Iksar said:Pretty sure that is the same thing most on this side of the fence are arguing against. Whether it is gear or some other mechanic it only serves to add more tedium to combat; just another set of buttons to press without making combat any more dynamic. Having to swap gear/runes/whatever constantly in combat to change resistances or buff certain spell types...no thank you. No matter how many layers of buttons/clicks you want to add it will end up no different, a rotation of button presses will be made and followed for most fights with a few priority abilities tacked on.
If you want combat to be more interesting then we need more intelligent and varied AI. The mobs need to keep players on their toes to break up the common rotation system, they need to act unpredictably at times so that orc A is not necessarily the same as orc B or C. Maybe randomized stats within a range for each and a large pool of possible abilities+passives to spawn with. Maybe you pull a group and find out orc B is immune to CC + ignores taunt and orc C has harm touch so your group has to swap on the fly and take out orc B first, which you then find triggers orc A into a berserker rage.
If combat is going to improve in MMORPGs then it needs to be smarter AI and varied mobs even within a single type.
Considering that hotbars will be limited, I would argue against the idea that gear/rune swapping would be "just another set of buttons to press without making combat any more dynamic." Personally, I really like the idea of "situational gear" and if you truly want "dynamic" combat then you need to be able to adjust to things on the fly. I think situational gear should extend far beyond the preparation phase of combat. If I am fighting an ice giant, I'll probably want to use a fire sword. What happens if I'm fighting a shape shifter? What happens if I am fighting something that can change stances, archetypes, resistances, spell flavor, etc during combat?
Let's say I have 3 sets of situational gear ... my ice set, fire set, and DPS set. I would enjoy being able to leverage all of that gear as much as possible. Switching to my ice set mid-combat in order to mitigate a big ice comet nuke wouldn't be much different than using a ice resistance elixer or temporary buff. Being able to swap gear or runes during combat would absolutely make it more dynamic ... at least in my opinion. I guess everybody has their own definition of what dynamic combat means to them. I agree with your examples and the idea of randomized stats, improved AI, etc ... but if you're going to add more challenges, I think it makes sense to add more solutions to deal with them.
Looking at an ice giant and saying "Oh hey I should probably wear my ice armor" before I engage ... that promotes a sense of static combat rather than dynamic, at least in regards to the situational gear layer. You prepare for the battle and once it starts, you're stuck. It feels shallow. I want to see ice giants that can spawn pets who dish out high chunk damage of a resist that fluctuates. Maybe one time they will spawn an eviscerating sword (equip slash resist) ... another time it's the hammer of doom (crush resist) ... maybe they perform a chant that has an audio or video que that allows you to prepare for a potentially lethal elemental blow. They start chanting ... you see it's going to be a "fire harm touch" based on the que, you have a few seconds to respond and get your fire resistance as high as possible to mitigate that damage. The next fight, it could be disease ... divine, lightning, etc.
Dynamic combat is already going to be limited to some degree due to hotbar mechanics (based on what I have heard/seen, we'll never be able to use our "full kits" on a given fight due to the limited hotbar size, so preparing will be important) -- so how far will this go? How do we strike a good balance between preparation and dynamic combat? If you focus too much on preparation, combat could feel restricted or players wouldn't be able to react to surprises or changes. With limited hotbars, it already seems like our in-combat adaptability is being somewhat thwarted. This is where I think situational gear or rune swapping could come into play. One way or another, situational gear will be one of many layers to combat. I think the layer would be far more interesting if it extended beyond the preparation phase. I have seen a few people suggest they would be okay with swapping weapons but not armor. That's better than nothing I guess but it would be far less dynamic as the possibility of change would be limited.
Scenario 1:
See an ice elemental -- equip fire gear, kill mob.
Proceed through dungeon.
See a fire elemental -- switch to water gear, kill mob.
Proceed through dungeon.
See room full of 200 ice elementals -- equip fire gear for the foreseeable future and kill all of them. (Static)
Scenario 2:
See a master summoner -- equip your best, most versatile gear. As it summons pets, you adjust your gear mid-combat to counter as necessary.
Proceed through dungeon.
See a fire elemental -- switch to water gear, kill mob.
Proceed through dungeon.
See room full of 200 master summoners -- do your best to prepare for loads of dynamic combat.
At the end of scenario 1, let's just say there are instead 100 ice elementals and 100 fire elementals. Do you swap gear while out of combat, in between each fight as necessary? Most groups would probably put their ice set on and pull as many fire mobs as possible ... then switch it up. The one thing I do like about this is that you could put your ice set on and then pull an ice mob on accident .... whoops! In that sense, things can get interesting. But I would rather see a system built around moving parts, and players having the freedom to leverage their situational gear based on a set of fluctuating circumstances. Less predictability, more reflex. That's dynamic to me. If seeing a certain mob means always equipping a certain set of gear to prepare for it ... sounds good, been there done that a billion times over. But that doesen't seem to jive too well with "Dynamic NPC Encounter Groups" and "NPC Dispositions and Behaviors" as listed on the Pantheon Difference page. These sound like ways to evolve combat rather than keeping it the same ol' same 'ol.
At the same time though, when you check out "Situational Gear" it says: "Instead, many items will be more situational, and the player will need to ask himself, 'where am I?', 'what am I going to fight next?', and 'who in my group is what class, and what items do they have that may help defeat the next encounter?'" -- It sounds great, but it also makes me think that encounters will be far more predictable than dynamic if that much planning goes into your "next fight." If hotbars, situational gear, group/raid composition are supposed to be set in stone prior to engaging, what other options are there to allow for player-generated changes while in combat other than timing/positioning? Every day isn't going to be ground hogs day ... but is every tuesday going to be the same tuesday? I'm looking forward to seeing what ideas VR has been cooking up to evolve the MMO combat system. Not too twitchy, but also not monotonous. It's a tall task to try and find the right balance.
oneADseven said:Considering that hotbars will be limited, I would argue against the idea that gear/rune swapping would be "just another set of buttons to press without making combat any more dynamic." Personally, I really like the idea of "situational gear" and if you truly want "dynamic" combat then you need to be able to adjust to things on the fly. I think situational gear should extend far beyond the preparation phase of combat. If I am fighting an ice giant, I'll probably want to use a fire sword. What happens if I'm fighting a shape shifter? What happens if I am fighting something that can change stances, archetypes, resistances, spell flavor, etc during combat?
Let's say I have 3 sets of situational gear ... my ice set, fire set, and DPS set. I would enjoy being able to leverage all of that gear as much as possible. Switching to my ice set mid-combat in order to mitigate a big ice comet nuke wouldn't be much different than using a ice resistance elixer or temporary buff. Being able to swap gear or runes during combat would absolutely make it more dynamic ... at least in my opinion. I guess everybody has their own definition of what dynamic combat means to them. I agree with your examples and the idea of randomized stats, improved AI, etc ... but if you're going to add more challenges, I think it makes sense to add more solutions to deal with them.
Looking at an ice giant and saying "Oh hey I should probably wear my ice armor" before I engage ... that promotes a sense of static combat rather than dynamic, at least in regards to the situational gear layer. You prepare for the battle and once it starts, you're stuck. It feels shallow. I want to see ice giants that can spawn pets who dish out high chunk damage of a resist that fluctuates. Maybe one time they will spawn an eviscerating sword (equip slash resist) ... another time it's the hammer of doom (crush resist) ... maybe they perform a chant that has an audio or video que that allows you to prepare for a potentially lethal elemental blow. They start chanting ... you see it's going to be a "fire harm touch" based on the que, you have a few seconds to respond and get your fire resistance as high as possible to mitigate that damage. The next fight, it could be disease ... divine, lightning, etc.
Dynamic combat is already going to be limited to some degree due to hotbar mechanics (based on what I have heard/seen, we'll never be able to use our "full kits" on a given fight due to the limited hotbar size, so preparing will be important) -- so how far will this go? How do we strike a good balance between preparation and dynamic combat? If you focus too much on preparation, combat could feel restricted or players wouldn't be able to react to surprises or changes. With limited hotbars, it already seems like our in-combat adaptability is being somewhat thwarted. This is where I think situational gear or rune swapping could come into play. One way or another, situational gear will be one of many layers to combat. I think the layer would be far more interesting if it extended beyond the preparation phase. I have seen a few people suggest they would be okay with swapping weapons but not armor. That's better than nothing I guess but it would be far less dynamic as the possibility of change would be limited.
Scenario 1:
See an ice elemental -- equip fire gear, kill mob.
Proceed through dungeon.
See a fire elemental -- switch to water gear, kill mob.
Proceed through dungeon.
See room full of 200 ice elementals -- equip fire gear for the foreseeable future and kill all of them. (Static)
Scenario 2:
See a master summoner -- equip your best, most versatile gear. As it summons pets, you adjust your gear mid-combat to counter as necessary.
Proceed through dungeon.
See a fire elemental -- switch to water gear, kill mob.
Proceed through dungeon.
See room full of 200 master summoners -- do your best to prepare for loads of dynamic combat.
At the end of scenario 1, let's just say there are instead 100 ice elementals and 100 fire elementals. Do you swap gear while out of combat, in between each fight as necessary? Most groups would probably put their ice set on and pull as many fire mobs as possible ... then switch it up. The one thing I do like about this is that you could put your ice set on and then pull an ice mob on accident .... whoops! In that sense, things can get interesting. But I would rather see a system built around moving parts, and players having the freedom to leverage their situational gear based on a set of fluctuating circumstances. Less predictability, more reflex. That's dynamic to me. If seeing a certain mob means always equipping a certain set of gear to prepare for it ... sounds good, been there done that a billion times over. But that doesen't seem to jive too well with "Dynamic NPC Encounter Groups" and "NPC Dispositions and Behaviors" as listed on the Pantheon Difference page. These sound like ways to evolve combat rather than keeping it the same ol' same 'ol.
At the same time though, when you check out "Situational Gear" it says: "Instead, many items will be more situational, and the player will need to ask himself, 'where am I?', 'what am I going to fight next?', and 'who in my group is what class, and what items do they have that may help defeat the next encounter?'" -- It sounds great, but it also makes me think that encounters will be far more predictable than dynamic if that much planning goes into your "next fight." If hotbars, situational gear, group/raid composition are supposed to be set in stone prior to engaging, what other options are there to allow for player-generated changes while in combat other than timing/positioning? Every day isn't going to be ground hogs day ... but is every tuesday going to be the same tuesday? I'm looking forward to seeing what ideas VR has been cooking up to evolve the MMO combat system. Not too twitchy, but also not monotonous. It's a tall task to try and find the right balance.
I'd prefer the use of situational Pies. Frost Giant toes, throw em in, now you got temporary frost armor. Fire Elemental Essence, throw it in, you just took a bite of temporary fire resistance. #aPieForEverySituation
Why add a level of complication that doesn't add to the gameplay experience? I would rather see mechanically situational gear, than alternate sets of resist/stat gear. Like jump boots for ledge you can't reach, or Cloaks of Reflection for a boss that has a single target Nuke that 1 shots you without the cape on. Neat gimmicks. I like neat gimmicks.
Although I do make exception for costume gear that removes stats and makes the character more vulnerable. That kind of alternate stat gear can add depth and challenge, without adding a layer of complication. And can be comfortably tied into questing.
From my perspective, alternate stat gear and situational resist gear, have always been a shortcut that diminished the experience. When you have to throw on a set of garbage green gear to take down a boss, it feels like a cheat code, not like fun.
oneADseven said:Considering that hotbars will be limited, I would argue against the idea that gear/rune swapping would be "just another set of buttons to press without making combat any more dynamic." Personally, I really like the idea of "situational gear" and if you truly want "dynamic" combat then you need to be able to adjust to things on the fly. I think situational gear should extend far beyond the preparation phase of combat. If I am fighting an ice giant, I'll probably want to use a fire sword. What happens if I'm fighting a shape shifter? What happens if I am fighting something that can change stances, archetypes, resistances, spell flavor, etc during combat?
Let's say I have 3 sets of situational gear ... my ice set, fire set, and DPS set. I would enjoy being able to leverage all of that gear as much as possible. Switching to my ice set mid-combat in order to mitigate a big ice comet nuke wouldn't be much different than using a ice resistance elixer or temporary buff. Being able to swap gear or runes during combat would absolutely make it more dynamic ... at least in my opinion. I guess everybody has their own definition of what dynamic combat means to them. I agree with your examples and the idea of randomized stats, improved AI, etc ... but if you're going to add more challenges, I think it makes sense to add more solutions to deal with them.
I guess that is one of the real issues here, the limited action set. In such a case that we really only ever have 10 abilities available at a time then alternative means of combat enhancement seems more necessary to make things more strategic (though we have to see that kind of abilities each class really ends up with). Now if we had a second bar (or even half bar of 5) that was limited to buffs/stances then I think we could get by just fine while having combat be dynamic on your toes excitement.
In the shapeshifter example, you could don your strongest resist set or perhaps mix sets to have mild resists to all types of magic and when the boss shifts phases/forms/type the group has to swap on the fly, healers utilizing different elemental warding spells (or in the case of different physical damage types: things like barkskin vs blunt and stoneskin vs slashing/pierce), tanks shifting stances and maybe popping resist potions, casters changing to a different elemental damage type, melee dps swapping weapons/stances. In with all this, add limited clicky trinkets. And while all of this is going on everyone still needs to be watching for the new spells/skills coming out for stuns/counterspells/retreats/adds/etc.
In the end I just prefer the skills/tools be the abilities of the classes combined with limited consumables+trinkets, instead of outsourcing what could very well be covered by player abilities to shifting gear/runes/whatever. You prep before an encounter with your equipment as best as you can and then put your skills to the test with what you have on your back, much like how surviving encounters in pen and paper DnD goes. If a boss suddenly shifts to a new form you weren't expecting, like fire to lighting, and you have your fire resist set on then I think you should have to panic a bit and work harder/smarter to edge out a potential victory instead of just "oop, let me click macro 3 and swap to lightning resist set...all good!"
No Insta-gear-switching mid-fight as a substitute for fun fight mechanics. Not interested in it. Choices like that should be made before the fight as prep for the fight. Not as some set of macros that must be switched for optimum benefit. Aside from anything else, already gone over more times than can be easily counted, it will result in min/maxing of X sets of gear instead of just one. Entrance to raids would be further cut by greater gear requirements, and then the devs will have a nightmare of tuning and balancing. Of course, that last point is why this won't happen. So, in the end, it is a moot point.
To each their own. I am a fan of min/maxing multiple sets of gear as it increases the shelf life of character progression. Just because a mob shifts from ice to lightning doesen't mean everybody has a full set of lightning gear to switch to. If someone is inclined enough to farm a full set of lightning gear, then yeah, they would be able to pull off the switch mid-combat and benefit from the hard work that went into the "lightning survival" aspect of their progression. I highly doubt we would see anything like this because of how demanding it would be at the highest level (and I can definitely imagine complaints based around entitlement to beating content without having to farm multiple sets of gear, aka progression) ... but until we see a more in-depth analysis of the combat system and it's mechanics, I wouldn't write it off completely. As Lentik kindly pointed out, something like this can be achieved without having to use gear swapping macros. If you want dynamic combat, players need some wiggle room. If the ceiling of that wiggle room is using temporary consumables, that would feel way too artificially restrictive to me.
Speaking of restrictive ... I want to touch on the limited hotbars again. You can't use "healers switching from barkskin to stoneskin" or "casters switching to different elemental damage type" as possible solutions when you have a single hotbar. That is a part of the problem I touched on with my last post. Limited hotbars take away the flexibility to make these kind of adjustments while in-combat. So again ... we already know that preparation is going to be important. Your hotbar will need to be planned prior to the fight, and from the sound of it, so will your situational gear. By putting so much emphasis on the preparation phase, you're putting severe limitations on the potential for "dynamic" combat.
At the end of the day, I suppose the combat system could be designed around these limitations. Create encounters where they switch damage type/resistances mid-fight but you have no way to adapt/counter. It could work, and it would probably even be enjoyable while you try to fight your way through the mechanics, but it also removes a lot of possibilties with potential encounter design and will inevitably lead to RNG frustration. Imagine stacking your ice damage set and then the mob gets a "random ice buff" -- you just got owned by RNG. The only way to prevent that from happening is to remove the sense of randomness or unpredictability that is often associated with dynamic combat in the first place. I don't want to get owned by RNG ... I want to get owned by bad player choices, and how is it fair to force pre-determined choices if encounters are truly dynamic? Again ... it seems like a slippery slope here on balancing the preparation vs reaction phases. If death is going to be truly meaningful, RNG should not be a major influence on the outcome of battle.
If players are going to be stuck with their "pre-fight choices" for the duration of every battle, I see a lot of "dynamic" combat mechanics flying out of the window. You can't have both ... or maybe you can, but it will have to be watered down to compensate. So again what this really boils down to ... what kind of combat do you want to see? Once you identify a mob, you know exactly what to expect from it? Emphasis on preparation seems to favor that. The opposite side of the spectrum is dynamic combat ... moving pieces and parts that challenge your reflexes and adaptability to unpredictable change. Locking hotbars/gear definitely favors the former ... so hopefully one of the other combat mechanics that hasn't been discussed yet can fill the void for the dynamic PVE that many of us crave.
I predict that we will see dynamic zones, but "dynamic combat" will be limited at best. Navigating to boss X could be a different experience for 5 consecutive runs, but during those runs, you still know what to expect prior to engaging each individual encounter. When it comes to NPC Dispositions, we'll probably see some sort of que that allows us to prepare for it. I'm sure there will be some randomness sprinkled in here or there, but again, if death is going to be truly meaningful (meaning you are severely punished for mistakes) then the combat needs to be balanced on making the right choices. From the sound of it, those choices will be proactive rather than reactive. I mentioned it's a tall task to try and accomplish all this while also evolving the genre ... so dig your heels in because pulling off a feat like that is going to take some major time/effort to get everything balanced and we haven't even seen the implementation of various mechanics yet, let alone the experimentation of blending them all together.
oneADseven said:You could probably make the argument that swapping gear IS a temporary consumable for all intents and purposes. It serves the same function. Which it isn't necessarily bad to have both.If the ceiling of that wiggle room is using temporary consumables, that would feel way too artificially restrictive to me.
But in a game like Pantheon, focused on player interdependence, there are quite a few logical design choices that could eliminate the idea of actively swapping out stat gear, in favor of synergy based combat mechanics that replace the motivation for gear swapping with the motivation of using defensive skills or protective auras. And I absolutely expect crafted food and drink, including Pie, and it should be safe to assume that crafted food and drink, and/or potions will give bonuses. Nothing has given me any reason to doubt that.
So it's just one of those flavors at the froyo counter with a clean station under it because it doesn't get much traffic. It probably tastes good to someone, but most people don't even know it's there.
They may serve the same function but one is tied into progression whereas the other is a commodity that can be purchased. I'm sure food/drink will serve a purpose (Love the cost/reward aspect of it from FFXI) but it's just a crumb in the big pie of power progression. There isn't really a right or wrong way to how all of this is designed, it just comes down to VR's preference of proactive vs reactive. I would imagine that a blend of both is desired, but leaning more towards proactive. Proactive can be a lot of fun as it seems to reward progression and encounter experience, whereas reactive is obviously catered more towards reflexes and on the spot decision making. Unfortunately, the more proactive things are, the duller the reactive window gets. Rather than having to respond/adjust to a situation, you plan ahead based on experience. It's all fine and dandy but this leaves less room for mistakes ... which ultimately leads to less opportunities to overcome them.
I am intrigued by Lentik's idea of using runes or something else to help accomplish a sense of dynamic combat, one where skill/experience/ability/dynamic power can continue to climb over time and players can truly become a legend of their class. In FFXI, situational gear helped accomplish that and the game truly felt more difficult because of it. I don't mean button mashing difficult ... I mean long term power growth where getting a new "useful item" doesen't mean you have to replace something else ... it just gets added to your overall kit and can be used situationally, and in a reactive way rather than proactive. The more things that can go wrong, the better it feels when you do everything right. Again ... proactive is great, but the more emphasis you put on it, the less "dynamic" the reactive side will ever be. I'm sure it will be a beast to balance and hopefully it's something we'll be able to provide some feedback on during testing.
oneADseven said:I sort of prefer the idea of separating progression from gear and to a lesser degree giving gear multiple possible hidden stat values depending on the content, and group size. Personally I would hide all stats other than quality indicators and things like procs and unique functions. I think doing so forces a subtle divide between the mid/max perspective, and the causal perspective. But would not technically harm the fun factor from either.They may serve the same function but one is tied into progression whereas the other is a commodity that can be purchased. I'm sure food/drink will serve a purpose (Love the cost/reward aspect of it from FFXI) but it's just a crumb in the big pie of power progression. There isn't really a right or wrong way to how all of this is designed, it just comes down to VR's preference of proactive vs reactive. I would imagine that a blend of both is desired, but leaning more towards proactive. Proactive can be a lot of fun as it seems to reward progression and encounter experience, whereas reactive is obviously catered more towards reflexes and on the spot decision making. Unfortunately, the more proactive things are, the duller the reactive window gets. Rather than having to respond/adjust to a situation, you plan ahead based on experience. It's all fine and dandy but this leaves less room for mistakes ... which ultimately leads to less opportunities to overcome them.
I am intrigued by Lentik's idea of using runes or something else to help accomplish a sense of dynamic combat, one where skill/experience/ability/dynamic power can continue to climb over time and players can truly become a legend of their class. In FFXI, situational gear helped accomplish that and the game truly felt more difficult because of it. I don't mean button mashing difficult ... I mean long term power growth where getting a new "useful item" doesen't mean you have to replace something else ... it just gets added to your overall kit and can be used situationally, and in a reactive way rather than proactive. The more things that can go wrong, the better it feels when you do everything right. Again ... proactive is great, but the more emphasis you put on it, the less "dynamic" the reactive side will ever be. I'm sure it will be a beast to balance and hopefully it's something we'll be able to provide some feedback on during testing.
If someone is confused about which item is better, that to me is an indicator that they need to become better at the game. Removing stats because people are too uneducated to accurately compare them screams casual to me. At the same time, spending an hour parsing every single time you loot a new item sounds awful and will become necessary any time you get a new drop for those who care about min/max.
This proposal isn't a solution, it just introduces cancerous gameplay to high end players and removes even more thought from casual play.
I find it interesting that you criticized ARPG loot systems then later on speak positively about a staple of ARPG loot systems, which is generally identifying hidden stats on items. So now all of that effort is easily bypassed by returning to a city and paying some gold? That sounds self defeating. The introduction of a random element, well, I could write a book on why RNG is terrible.
I've never particularly found rock/paper/scissors style gameplay to add much fun to any game and fail to see how making my gear part of that mechanic improves upon it. But I can see where it would quickly result in "Joe doesn't have the 6 basic gear sets and shouldn't be on this raid". I have no problem with gear progression. And I have no problem with situational gear. I do have a problem with having the game mired down in mechanics that are not fun but become part of the core gameplay because it is the min/max thing to do.
And the vast majority of what players consider to be "better AI" is more hit points and agressive behavior. What normally results in the perception of "Good AI" in games is challenging but predictable behavior. Truly unpredictable actions on the part of mobs does not result in more fun games, no matter how much players think that this is the case. Truly good "unpredictable" behavior is to establish a behavior that the player begins to predict and then switch that up. So, yes, generally speaking, I expect ice goblins to be weak to fire damage and to use cold damage items on me and, sure, there may be a particular named that pulls out a fire sword mid battle, you prepped for cold damage, well, that's the way it goes. The support class in the group is going to have to buff your fire resists. You being able to just change gear sets is a cop out and limits group interaction and keeping support members in the team, that can compensate for such changes.
The epitome of unpredictable behavior is PvP, and I can imagine how the majority here feels about that LUL.
Ideally I would hope situational gear would be limited to a few individual pieces as opposed to entire sets. For instance, swapping to a hat that has a % chance to proc a small heal would be better suited for fighting multiple weaker mobs at a time, whereas a more general hat with high AC, HP, etc. would be better suited for raid tanking.
A few pieces of gear that proc AoEs on melee hits would be a good swap for some content, suicide on other content. Quick switching is unnecessary for this kind of model.
Situational gear that requires you carry a separate armor set for every type of resist in the game, well, the idea of it makes me want to vomit a little.
I'd like to reiterate the part where I mentioned gear swapping isn't a requirement for this sort of mechanic to exist. I also mentioned that it seems VR is leaning more towards proactive than reactive in regards to situational gear ... not sure if that will help with the puking problem though.
As long as my inventory isn't 50%+ situational pieces of gear I think I can hold down my dinner.
I would preffer if encounters that require multiple types of resistances and have multiple damaging elemental ailements, are restricted to larger raid groups and gear switching in combat is completly disabled (except for a weapon bandolier that allows for 2 different weapon sets).
This way if the encounter requires fire frost and poison resists you would have a tank with frost resist gear, another one with fire resist gear, and another one with poison resist gear, plus the players having to balance out their resistances for possible aoe effects, or certain support classes memorizing specific short duration resistence spells to help mitigate the elemental damages. This also aplies to weapon types, if indeed you can only swap between 2 weapon while in combat, players would need to balance out their damage types, for example one of the melees might be using a normal damage weapon to deal damage to flesh enemies and has a backup fire weapon to kill frost enemies, while another melee has also a normal damage weapon, and a frost damage weapon to kill the fire enemies.
Having certain restriction on switching gear on the middle of combat will make players less dynamic to a certain point and make group interdependance even more important, because a single player can't deal with all situations, having to rely on their group to deal with certain aspects of the encounters.
If you think about it critically and make yourself a pros and cons list, you will likely come to the conclusion that Stats on equipment are more important to the developer than the average player. Even at competitive levels the strategy is to farm whatever is best-in-slot, or whatever resist set can help you cheese the encounter.
Logically you get to the same place you get with complex questing. As soon as someone posts a guide, or identifies what is Best-in-Slot, the steps to learning the quest, and/or the individual stats, become more or less meaningless to players over time.
So it makes perfect sense to hide some stats, if not all of them, from the average player, and assign a method for those who prefer it, to see them. And it offers itself as a convenient coin sink. Which should in-turn add a sense of value and accomplishment to knowing what the hidden stats are at any given time.
One could go so far as to require the player specifically study at the Strategic Arts Guild in order to create a progression based system of Best-in-Slot identification. This would create the Role (in a roleplaying game) of an Equipment Expert. And these Experts would be vitally necessary for competitive raid guilds.
It's easy to dismiss something, if you cannot imagine it benefiting you personally. But I imagine this could benefit many players, personally, and overall.
Just try to imagine being the Grandmaster Strategist for your Raid Guild. And being the one responsible for making sure everyone is hitting their stat goals, because you are the one who dedicated your efforts toward knowing what items are actually Best-in-Slot.
It would make the information, and the role, valuable. And randomizing the stats, would just be a means to prevent accurate records of those stats being published and maintain that value over longer periods of time. In theory long enough for new content to emerge. You could even tie it closely with the RandomRolls model that already exists in combat. And simply alter the stats of any given item slightly based on a previous or the next immediate randomRoll.
This game, like all others using DnD mechanics, is built on a foundation of RNG. Tapping into that process and adding a random chance for your gear to shuffle stats would not be an example of negative RNG. There would never be a loss. Just a change. Maybe you lose 1 point in 3 stats and gain 1 point in 3 others. Or the affinity of an item swaps and gives you a temporary bonus. There would never be a negative outcome.
Making a pros and cons list would be extremely biased from the perspective of the creator of the list, and doesn't really lend to any meaningful conclusions about the average player unless a sufficient sample size of players did the same thing and compared their results. This is the opposite of critical thinking.
As far as creating a specific tradeskill that involves identifying gear, it seems like something that everyone would do because it has an extreme amount of utility in a genre of games based around gear progression as somewhat of a fundamental. I reiterate, you have zero evidence that the average player doesn't care about stats. I would almost argue the opposite, that average players place a higher emphasis on stats due to a lack of mechanical skill. Even then, this is anecdotal and not worth putting any stock into.
As far as benefits, imagined or not, I prefer evidence over conjecture.
As far as positive and negative RNG, I hate RNG. If I could play a game where effort and skill were the sole qualifiers for rewards, it would be an ideal game for me. That's an unrealistic expectation, however. The distinction between positive and negative RNG is lost on me.
You say that "there would never be a negative outcome". For that to be the case, all stats would have to be equally balanced and beneficial to every character, which is virtually impossible to achieve. If that were achieved, then shuffling stats would be pointless because they'd all be equal in the first place.
I don't fully understand why RNG gets such a negative response, and it likely contributes to why fights remain so stale in most MMOs. Either you have FFXIV like battles where bosses are more like learning a dance, the moves/rotation the same every time just moving down the line or you have battles more like WoW where at certain HP% or triggers the boss does X and players move to the next phase while still being pretty much entirely predictable.
So long as the RNG isn't something that is an instant wipe/death mechanic adn the group has fair chance at various skill levels to quickly adapt and overcome then I don't see the problem. You can prepare before the fight as best you know based on the known skillset of the encounter but you don't know when the boss will use any of its abilities or what order, sometimes sure this will mean the boss will be a little easier than others but I don't think that is a bad thing.
ZennExile said:
And randomizing the stats, would just be a means to prevent accurate records of those stats being published and maintain that value over longer periods of time. In theory long enough for new content to emerge. You could even tie it closely with the RandomRolls model that already exists in combat. And simply alter the stats of any given item slightly based on a previous or the next immediate randomRoll.
This game, like all others using DnD mechanics, is built on a foundation of RNG. Tapping into that process and adding a random chance for your gear to shuffle stats would not be an example of negative RNG. There would never be a loss. Just a change. Maybe you lose 1 point in 3 stats and gain 1 point in 3 others. Or the affinity of an item swaps and gives you a temporary bonus. There would never be a negative outcome.
I'm sorry but this, to me, would be the worst thing they could ever do to the game in terms of itemization.
Having random stats on gear creates the one of the worst possible situations in RPG games ever, it makes gear drops unsatisfying, It creates a situation where you not only need to get the correct item name drop, but also the correct stat rools, whenever an item you want drops and it does not have the perfect item stats, that item will be deemed garbage, and you'll be left unsatisfied because it was not the best possible version of the item. Rembemer that his is not diablo where you can farm the same boss for the same item 7 days a week whenever you feel like it. This is a open world MMORPG with contested spawns, and dropping the item should be the challange, not dropping the item 20x until it rolls the perfect stats.
There is always a loss with that system, because there is always an optimal setup, and if the optimal stat setup does not roll on the item, you will be at a loss because it's not the best version of the item possible.
Iksar said:I don't fully understand why RNG gets such a negative response, and it likely contributes to why fights remain so stale in most MMOs. Either you have FFXIV like battles where bosses are more like learning a dance, the moves/rotation the same every time just moving down the line or you have battles more like WoW where at certain HP% or triggers the boss does X and players move to the next phase while still being pretty much entirely predictable.
So long as the RNG isn't something that is an instant wipe/death mechanic adn the group has fair chance at various skill levels to quickly adapt and overcome then I don't see the problem. You can prepare before the fight as best you know based on the known skillset of the encounter but you don't know when the boss will use any of its abilities or what order, sometimes sure this will mean the boss will be a little easier than others but I don't think that is a bad thing.
Defenetly agree, there's place for RNG in combat, as long as the players are given a chance to react to it.
Some exmaple I can think of:
Adds spawning on a random palce in the encounter room | Random players gets a debbuf that deals aoe dmg to nearby allies | AoE's (like rain of fire, falling rocks, etc) located in random places each time it's cast | Boss uses special attacks in a random order every random time interval ( the boss might cast an ability between 34-47 secs of the begging of the fight and then again between 81-95 secs and so on as the fight proggress, so timers are not exact) | etc, little things that will make every encounter different and not fully predicatlable but still learnable.