Revisiting the idea of a min/max attack pattern to use over and over for max damage output. This generally the norm for the genre. Is this how the genre should be?
Rotations only natural as you form up your best skills at the right time. It is also an indication that many of the opponents are largely the same and same tactics work for everyone.
Should abilities be more specialized and specific so some should be ineffective in situations.
Comments
But games should have enough variance and randomness so that you need to constantly react to what's happening and player just spamming same button sequence over and over again gets lower dps than a player who reacts.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
PS: About the abilities being specific and good against a certain thing... I dislike that, or at least have not played game with a good implementation of this. It looks good in theory, but ends up being a pain in the ass, for me.
This is one reason I like Fallout 3 better than Fallout New Vegas: Ammo types. I hate goiung into my inventory, switching out ammo, and trying to keep track of how much each specific type has left. I just end up with the "normal ammo" for the whole game, never bothering to switch it out.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
For all the hate, I thought Wildstar's combat system was a great one. I couldn't just stand there braindead face-mashing my keyboard for most of the fight.
One of the reasons I err towards caster classes is because it's generally higher risk/reward due to their being squishy cannons. These days, if I'm mashing a rotation, you're getting a 30-40 minute play session outta me tops before I hit quit and launch another game that doesn't include it.
DPS is in a really sore spot with this honestly. Whereas tanks must react appropriately to peel, healers must respond if a squishy takes shots, DPS literally is just "focus fire your rotation, rinse, repeat."
Less emphasis needs to be placed on DPS in general, more on reactionary utility abilities. The fact that raids/dungeons can even have a "DPS check" is, quite frankly, fucking stupid.
I have put tremendous amount of thought in how to negate or limit singular rotational gameplay or completely remove it. From a development stand point, that is very challenging to do. Unfortunately, rotations help the control of sequence of combat which in some ways helps balancing. There has to be "some" predictability or everything will be extremely chaotic.
The PROBLEM isn't rotational gameplay, the PROBLEM is that there is 1 rotation for most if not all aspects of the entirety of combat.
The best way to solve this problem is to develop a robust AI that keeps the player on their toes by negating singular rotational gameplay. The AI should have 3 distinct variables that they pull from to make the fight unique.
NPC Race: Determines how they behave in combat. Are they full on offensive? Do they counter more? Are they more apt to be more conservative and allow for more defense?
NPC Class: This determines the toolkit in what abilities the NPC has access too. Depending on the NPC, they need to have more than 1 or 2 abilities. They need to have a library of abilities that they could potentially pull from. Perhaps, if there are 2 Orc Warriors, you know that they have access to certain abilities they can use against you, so you prepare appropriately. This would help combat becoming more engaging and a little more less predictable.
NPC AI Rank: This determines the level of difficulty of the NPC. A higher AI Rank determines a larger library of abilities the can pull from, as well as, have a higher chance to predict what you may use next in your "rotation".
By having a more robust AI and having NPC's being more engaged in combat, would help negate Rotational gameplay being bland and stale. It would promote more variety and better replayability. So, players may have certain ability "sets" they save for certain NPCs, ect. That way there may be multiple rotations you will learn as you fight different types of NPCs.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
I can understand reactionary skills but in general even rotations have those. There will always be the most effective method of using your skills in a certain order, even in action games so there will always be rotations. Unless I missed a game where there wasn't a most efficient way of playing.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!