Improving on the solid foundation that is the Combat System

So, I got into a discussion in Global about the structure of group combat, and I wanted to write up my thoughts because they were getting drowned out in global and I don't do a good job of articulating my thoughts without having time to prepare them. To recap (for those not online @ the time) we were talking about late game grouping (50+), more specifically the structure of the group and the individual roles being played by the group members.

I think we all can recognize, including the Dev team, that there is too much emphasis on damage in combat, and not enough emphasis on power management (a problem which I have a mathematical answer/solution to). As a result of this emphasis on damage, a player is gimping himself if he does not take advantage of his (2) most damaging skills, regardless of skill. With these two button builds, where everything is based around the hardest hitting attacks, no matter what skill you are using (from Shield to Fire magic; I mean shit, even I use Finishing Blow/Knee Kick to do 75% of my damage), combat is "can I burn through this mob before it can hit me 3 times and kill me."

In groups, the problem gets exponentially worse. The last time I was in Gaz I barely had enough time to use two fucking skills before the orcs died; good thing I have a DoT/Rage build, right? Now I know much of that has to do with how optimized our gear is, but I still see it as a problem. In fact, the only times anyone ever wipes in Gaz anymore is with a bad pull or huge re-pop (again, which I can fix).

I suggested in Global there be more of an emphasis on the Trinity (but expanded from Tank/Healer/Dps to Tank/Healer/DPS/CC/Puller(slashOfftank)/Utility(think EQ Bard).

I was shat all over.

People think this will restrict them, but I contend it will do precisely the opposite. Instead of being pigeonholed into a 2-button damage mash to be most effective, people will be able to choose a distinct role (or, any combination of that). Hell, you could even keep the 2-button mash builds to keep people from bitching - they would eventually become OBSOLETE MULES (paging Broken Matt) anyways, so it would matter not.

Take, for example, Psychology. A few healing abilities, a few damage abilities, a few crowd control abilities. Lots of choices, lots of ways to build your toon, right? Wrong. What is your role in a group? DPS as fast as you can, maybe mezzing one of the four adds before the group wipes, throwing in a heal or two giving everyone one more second to spam their high damage abilities.

You take away the healing abilities, and increase the crowd control abilities. Make it so Psychology has a fear, a charm, an aoe mez, a quick casting time short mez, and a long casting time long mez. This way, the player can choose to be either a pure CC and have a very defined role or can do half damage skills half CC, or however way you want to mix it. (edit: and then you have all your mods on top of that for customization)

Same thing with druid. Take away the ability to do damage, make them Buff/Debuff and Healing. So when you see a druid you're like "okay, is this guy gunna be a buff/debuff druid, a healer, or a mix? and what is his other skill? Is he Druid/Psych Pure healer/Pure CC or is he half healer half buff&debuff/half damage half cc?

Then you bring back evasion (which makes the lower damage lower power cost skills factually mathematically better than the high damaging attacks, and voila, you have sustained, fluid and structured combat with complete creativity to build you toon however you want, rather than be forced to do damage blowing through mobs and then wipe when the respawn happens.

I got real lazy with it at the end im tired of writing and thinking i hope you guys got the idea.

Hi Roekai,

Epi here. I was one of the people who shat on you. I apologize. :D haha.. jk.. I didn't shat on you >:)))))

Anyhooo... the most fun I ever had in group combat was with Asheron call 2 group hunting. In that, there were numerous rolls beyond the trinity in the way you mention. There was the enchanter who buffed the groups damage. There was the sorcerer who debuffed the enemy and whose debuffed stacked with the enchanter. There was the healer who kept the group alive. There was the tank. There was the dps. All these were necessary for a successful hunt against powerful 'elite mobs' as they have come to be known. Previously we just called them 'group mobs.'

I think the problem with elite mobs in this game is they don't force groups to have a good composition. I keep going back to Ac2 because it was my favorite game but in that game, elite mobs, i.e. group mobs, had so much armor that without a debuffer, a sorcerer, or enchanter (a buffer), the elite mobs would take forever to die with an all dps group because they would evade too many attacks and the armor was so thick that hits that did land did little damage. Not to mention they hit way too hard, that without a tank, unless you seriously out leveled them, didn't stand a chance.

I do agree with you that the group aspect of this game, especially combat and group hunting, needs addressing.

I think the solution to the problem is to change the base properties in elite/group mobs to where they require something like a debuffer/enchanter to either reduce hteir defenses or buff the groups damage to the point it can overcome those defenses and make them hit hard enough to where a tank is necessary and a healer becomes a necessity.

Leave solo mobs alone as they are.

Ok I'm sorry if my ideas are terrible... ac2 wasn't popular, so I can't imagine my solution being popular... but maybe its what the group content needs to make it work, make it fun, and make it challenging?


Thanks for sharing your thoughts friend :)

"I think the solution to the problem is to change the base properties in elite/group mobs to where they require something like a debuffer/enchanter to either reduce hteir defenses or buff the groups damage to the point it can overcome those defenses and make them hit hard enough to where a tank is necessary and a healer becomes a necessity."

I agree with you here, but that would be impossible without making changes to the skills like I outlined above. without a true debuffer or true healer, all that enhancing the mobs would accomplish would be making them unbeatable.

I c your point. So maybe making the combat skills more biased towards one kind of role without completely eliminating their options for flexibility. I.E. Making psycology more of a control role, making druids more of a heal role, making pig more of a buffing role, making bard more of a healing role, but without completely erasing their viability to solo or go into a combat role should they need to? That would make sense to me. One thing we don't really have in this game is a debuffer role which would be cool to see. Something that would make , alongside with making combat skills more niche, buffing group monsters armor and evasion a viable fix to the current problem.

Suggesting trinity combat in a game that was made not to have it kinda would be expected to be unpopular: This is where people went to escape using the same mechanics! So that was kinda predictable. That said, Global probably also isn't the best place to continue deep discussions, either ^-^;

@Roekai But good on you for deciding to wrap it up and expand your comments here where long form is better ^-^

If you take away anyone's ability to do damage, you've removed their ability to work alone. That's a serious problem with trinity-style mechanics that's rarely answered.

Probably what we need are more inter-player combo abilities - things which work when in concert - and more key word abilities - things which require some player to react to. The rage-interrupt is an example of this.



One of the mechanics I liked in original Horizons was when you engaged in combat with an NPC, you (and the mob) were locked into a push-pull positioning system. Someone tanking could only really grab a couple mobs at a time, as too many and they'd get surrounded and pounded upon. Some builds were better at this than others, but every player would have to keep some 'tanking' abilities on hand to grab adds and keep them from other players' back sides or from your own. It was a very slow combat system, though. (And running away was a little more difficult as you were forced in a crouch in the direction of the mob attacking you and had to specifically move away from it)

"If you take away anyone's ability to do damage, you've removed their ability to work alone. That's a serious problem with trinity-style mechanics that's rarely answered."

I wouldn't be taking away anyone's ability to do damage, or the ability to work alone. You want to do damage? Pick a DPS skill (i.e. Archery) or a solo oriented skill (Necromancer). And, you will still be able to do damage - its not like I want healers to be unable to attack. edit: In most trinity games, you are locked into a role - in this game, you could play any role you wanted at any time. edit II: the whole idea that one's ability to solo is tied to ones ability to do high damage to me, is insane. in my experiences, the high DPS classes should be the ones least capable of soloing.



"Probably what we need are more inter-player combo abilities - things which work when in concert - and more key word abilities - things which require some player to react to. The rage-interrupt is an example of this."

I emphatically HATE this idea. Once you start having combos and link abilities, now I have lost the ability to select the order or how I want to use my skills. If combat becomes a sequence of following commands to do the most damage, then I am out for good. I do not want to be told how to play or what buttons to press.

TLDR: i want this "I.E. Making psycology more of a control role, making druids more of a heal role, making pig more of a buffing role, making bard more of a healing role, but without completely erasing their viability to solo or go into a combat role should they need to?"

not" take away anyone's ability to do damage, you've removed their ability to work alone. "

I seem to find agreement with Roekai. With this games flexibility in allowing players the ability to swap combat skills on the fly , not being locked into a class, there seems little reason not to make those classes a little more niche (and specific) if not for anything than provide the developers the flexibility and room they need to make fun engaging group content beyond merely 'blow it up as fast as you can....' Personally it would make group hunting a lot more fun and interesting in my humble opinion. I wouldn't mind it.

I also don't like the thought of forcing combo's into the combat system between various classes because then it requires players to play sequentially and in a specific order which sounds very suffocating and limiting.

Hope my post made sense. I'm also in favor with allowing support classes some ability to solo but because we have the option to change our skills on the fly, its really not a problem if they are limited in that way in order to make them more effective and specialized in others, i.e. support, debuff, crowd control, healing, tanking etc...

I'm not high level at all, but there are some mechanisms that are really good for making combat interesting on a solo level: Rage and armour and evasion.

When you fight these mobs as a group, of course you are going to kill them all quickly - that seems obvious.

Perhaps it would be better to have dungeons which are only ever intended for groups, and every mob in them is group difficulty. Now if everyone is DPS, you die - so someone had better be a tank. And maybe you need to worry about adds, so someone needs to mez, and maybe the mobs have aoe damage so someone needs to heal. One mob in particular has a brutal rage attack, so someone has to build solely for rage management.

There's a lot that can be solved just with the environment that doesn't necessarily need changes to the systems already in place.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aionlasting

Hi Roekai,

Epi here. I was one of the people who shat on you. I apologize. :D haha.. jk.. I didn't shat on you >:)))))

Anyhooo... the most fun I ever had in group combat was with Asheron call 2 group hunting. In that, there were numerous rolls beyond the trinity in the way you mention. There was the enchanter who buffed the groups damage. There was the sorcerer who debuffed the enemy and whose debuffed stacked with the enchanter. There was the healer who kept the group alive. There was the tank. There was the dps. All these were necessary for a successful hunt against powerful 'elite mobs' as they have come to be known. Previously we just called them 'group mobs.'

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I completely agree with you here Aion.

And as you said: "...there were numerous rolls beyond the trinity in the way you mention..."


PG isn't AC2 but there were some great aspects that I'm surprised aren't similar.

I'll make the following comments and the devs will know who I am in PG. I had the most high level solo played deso toons in AC2 and I was one of he last PG players to get my personalized key email from the devs. I'm playing PG like I played AC2. I have tons of time to play being an old lady married to a gaming husband and love testing out specs and leveling toons is easy when you like exploring and killing mobs. I am in no rush to level, it just happens when you you're ingame a lot.

Having said that, I'm female and will let you guys argue/discuss how to make it work. And given Erics background with AC2 he knows what we're talking about.

I loved playing my:
sorc/debuff
enchanter
clawbearer
tummy healer
lug sage

I currently play and have lvld these skills:
fm
bc
druid
arch
hammer

Obviously not capped as I have plently to do ingame.

Given the flexibility with skills I could easily see a CB for solo play that uses his healer skills in a support role for grouping.
I definitely miss my role as debuffer/sorc.

Anyways, my 2 cents.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Throwback

I'm not high level at all, but there are some mechanisms that are really good for making combat interesting on a solo level: Rage and armour and evasion.

When you fight these mobs as a group, of course you are going to kill them all quickly - that seems obvious.

Perhaps it would be better to have dungeons which are only ever intended for groups, and every mob in them is group difficulty. Now if everyone is DPS, you die - so someone had better be a tank. And maybe you need to worry about adds, so someone needs to mez, and maybe the mobs have aoe damage so someone needs to heal. One mob in particular has a brutal rage attack, so someone has to build solely for rage management.

There's a lot that can be solved just with the environment that doesn't necessarily need changes to the systems already in place.

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Excellent points imho and it reminded me of what another female player told me. Her hushand and son sucked her into gaming because they needed a healer and she got hooked. Not saying chics are healer prone but she and I were discussing specs with PG and how to fulfill the roles we've enjoyed in previous games given the specs in PG.

Maybe guys just weren't that into healing and debuffing but I know this, given I leveled a debuff toon and a healer toon I spent at least 4 hours a day on mana runs because I was in high demand. We had at least 4 world time zone manas. Obviously, each toon was only allowed one 1 hour mana boost a day but I was constantly being called on and made myself available to fulfill the needed role for the other groups.

It also made for great community relations and friends.