Group Tactics/Skills - What's too much?

Ezalor

I. Would. LOVE. That.

Angwe

How would group combat play out in that scenario?

Ezalor

A bunch of small 1v1 skirmishes, or at most 2 people on one person.

Kaeus

This is...kinda awesome in theory.

Draiman

So you mean we'd be hardcoding in 1v1 fights or 2v1 ganks? Do you people realize how -fast- conflict would drop from Aetolia? This is outside speculation, of course, I'm just going off of the "Oh no one ever fights 1v1" that I hear everywhere. It's a good idea, don't get me wrong, but judging from how everything seems to be team fights at lessers or ganksquads, and deathsight the last couple of days has pretty much verified it, 1v1 fights don't exist. I think Aetolian conflict would go the way of the dinosaur.

Edit: Cause I can't do that grammar thing anymore.

Minarael

Are you kidding? If group fights were -not- the norm, I'd be far, far more likely to get excited and involved. I suspect I'm not the only one that feels that way. 1v1 is plenty enjoyable. 

Draiman

Again, this is all from someone who hasn't played in a while, and I sure as hell haven't PK'd in a while, but that's just the way I see it unfolding. Ask Daskalos how hard it was to get a 1v1 fight back in the day. Damn near impossible, which is why I think teaming/group fights became such a big thing. Only way to get into a fight was with a group or against a group.

Minarael

There are plenty of reasons to get into PK 1v1, the game has a number of mechanical encouragements, and there is also -le gasp- RP reasons.

Group fights can still occur, but instead of them being 5v5, they can be 5 groups of 1v1.  

Edit: That came out snarkier than intended. I'd just really, really love this. I find 1v1 actually more challenging and interesting, group combat is just tedious and frustrating for me. 

Toz

Not a fan, personally. I like big group fights, I like group fights. I don't really care for 1v1 because it's a great deal of work to get to any point of competence, and then there's additional complications beyond that. Any newbie with a bashing skill can go to a leyline and feel helpful/be helpful, but the second you start limiting how many people can fight, nobody's going to want to bring a newbie along who might take up precious space in a fight - this is actually something in RPIs. 4 people can fight a given target at once, the downside to this is it's a race to see who hits first, and nobody wants to let newbies do anything/learn to fight (which results in the newbie not getting to do anything ever/staying a newbie). Maybe not quite so bad here, but I still have my misgivings.

Draiman

I understand that. There were plenty of reasons to fight Daskalos, Povox, Iereas, Searoth, Xarian, etc etc 1v1. But it rarely if ever happened. People don't want to lose. I personally don't think hard coding it in is the answer. Ask people to grow up and deal with conflict they started themselves, and don't pick on people you know can't fight and force them to bring people in.

Moirean

Yeah, I've grown a bit tired of 1v1 lately. Most of the time, it's just fighting past a system's curing. We don't have enough fun tactics, unlike team fights, which are far more focused on tactics, so fights end up lasting way too long at the high level. I'd rather spend that hour or longer roleplaying.

Minarael

Toz said:

Not a fan, personally. I like big group fights, I like group fights. I don't really care for 1v1 because it's a great deal of work to get to any point of competence, and then there's additional complications beyond that. Any newbie with a bashing skill can go to a leyline and feel helpful/be helpful, but the second you start limiting how many people can fight, nobody's going to want to bring a newbie along who might take up precious space in a fight - this is actually something in RPIs. 4 people can fight a given target at once, the downside to this is it's a race to see who hits first, and nobody wants to let newbies do anything/learn to fight (which results in the newbie not getting to do anything ever/staying a newbie). Maybe not quite so bad here, but I still have my misgivings.

While I -do- get this, I think that the primary problem for newbs getting into combat is coding. There seems to be a few systems floating around that are serviceable, and the advent of firstaid gives everyone a chance to at least participate. We have arenas, make an event out of teaching newbs the basics. Then make a point of including newbs in fights and letting them go at -each other-. 

There will probably still be jerks taking advantage of newbs, but we can, as players, approach it with sense and find ways to encourage new players to learn to fight in a way that doesn't totally suck. 

You don't have to be super fantastic at combat to have fun with it. I had fun even when I was awful. I never became excellent at it. I occasionally hit the high end of mediocre, but it was -fun-. And that's in Imperian, where combat is SUPER SRS and people are major jerks about it, and from what I'm told, the learning curve is steeper.

My thoughts as someone who has never so much as sparred in Aetolia that I can recall. :P

Kaeus

I don't think we need to make it so you cant have two people hit one person, but making it so 3+ people cant focus the same target would make team combat more enjoyable personally. I'm a fan of interesting team combat tactics, not dying because I got hit with 4 people's regular offensive attacks and the damage is just overwhelming. Two people focusing one target is still perfectly fine to overwhelm someone if you coordinate properly.

Vharen

If you want group combat to be a fun experience without the gimmicks, you need to separate the 1v1 skills off and begin to develop group skills independently. As an addendum, imagine the suggestion I made, with the caveat that skills are flagged "1v1" or "group." Group skills would fall outside the GCD nonsense. Then they could also better address issues like the long fights, but that is also an inherent design flaw due to the regenerative combat style of IRE.

It's definitely not perfect. The system I based it off of was designed from the ground up for group combat, so there are some things that simply do not translate. But the fact remains that the game is designed, at current, around the idea that combat is 1v1 with the occasional bandaid patch for the more outrageous group "tactics." 

Illikaal

Tactics in teamfights? You mean spamming your most damaging ability. Because, that's all teamfights are, that's all they ever have been, and all they ever will be. 

If people don't want to put in the work to be able to 1v1, then they shouldn't be able to kill someone in the first place. Combat really isn't that hard, if you just put a small amount of effort into it. 

Also, most fights only last an hour or longer because somebody is afraid to die, and spams dirty turtling skills such as shield and hangedman, or outright running away when their opponent starts to gain any real momentum. Just saying. 

Moirean

Most classes don't have a momentum concept implemented yet, and have to effectively start over if they miss their window for a kill, which is easy to do, since active hindering is a large part of combat. Resetting the fight or at least getting a window to gain ground in is exactly what you should be expecting someone using an older class to do when they fight someone in a class with a momentum mechanic. Until every class gets momentum mechanics, or we see more heavy-cost/high-reward choices given as mid-fight goals, this sort of lopsided drawn out fight is what you're going to see.

Ilyon

Turning team fights into a series of 1v1 would be a spectacularly bad idea, heh.

Currently 1v1 is largely the domain of artimonsters, with an odd exception here and there, and the proposed change would turn team combat into that as well, making combat significantly less accessible to newer players and as a result reducing participation. Not something that we should be encouraging!

Team fights are (or can be) much more tactically diverse than 1v1. It's just that the tactics is less about how radcore your scripted offense is, and more about leadership, adaptation, situational awareness, etc. The melee part can degenerate into "everyone spam your most damaging ability", yes, but "everyone spam your most damaging ability" tends to be a losing strategy against competent opposition unless the numbers are very high (like, 6+ people on each side). More importantly, unlike 1v1, the melee part is just that, a part.

What -would- be good and welcome is to encourage spreading out of fights over bigger areas. I'd love to see entrenching in one room being a losing strategy and mobility being rewarded - of course, this is easier said than done.

Vharen

Not balancing a MMORPG with group combat in mind was a spectacularly bad idea. IRE games have paid for it for years. Still holding on to the PayTo(HaveAMarkedlyHigherChanceTo)Win marketing scheme is another issue that they have paid for, true, but that does not mean the game is newb friendly regardless. You still have a baseline investment of time and money that is prohibitive to getting new people involved. Sure, you can eventually grind your way to a bare minimum of tritrans/trans survival, and the credit market in Aet makes that a bit easier, but it's boring.

I also hardly think that encouraging people to push one button for weeks of real life time so they can press one button in combat (ignoring people with scripted systems, because they're not the brightest bunch anyway) is going to retain as many players as a well developed system, but that's also touching on the horrible PvE.

"Unless numbers are really high" is not balancing, it's avoiding an issue due to the game not being popular. I don't know what kind of numbers you get for group combat in Aet, but 6+ was not uncommon at all for Obelisk and Shardfalls in Imp.

And if you read my second post, I said that the better implementation of the idea would be to slide current skills into the GCD as "single combat skills" while developing a separate group combat system. 

So, the options are: scratch everything and rebuild the game without the silly "1v1 balance" mindset, leave things as they are and bandaid patch the worst issues (when it's even possible), or break off the 1v1/2v2 range of combat into its own deal while developing a group combat system. 

Option 1 isn't feasible and would be better done with an entirely new game, though I've seen the wonders of essentially the same thing. Option 2 is a huge, huge problem, arguably larger than pay-to-win. Option 3 seems to me to be the only thing to allow the current lineup of IRE games to compete in a group content oriented gaming environment.

I'd wager I've done as much IRE group combat as anyone here. I've gotten hordes of kills in under a minute, I've sat throwing out ranged skills with others, I've done the setup room dance, and I've been killed in half a second from the joy of things like enf/incin, instaconvergence, and good ol' strip/brazier/pewpew. It's not fun. It's not tactically engaging. Group combat is "How can I gimmick the available classes and skills our team has", focus fire, and stop instakills. Well, that and watching your fearless leader TWIST RING away from the fight just before you and six of your friends die.

I'd quite honestly rather be forced to 1v1 someone loaded with artifacts who has a good system while proper group combat was developed, given the alternative of dealing with group combat anywhere above a 2v2.

If certain balance issues begin to become more apparent? So be it. Group combat is an imbalanced fallacy. Not imbalanced in the "Zomigerd X is stronger than Y nerf" sense, but in the true sense of "This is an unintended consequence of our 1v1 system in a multiplayer game, and we did not design it nor do we do anything to make it a true gaming system."

To reiterate: I would like good group combat. I think it is pivotal to the success of a game. We will not get good group combat until at least the next decade by patching a 1v1 system bit by tiny bit.

Edit - I tried to clean it up and make sure things came across clearly, but it's 6 AM and I've been working since yesterdayish sometime, so apologies if things get jumbly.

Haven

Haven said:

In all honesty, I wish Team Combat and Solo Combat had separate mechanics. It'd make balancing so much cleaner and engaging, not to mention make Team Combat more challenging, as a whole in my opinion. Unfortunately, that'd require a major overhaul of our game so unlikely to happen.

I agree.

Lin

I would certainly expect you to agree with yourself, yes.

Haven

I just wish the higher ups would communicate back with us as these kind of problems have been something we've tried to bring light to for years now. I don't understand why they opt to keep the doors largely closed to the community.

Ilyon

@Vharen - I'm kind of curious what you'd consider to be a "proper group combat" system.

Slyphe

It isn't as if no one is aware of the disparity - issues that arise from 1v1 mechanics bleeding into group combat are something we do have to tackle routinely. The fact that the mechanics themselves have also been designed around 1v1 combat is also no secret.

What we've been attempting to do with the latest releases to revamped class frameworks is to differentiate 1v1 combat and group combat by giving classes clear momentum-based approaches to fighting - such as with Shaman stacking for an omen, or with Teradrim building up bruise momentum. It could be argued that neither class has a powerful presence in groups as a result, overgrowth and sand mechanics notwithstanding, but the major point is that the 'strong' attacks they can unleash in 1v1 fights aren't feasible in group fights, and as a result, this sort of splits their role in different situations. This is a major design concern that we intend to evolve all classes toward.

In regards to group combat as a whole, creating a whole new framework for group skirmishes seems like an unrealistic solution, if only because of the complexity and design that already has to go in what is arguably a less complex situation, where you're only comparing one player against another. The IRE combat framework as a whole relies less on attritition over time like you see in most MMOs, and more on players attempting to out-strategize each other by finding flaws in their approaches and exploiting them, at least ideally. Translating this approach to a group perspective without oversimplifying seems like an impossible problem.

We're always open to solutions for the individual problems - it's true that bandaids aren't the best solution, but sometimes, they're the only ones that can realistically be implemented. We've experimented with some altered group mechanics, such as the entrenchment mechanics of foci, or the anti-team mods we've used with the Delosian Brawl and similar tournaments. We can only hope that we'll edge closer towards a balanced experience everyone can enjoy, but the solutions will never be simple ones, as long as we hope to maintain the complexity we have.

In terms of a timeframe on solving the problem, this last classlead round did see a portion of the more potent 1v1-turned-teamfight mechanics reduced in effectiveness, and we hope to give each class some contribution in teamfights - the projectiles revamp was the start of this, and we're always watching and planning new ideas and solutions to change the combat metagame.

Vharen

@Ilyon

A "proper" one is a bit of a vague statement, sorry for that. What I'd consider to be the best version of one is a dramatic departure from the IRE style. I'd be glad to discuss it in private, but I do not think it's relevant to a discussion of group combat in IRE.

To not sidestep the question through that answer, I think in the best case scenario, group combat should end up as an amalgamation of the IRE combat style with RTS/MOBA features. Because there is no unit limit or predetermined team sizes, ability damage and effects have to be normalized. The concepts of things like tank/support/DPS can be synthesized through mechanics, even though we can't quite have someone "ahead" of the squishies on the map and what have you. Each person would have far more limited capabilities individually, but an intentional group synergy could be developed and built upon, with counters for the synergy and such. Not a concrete idea, but the key thing I want is something at least designed to be group combat.

To also note, limiting the number of people attacking a single target at once does not preclude group fighting scenarios. You can still coordinate attacks to maximize your options, versatility, and to come up with new strategies that are not just overwhelming. 

@Slyphe

I did not mean to imply that no one in the development teams was aware of the group combat issue, if I did.

Momentum mechanics do not address the simple issues of 4xDoubleAfflictionAttacks or BashAttackAlphaStrikes. I am curious about what anti-team mods you used, as I was not here for that.

Translating the 1v1 mechanics also does not seem to be the best choice. 1v1 is already a...unique thing, and there is no sense in rehashing content. You should look at it as a chance to add something new. And new things mean new artifacts, woo!

The actual design of a group combat system shouldn't take a team any longer than a couple months, give or take for arguments and such. The coding time depends on who's doing it and how. I'd wager between a year or two if you assume the coders and developers work on other projects at the same time. Feasible, if certainly a major project.

Oleis

Vharen said:

The actual design of a group combat system shouldn't take a team any longer than a couple months, give or take for arguments and such. The coding time depends on who's doing it and how. I'd wager between a year or two if you assume the coders and developers work on other projects at the same time. Feasible, if certainly a major project.

The issue at hand is not whether Razmael and his minions (myself included) can successfully implement a group combat system. The issue is whether we -should- implement a group combat system, and I firmly believe that we shouldn't.

Historically, our goal as designers in this game is to iterate on classes until they are simultaneously capable and fun in 1v1 combat without being too powerful. Lately, like certain other IRE games, we've opened our eyes to the necessity of balancing around the existence of group combat as an extension of 1v1, not a separate entity. I don't foresee an alternative that is beneficial to the game as a whole, even if it could be wildly successful in a similar game if made a foundational point during that game's development.

Vharen

@Oleis

If you can manage to extend 1v1 into group scenarios in a balanced and well-designed format, by all means, you have my support. I do not think it isn't doable, just likely one of those "5 Year Plan" items. You are also right in that it would be much better to create a system from the ground up with group combat in mind, but things are as they are. If you don't want to explore my idea, that's perfectly fine, but having been on development and coding teams myself, I thought calling it unreasonable to develop was a bit much from Slyphe.

To be quite honest, I'd have never mentioned the idea on the Imperian forums, but the trend of development on Aetolia, from what I've been able to see, has been progressing in the right direction and at good speeds, and it seemed like the place most willing to embrace an admittedly drastic idea.

Edit: Nope!

Seir

@Orus

No, Vharen is just from Imperian like I am, meaning he generally has a good head for combat balance given how the climate over there is generally has the best PK'ers in IRE. Most people who learn how to PK in Imperian and go to another IRE game usually end up being very successful, especially now with autocuring making nearly everything even footing for those involved in PK. Which means PvP ends up becoming a contest of skill rather than coding ability most of the time (or your wallet size in some cases, but that's another story). 

Anyway, Vharen has good ideas and the execution of them would go a long way in improving Aetolia's group combat on a whole. While we can paint it up as much as we want, most group combat scenarios ultimately boil down to which side has more people and has the most people in classes that can dish out the most raw damage a la Templar, Carnifex, and Praenomen.

Illikaal

News Flash: Praenomen have to sacrifice their defense for their high damage numbers these days, which isn't even bad anymore since spears got the nerfbat. 

This just in: Carnifex's damage has never really been a problem until they've stolen enough soul to make it such. Since they have to get penetration bardiches to make stealing soul worth anything, they're going to be sacrificing the speed and damage stats on their polearms. 

Breaking News: Templars dish out the most obscene raw damage in the game right now, even without artifacts. With them just makes it even moreso. Bloodborn with serration runes make a close second.

Edit: Unnecessary.

Toz

If you go for pen on a halberd, you are gonna have a bad time. Unless they changed it while I wasn't playing, pen halberd+soul drain actually gets you to 2s several hits slower than if you go speed and ignore pen.

Ezrax