EQ Never

mkopec_sl said:

People don't know what they ask for. People are dumbasses. This is why we have game designers which study game design making those decisions, not dumb people.

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Exactly!! This game has Storybricks not the tired old thoughts of myopic gamers to decide what their AI is going to do. I second this opinion!!

Ukerric,

I disagree with a lot of your post even though the end result could be just like GW2. SOE caving to a subset of gamers. This isn't a classic MMO, they are using Storkbricks, are therefore going beyond classic AI, and it's way past time more companies tried to move from a very old formula and see if things can be different.

Old gamers probably don't want to learn new tricks even though they are usually the first to reminisce about HARD gameplay. It's laughable to hear that talk while truly hard gameplay like GW2 had earlier was way too much for them. My hopes are that SOE learns how to either guide players in new tactics(teaches through game or the designers help), or gamers themselves learn how to adapt. Seeing how well Dark Souls, Day Z, etc are doing right now, I'm hoping some of those gamers get involved in EQN. That new ways of thinking are used besides the trinity or nothing crowd.

The solution isn't to go back to old systems that worked 15 years ago and haven't changed. That's not how you break out of old molds and discover new things. That's not evolution. This genre needs evolution and hopefully this game gets some new blood to help more it along.

Edit- Miele wrote faster lol! +1

It does not matter what AI you use, this will not be some magical AI that will solve all of our gaming woes of the past 20 yrs. You keep spouting this storybricks and AI shit like it has to do fuck all with combat. Ukerric is exactly right, without defined roles, I cannot see any tactical combat whatsoever. No matter if the mobs try to hunt you down because you killed to many of them, or their AI makes them secretly gather forces to bumrush your town or whatever, it still has fuck all to do with mob and player interaction and tactics when you are fighting. Inside of any group you need a synergy. If you just have 5 damage dealers, there is no synergy there, because you all do the same thing, but a bit different. Its no more than whack a mole at that point. A battle of HP attrition.

Mkopec.

Of course there are defined roles and I agree with what you are saying here. But, there doesn't have to be holy trinity in it's strictest sense. EQ worked off tank, healer, crowd control as did early WoW. WoW moved towards more healer, tank, dps, and then tried to move back towards the first option. There doesn't have to be one guy that has 5-8 mobs only hitting him, one guy whose sole responsibility is to heal just the tank and 3-4ish guys who are picking off the mobs one by one in a concerted effort to kill them quickly. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Just like EQ had feign pulling, etc gamers should be able to learn new tactics to win a fight.

zzeris_sl said:

Just like EQ had feign pulling, etc gamers should be able to learn new tactics to win a fight.

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Yes, but my argument is that you still need those defined roles for true tactical combat. Thats what made games like baldurs gate what they were. You controlling 5 dudes that had each a clear and defined role to play in the battle, and therefore made that battle more tactical. You had your healer, your mage, your fighter, paladin, rogue... They all had defined roles that you could then mix and match depending on how you wanted to enter battle. Each set of different characters had its set of tactics.

Now take that all away and what are you left with? 5 battle-magi or 5 fighters with subtle differences but yet their roles are all the same, so what tactical scope do you have? Now take that one step further and ask yourself what tactics can the game AI then employ not to just blatantly crush you every time, because, well, you came in with 5 battle-magi or 5 fighters?

You end up having a mess, because you dont have defined roles, and the scope of the AI is then diminished because they cannot have advanced tactics because then you would get crushed. So in the end its a watered down experience like it was in GW2.

Take a game like TSW for an example. They had a skill wheel where you could pick and choose from 100s of different skills to build your character, but even in that game they were smart enough to have roles. You still had a tank, you still had a healer, and you still had your damage dealers/support/debuffers, but they could be vastly different depending on the skills they chose to equip. If this is the case with EQN than kudos, but if its anything remotely like GW2, then they already lost.

Mkopec,

Excellent points and I agree with it. As mentioned in the video Mughal supplied, people are horrible at prognostics. It should be easier for EQN to avoid the pitfalls of GW2 and they are expanding upon the variation a group can have to succeed. I liken it to a Navy Seals team. Yes, they have specialties but they also are extremely versatile as well. A sniper isn't just useful at long distance kills even though he is at his greatest strength when used in those situations. This game will hopefully follow a similar path.

For instance, and this is a long example, there is an orc fort with about 50 occupants who get reinforced, resupplied, etc every week. Normal routine is 10 foraging for food in the nearby forest, two sets of 4 wandering guards(sentries) around the outer edges and two sets of 4 guards at each entrance(2 entrances for solid defense). There are two sets of 3 that are carpenters, blacksmiths, etc and then an inner guard of 5 who wander the fort. The keep has two guards at the entrance and another eight or so within which includes the captain, his two lieutenants, and several bureaucrats. Old EQ would be to leave the foragers for people to camp, camp the wandering guards, camp an instance, etc. If you wanted to kill everything, you would feign pull, or use typical trinity combat. Your only problem was aggro range and usually the game or your mezzer set it up so you could handle small groups like a meat grinder. Effective, but kinda boring in 2015 and on.

What if you could vary tactics based off what you want to do though? Lets say you want to kill the foragers first? Mezzer will take care of the 4 at the wagon while the other 5 assassinate 5 foragers. That leaves one who either runs, tries to attack someone, etc. Then you take care of the remaining 5. Healer not needed this time. You do the same to the wandering sentries. Then, you change up the group for the fort. You med for 5 minutes and then have one mezzer, one healer, a tank and 3 dps. Or two healers, two mezzers a tank and a dps. Depending on what you feel are the best tactics for further encounters. Depending on your group makeup and the classes learned within, you could have 4 rogues at a given point. Four wizards or three tanks and three healers. Would these be optimal setups? Maybe for one type of fight. Maybe when you feel like challenging yourself and want bragging rights.

Four rogues could wipe out the sentries with a mezzer and healer as situational backup. Maybe in the captain's war room, it takes three tanks, two healers and one slow dps to easily win the fight? Or two mezzers a healer, tank and two dps. Maybe you try all of the above at different times or days. You can vary tactics because there isn't just one way to do this. That's what I am hoping for at least. Probably won't get it but I can hope. The multiple class system can allow a group of friends to vary tactics based off just the classes known. You don't have to yell for a mezzer or wait for certain classes to do content. You just have to have the basics for what you want to do. I think healers and tanks will be basic early classes. Later on, variety can be used as people progress their characters. Trinity still can be viable. It just is one option though.

I dont mind changing roles on the fly, thats not what Im taking about. Its the lack of roles in general, which from my understanding is the way EQN is heading. That you are basically a do it all type of character, but yet with no defined role in general. A do it all but master of none, if you get my meaning.

If what you say is true and there will in fact be defined roles that you can switch in and out of, than I take back what I said.