[RobinHood 13.]

Many MMO's, particulary WOW features the so called "holy trinity" where you have the 3 roles, healer, tank and dps. The tank takes the damage, the healer heals damage inflicted on party, and the DPS damages the enemy. In most cases the ultimate goal behind this is to make sure that restored health is greator or equal to damage taken, and that you inflict more damage to enemy than they can heal.

1. There are different variations, but there are especially two things I don't like. Heal system based on completely negating incoming dmg (leads to endless fights, and slow paced combat). This statement holds true if your party is not able to completely kill another party.

2. Focus on very specialized roles. It can be difficult to make ideal parties, you may have not have a proper tank or a healer (catastrophee). One character will have little variation in what his tasks are during a mission, making the gameplay boring.

3. To avoid having to choose 1 role, or lack a tank or healer, everything can be altered on the fly. It takes away sense of progression in your character, uniqueness of your character and it breaks immersion.


Healing and ressurection is necesarry when the party is played by different players. No one wants to be left out simply because they died. Envision a scenario with you and some others in a dungeon. It mainly consists of several smaller skirmishes. You die in one of the skirmishes. How it should be is that, in many cases you will have to wait until the skirmish is over. At this time, a player having rezz ability can uninterrupted bring you back. Healing is only able to slow down your players getting killed, but more of a last resort to someone in critical need. One side must give sooner or later.
The players waiting time is critical. If you make to long skirmishes the player will be bored if he dies early on. A way to make it less boring is to let him participate as an observer (able to switch between fellow partymembers views).

Character progressions should be, so that hybrid characters is forced. By hybrid I meam that a single character should be much more diverse in what he can do. Often you either dish melee or ranged dmg, not both. Characters should be easily capable of both, but still have one main focus.

Skills can't be changed on the fly, but you can change gear when not interacting in a combat related event. Your gear will largely decide what you can do. You will probably carry a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, special weapons and some extra stuff. Everyone should have the ability to do simple rezzing, but this takes up a gear slot (special weapons?), which could have been used for something else.

My points:
- Make healing a backup solution (no fight should last forever).
- Rezz and restore when not currently fighting, but little chance for that in the heat of a fight.
- A character should be resourceful and diverse. Rather than just being able to do melee dmg, a character will usually carry atleast a long range weapon and a melee weapon.
- Skills aren't as easy to change, but the player can quickly adapt to a partyset, by selecting the proper gear, like having rezz ability


Any thoughts?

[KGS]

Any thoughts?

why the fuck did i read this...

seriously man give this ideal rpg thing up


good luck

[RobinHood 13.]

why the fuck did i read this...

seriously man give this ideal rpg thing up


good luck

has nothing to do with that.
Just saying the combat system that is favored in mmo's where you have tanks, healers and dps'ers is boring.

[Dino]

has nothing to do with that.
Just saying the combat system that is favored in mmo's where you have tanks, healers and dps'ers is boring.

Yeah, if the fights is just tank & spank it is boring.

But if it's something more complex(like in the old-school WoW) it's not boring.

Heck, even in the TBC - I remember when I first got to Illidan. We knew all the tactics but we got our asses handed to us.

So I have to disagree with you - that system is the best possible there is. I mean, what else can there be? You always need someone to take the damage for you, you always need someone to heal that guy and you always need someone to inflict damage onto your enemies. What else can there be?

We are speaking only about MMOs here, am I right? Because in RPGs like Gothic and Oblivion you don't have any of those - you are all three at the same time.

[ioszhka]

You should take a look at the upcoming guild wars 2. everybody is rather scandalized that there won't be a monk profession. they have a really nice developer blog going on. You can find more info there.
From what I've read, this dynamic between tanks-healers-nukers will be changed.

[Khaled]

You should take a look at the upcoming guild wars 2. everybody is rather scandalized that there won't be a monk profession. they have a really nice developer blog going on. You can find more info there.
From what I've read, this dynamic between tanks-healers-nukers will be changed.

wow...didn't know that. Thanks mate! I'm really looking forward to buying this game. I grew bored of Guild Wars, been playin it for over 4 years now

[ICFabian]

Holy fuck, this guy is all that I ever dreamt of being. D:

[Khaled]

Holy fuck, this guy is all that I ever dreamt of being. D:

you have problems...your links are all broken

[ICFabian]

Nu-uh, it works for me.

[Onisuzume]

Any thoughts?

You forgot one, the controller.
The one who locks down/debuffs the opponents.

4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons is the perfect example of a Pen&Paper MMO:
You got four roles:
Defender: the one who's supposed to catch the most attacks, and punish opponents who don't attack him.
Striker: the (single target) DPS classes.
Leader: the healbots.
Controller: AoE attacker, lock-downs, and debuffer. (Like the mesmer in Guild Wars).

Oh, and the "holy trinity" of MMOs is the three Es I think it were.
Forgot which they were specifically though.
In a preview of Star Wars: The Old Republic they mentioned those, and how almost all MMOs are lacking one of the most essential things: Story.
And a good one at it. (Guild Wars was noted for making a good attempt at a story-driven game.)

[RobinHood 13.]

So I have to disagree with you - that system is the best possible there is. I mean, what else can there be? You always need someone to take the damage for you, you always need someone to heal that guy and you always need someone to inflict damage onto your enemies. What else can there be?

If you read my first post you would understand that you don't need a healer. You can make a game where healing is more of a backup solution, but any fight will quite soon end, as you can't possibly keep the incoming damage at bay. In a real fight against two armies, one side must give sooner or later. Can you imagine that? Real warfare does not future a trinity system, but it definitely has tactics.

We are speaking only about MMOs here, am I right? Because in RPGs like Gothic and Oblivion you don't have any of those - you are all three at the same time.[/QUOTE] Only MMO's, because it is they that have a tendency to have a strong emphazise on the tank/heal/dps system.

Spoiler:(zum lesen bitte Text markieren)

You forgot one, the controller.
The one who locks down/debuffs the opponents.

4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons is the perfect example of a Pen&Paper MMO:
You got four roles:
Defender: the one who's supposed to catch the most attacks, and punish opponents who don't attack him.
Striker: the (single target) DPS classes.
Leader: the healbots.
Controller: AoE attacker, lock-downs, and debuffer. (Like the mesmer in Guild Wars).

Oh, and the "holy trinity" of MMOs is the three Es I think it were.
Forgot which they were specifically though.
In a preview of Star Wars: The Old Republic they mentioned those, and how almost all MMOs are lacking one of the most essential things: Story.
And a good one at it. (Guild Wars was noted for making a good attempt at a story-driven game.)

I am mainly focusing on what is the typical combat seen in MMO's, and this is often reffered to as the holy trinity. You can hybridize, but in party play, the roles are usually very specialized. One guy heals, one tanks, one guy deals dmg. In Warhammer and WOW (current state) the Controller is basically hybridized into the other roles.

Often the role you can play is tied up in what skills you have chosen. Altering them on the fly is not realistic, and breaks a big part of character progression and specialization. Else you are forced to stick with a certain playstyle which can get repetitive, and not what your party needs. Remove the overeffective healing (heals faster than dmg taken). Stuff like buff/debuff, damage and ability to take dmg will still be important, but the mmo should focus on hybridized roles.

Example - A Melee focused player
A melee focused player means he masters some melee weapon types. He can still take up a long range weapon and use that well enough to make him a threat (useful for example when defending a castle, shooting from the wall), and he should be required to atleast know one long range weapon to a useable lvl. This player masters the use of sword and shield, and the longsword. Before battling he have to choose (he will still carry a long range weapon) what melee type to wear. The sword and shield will make him excellent in protecting both himself and others, stopping arrows, forming shield walls with others and probably give him a more defensive playstyle.
If he chooses the longsword he will be less protected, not so good at defensive jobs, but very good at interrupting. When that longsword swings it would be like a frontal kill radius attack. If they're occupied with someone else, their heads will roll. Automatically he becomes a tank, drawing attention away from other potentially weaker players, but also giving them a chance to rear attack the enemies who are now occupied with the longswordsman.

Don't have any silly and unrealistic aggro skill that makes uber hard to kill tanks that deal little dmg the one all the enemies will flock around. The melee player does big destruction, and drawing much attention with his longsword, but he must sacrifice some protection. Wearing shield and sword he can (especially when there's more of them) be effective at keeping projectiles and enemies away from more fragile party members.

Remember though that this player will still have atleast one long range weapon and maybe some special weapon, so he may not switch melee style on the fly (needs to be out of combat for a while, or in city or similar), but can change to something else, completely changing his role, enabling him to take on a large variation of jobs. Especially in single player, every character will feel much more rich and varied.


Another thing.
In real life people don't have hp and dmg ratings. In combat you would inflict kills and wounds. Fatigue, pain level, blood loss and something describing what state they are in, are much more realistic stats. It is a huge step, but something that should come soon. In melee it could be something like you're in defensive state by default. Usually you will be much more capable at defending against frontal attacks. You can choose several ways to attack, some more exposing than others. What you will choose all depends on the circumstances. A guy swinging a longsword will interrupt danger close enemies, which might just have saved some of your friends, but also giving your friends an ideal moment to strike these enemies. A guy shooting a bow will easily be a one hit kill, if the bowman doesn't go in a defensive stance and enable some melee defence. A bowman's goal might be to get out of the situation, and only use his melee weapon in a defensive manner, avoiding getting killed and shake the attacker off on someone else so he can resume using his bow.

[CrashMorraKan]

take "MapleStory" online MMORPG 2D view there also cleric/priest party with with warriors (Dragon Knights) 95% of the time the warrior fighting and the priest jumping and healing him both get exp the priest get exp as well for healing him along if it is undead area so the priest also damage the undead with is healing so they both level up good without losing alot of money and potions