I need to apologise
I've been playing the action oriented game that people are theorizing here, for a month or so. It's called Dragon Nest. A tiny little free2play anime weeaboo game from the same developers as every other annoying game that people complain about their 10 year old kids being addicted to.
There are no rolls to hit. There is no accuracy dice. There's no slogging through a one on one combat with a lack of AoE fun. The XP is more determined by dungeon completion and quest XP than mob XP. You aim your powers and if you hit, you hit. The ranged classes play a little like an Third Person Shooter and the melee classes play like console adventure games. You can one shot giant packs of enemies as the glass canon types. Boss fights are actually engaging.
In fact, there's more games like this, but they don't get the notice of gamers because of their art style, their MTX based design, the general idea that unless it's a big name it's not worth playing and the general lack of customization. If you look hard enough, you'll find there are games out there that have already broken a lot of the cliches, but gamers are a finicky lot.
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Massacre_Melanie -the original Fire/Dark Corruptor -
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=115217
The Guide to BURN
Of course, that is an extreme oversimplfication, but its still surprising to me nonetheless. Cryptic has problems making the whole enchilada work correctly, but its amusing to me that Cryptic has implemented more good original design ideas by accident than I think most MMO dev teams have come up with deliberately.
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When you actually look at the original design INTENTION behind it, however, it's an attempt to create a paint-by-numbers MMO that Cryptic simply dropped on its head and it developed into something wholly unexpected. It took the sale of the franchise to NCsoft and Matt Miller's promise to "give the players what they want" before the people in charge actually accepted that we really did like the game we were playing and didn't require it being "fixed" to be more like other MMOs in order for us to enjoy it. City of Heroes is the result of very poor forward planning leading to a game system which plays out very differently than what was intended and thus very differently than practically any other MMO I'm aware of. That, I feel is its primary strength - it's a game of its own possessed of bold new ideas (intentional or not) in an MMO world of pallet swap game clones.
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As far as AoE goes, I still maintain my opinion from that other thread - a system of distributing attack damage across all affected foes so that the more people you hit, the less damage you do would be a nice balancing factor, especially if it came with the change to make all single-target attacks have AoE potential. That's neither here nor there, though.
In fact, there's more games like this, but they don't get the notice of gamers because of their art style, their MTX based design, the general idea that unless it's a big name it's not worth playing and the general lack of customization. If you look hard enough, you'll find there are games out there that have already broken a lot of the cliches, but gamers are a finicky lot.
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Still, there are a few of these that aren't quite as bad, Spiral Knights being one that I'm aware of. What I like more than anything, though, is that whether City of Heroes is actually "free" to play or not, there's still a great game behind the system, and getting better all the time. At one point I was convinced the team was content to squeeze the maximal amount of money from us for the least amount of investment, but I was wrong and for this I apologise. Right now, it feels like City of Heroes is only getting better, and I honestly don't see the need for other games for the foreseeable future, unless that Darksiders sequel comes out sooner than expected.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Sam and Aura have pegged the way I feel about both Incarnates and this issue perfectly.
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I'm okay with Incarnates. It gives my 50s more to do, but I don't feel like I HAVE to do it. I can run a trial if I see one forming when I'm in the mood for it, or I can do something else instead. I was always pretty ambivalent about the whole thing, and did not understand the people who had to have everything the system offered RIGHT NOW.
I'll eventually get my main completely Incarnated out, but since I don't plan on going anywhere, I'm in no rush to do it.
I'm REALLY enjoying:
-Time Manipulation. Paired with Fire Blast on a defender it's pretty awesome. I also have an Illusion/Time controller (might be a future GM soloer in the making there)
-Katana and Broadsword on brutes. remade my BS/DA scrapper as a brute on the VIP server, and rolled up a Katana/Electric brute as well.
-New character creator. I like the way the new one is laid out, it's a little more intuitive. I also like that you can preview pieces you don't have yet.
-For the most part I like the Paragon Points system (even as slow as the market is). I can get things like JUST the Barbarian sword, or JUST the minotaur head, without having to buy a whole booster pack to get them. There are so many costume pieces that I have never once used sitting in my creator, that I only have because I wanted a few pieces out of the booster pack. I didn't have any trouble navigating the market, it felt pretty intuitive to me. Maybe that's a case of my brain working differently than some people's, because lack of intuitiveness is one of the complaints about it I've seen.
Something I would still like to see (but probably won't): I like that they are proliferating more powersets, but I still would like each AT to have ONE set that is exclusive to it. As of right now, the only exclusive sets left are Ninjitsu, Ice Melee, and Illusion. And I'm betting Ninjitsu and Ice Melee will be in the next round of proliferation at least. But that's a minor gripe. I'm pretty sure this one is long past being a possibility.
Oh yeah, almost forgot: I LOVE the Regen buffs. Longbow don't completely kill my regen anymore.
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
As far as AoE goes, I still maintain my opinion from that other thread - a system of distributing attack damage across all affected foes so that the more people you hit, the less damage you do would be a nice balancing factor, especially if it came with the change to make all single-target attacks have AoE potential. That's neither here nor there, though.
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I don't think it should apply to ALL single target attacks though. It's pretty hard to hit more than one person at a time with a power like Cobra Strike or Crane Kick.
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
I was always pretty ambivalent about the whole thing, and did not understand the people who had to have everything the system offered RIGHT NOW. I'll eventually get my main completely Incarnated out, but since I don't plan on going anywhere, I'm in no rush to do it.
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But again - the most direct solution is to just stop doing what I don't like doing, and I have chosen to do just that. During the Ustream marathon, I asked Posi and Zwill a question: "I21 has a good balance of Incanrate and non-incarnate content. Can we expect this to keep?" In a nutshell: "Yes." Believe it or not, that does make a difference to me, hearing it straight from the fedora-wearing the source. Incarnates are a system I cannot and will not enjoy until and unless that mythical solo option materialises. Until such a thing happens, I'll simply focus on my newer characters and treat my 50s as I always have - as complete. I may pursue Alpha stuff with them if I have missions left to run, but a Common or Uncommon of that type is as far as I go.
That's an interesting idea. I don't think it should apply to ALL single target attacks though. It's pretty hard to hit more than one person at a time with a power like Cobra Strike or Crane Kick.
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My point, though, is to eliminate the discrepancy between single-target and AoE by allowing everyone access to AoE all the time and balancing around that. As the sole user of single-target attacks on a large team fighting twenty enemies at a time, it's easy to see how single-target damage falls by the wayside. Typically, an AoE attack is at least half as powerful as a single-target attack, a third to a fourth as endurance efficient and not all that rarely half or more as DPS efficient, to say nothing of DPA. It doesn't take many more than three enemies in the same fight to have AoE attacks become vastly more practical than single-target attacks, and this is something that I sense with my gut long before I comprehend that a difference in statistics actually exists. I just "notice" that I "want" to use my AoEs more and from there try to deduce why that is.
Using Cobra Strike when it was just a stun in a melee of 20 people with seven other team-mates blasting AoEs feels like I brought a knife to a gunfight and everyone's standing around laughing at me. It makes no difference, the enemies I stun die by the time the stun takes effect just from collateral damage and I'm just so much better off simply spamming even as weak an AoE as Dragon's Tail.
So I say make all attacks AoE and have their damage spread across all targets affected. Then, allow us to "concentrate" said powers so that we could focus on a priority target in a crowd without losing damage potential via dispersal, and you have a legitimate strategic decision to make - do I use my powers as AoE or do I focus on what's most dangerous? Right now, this decision doesn't exist - use AoE, obviously!
It's a pie-in-the-sky ludicrous idea that won't ever happen in this game or, likely, in any other MMO and/or RPG, but I'm adding it to the pile of impossible changes I'd like to see nevertheless.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Unfortunately Sam, what your idea would do is reinforce the belief that only AoEs are ever worth taking. Ever.
I like my single target focused characters. I frequently do not WANT my damage spread out between that boss any anyone near him because every power in the game is an AoE. When I target a boss with a single target chain, it's because I want THAT guy dead RIGHT AWAY. If all attacks spread damage in an AoE every time you used them, bosses would always be the last enemy killed in a spawn. A boss can do a LOT of damage in that time.
It would make any and all boss-killing specialists effectively neutered. Their attacks would all be hitting more than one target, and thus weaker. My Sonic/Devices blaster, for example, is built for taking out bosses FAST. If my chain were splashing part of it's damage to any nearby enemy it would completely ruin my build and my concept.
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
I like my single target focused characters. I frequently do not WANT my damage spread out between that boss any anyone near him because every power in the game is an AoE. When I target a boss with a single target chain, it's because I want THAT guy dead RIGHT AWAY. If all attacks spread damage in an AoE every time you used them, bosses would always be the last enemy killed in a spawn. A boss can do a LOT of damage in that time.
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So I say make all attacks AoE and have their damage spread across all targets affected. Then, allow us to "concentrate" said powers so that we could focus on a priority target in a crowd without losing damage potential via dispersal, and you have a legitimate strategic decision to make - do I use my powers as AoE or do I focus on what's most dangerous? Right now, this decision doesn't exist - use AoE, obviously!
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![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Actually thinking about it, such a mechanic might be useful to Stalkers.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
Interesting idea. With Dual Pistol's toggle changing damage type, that might be a way something like that could be implemented. However, I can see them creating a special AT (or powerset) to test out a mechanic like that first.
Actually thinking about it, such a mechanic might be useful to Stalkers. |
However, if a future action RPG were ever made that needed to balance area attacks, this seems like a good point to at least start from. Balancing self-replicating AoE damage across a wide target cap just isn't practical because its scale of damage varies too wildly, so just self-limiting its damage the more targets it hits is a good way to scale it. It brings up Claws' problem of wanting to concentrate on a single enemy, which is where allowing players to "swap stance" and do that comes in.
And I don't think this needs to be limited to just attacks, either. AoE controls vs. single-target controls? Why not. You hit 26 people, they get held for a short time. You hit only a single person, he gets held for a lot. Or heals, why not? If you want to heal a whole raid, you'll be healing them for a little. If you want to heal just a single person, you heal them a lot.
I can actually envision letting players hard-capping their own powers and picking their own stances. You could have one stance that's all AoE and one that's all single-target, one that has half your attacks single-target half capped at five and one capped at 10 and so forth. It could bring a lot more situational awareness on the most basic level - number of enemies present - without actually complicating the build system all that much.
Well, so it seems from the outside looking in, anyway. I'm sure Arcana has a boot with my name on it as we speak, but that would be interesting to hear, as well.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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My point, though, is to eliminate the discrepancy between single-target and AoE by allowing everyone access to AoE all the time and balancing around that.
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Of course, to really explain that I would have to explain my idea for two-dimensional enhancement slotting.
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[QUOTE=Aura_Familia;3879292]Interesting idea. With Dual Pistol's toggle changing damage type, that might be a way something like that could be implemented./QUOTE]
They would be a possible mechanic for the user interface side, but this game currently has no way to convert a single target attack into an AoE in the general case. I can turn a single target attack into a targeted AoE using radius gimmicks (gauntlet does that), but I know of no way to turn a ranged single target attack into a cone, say.
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You can't retrofit this into CoH, but my current best idea for balancing AoE in a CoH-like game is to make all or nearly all attacks single target, and have the players basically pay to make them AoE through enhancements.
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Of course, to really explain that I would have to explain my idea for two-dimensional enhancement slotting.
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![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I was kind of hoping to just give everyone both single-target damage AND AoE and instead rely on the game's varying situations to provide strategic decisions, but this works too, I suppose. It's less... "Indulgent" than I'd like, though.
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That then places all the burden of balancing onto cast times, which would force AoEs to have potentially very high and very un-entertaining cast times.
What we want are for players to be able to quickly and easily make full single target attack chains but make it very difficult to have full or nearly full AoE attack chains. We do not want to replicate the Gigabolt** problem here.
That Other Game uses a momentum-like mechanic to balance stronger powers, rather like domination: attacking increases the meter, and when the meter is high enough you can use your higher tier powers. Using higher tier powers burns this momentum bar forcing you to earn more of it by using lighter attacks. So what do you think happens when you make a powerful AoE attack which requires momentum but *which adds to your momentum bar* when it hits a target?
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I assumed this would be an apology to me for all those terrible things you've called me, like troglodyte and ham sandwich. I will continue to wait.
I assumed this would be an apology to me for all those terrible things you've called me, like troglodyte and ham sandwich. I will continue to wait.
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![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I SEE HOW IT'S GOING TO BE!
I'm watching you, Tow.
Creating a way to miss in a way that minimizes the potential frustration of players is one of those open ended problems I find most interesting from a design perspective, but also most difficult to resolve.
Of course, that might just be me, but I just really prefer designing characters that survive more from getting hit less. I don't aim for unhittable, but I want to get hit for the same damage less often. Not hit just as often for less damage. It's a key conceptual difference for me, and I'll even take substandard performance in general to achieve it.