11-03-2009, 11:39 AM
That's where I think game design comes in to play: you should never, ever log in and say, "well, time to go kill some ____".
In a dynamic world, you would always log in, examine the map (or find our where your friends are) and go there to fight over stuff -- attacking villages, defending villages, claiming resources, raiding, counter-raiding, etc.
You wouldn't just say, "I need to skill up on orcs", you would say, "I need to protect this lumber camp" and as the lumber camp comes under attack by orcs you will end up getting better at killing them.
But then, next Wednesday, when you log in and say "let me check that lumber camp" and find it under attack by werewolves you can have a legitimate "oh shit" moment because you aren't very good at fighting werewolves. Whereas in a typical MMORPG, whether the camp was under attack by werewolves, vampires, demons, orcs, elves, etc, wouldn't matter because they're really just different skins on the same underlying mechanics.
The hard part would be how to break down the skill tree. If I took Vllad's idea, you'd need to switch hotkeys too much. What if an Orc and a vampire were attacking you together? You'd need to swap between "Orc Smash III" and "Vampire Crush II" or whatever you have.
If the abilities were pretty generic ("Orc Smash II" = "Vampire Smash II") then the game could automatically switch for you. You hit your "Smash" button and it does the best smash you have for the type of creature you're facing, but I'm not sure I like that either -- feels a little bland.
I'm kind of tempted to actually revisit EQ. Like I'd brought up in that other thread, what made EQ combat interesting wasn't the hotkeys and skills (you hardly had any) but the situational awareness. NPCs in EQ were some sons of bitches. EQ designers took particular glee in creating these long patrol routes, NPCs that enjoyed running around and bringing back friends, etc. You weren't focusing on your hotkeys as much as you were focused on watching the situation (at least ideally -- eventually you could "break" a spawn and then it got really boring, but we can fix that...).
I was thinking of having a "Focus" system. You can focus on, say, 3 NPCs. If an NPC is attacking you and you have it selected as a focus, you take greatly reduced damage. If it's attacking you and you're NOT focused on it, you take full damage. It's basically a way to indicate which enemies your character is paying attention to. Rather than spending time clicking hotkey buttons you're busy selecting enemies.
We could spice it up a bit and say that you take even less damage if it's focused and in front of you and then make the NPCs a bit dodgy in the way they try to encircle you and the way they switch focus between players.
The whole combat could be made very dynamic in how you have to select enemies and position yourself.
In that case, your effectiveness at fighting different creatures would largely be built into your "autoattack" damage calculations, as well as perhaps firing off special attacks automatically -- after killing enough orcs your character figures out how to stun them and will periodically do so without any input from you. (Rather than directed CC it would be more like your character "sees an opening" and takes it whenever he can. The more familiar he is with the target, the better he is at making these automatic special attacks.)
In a dynamic world, you would always log in, examine the map (or find our where your friends are) and go there to fight over stuff -- attacking villages, defending villages, claiming resources, raiding, counter-raiding, etc.
You wouldn't just say, "I need to skill up on orcs", you would say, "I need to protect this lumber camp" and as the lumber camp comes under attack by orcs you will end up getting better at killing them.
But then, next Wednesday, when you log in and say "let me check that lumber camp" and find it under attack by werewolves you can have a legitimate "oh shit" moment because you aren't very good at fighting werewolves. Whereas in a typical MMORPG, whether the camp was under attack by werewolves, vampires, demons, orcs, elves, etc, wouldn't matter because they're really just different skins on the same underlying mechanics.
The hard part would be how to break down the skill tree. If I took Vllad's idea, you'd need to switch hotkeys too much. What if an Orc and a vampire were attacking you together? You'd need to swap between "Orc Smash III" and "Vampire Crush II" or whatever you have.
If the abilities were pretty generic ("Orc Smash II" = "Vampire Smash II") then the game could automatically switch for you. You hit your "Smash" button and it does the best smash you have for the type of creature you're facing, but I'm not sure I like that either -- feels a little bland.
I'm kind of tempted to actually revisit EQ. Like I'd brought up in that other thread, what made EQ combat interesting wasn't the hotkeys and skills (you hardly had any) but the situational awareness. NPCs in EQ were some sons of bitches. EQ designers took particular glee in creating these long patrol routes, NPCs that enjoyed running around and bringing back friends, etc. You weren't focusing on your hotkeys as much as you were focused on watching the situation (at least ideally -- eventually you could "break" a spawn and then it got really boring, but we can fix that...).
I was thinking of having a "Focus" system. You can focus on, say, 3 NPCs. If an NPC is attacking you and you have it selected as a focus, you take greatly reduced damage. If it's attacking you and you're NOT focused on it, you take full damage. It's basically a way to indicate which enemies your character is paying attention to. Rather than spending time clicking hotkey buttons you're busy selecting enemies.
We could spice it up a bit and say that you take even less damage if it's focused and in front of you and then make the NPCs a bit dodgy in the way they try to encircle you and the way they switch focus between players.
The whole combat could be made very dynamic in how you have to select enemies and position yourself.
In that case, your effectiveness at fighting different creatures would largely be built into your "autoattack" damage calculations, as well as perhaps firing off special attacks automatically -- after killing enough orcs your character figures out how to stun them and will periodically do so without any input from you. (Rather than directed CC it would be more like your character "sees an opening" and takes it whenever he can. The more familiar he is with the target, the better he is at making these automatic special attacks.)