Combat pacing

[Kareal]

We had this discussion a while ago in relation to Warhammer but what do people think the optimal combat pacing would be solo and group.

How often should a player be pressing a button?
How long should a fight take?
How often something happen forcing a player to change strategies/rotation/next button?

To me it seems for the solo player button presses should be every 1.5-2.5 seconds and fights should take about 20 seconds, this allows for about 8-12 buttons per fight. In groups fights should be twice as long and/or button presses could be faster allowing for twice as many button pushes per fight.

[jason]

Some people will disagree, but I thought EQ up through Planes of Power (and maybe Ykesha and LDoN), they had it done fairly well. Perhaps I would shorten earlier fights, because when you are level 1 and your skills suck, fighting a rat for a whole minute is lame. And I might touch up some raids with better mechanics to give them more puzzle like aspects. Yeah, the fights were fairly long, and there wasn't a lot of key pressing for all people, but I think that since we are still largely limited to keyboard interface for socialization in game, EQ's design allowed the social to flourish whereas faster games result in "silent" games since people are too busy pressing action keys to make with the idle chatter.

One thing that really suffered was on the fly role play, which I'm sure doesn't matter to very many people. But being able to throw out a quick "/em takes the hit well and steps back into the fray." without it having to be a macro/hotkey during combat was something I enjoyed. If I do that now, people complain I'm hurting the DPS (or some other aspect) of the group.

[JuJutsu]

I'd knock 0.5 seconds off of Kareal's numbers.

[Kareal]

I'd knock 0.5 seconds off of Kareal's numbers.

So fights should be 19.5 seconds long? I'm just wondering if 1 second button presses are normal when do players get the opportunity to think about their actions, or should combat be mostly reactionary?

I unfortunaetly never played EQ so I don't know what kind of button rate you are talking about, I do remember something about warriors only needing to hit 2 buttons(kick, taunt) or something like that.

[jason]

By any current standards, EQ was slooooooooooow. We are talking 6 second refresh times on actions, which you could reduce down using haste items and spells at the high end of the game, but even then it was still around 2-3 seconds. And those were the fast skills. Later on with expansions and patches they added in new combat features that added more button pressing, but as I said, more button pressing = less social interaction. That will always be the case until we can separate social interaction and game control from using the same interface.

When people talk about warriors hitting two buttons, it was because for the longest time warriors had Kick and Taunt, with the rest being auto-attack. Eventually they added combat features that allowed the warrior to increase his DPS temporarily, or his tanking ability temporarily, etc... and even later on they added more attacks. But I preferred it when it was less button pushing.

[JuJutsu]

I'd knock 0.5 seconds off of Kareal's numbers.

So fights should be 19.5 seconds long? I'm just wondering if 1 second button presses are normal when do players get the opportunity to think about their actions, or should combat be mostly reactionary?

I unfortunaetly never played EQ so I don't know what kind of button rate you are talking about, I do remember something about warriors only needing to hit 2 buttons(kick, taunt) or something like that.

Mash the buttons every 1 to 2 seconds, fights from 10 to 20 seconds. Players can think about their actions before picking a fight same as always and react to unexpected actions from the mob.

...more button pressing = less social interaction. That will always be the case until we can separate social interaction and game control from using the same interface.

Ventrillo ftw.

[Garumoo]

I'd like to see combat done with something different from the cool down timers we see so much today. Maybe something like you can mash the keys as fast as you like, but you'll only be doing light and weak attacks, but press and hold down for a full two seconds and then when you release ... >blammo<

Put some skill back into the combat =)

[jason]

...more button pressing = less social interaction. That will always be the case until we can separate social interaction and game control from using the same interface.

Ventrillo ftw.

Ventrillo is nice, but its third party, and it doesn't work for casual socialization. When you walk into town in an MMO, you aren't likely to invite all the players to your Vent server so you can chat. Ventrillo is a tool for established social groups, not for open social interaction.

[JuJutsu]

...more button pressing = less social interaction. That will always be the case until we can separate social interaction and game control from using the same interface.

Ventrillo ftw.

Ventrillo is nice, but its third party, and it doesn't work for casual socialization. When you walk into town in an MMO, you aren't likely to invite all the players to your Vent server so you can chat. Ventrillo is a tool for established social groups, not for open social interaction.

For casual socialization the pace of combat [speed of button mashing] doesn't really matter and there is no need to separate social interaction from game control.

[jason]

I disagree. When you combine a high rate of button mashing with low down times, for instance WoW, the result is there is no time to "talk". Your hands are too busy playing the game to do other things. This is purely based on my observations that as games become more "active" they have also become more "silent".

[Draegan]

Average mob fight time should be around 12-15 seconds.

Global Cooldown of around 1.2 seconds.

That's assuming your going to have a PC typically fight only one NPC at a time.

[Garumoo]

I'd like to see combat done with something different from the cool down timers we see so much today. Maybe something like you can mash the keys as fast as you like, but you'll only be doing light and weak attacks, but press and hold down for a full two seconds and then when you release ... >blammo<)

For example, a typical sword-attack might do 100 points of damage, based on a 2.0 second cool down. If however you get really twitchy and get all stabitystabby with that sword, managing to get a swing in every 0.5 seconds, then instead of doing 100 points of damage you only do 20 points each time. Yes, that is less DPS.

So, going in half-cocked and flailing like a monkey would mean you do less DPS, but when your target is almost dead and it's lining up a massive killing blow on you ... that would be the tactical time to go into a frenzy and knock those last 50 points off.

[jason]

I like that idea, Garumoo. Eliminate cool-down as a lock out. Call it "Recharge" instead, and call holding down a key "Overcharge". You could even make it tactically effective. An attack with a 2 second cool down could do 100 points of damage (base, add in armor/weapons bonuses, subtract enemies defense bonuses) if its fully recharged and you just tap the key. If its fully recharged and you hold the key for 2 seconds you'd get a 120% bonus and that attack does 220 points damage, an increase in DPS if you are willing to slow yourself down to 1 attack every 4 seconds. If you tap the key half way through recharge, it does 40% damage (40 points), but if its at halfway recharge you can hold the key for 1 second to add a 60% bonus (64 points damage total). However, you can throw in new bonus types on gear... like a weapon that has a stun effect only if its overcharged for 2 seconds. With that, in theory, a player could hold a button for 2 seconds and fire off a 220 point damage attack with a stun, then immediately hold the button again for 2 seconds to follow up with a 1 point damage attack with a stun, sacrificing all raw damage to fire the stun off as often as possible (every 2 seconds for a stun that lasts 1 to 1.5 seconds when it lands).

[Kareal]

For example, a typical sword-attack might do 100 points of damage, based on a 2.0 second cool down. If however you get really twitchy and get all stabitystabby with that sword, managing to get a swing in every 0.5 seconds, then instead of doing 100 points of damage you only do 20 points each time. Yes, that is less DPS.

So, going in half-cocked and flailing like a monkey would mean you do less DPS, but when your target is almost dead and it's lining up a massive killing blow on you ... that would be the tactical time to go into a frenzy and knock those last 50 points off.

The issue is solving for lag times assuming an up to half second lag. What if the previous time you used the ability was lagged more than the next one, you do half as much damage as you expected? Do you allow the client some determination on the timing as lag compensation and then let it be hacked?

[Garumoo]

The issue is solving for lag times assuming an up to half second lag. What if the previous time you used the ability was lagged more than the next one, you do half as much damage as you expected? Do you allow the client some determination on the timing as lag compensation and then let it be hacked?

Trust, but verify.

Let the client determine, but sanity check at the server. There's no way a client could legitimately fire off a 2 second overcharge more often than every 2 seconds, so if they do the server can pants them. The effective limit to the hacking would be to eliminate lag, and no further.

Admittedly, there would still be a tactical advantage - you could wait 2 seconds to see what's coming, then either fire off an interrupt or fire off a hacked overcharge.