding By Numbers. I want more randomness and chaos, more REACTING to what is going on in a manner that can't be easily scripted. Seriously, if they allowed you to make bots to play WoW then a pretty simple Bot could play the game better than a human once that initial puzzle-solving session(s) for new bosses was finished. Far, far too formulaic. Whatever happened to no plan surviving contact with the enemy?
In WoW I generally think PvP combat works better than PvE, though current PvP is too focused on burst damage (that's getting fixed in 4.0). It's a much, much better play experience.
Oh, and regarding the OP, I've personally felt most heroic after going against large numbers, so long as those large numbers weren't a joke. For the requisite WoW reference, the gauntlet in the Halls of Stone is an ok example. Preferably the enemies aren't total idiots though, so a good PvP match might be a better example (I'm not a huge pvper despite me referenceing PvP here). It is quite possible to not make AI in the game brain dead though.
I've never felt heroic while playing any game. I think they're trying to make the player feel powerful, not heroic. You wouldn't be a powerful Sith lord if you struggled against every peon with a gun, right? Would a Jedi need 5 other Jedis to defeat a couple peons with guns in combat? I believe that's what they're going for and they did a good job on it. Many of the complaints about Champions Online were about the player not feeling "super" enough, because they struggled against every common enemy. Anyway, I didn't feel heroic while playing Dynasty Warriors, but I sure as hell felt powerful and that was awesome.
I know exactly what you mean, but for me it was not about the jedi, but more the troopers/soldiers.
They talk about a single player going up against lots of enemies, but when, in all 6 SW films, has a single Storm Trooper faced off against loads of opponents? At the very least, he would be in a squad.
First this isn't the movies and it's not official canon. Second Storm Troopers were clones, which were designed to fight as an army. In TOR's case they are special troopers and not clones, think of the trooper as a Navy seal. It's not original but it makes sense when designing classes that are meant to fight along side or against force users.
Just as the player smugglers are not your common space scum, and your Bounty Hunter is something more than the average fugitive hunting profiteer.
In the movies jedi are portrayed as powerful, never godly. They are mortal beings like any other, one well placed shot and it's game over for any jedi.
All through the history of Star Wars lore, canon and none, there are instances of the average Joe achieving great things, jedi also are shown to appraoch any adversary be it force using, AI or Joe shmoe with caution. Meaning they have weaknesses, that could be exploited.
As for the op's question yes I have felt powerful while fighting NPCS. What's more heroic than slaying a giant Krayt Dragon or Kimogilla?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
You see, to me, that isn't combat. It's just puzzle-solving - as is much of WoW's raid-end content. Fighting the twin valkyrs in the TOTGC, for example, isn't a fight at all, it's an arcade puzzle game - so too is EoE. I personally did not enjoy those aspects of WoW's PVE.
Going up against an AI is always puzzle-solving, it's trying to get the actions of the AI and reacting accordingly.
I don't know what you call real combat then, maybe having no AI at all? ... lol ...
As for more randomness and chaos, yes ok, a little bit more of that would be cool; however that doesn't make it any less puzzle solving, only now with a random element in it.
And I certainly don't believe a perfectly realistic AI or a very much random one is very fun to play against, for one if you play a squishier class, you'd always be the first to end up biting the dust.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
You see, to me, that isn't combat. It's just puzzle-solving - as is much of WoW's raid-end content. Fighting the twin valkyrs in the TOTGC, for example, isn't a fight at all, it's an arcade puzzle game - so too is EoE. I personally did not enjoy those aspects of WoW's PVE.
Really? Then what is combat?
Being ambushed by a Tusken Observer and killing him in an epic solo battle outside your house in the southern wastes of Tattooine with Jabba's palace shimmering like a mirage off in the distance.
You see, to me, that isn't combat. It's just puzzle-solving - as is much of WoW's raid-end content. Fighting the twin valkyrs in the TOTGC, for example, isn't a fight at all, it's an arcade puzzle game - so too is EoE. I personally did not enjoy those aspects of WoW's PVE.
Going up against an AI is always puzzle-solving, it's trying to get the actions of the AI and reacting accordingly.
I don't know what you call real combat then, maybe having no AI at all? ... lol ...
As for more randomness and chaos, yes ok, a little bit more of that would be cool; however that doesn't make it any less puzzle solving, only now with a random element in it.
And I certainly don't believe a perfectly realistic AI or a very much random one is very fun to play against, for one if you play a squishier class, you'd always be the first to end up biting the dust.
Fighting General Grievous in SWG before NGE was a good example of a hard fight that required thinking but wasn't a boring play-by-numbers, hop-skip-press button A-type puzzle combat which is not even combat. I'm surprised you think it is...lol...
They're making a huge mistake here how is fighting masses of braindead mobs heroic? Jugding from my personal experience the most heroic/epic feeling came from grouping up with others and fighting bad ass encounters such as Lady Vash, Quarm and Quanun.
I personally felt the opposite. I always wondered how much of a puss our characters must be to require 25-40 of us to take down a single boss. Didn't feel very heroic to me at all.
As to SWTOR, they haven't really released any information on the end-game yet. It could very well be that it will require large groups of players to take down certain bosses. The only thing they've really addressed is the leveling process... and I can definitely say that taking on 3-4 baddies at a time while leveling is more "heroic" feeling than taking on a single mob at a time like you do in most MMOs.
They're making a huge mistake here how is fighting masses of braindead mobs heroic? Jugding from my personal experience the most heroic/epic feeling came from grouping up with others and fighting bad ass encounters such as Lady Vash, Quarm and Quanun.
I personally felt the opposite. I always wondered how much of a puss our characters must be to require 25-40 of us to take down a single boss. Didn't feel very heroic to me at all.
And I always wondered how much of a puss the boss must be if I can singlehandedly beat it.
Is that even a boss? More like a glorified trash mob.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Fighting General Grievous in SWG before NGE was a good example of a hard fight that required thinking but wasn't a boring play-by-numbers, hop-skip-press button A-type puzzle combat which is not even combat. I'm surprised you think it is...lol...
Combat is combat, if you feel a complex encounter with multiple monsters is not combat, you're going to have to explain that closer, although it is completely absurd.
And although I quit before Grievous was added, I don't see how that is any different; a boss has abilities, it requires you to react accordingly to these abilities, in other words you need to master a response (strategy) to the actions the boss undertakes.
Similarly, in a complex mob encounter, you need to perform certain actions, or master a certain strategy to win.
If you want you can equal almost any action in an mmo, or any other game, to a puzzle, both are games, both are structured activities.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
And I always wondered how much of a puss the boss must be if I can singlehandedly beat it.
Is that even a boss? More like a glorified trash mob.
No one said you're going to beat bosses in group encounters single handedly.
Very true, even when soloing we'll apparently have our companion NPCs with us.
Actually what has been officially stated is that a lot of the game can be soloed, yet there will be content that is only designed for group play, I'd guess those will be the encounters with strong bosses etc...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Comments
Absolutely! But as I pointed out in my last post, theres nothing really overwhelming when the devs just reduce NPC stats and abilities for every NPC they add.
I have! I remember back in the days when I played DAOC with my defensive specced Paladin in Darkness Falls and saw a small group that wiped. I went in and had a bunch of dangerous mobs on me that many classes had problems with 1 vs 1. I twisted my chants so that my fingers bled and won, so yeah, I felt heroic and got a few " - Wow!" when I rezzed them.
But you're right, nowadays all games are so easy. You just jump in there and kill the mobs. That is why I often try to fight more opponents to atleast get some excitement from the PvE.
I think this as well. I think heroic is defined ( to me obviously ) by other factors.
Some examples to illustrate.
Defeating a Dark Jedi Master NPC in SWG pre-cu with 20 other people felt heroic while 10 people taking 5 minutes to kill an unarmored Imperial Officer on the Corellian Corvette instance felt just stupid and silly. The first was a good experience, the second felt like I was playing a pointless game.
How about NHL series for consoles. In 2001 one, when you scored, you got a couple of people cheering, the red light came on and you and two teammates celebrated. That felt like a game. Later on in later versions of the series, the crowd started to cheer during the rush into your opponents endzone, and it got louder. When you shot the puck and missed the net, there was a huge " OHHHHHhhh" from the crowd, or if you scored they went absolutely bananas. Loud cheering, a light show, the works. It felt awesome to score, more heroic I guess.
How about Bioware examples.
In Dragon's Age, I thought the boss fight against the Dragon at the end was sort of boring, but there was a scene with a great touch right before that. Before the last battle, you pick which groups you are taking with you and then you run up this road on the way to the gate to the castle. As you run up, there are soldiers standing on the sides of the road, and they start cheering wildly as you run past until there is a huge roar as you enter the castle. That gave me a huge rush and made me feel heroic.
My point is, for me, its the immersion, not the combat. If I am immersed into the story, I will probably be more inclined to feel heroic if Bioware adds those immersion enhancing things to the game, which they have in their old games. The numbers of opponents is irrelevant if at the end of the fight, it took 5 minutes and I am at 25% health every time. That was Champions Online for me, and it was just tedious. I didn't feel great after beating up easy mobs by myself. It felt like a game, and I don't feel heroic if it feels like I am just grinding through a game.
Aye, they end up being like linked NPCs in EQ2; Sure they are the same level as you and all, but 2 hits can kill each of them as opposed to the 10+ it takes to down the singular NPC of the same type.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Sounds like combat is exactly what makes it heroistic for you.
If you feel like you're just grinding through a game, that's not heroistic. That's also combat done poorly.
Actually I liked the combat mechanics in Champions Online, I didn't mean to beat on the game. It became tedious at around level 10 when I realized that my hero could handle a boss and 2 henchmen, or 4-5 henchmen. So that was the remainder of the game until level 40. Other than the odd 5 man dungeon, that was what the game was for me.
I can't describe immersion without writing a long winded answer, but again it just little things, not necessarily combat. I can use Bioware as another example. In KOTOR, at least the first half of the game, you encountered Sith Apprentices or force users rarely. But there was always a build up to them. You fought through areas, and then entered a room, and there would be one meditating, and he would stand up, and his saber would turn on. The hair on the back of my next would stand up. Having said that, the fight against him was similar to fighting his 4 guards outside his chamber. But it was that rare occurance, with the build up that did it for me. When I killed them, I was like 'Yes'!
So again, its not the combat for me, or number of opponents, its the immersive events surrounding the combat. So I don't agree with Bioware thinking 1 vs many is heroic, but they do immersion very well historically, so I still think SWTOR will achieve its aims at the end of the day.
Ten minutes would be a bit much but, yes, I do think there should be some downtime. But make it so that if a player manages his health/mana/stamina efficiently he will have less downtime. And look, now you're rewarding people for playing intelligently instead of just blundering through everything.
-----"But you can't go AFK, of course, because one roaming mob and BAM!"
You would prefer if a wandering mob walked up and gave you a lollipop?
-----"You just lost that last hour of XP, or all your items, or whatever you define as a "stinging" death penalty."
And not only that but if you get yourself killed stupidly, for example by parking your character in the middle of a dangerous area while you go afk, then your character should be forced to wear a dunce cap for a week.
-----"Difficult or story-related mobs should be as you describe. Trash mobs for quests or grinding should not."
I see. In other words you're saying that 90% of the game should be bland, boring, and uninteresting and only 10% of the game should actually be fun.
A lot of you automatically assume mobs will be 'braindead' and extremely easy, while that might be so in some cases, people who played the game have accounted of a rather smart AI: one mob tries to 'tank' the player while others get at his back, some mobs engage in melee while others retreat and fire at the player, some NPC's pretend they are dead, only to rise up again and attack the player while he engages the next group, some npc's ran off to fetch friends etc.
And while the combat wasn't described as very difficult, you have to remember this was at lvl 5 or so in one of the first quests given with gear that was well above the standard for that level.
If you look at other games by BW, like DA:O and play that one at highest difficulty, you'll see that a lot of the fights where you find yourself dying are when you enter a room full of mobs who attack you in different ways: archers stun you, mages throw AOE spells and take out one of your partymembers very quickly, while melee combatants knock you off your feet.
Beating these encounters certainly does feel heroic, maybe not so much because of the numbers, but because of the toughness and strategy that you need employ.
Another game where you can see this in is WoW: while big bosses were prevalent there, a lot of the hardest fights were the ones that required a great deal of control over a mass of other elites / monsters; not the fights were the boss had some abilities like summoning volcanoes under your feet, which anyone with half a brain memorizes quickly.
Finally, it's not really Star Wars to have these big fights, except in the rare case of facing off against some mechanical contraption or towering creature (though not always in that last case).
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
You see, to me, that isn't combat. It's just puzzle-solving - as is much of WoW's raid-end content. Fighting the twin valkyrs in the TOTGC, for example, isn't a fight at all, it's an arcade puzzle game - so too is EoE. I personally did not enjoy those aspects of WoW's PVE.
Really? Then what is combat?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Personally I'd enjoy combat where you do whatever you have to to survive for 5 seconds and spend those 5 second figuring out whatever crazy thing you have to survive for the next 5, which gives you enough time to figure out how to live for another 5 seconds beyond that...etc. Well, there need to be breaks so your head doesn't explode.
I don't care for Raiding By Numbers. I want more randomness and chaos, more REACTING to what is going on in a manner that can't be easily scripted. Seriously, if they allowed you to make bots to play WoW then a pretty simple Bot could play the game better than a human once that initial puzzle-solving session(s) for new bosses was finished. Far, far too formulaic. Whatever happened to no plan surviving contact with the enemy?
In WoW I generally think PvP combat works better than PvE, though current PvP is too focused on burst damage (that's getting fixed in 4.0). It's a much, much better play experience.
Oh, and regarding the OP, I've personally felt most heroic after going against large numbers, so long as those large numbers weren't a joke. For the requisite WoW reference, the gauntlet in the Halls of Stone is an ok example. Preferably the enemies aren't total idiots though, so a good PvP match might be a better example (I'm not a huge pvper despite me referenceing PvP here). It is quite possible to not make AI in the game brain dead though.
I've never felt heroic while playing any game. I think they're trying to make the player feel powerful, not heroic. You wouldn't be a powerful Sith lord if you struggled against every peon with a gun, right? Would a Jedi need 5 other Jedis to defeat a couple peons with guns in combat? I believe that's what they're going for and they did a good job on it. Many of the complaints about Champions Online were about the player not feeling "super" enough, because they struggled against every common enemy. Anyway, I didn't feel heroic while playing Dynasty Warriors, but I sure as hell felt powerful and that was awesome.
To original question:
There seems to be two streams in game design.
One says that challenging combat is lot of weak enemies against hero.
Other puts one powerful monster against hero.
I myself perfer second one.
First is usually just dominated by AOE tactics.
First this isn't the movies and it's not official canon. Second Storm Troopers were clones, which were designed to fight as an army. In TOR's case they are special troopers and not clones, think of the trooper as a Navy seal. It's not original but it makes sense when designing classes that are meant to fight along side or against force users.
Just as the player smugglers are not your common space scum, and your Bounty Hunter is something more than the average fugitive hunting profiteer.
In the movies jedi are portrayed as powerful, never godly. They are mortal beings like any other, one well placed shot and it's game over for any jedi.
All through the history of Star Wars lore, canon and none, there are instances of the average Joe achieving great things, jedi also are shown to appraoch any adversary be it force using, AI or Joe shmoe with caution. Meaning they have weaknesses, that could be exploited.
As for the op's question yes I have felt powerful while fighting NPCS. What's more heroic than slaying a giant Krayt Dragon or Kimogilla?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Going up against an AI is always puzzle-solving, it's trying to get the actions of the AI and reacting accordingly.
I don't know what you call real combat then, maybe having no AI at all? ... lol ...
As for more randomness and chaos, yes ok, a little bit more of that would be cool; however that doesn't make it any less puzzle solving, only now with a random element in it.
And I certainly don't believe a perfectly realistic AI or a very much random one is very fun to play against, for one if you play a squishier class, you'd always be the first to end up biting the dust.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Being ambushed by a Tusken Observer and killing him in an epic solo battle outside your house in the southern wastes of Tattooine with Jabba's palace shimmering like a mirage off in the distance.
Fighting General Grievous in SWG before NGE was a good example of a hard fight that required thinking but wasn't a boring play-by-numbers, hop-skip-press button A-type puzzle combat which is not even combat. I'm surprised you think it is...lol...
I personally felt the opposite. I always wondered how much of a puss our characters must be to require 25-40 of us to take down a single boss. Didn't feel very heroic to me at all.
As to SWTOR, they haven't really released any information on the end-game yet. It could very well be that it will require large groups of players to take down certain bosses. The only thing they've really addressed is the leveling process... and I can definitely say that taking on 3-4 baddies at a time while leveling is more "heroic" feeling than taking on a single mob at a time like you do in most MMOs.
And I always wondered how much of a puss the boss must be if I can singlehandedly beat it.
Is that even a boss? More like a glorified trash mob.
Combat is combat, if you feel a complex encounter with multiple monsters is not combat, you're going to have to explain that closer, although it is completely absurd.
And although I quit before Grievous was added, I don't see how that is any different; a boss has abilities, it requires you to react accordingly to these abilities, in other words you need to master a response (strategy) to the actions the boss undertakes.
Similarly, in a complex mob encounter, you need to perform certain actions, or master a certain strategy to win.
If you want you can equal almost any action in an mmo, or any other game, to a puzzle, both are games, both are structured activities.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
No one said you're going to beat bosses in group encounters single handedly.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Very true, even when soloing we'll apparently have our companion NPCs with us.
Actually what has been officially stated is that a lot of the game can be soloed, yet there will be content that is only designed for group play, I'd guess those will be the encounters with strong bosses etc...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Well, at least Draemos felt the opposite. My response was a comment to him, not whatever TOR's gonna do.