EQ Never

Because they also fixed alchemy.

Iannis_sl said:

Because they also fixed alchemy.

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Deserves a +1 but must spread blah blah blah..

tad10_sl said:

ESL? They're going to reveal the EQN MOBA already?

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Last year, or so, I posted in the D3 thread about how D3 missed a huge opportunity in trying to combine an RPG (Gear Grind/Acquisition) game and a MOBA. Essentially I said the MOBA should make your items balanced/generic versions of themselves at the start of the match--but as you gain gold/experience in the MOBA, you can use the gold to unlock your "normal" gear slots from the RPG side of the game (Gold prices depending on slot), so, for example, a "great sword" would be just a statless weapon with DPS balanced the same as other starting "base" versions of weapons (Obviously with different flavors for weapon types), but when you "buy" your sword slot it would become Great Sword of Doom (Or whatever you have in the RPG). Also, you'd have "level 1" of all your skills, and you'd use experience to unlock the runes/extra levels of them. (In my post I said how D3 should have let you augment/level skills and rune effects with experience.)

Essentially everyone would start out the same, in a balanced game, with even gear and abilities (At least as even as most MOBA's can be, obviously some builds will rise, just like champions). But as the game progresses, more and more of your "farmed" gear comes into the game, obviously making it more unbalanced--so two teams even skill wise would come down to who had better gear, but gear could be nullified with early leads by better play (So a better team would unlock their gear way before, so even if it was worse overall, they should still win, if it's done right.)

Anyway, I'd love to see a game that's not really meant for Esports, combine that kind of farming from PvE/Crafting, with a MOBA. So letting PvE gear shine/be meaningful but giving a "balanced" section of the PvP match to let anyone with a far greater degree of skill win--I think that would fit in really well with many MMO/Action RPG games as a PvP system that offers some balance/skill allowance AND still offers incentives to farm gear to smash opponents.

They finally made their mobile app available out of the US

I didn't see this post yet, but its an article post in 2009 by the Head AI guy, Dave Mark its an absolute must read and does a good job of taking down the "Trinity"

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DaveM...ontroversy.php

great fucking read and better than a combat doc imo.

Lleauaric_sl said:

I didn't see this post yet, but its an article post in 2009 by the Head AI guy, Dave Mark its an absolute must read and does a good job of taking down the "Trinity"

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DaveM...ontroversy.php

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His general concepts are cool and it is an exciting article, but his understanding of Chris' position (Metzen? Not sure) is terrible, check this out.

article_sl said:

"If the enemy is smart enough to bypass the warrior, then what point having him, if the enemy is clever enough to kill the mage, the mage will die. The classes in WoW are not flexible enough to handle such a scenario. My point, is that without even any increase in AI or change to the enemy abilities, skill choice and use could be made far greater. This raises the number of choices a set of players could make before and during battle. As I was saying before, classes shouldn't be built with such harsh roles built into them. The players should be presented with a scenario, and then given the ability to work out their own way of surmounting it. Clever use of AI should merely alter the nature of the challenge.

[snip]

If you change AI you MUST alter class as well to balance your game again."

(Chris)

Again (and I hate to pick on Chris, but he is illustrating an unfortunate meme in the industry - by players and developers both), this is a horribly narrow-sighted statement.

In the end, his final claim that altering the AI forces the designer to alter the classes to re-balance the game is not necessarily true. As I illustrate above, it just changes how we must use those classes. In my Austin lecture, I use the exact example that he mentions... that of an enemy flanking to go after the "squishies" in the back. All this means is that the fighters in front can't simply pull up a lawn chair and be content with their mindless button-mashing. They must be ready, if necessary, to rush back to the aid of their pals - or better yet, alter their tactics originally to be aware of the potential for flanking and prevent it to begin with. See how the increased AI can lead not only to interesting decisions but also more interaction between players?

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Sorry, I have to agree with "Chris" here, it sounds like he understands WoW's limitations better. I mean, how does Dave expect the WoW "tank" as designed at the time of this post (IE very narrow, 2009 defined roles) to "jump back and help if there is a flank"? With what abilities? Snares the bosses are immune to? Stuns they are immune to? Agro that won't be there thanks to these changes? This is WHY Chris talked about having to rebalance the classes of the game to account for new AI. The fact is, all of WoW's classes were designed around very narrow roles--and the bosses have a lot of specialized rules in place that do not allow the kind of leeway to help other classes you find in PvP (Snare immunity, high HP, Stun immunity ect.)

So, classes would most certainly need to be redesignedorbosses would need to be completely overhauledin how they interact with classes. I'm not sure why he keeps saying "nuh uh!" through the article while simultaneously "proving" this assertion with his later revelations (I mean, he literally says Chris is wrong at one point, then admits the current boss design is due to AI--so, wouldn't it stand to reason there would need to be dramatic shifts in the whole design if you change the AI?). He brings up TF2a lot, but he doesn't seem to grasp that TF2 has classes that were designed with thekindof gameplay he wants in games, while WoW's classes were not designed with that in mind in terms of PvE--so changing the AI behavior without changing the way mobs are balanced and what classes can do, would, indeed, not work. In fact, there was a fight that did this, and the mobs were different but still had to have an HP abstraction bonus because had they been on even terms with the players, we'd have raped them.

Overall though, it's an exciting article. I mean, it's stuff we've gone over forever. Should the mean monster go after the guy throwing fire? Not necessarily, because the guy with the sword might give him a new asshole as he walks by (Allowing for a flank.)....He essentially says this in his "gun vs knife" section..How mobs are terrible at reading immediate dangers and rather abstract danger down to damage and modifiers. But that's also, partially, because the very threat of danger has been abstracted by hit points. How scared of knives would you be in real life if you had some impenetrable barrier around you that could take 100 slashes of one? Yeah, not very--but we keep the HP abstraction because of how laughably easy things would be without it.

And hedoessay that, but all he says is "AI is good enough where you don't need that in single player games..."...In what game? I don't know of any single player game where the AI is a challenge if it isn't cheating. Are there games with far more challenging AI than WoW?Sure. But I don't think they could make an AI that could take a player character and use said to duel and defeat another player (Who is decent in PvP, say, able to climb above 1850) unless the class is a HARD counter. I think his AI would get it's shit pushed in and I think the level of shit pushing in would increase dramatically as you added team variables to the equation. Which has us going back to HP abstractions to make up for it, which has us going back to unfair advantages forcing certain other abstractions. Which goes back to designing around certain realities

I mean, if what he says about actual challenging AI is true, then the trinity will be replaced by a more organic version of the trinity--a front line (Foot soldiers)/rear supply (Healers/surgeons/Artillery)/sabotage (Spies/Rogues/Terrorists) type game play. And that's great if they can do it, I'd love a game like that. But I just don't see the AI being good enough to pull it off. Hey, though, maybe they will surprise me. But I think, what's going to happen, is what we saw in the WoW arena fight, or in GW2. Which is essentially mobs that "react dynamically", but are still to dumb to prevent themselves from being destroyed, so they get all sorts of advantages and it makes the fights a boring, tedious, tag in/tag out fest.

Mick_sl said:

As for the 40 classes.
Are these all stand alone classes or is this number part of the multi-classing combinations?

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Separate classes, obviously. The spellslingers lavaball is in no way, shape or form related to the sorcerers fire- or the wizards magmaball, what are you thinking.

Probably three seperate classes, although the conditions to obtain paladin might include being a cleric and fighter first.

If the AI is too smart, there *has* to be one of two things: taunt, or physical blocking (no clipping). In every example the mob wants to kill the high dps class or healer because that makes sense to preserve its life. The only thing causing there to even be a useful tank/fighter role is taunt or environmental restrictions on the AI that don't give them an alternative.

They already said there are no taunts but have alluded to "intercepts." I don't see how it could be fun if every single encounter is going to involve manipulating enough environment to restrict the AI for a fighter class (whirlwinding around a mob until its left standing on a platform? ), but it does seem fun as hell for the casters (ice walls, blowing holes in the ground, etc). I predict we should all be casters/ranged classes.

Mick_sl said:

As for the 40 classes.
Are these all stand alone classes or is this number part of the multi-classing combinations?

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That is the stand alone classes.

belfast_sl said:

If the AI is too smart, there *has* to be one of two things: taunt, or physical blocking (no clipping). In every example the mob wants to kill the high dps class or healer because that makes sense to preserve its life. The only thing causing there to even be a useful tank/fighter role is taunt or environmental restrictions on the AI that don't give them an alternative.

They already said there are no taunts but have alluded to "intercepts." I don't see how it could be fun if every single encounter is going to involve manipulating enough environment to restrict the AI for a fighter class (whirlwinding around a mob until its left standing on a platform? ), but it does seem fun as hell for the casters (ice walls, blowing holes in the ground, etc). I predict we should all be casters/ranged classes.

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It sounds as if they may be going with the LoL MOBA style tanks which are guys with lots of armor/resistances that have good peel/cc type abilities. Think alistars knock ups or amumus aoe root stun ways they can use to intervene/intercept and slow down things trying to kill the squishies. Make themselves enough of a threat that the target has to make the choice do i waste time beating on this guy right next to me or can I actually make it to the squishier targets. Even in PVP in MOBA tanks are still quite capable of tanking it is just a matter of giving them the right tools for the job.

Also like mobas while it is nice to have tanks it is also possible to get by without them in your group. Like in ARAM in LoL where you get some really damn weird mixes of champs and have to try to make them work. Such as I have all high dps squishies on my team and the opponents are all tanks./brusiers. If my team can win coordinate and win fast we can blow them away but let the tank team get going and their CC powers and durability can trump the damage dealers capabilities.

It is a model that shows you can have well defined roles that people typically would want to make a "balanced" group but also shows you can play effectively without that ideal group setup. In wow if you are missing a tank or missing a healer you simply cannot do any of the harder content. GW2 is a good example of trying to break out of this model but I think maybe they went a bit to far in undefined playstyles as it is really hard for somebody who wants to be a tanky type person to feel very useful.

I really hope they decide in favor of collision detection. It's certainly not impossible, adds interesting twists to pvp and if the SB AI is good it'll also be a boon for PVE. Being able to knock out the half-blocked door next to the ogre lessens the grief factor, and if thy are really worried they can code some squeeze through exceptions to trigger if you keep trying to pass another player.

Well eqnext even in their demo showed things like creating walls of ice that blocked the path of the kobolds that they had to break it down so they can do physical object collision. Not sure if players themselves will have collision but even at this early state things like annivias wall or trundles poo pillar look very possible to do in eqnext.

kaid_sl said:

Well eqnext even in their demo showed things like creating walls of ice that blocked the path of the kobolds that they had to break it down so they can do physical object collision. Not sure if players themselves will have collision but even at this early state things like annivias wall or trundles poo pillar look very possible to do in eqnext.

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Given that you can create path blocking items there will probably be collision turned off by default and given to special objects (ice wall) or items or mobs. Collision detection works well in cities in Assassin's Creed where you are the only player and running character but it would be a nuisance in crowded areas. Again not advocating its complete removal, just one more ability that can be turned on in combat (and outside combat I don't really see the point of having it)

That system works great with thinking & cooperating players capable of logic and reasoning, with cc, avoidance, peeling, and focus fire. Storybricks can be the biggest advancement in gaming AI in decades and still relegate the whole system into mob ping pong.

Class wise, I think its easy to see where they are headed.. They have said there will be 8 starting classes. Its reasonable to assume that each of those 8 will have 4 variations., equalling 40 total.

So for example...
Wizard: Fire, Ice, Sky, Earth, debuffs.
Warrior: 1hd Sheild, 2hd Attack, 2hd Defense, dual wield, Buffs.
Rogue: Stealth, Poison, Ranged, Traps, Melee.
Priest: Direct Heals, Buffs, HoT, Melee, Nuke.
Ranger: Beast, Bow, Dual Wield, Traps, 2hd sword
Druid: Heals, debuffs, buffs, Melee, nuke
Necromancer: Pet, Nuke, Debuffs, DoTs, swarm pets.
Enchanter: CC, Charm, Debuff, Buff, Illusion.

Of course each would have different titles, but the function would be pretty much the same. Now pick 3. Example Wizard prime (2 skills) Druid (1 skill) and and Rogue (1 skill). So you would be a Earth Wizard, able to form walls and do AE damage with debris or chunks of earth, who is able to use Druid snares, and use Rogue poison ability. You want to immobilize targets with snares and walls, and use poisons and your earth spells to kill.

If the AI is as good as they say, enchanters using Illusion would be awesome. They could make targets invisible, or make targets seem more dangerous, or attempt to trick the AI in a whole number of ways. Haha, of course if the AI is really awesome, Mobs using illusion would be fucking fun as hell as well. (Sweet, we got our tank cornering the boss! Wait, fuck where he go??? He got invised! Shit here comes a ton of fucking adds, get tanks to the rear!! Dammit they were fakes! SOMEONE KILL THAT FUCKING ENCHANTER!")

(note: This is 100% guesstimation.)