Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
What do you expect from a PvE battle?
Amathe
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
Let's say you, or you and your group, encounter 3 large even con bees. You fight them and after a while you kill all 3.
For that battle to live up to your expectations, what needed to happen?
A weapons/gear/level check (these may not be the bees you are looking for with that outfit, noobmeister)?
Some eye/hand coordination (bees can only be hit in the abdomen kind of thing).
Situational awareness (don't stand in the red)?
Ability choice/rotation?
Use of limiting debuffs and crowd control?
Here is where I think I may be different than some: I just want to feel like I fought three tough bees, and was lucky to defeat them. If I do, that makes me feel like I am in a fantasy world populated by, among other things, scary bees.
I don't care about the mathematics or the strategy so much. Sure, I'm a team player, and will play my role and character as expected by my group.
But in terms of what pleases me, it's more like fishing. I hope the fish jumps and thrashes and puts the outcome in doubt somehow, so catching the fish means something. And I want the fight to be sufficiently engaging that I forget these are merely pixelated bees.
For that battle to live up to your expectations, what needed to happen?
A weapons/gear/level check (these may not be the bees you are looking for with that outfit, noobmeister)?
Some eye/hand coordination (bees can only be hit in the abdomen kind of thing).
Situational awareness (don't stand in the red)?
Ability choice/rotation?
Use of limiting debuffs and crowd control?
Here is where I think I may be different than some: I just want to feel like I fought three tough bees, and was lucky to defeat them. If I do, that makes me feel like I am in a fantasy world populated by, among other things, scary bees.
I don't care about the mathematics or the strategy so much. Sure, I'm a team player, and will play my role and character as expected by my group.
But in terms of what pleases me, it's more like fishing. I hope the fish jumps and thrashes and puts the outcome in doubt somehow, so catching the fish means something. And I want the fight to be sufficiently engaging that I forget these are merely pixelated bees.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Comments
- If I smoke bomb the bee will it fall asleep or weaken for an easier fight?
How can all of this matter after the 10th or 100th fight? I wish there was a way to keep the same types of encounters engaging for a long time.Gut Out!
What, me worry?
Fun, challenging, and engaging are all highly overrated concepts IMO.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I want to think about what I know of these beasts, look for patterns, and use strategy.
Your post, and this is no intended insult to you, reminds me of the terrible direction MMORPGs have gone.
Once upon a time....
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
First I'd like it to be either : very unexpected, so the bees might ambush you (not appear from thin air, still ways to anticipate their attack of you are good) or if you are the one attacking the bees, be able to prepare properly.
I don't like grinding, but a bit of preparation (planning what to bring equipment wise etc) and a flexible approach (maybe you could use the environment to your advantage, bees might be in a mille of all field and you could burn the area etc).
From the fight itself I want it to be quick : something I usually don't like in general about many RPG is that hard fights requires you to keep focused, learn a routine and execute it for 10 minutes until the gygantic hp bar of the boss is empty. I prefer a more realistic combat if you want, ofc you can avoid / block / dodge etc and the mob can do it too but it's brief and intense, 2/3 hits and you're down.
Reward wise : I want it to matter, and I want it to matter in a way that's built around maximizing fun.
I think we should try to go past the idea that if you want a certain piece of reward there are only certain activities (that you might not even enjoy that much) that give you token to buy those, why don't we make a single "currency" that 6 you can increase by succeeding in almost any activity and then spend it on what you want?
I'm going to maybe send you a new car to make up for this slight. lol
Once upon a time....
I always thought that an AI that had some randomness to it, plus logical reactions like healing their buddy MOBs or Paralizing a Player who's chasing down an injured buddy, or just going all random and nuking a crowd that included their buds, really making things unexpected happen.
Also, Humanoid MOBs should use things, sometimes, that they normally don't use. Like grenades (explosion potions), whatever, like Players use. One of those Trolls could be a real renaissance Troll, you know?
And traps. Why not give MOBs the AI to lay out a trap that they can then use in battle? This could be "anywhere" (within guidelines in the code) and completely unexpected. A MOB could actually lead players into a trap during combat, while it's buddies know what to avoid.
I'd like to see MOBs have a group AI that does the typical, but then when things start going badly for the group, have a possibility that one or more MOBs break out and take on their own AI, acting more randomly based on situations, as in the examples I gave.
Once upon a time....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I agree with some others' ideas, too. Capturing an animal would be awesome. What if we had to find and train our mounts? What if I want to "just talk?" No sorry, nobody talks in RPGs, right?
I am rather sick of being ONLY a murderhobo. Can I be something else now? Please?
- 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
Lots and lots of targets.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
But failing that, I'll settle for content that is dynamic and spontaneous.
Gut Out!
What, me worry?
There are many ways to offer interesting gameplay decisions, from action combat where you have to dodge, to turn-based combat where you have to counter what your adversary is doing, to combat that runs on its own after complex preparation to ensure that you only engage the enemy in battle under favorable circumstances (e.g., see the Europa Universalis games). But what I do ought to matter, rather than just being a case of you win no matter what happens.
In UO's fast paced PvP, it was often a case of "do something, even if it's wrong." There were lots of moments in that for Mages in battle with another Mage, as you watched their Spell Casting Words and recognized what they were doing, and had to switch up. Cancel the spell you just started casting and cast something else.
For others, there were timing moments for drinking potions or using Bandages, putting on "buff" jewelry (used up charges as you wore them, per minute, and limited and couldn't be recharged).
I love that fast paced, "if you screw up you might die" thrill of battle.
Once upon a time....
Kritika bosses especially are very reactive fights. If you try to just run up to a boss and hit it, the boss will probably hit you, and hard. That's a problem if you die in about three hits. Rather, for the most part, you have to watch the boss and figure out when it's safe to attack. Boss attacks basically have an animation lock, where once the boss starts an attack, you know what it's doing for the next second or three. So long as you can dodge the initial blow, for some attacks, that gives you a chance to sneak in a counterattack or two of your own.
The details vary wildly from one boss to the next. In some cases, you wait for an opportunity to knock a boss down, then hack away and take off 1/3 of its life, then have to play keep-away for the next 30 seconds waiting for another chance. Against other bosses, you dodge an attack, land one or two of your own, dodge the next attack, land another attack or two, and so forth. Against some of the nimbler bosses, you basically can't use some of your skills, as the skill takes long enough that the boss will blast you the skill ends. Against other bosses, it may be ineffective to use a quicker, lighter attack, as you need to go with a heavier attack ("ultra break") that will knock the boss down so that it can't counterattack you.
As a given class in Kritika, you'll be forced to use wildly different strategies for different bosses, at least if you ramp up the difficulty. Furthermore, fighting against the same boss as different classes commonly calls for very different strategies. It's not just "get out of the red area when it appears", though there is some of that. Many boss attacks are fast enough that if you're standing right in front of the boss, you're going to get hit, as human reflexes simply aren't fast enough to wait for the attack and then dodge. And getting hit like that is a big problem if you die in three hits.
Trash mobs in Kritika aren't as good. They hit hard, but attack slowly and infrequently, so most of them aren't much of a challenge. The only real difficulty comes from there being so many trash mobs at once, and them hitting so hard if they do manage to hit you. Many trash mobs will never do anything to you so long as you keep moving with only brief pauses to attack.
Spiral Knights has much better trash mobs. They generally telegraph what they're going to do, giving you time to get out of the way. This isn't "get out of the red area" type of telegraphs, but rather, this motion means that this particular attack is coming. The difficulty is that there isn't just one, but often several that you fight at once, so you can't just watch one and dodge when it's going to attack.
Spiral Knights also uses a shield mechanic, so that if you're going to get hit, you put your shield up, and then the shield takes damage and you don't. At least until the shield takes so much damage that it breaks, and then you take damage anyway. Your shield recharges as time passes, though your main lifeline doesn't.
The bosses in Spiral Knights aren't very good, though. The two that people seem to farm a lot, Royal Jelly and Vanaduke, are just plain bad fights. They're the worst content in the entire game, so I find it baffling that so many players want to just farm those two bosses endlessly and ignore the rest of the game.
In both Spiral Knights and Kritika, if you're good, you can clear most entire levels without taking damage. The main exception in Spiral Knights is if a bunch of rocket turrets randomly spawn. Devilites are also pretty hard to clear without getting hit at all.
Question:
How's the odge mechanic work, or the best that you've seen?
I was just thinking that using WASD, you can set the direction and hit the right Control key and your character could make a diving dodge for that special sort of effect. That would be the quick, save your sorry arse dodge, as opposed to just moving out of the path of incoming.
Once upon a time....
In both games, it's primarily "dodge" by getting out of the way. If an attack is coming at where you're standing, and you've moved out of the way before you get there, you don't take damage. It helps that you can move pretty fast--a lot faster than you run in most MMORPGs.
Kritika also has a dash mechanic to help you get away faster. Basically, you press a button and then dash extra fast in the direction that you were already moving. It has a short cooldown of several seconds, so you save it for when you need it.
In Spiral Knights, if you think you're going to get hit, you put your shield up. It's an omnidirectional bubble, so you don't have to point it in the right direction. The shield can absorb the damage, but shields can only take so much damage before they break and can't be used for a while. The basic idea is that you run out of the way of most attacks, and then you can use your shield to block the remaining few. You can't attack while your shield is up, so you don't just keep it up forever.
Both Kritika and Spiral Knights are heavily instanced, not open world MMORPGs. There are some shared areas with lots other players, but there isn't combat in those places. Mob health scales with party size in Spiral Knights, up to a max of 4. Kritika also allows you to form groups for instances. The model is somewhat akin to Guild Wars 1, but without henchmen or heroes.
Yes, I get that about telegraphs. I pictured a Dragon pulling it's head back as if breathing in, just before releasing it's Breath Attack in the direction ahead. Sort of quick, but noticeable if watching for it.
I really like the idea I had, though not a new one, of diving out of the way.
Once upon a time....