Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Grave_foh · Mar 30, 2009

Flight said:
Is it not asinine that the class system in Diablo is so much more fun than anything ever approached in any MMO - that being a game that was developed in the mid 90"s as, originally, a DOS based game ?

Who says it is more fun? You say that as if it"s an indisputable fact.

Dyscord_foh · Mar 30, 2009

My point is, in a world without healers, an encounter is limited to the constraints of a single person"s life bar. If the damage from the encounter exceeds a person"s ability ON HIS OWN to survive, the enounter isn"t accomplishable. Adding more players allows you to add more enemies etc. But generally you"re limited to that ratio of damage incoming must be less than the player"s ability to deal with it.

I think what I"m really trying to say is, if there"s no one around to heal you, what you can accomplish in a group is about the same you can accomplish solo.

But now we"re back in a world of healers. Suddenly you can SERIOUSLY stack the odds against the players. The ratio of damage incoming vs. a solo player"s ability to deal with it swings wildly now. Now you"ve got a ton of freedom in what you can throw at those players.

A world of healing is a world of versatility.

Caliane · Mar 30, 2009

I think it should be.
Thats what I said a while ago.

D2 is a great example of classes making each other stronger, but no specific class makeup is required to play.

Caliane · Mar 30, 2009

Dyscord said:
My point is, in a world without healers, an encounter is limited to the constraints of a single person"s life bar. If the damage from the encounter exceeds a person"s ability ON HIS OWN to survive, the enounter isn"t accomplishable. Adding more players allows you to add more enemies etc. But generally you"re limited to that ratio of damage incoming must be less than the player"s ability to deal with it.

I think what I"m really trying to say is, if there"s no one around to heal you, what you can accomplish in a group is about the same you can accomplish solo.

But now we"re back in a world of healers. Suddenly you can SERIOUSLY stack the odds against the players. The ratio of damage incoming vs. a solo player"s ability to deal with it swings wildly now. Now you"ve got a ton of freedom in what you can throw at those players.

A world of healing is a world of versatility.

I would say the opposite.
As now, the options are limited, as you HAVE to have that healing to do anything.
Its a limitation. And more importantly, its not a limitation to you as a designer, its a limitation to the player.

Flight · Mar 30, 2009

Grave said:
Who says it is more fun? You say that as if it"s an indisputable fact.

Every single encounter = tank + healer controlling the entire encounter, with various DPS; or,

a system where every time you face a boss there are dozens of different tactics just as successful as tank and spank, each based around one skill from any one of the classes defining the encounter. Where each class has skills that actually can control the fight in place of tank and spank.

I don"t know - does that sound more fun ?

Caliane said:
D2 is a great example of classes making each other stronger,but no specific class makeup is required to play.

That"s the heart of what I am getting at. I don"t know if it can happen with dedicated healers in the game ?

Draegan_sl · Mar 30, 2009

Agraza said:
You throw DIKU around as some generic term for industry evil. It is a lot of little things, and you cannot generalize on that level and have a decent conversation. Either STFU or pick it apart in smaller chunks.

To respond to your "potting" concern, I don"t think it would be as simple as you claim. Restoration does not equal Prevention. Collision/Kiting does not equal Tanking. They"re individual and different. Combining all five of my listed concepts would give you a lot more choices. Restoration is always going to play a part, especially since you don"t start fights at low health, but it doesn"t have to play THE part.

Sucking down health pots to replace healing is retarded, I agree, but putting forth that idea is just as retarded.

DIKU is not an evil term, but it is a generic term for a type of play style which is what EQ, VG, WOW etc are all part of. Do I have to define it for you?

Collision/Kiting equals Tanking in the sense that they are both methods of keeping a mob occupied while other people do stuff. Restoration and Prevention are attempting to do deal with damage, just different ways of doing it.

I"m discussing jobs and functions within a game space. Think macro rather than micro. You"re almost always going to have one or two people keeping a target occupied by some sort of action and others attempting to prevent that person from losing. What comes in between will be your CC vs. DPS argument.

GuyJantica_foh · Mar 30, 2009

Agraza said:
That really has nothing to do with the DIKU design model. That"s just a lot of misplaced emphasis on different aspects of the UI and game world.

I think it does... or at least it tends to correlate. The pertinent (abstracted) information is displayed in the UI boxes and tiles, but the player needs to know this information to play effectively. If the game mechanics centered around information that is less abstract (from the game world perspective) we"d be getting somewhere. I don"t know how this could be accomplished in the DIKU model (since it"s pretty much stat bar nannying). The mechanics pretty much dictate the sort of information that is necessary for the UI to allow the player to be successful. The current incarnation is appropriate for the game... it just happens to have the distasteful (for me) side effect of taking my attention from what I naturally focus on... the game world.

@Flight

I"d say healing is better suited as an out of combat ability that characters can advance apart from their combat skills. I"d rather see shorter, more decisive encounters with healing in the interim. Sure, it"s more limiting, but that that just means the players need to be more creative... and the developers need to give the players the tools. Healing extends the "campaign" but not the individual encounters.

Draegan_sl · Mar 30, 2009

@Flight re: D2

Can you have D2 in a larger expanse, multiplayer, and a raid game without using pots?

@ Guy

I believe you have it backwards.

DIKU has nothing to do with information display, just that DIKU"s have a more efficient throughput through text and numbers (or numbers converted into %"s and then into bars) when trying to communicate to a gamer. The graphics have always been gravy.

Grave_foh · Mar 30, 2009

No specific class makeup is required in D2 because there is nothing complex at all about the encounters. You just go in and kill it and it"s easy enough that you can pretty much do it with anything. It"s okay in a game like Diablo, I actually like it in that kind of game, but it"d get pretty old in a game with raiding. Sure, it would work in an MMO but you"d have to accept the limitations that would come along with it as far as designing encounters goes.

As I said before when we had this discussion, getting rid of healers is not necessary. If you want most class makeups to be able to do content, you simply roll various roles into single classes. Make every class a hybrid or even capable of three roles. Then, ensure that theydon"t have to play differently, in other words a DPS class can heal while dpsing like normal instead of having to completely change their playstyle or talents. Same for tanking.

tad10 · Mar 30, 2009

Caliane said:
I think it should be.
Thats what I said a while ago.

D2 is a great example of classes making each other stronger, but no specific class makeup is required to play.

I will never understand the appeal of D2. Diablo was great for its time. D2 blew.

Oh (and this applies to both D/D2) there is nothing good, right, interesting or fun about spending 10 minutes filling up your belt with as many regen pots as you can and then clicking them as fast as you can when you"re fighting <insert boss name here>.

I"ll take classic diku over that anytime.

* * *

For the record:

1. Any class system should be "easy to learn, hard to master"
2. It should not result in carpal tunnel syndrome (see e.g. D2).
3. Should make all players feel useful.

diku-systems are "okay" at all three of these things.

Flight · Mar 30, 2009

GuyJantica said:
@Flight

I"d say healing is better suited as an out of combat ability that characters can advance apart from their combat skills. I"d rather see shorter, more decisive encounters with healing in the interim. Sure, it"s more limiting, but that that just means the players need to be more creative... and the developers need to give the players the tools. Healing extends the "campaign" but not the individual encounters.

Good call, and once we have that there is no reason we can"t have some of both in the same game ?

Draegan said:
@Flight re: D2

Can you have D2 in a larger expanse, multiplayer, and a raid game without using pots?

I believe so and again, I think its a design decision, mate. To take the Diablo example again (and why not, some boss fights can take minutes, depending on lvl etc) the use of pots is factored into mob design. Even in its present state its possible to make builds then never need to chug a single potion.

Do away with pots and give each class abilities that either self heal (life leech on damage done), damage avoidance (Frost Nova or even a "Blink" ability), Pets to tank (Amazons Valkyrie, Necro summons) or control abilities (Bone Wall, Slow).

Have folks played much D2 since 1.10 ? The "end game" is more akin to an MMO than a solo game these days. There are very few classes/builds that can solo. And this in a game with no dedicated healers.

Grave_foh · Mar 30, 2009

But again, it isn"t an issue to ensure the players would be able to survive with no healing classes. Obviously the bosses could be neutered to the point that even heavy potting isn"t needed.

The issue is what that does to the designers ability to make compelling raid encounters. Fights would almost assuredly have to be much shorter and much more simple.

It just makes way more sense to give some form of healing to multiple classes, and then balance it out by allowing the healers to also excel at another role. The goal should be to reach a point where "bring the player, not the class" as Blizzard has said before is actually possible and viable.

Caliane · Mar 30, 2009

Grave said:
But again, it isn"t an issue to ensure the players would be able to survive with no healing classes. Obviously the bosses could be neutered to the point that even heavy potting isn"t needed.

The issue is what that does to the designers ability to make compelling raid encounters. Fights would almost assuredly have to be much shorter and much more simple.

It just makes way more sense to give some form of healing to multiple classes, and then balance it out by allowing the healers to also excel at another role. The goal should be to reach a point where "bring the player, not the class" as Blizzard has said before is actually possible and viable.

what is complex and compelling about tank and spank?

Any random ability, like cthun tents, archimonde fires, etc, are straight out of D2 boss design.
Dancing, avoiding directional attacks, etc. All have basis in a D2 style design better then a tank/dps/heal does.

And yes, D2 boss design is a bit outdated. Better AI, and more interesting mechanics and scripts could be added easily.

I would admit, D2 pvp would probably break down in large scale pvp. Some thought would need to be placed on how they classes would interact, and heal, and take damage in situations of 10+

Draegan_sl · Mar 30, 2009

Why do you want to get rid of healers (or tanks) anyway? Because of the boring play style typically associated with watching bars all day and night and the slow killing speeds etc for solo play?

The tank-heal-dps-cc is just part of the DIKU genre. It"ll never change until a non-DIKU game comes out. Unfortunately I don"t see that happening with a fantasy theme anytime soon!

tad10 · Mar 30, 2009

Draegan said:
Why do you want to get rid of healers (or tanks) anyway? Because of the boring play style typically associated with watching bars all day and night and the slow killing speeds etc for solo play?

The tank-heal-dps-cc is just part of the DIKU genre. It"ll never change until a non-DIKU game comes out. Unfortunately I don"t see that happening with a fantasy theme anytime soon!

As has been mentioned before, you can have fun healing in a diku-based game see, e.g., VG.

Gecko_foh · Mar 30, 2009

Grave said:
The goal should be to reach a point where "bring the player, not the class" as Blizzard has said before is actually possible and viable.

I think there should be positives and negatives for bringing different classes. Choices and fun should weigh more than making things so vanilla the goal is just to get any 25 with 16 DPS, 6 healers, and 3 tanks of any variety.

Really, what they are talking about is what EQ2 did at release. They should check out how that worked out before making that change.

Ukerric_foh · Mar 30, 2009

Big W Powah! said:
I"d love to play a magic-based tank who didnt run around in armor; Being a cloth-wearer with the ability to tank based on DS/Rune/some self healing/etc would be fun.

Why do I suddendly have a flashback of Item magic with Mattekar Robes (if you don"t know what I"m talking about... that"s only for Asheron"s Call old timers)

Ukerric_foh · Mar 30, 2009

Dyscord said:
Adding more players allows you to add more enemies etc. But generally you"re limited to that ratio of damage incoming must be less than the player"s ability to deal with it.

Ahem, no. Adding players means you kill the ennemy before he kills the "tank". On your own, you die before the boss is halfway down? With 3 people, you succeed instead.

Twobit_sl · Mar 30, 2009

So basically you just want a tank and dps and no healers? And tune shit to that?

Man, this thread has gotten fucking retarded. WTB actual Copernicus info.

Northerner_foh · Mar 30, 2009

This thread is (hopefully ironically) starting to resemble the old Sigil boards a bit too much indeed.

Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

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