I apologize...I didn't go thru all the posts...good discussion tho! What if the roles a character fills is dependent on how the player crafts the character? What I mean by that is what if the character's role was a mix of character improvement (ie path of exile skill tree) and gear load out? In that way a player could help fill a role in a team even if the character itself wasn't exactly set up for that role.
Except for the whole "2000 foot view" I agree. The 4 role model is still extremely rigid, my idea would have a rigidity within it's classes but each battle would turn out different based on player vs enemy composition, and as the battle progresses players would swap roles depending on that class/enemy composition and what abilities the enemy uses. This means that despite the rigidity it would have much more dynamic and fluid combat.
The AI could function similarly. It tries to buff itself and protect it's own members while at the same time debuffing the players. The AI then takes advantage and has most units attack something they are designed for. So the units best suited to murder the Heavy class would focus most of their attacks on that class.
But as I said in my previous post, moving away from classes altogether and going for that hybridization with restrictions to min/maxing would be better. min/maxing could still be available in the individual abilities of each weapon, ability and armor, but not min/maxing the loadout. You could base the min/maxing on a horizontal leveling system by allowing players to shift stats around. A larger AOE for lower damage kind of thing. The stats can be shifted around based on the resources you use, with higher grade resources allowing for stronger min/maxing. This allows for horizontal specialization without making these players automatically OP compared to new players.
The AI could function similarly. It tries to buff itself and protect it's own members while at the same time debuffing the players. The AI then takes advantage and has most units attack something they are designed for. So the units best suited to murder the Heavy class would focus most of their attacks on that class.
But as I said in my previous post, moving away from classes altogether and going for that hybridization with restrictions to min/maxing would be better. min/maxing could still be available in the individual abilities of each weapon, ability and armor, but not min/maxing the loadout. You could base the min/maxing on a horizontal leveling system by allowing players to shift stats around. A larger AOE for lower damage kind of thing. The stats can be shifted around based on the resources you use, with higher grade resources allowing for stronger min/maxing. This allows for horizontal specialization without making these players automatically OP compared to new players.
A plethora of options will always lead to minmaxing, no matter how well you think you've planned it out. There will always be an ivory tower aspect when you allow players to pick and choose from pretty much everything available unless their only option is to have access to everything all at once. The idea behind designing explicit classes is to make balancing the game easier from a developer standpoint (8 variations are easier to balance than 80) as well as to make the functionality and focus of the game clear to a new user. The trick is making the skill development portion broad enough to hold the attention of experienced players. Make the skill ceiling too low and people will get bored and seek larger challenges elsewhere
How is changing from theory crafting to actual character design not zooming in closer to the actual game design itself?
And hybridization is about classes, if you move from there to a character skill based system you've moved on to something else entirely. And that something else isn't going to have horizontal progression, it has vertical progression.
What you are asking for I do not believe is going to happen, the ability radically change your abilities in battle.
The way Firefall worked you changed frames to change classes, then customized the loadout on your frame for the abilities, strengths and weaknesses you wanted. Characters aren't going to have stats, or will have minimal stats. This game will be gear centric, or at least that's my understanding.
And hybridization is about classes, if you move from there to a character skill based system you've moved on to something else entirely. And that something else isn't going to have horizontal progression, it has vertical progression.
What you are asking for I do not believe is going to happen, the ability radically change your abilities in battle.
The way Firefall worked you changed frames to change classes, then customized the loadout on your frame for the abilities, strengths and weaknesses you wanted. Characters aren't going to have stats, or will have minimal stats. This game will be gear centric, or at least that's my understanding.
Because the actual character design is integral to the theorycrafting and ignoring it is like making a theory about generating energy with a fusion reaction without taking into account the excess heat this will generate.
As I said, what I thought up for classes were just a sketch to show off the theory (theorycrafting, get it?). The actual details can still change. Of course, with a simple trinity system the names speak for themselves, but with the system I proposed it needed a little more explanation, such as an example of how it would work, to be precisely clear.
You really think that hybridization is the only way to achieve horizontal progression?
All that horizontal progression needs to do is, for instance, give players a wider and wider range of options and abilities to choose from without giving them more power in the process. bam, horizontal progression. This can perfectly be achieved with a character skill system.
Ah, so you didn't understand a word I said.
No, you wouldn't have the ability to change all your abilities radically in the middle of the battle. You would have picked some weapons and abilities before the battle, and those weapons and abilities each have their own advantage against (at least) one specific enemy type/ability, but with a restriction system to prevent the weapons and abilities to overlap their advantages to prevent min/maxing your loadout and creating stale loadouts.
This means that the players change roles during battle, rather than weapons and abilities. You can starts as a simple DPS pawn by shooting enemies that your friends made vulnerable, then swap to debuffing enemies by attacking an enemy you are strong against while your friends help you finish it off, then swap to tanking as your friends focus on the next target that your armor is suited against.
How on earth did you think character stats were going to have anything to do with it? How can you believe that my idea isn't gear centric as every single ability that is given to the character all came from the gear I proposed?
Firefall worked by changing frames/class, then loadouts. My altered idea would mean that you don't even have separate classes. If you want to combine engineer-deployables with a mean chaingun, that's OK and no problem.
As I said, what I thought up for classes were just a sketch to show off the theory (theorycrafting, get it?). The actual details can still change. Of course, with a simple trinity system the names speak for themselves, but with the system I proposed it needed a little more explanation, such as an example of how it would work, to be precisely clear.
You really think that hybridization is the only way to achieve horizontal progression?
All that horizontal progression needs to do is, for instance, give players a wider and wider range of options and abilities to choose from without giving them more power in the process. bam, horizontal progression. This can perfectly be achieved with a character skill system.
Ah, so you didn't understand a word I said.
No, you wouldn't have the ability to change all your abilities radically in the middle of the battle. You would have picked some weapons and abilities before the battle, and those weapons and abilities each have their own advantage against (at least) one specific enemy type/ability, but with a restriction system to prevent the weapons and abilities to overlap their advantages to prevent min/maxing your loadout and creating stale loadouts.
This means that the players change roles during battle, rather than weapons and abilities. You can starts as a simple DPS pawn by shooting enemies that your friends made vulnerable, then swap to debuffing enemies by attacking an enemy you are strong against while your friends help you finish it off, then swap to tanking as your friends focus on the next target that your armor is suited against.
How on earth did you think character stats were going to have anything to do with it? How can you believe that my idea isn't gear centric as every single ability that is given to the character all came from the gear I proposed?
Firefall worked by changing frames/class, then loadouts. My altered idea would mean that you don't even have separate classes. If you want to combine engineer-deployables with a mean chaingun, that's OK and no problem.
So what you are saying is that we either give players no choice at all, or that we give them many choices?
Do you want to have no choice at all? No? Well then we have to think of a plethora of options and take the problem of min/maxing along in stride don't we?
Also look at the idea's I gave you. Let's say we have a player who's got a weapon designed against armored enemies. An ability designed against fast units and an armor designed against DOT.
Another player has the same weapon and ability, but an armor designed against high-damage attacks.
Another player has the same weapon and ability, but an armor designed against high ROF attacks.
Each is just as viable, and you could have swapped out the weapon or armor without losing anything, since we assume that all enemy unit types will be equally available in the game.
If for some reason a weapon is better than the rest, for instance because it can also be used for another role, we can balance that out. Give some enemy types higher resistances against that weapon to amplify the weapon's disadvantages, reduce the overall DPS of the weapon to make it less viable as generic DPS weapon, change it's range or perhaps reduce the weapons statistics that caused it to become the go-to weapon for all players to begin with.
And why would the skill ceiling/floor be a problem? Because it's possible to design it wrong? Well it's definitely possible to design a trinity that has too low a skill ceiling and too high a skill floor, it's also possible to design one just right. It depends on how the developers designed the game's mechanics that surround these principles, rather than the principle itself.
And although you don't have classes anymore to balance against eachother, you do have specific unit types that each weapon can attack to balance against each other.
Do you want to have no choice at all? No? Well then we have to think of a plethora of options and take the problem of min/maxing along in stride don't we?
Also look at the idea's I gave you. Let's say we have a player who's got a weapon designed against armored enemies. An ability designed against fast units and an armor designed against DOT.
Another player has the same weapon and ability, but an armor designed against high-damage attacks.
Another player has the same weapon and ability, but an armor designed against high ROF attacks.
Each is just as viable, and you could have swapped out the weapon or armor without losing anything, since we assume that all enemy unit types will be equally available in the game.
If for some reason a weapon is better than the rest, for instance because it can also be used for another role, we can balance that out. Give some enemy types higher resistances against that weapon to amplify the weapon's disadvantages, reduce the overall DPS of the weapon to make it less viable as generic DPS weapon, change it's range or perhaps reduce the weapons statistics that caused it to become the go-to weapon for all players to begin with.
And why would the skill ceiling/floor be a problem? Because it's possible to design it wrong? Well it's definitely possible to design a trinity that has too low a skill ceiling and too high a skill floor, it's also possible to design one just right. It depends on how the developers designed the game's mechanics that surround these principles, rather than the principle itself.
And although you don't have classes anymore to balance against eachother, you do have specific unit types that each weapon can attack to balance against each other.
@ Demigan & Col. Kernel...ur rly funny u know that (No Offence Ment, or NoM for short)...we're talking about a spiritual successor to FF, y'know...i for one would love to have the old classes back (A/B/D/E/R...and yes, i know we get 1 omniframe). i started in OB so i missed some things CBT had, same as the ppl that started at launch missed something from OB...but what u both suggesting (if i'm getting it right) has nothing to do with it...
i can understand that most ppl would like "it all & want it now...(insert music clip
)" but that just gets ruined as soon as some1 "does the math for the most optimal load out" and then the copy/paste-preconstructed-bestestest load out race begins.
FF had it right, it just lacked (4 example) variety as far as customizable abilities went (tons of different extra parts and little/no use for them).
so, you are not rly helping this discussion as much as gunning for the "math approach", imho. characters in FF had a sort of freedom not seen in other mmos precisely because each frame had it's own area of expertise, so to speak, and i'd hate to see (for expample) a dread carrying a sniper rifle, and so on as all that makes is it brings "the math approach" i dislike in most players/games these days.
i agree with you about different enemy types, that's where FF lost most of it's potential, but "1 frame load out to rule them all" would, imho do even more damage...and, i get what you are sayin, you're just going the wrong way about it, again, imho
i can understand that most ppl would like "it all & want it now...(insert music clip
)" but that just gets ruined as soon as some1 "does the math for the most optimal load out" and then the copy/paste-preconstructed-bestestest load out race begins.FF had it right, it just lacked (4 example) variety as far as customizable abilities went (tons of different extra parts and little/no use for them).
so, you are not rly helping this discussion as much as gunning for the "math approach", imho. characters in FF had a sort of freedom not seen in other mmos precisely because each frame had it's own area of expertise, so to speak, and i'd hate to see (for expample) a dread carrying a sniper rifle, and so on as all that makes is it brings "the math approach" i dislike in most players/games these days.
i agree with you about different enemy types, that's where FF lost most of it's potential, but "1 frame load out to rule them all" would, imho do even more damage...and, i get what you are sayin, you're just going the wrong way about it, again, imho
I don't see anything wrong with a Tank/Heals/DPS(/Crowd Control) system, so long as alternatives are given that aren't so clearly defined.
WoW may have been very strongly in favor of a pure T/H/D system (with crowd control abilities given to every class and spec, and only the Frost Mage being above average in that area), but it also had a few specs that were capable off-healers, like Shadow Priests, Fistweaver Monks, and Retribution Paladins, who could do healing as a side effect of doing damage.
GW2 left the trinity as far as possible, giving everyone a self heal so they were more responsible for their own health, and several classes the ability to boost their tanking or healing, but not to the the extent that they were ever more than a DPS with a support capability.
Rift may have stuck with T/H/D, but they also provided a pure support class, in the Bard, who may not have been the best DPS, but buffed the rest of the team to make up for their lower damage, debuffed all the enemies to aid the tank, and provided supportive healing and damage reduction buffs to help the healer.
Meanwhile Warframe, with its general lack of an aggro mechanic, favors crowd-control over tanking, to reduce incoming damage, and also team buffing, as it's a horde shooter. A lot of the time what's needed in a group comes down to individual abilites more than classes, and changes depending on mission type, although for higher level content a Trinity is usually called for, as it's the only class that can provide power for damage and CC abilities, which are used more frequently as the game gets more difficult.
-
For Ember though, I'd like to see diversity, giving players the ability to select equipment to play as pure tank/healer/DPS/crowd control, but also as support between any of those four. Perhaps the UI could help by giving groups an idea of what their combined damage and healing outputs, and damage taking capabilities are, so that instead of a group just saying 'we need a healer', they can also say 'we need to up our healing a little', that way no-one is forced into a role, but they can still play them if they want to.
WoW may have been very strongly in favor of a pure T/H/D system (with crowd control abilities given to every class and spec, and only the Frost Mage being above average in that area), but it also had a few specs that were capable off-healers, like Shadow Priests, Fistweaver Monks, and Retribution Paladins, who could do healing as a side effect of doing damage.
GW2 left the trinity as far as possible, giving everyone a self heal so they were more responsible for their own health, and several classes the ability to boost their tanking or healing, but not to the the extent that they were ever more than a DPS with a support capability.
Rift may have stuck with T/H/D, but they also provided a pure support class, in the Bard, who may not have been the best DPS, but buffed the rest of the team to make up for their lower damage, debuffed all the enemies to aid the tank, and provided supportive healing and damage reduction buffs to help the healer.
Meanwhile Warframe, with its general lack of an aggro mechanic, favors crowd-control over tanking, to reduce incoming damage, and also team buffing, as it's a horde shooter. A lot of the time what's needed in a group comes down to individual abilites more than classes, and changes depending on mission type, although for higher level content a Trinity is usually called for, as it's the only class that can provide power for damage and CC abilities, which are used more frequently as the game gets more difficult.
-
For Ember though, I'd like to see diversity, giving players the ability to select equipment to play as pure tank/healer/DPS/crowd control, but also as support between any of those four. Perhaps the UI could help by giving groups an idea of what their combined damage and healing outputs, and damage taking capabilities are, so that instead of a group just saying 'we need a healer', they can also say 'we need to up our healing a little', that way no-one is forced into a role, but they can still play them if they want to.
Likes:
Wintersiege
Nice false dichotomy. I'm saying create a small core of archetypes that are about as well balanced as you can get instead of trying to include granular customization that will lead to the same number of viable builds regardless
What does fighting against these enemies play like for someone who doesn't have those items? If I have a weapon that is weak against armored enemies, how much of a slog should fighting that entire % of enemies be? If it's only a minor bonus, what's the difference?
You appear to be forming another dichotomy between a standard trinity and ultra-specialization of bonuses.
It's ultimately less and less possible to balance outcomes the more of them you have, and with a focus on quantity over quality, the high end quality tends to go down (short of exploits and fun bugs picking up the slack)
Balancing around explicit unit types in an open world game based around exploration and adaptation seems a bit silly. Why would I want to pick anything but a decent all-around style build when I could be attacked by anything? If I know what I'm going to come up against, haven't I trivialized the game somewhat? And then you have the extra problem of mixed groups possibly being overwhelming unless you happened to have the right combination of items
Unless of course, the bonus or penalty is trivial and I can safely ignore your entire customization system
What does fighting against these enemies play like for someone who doesn't have those items? If I have a weapon that is weak against armored enemies, how much of a slog should fighting that entire % of enemies be? If it's only a minor bonus, what's the difference?
You appear to be forming another dichotomy between a standard trinity and ultra-specialization of bonuses.
It's ultimately less and less possible to balance outcomes the more of them you have, and with a focus on quantity over quality, the high end quality tends to go down (short of exploits and fun bugs picking up the slack)
Balancing around explicit unit types in an open world game based around exploration and adaptation seems a bit silly. Why would I want to pick anything but a decent all-around style build when I could be attacked by anything? If I know what I'm going to come up against, haven't I trivialized the game somewhat? And then you have the extra problem of mixed groups possibly being overwhelming unless you happened to have the right combination of items
Unless of course, the bonus or penalty is trivial and I can safely ignore your entire customization system
Likes:
Aphaz
That is why you bring an Anti-Armor option, be it a secondary weapon, grenade, ability, or an anti-armor alt-fire. Its called being prepared.
If the person is so wholly unprepared then they should deal with a tough fight and have to look for flaws in the targets defense, because no defense offers absolute coverage or effectiveness. If the option is present they should withdraw and come back with an anti-armor option.
If the person is so wholly unprepared then they should deal with a tough fight and have to look for flaws in the targets defense, because no defense offers absolute coverage or effectiveness. If the option is present they should withdraw and come back with an anti-armor option.
Likes:
Demigan
@ Demigan & Col. Kernel...ur rly funny u know that (No Offence Ment, or NoM for short)...we're talking about a spiritual successor to FF, y'know...i for one would love to have the old classes back (A/B/D/E/R...and yes, i know we get 1 omniframe). i started in OB so i missed some things CBT had, same as the ppl that started at launch missed something from OB...but what u both suggesting (if i'm getting it right) has nothing to do with it...
i can understand that most ppl would like "it all & want it now...(insert music clip )" but that just gets ruined as soon as some1 "does the math for the most optimal load out" and then the copy/paste-preconstructed-bestestest load out race begins.
FF had it right, it just lacked (4 example) variety as far as customizable abilities went (tons of different extra parts and little/no use for them).
so, you are not rly helping this discussion as much as gunning for the "math approach", imho. characters in FF had a sort of freedom not seen in other mmos precisely because each frame had it's own area of expertise, so to speak, and i'd hate to see (for expample) a dread carrying a sniper rifle, and so on as all that makes is it brings "the math approach" i dislike in most players/games these days.
i agree with you about different enemy types, that's where FF lost most of it's potential, but "1 frame load out to rule them all" would, imho do even more damage...and, i get what you are sayin, you're just going the wrong way about it, again, imho
i can understand that most ppl would like "it all & want it now...(insert music clip
)" but that just gets ruined as soon as some1 "does the math for the most optimal load out" and then the copy/paste-preconstructed-bestestest load out race begins.FF had it right, it just lacked (4 example) variety as far as customizable abilities went (tons of different extra parts and little/no use for them).
so, you are not rly helping this discussion as much as gunning for the "math approach", imho. characters in FF had a sort of freedom not seen in other mmos precisely because each frame had it's own area of expertise, so to speak, and i'd hate to see (for expample) a dread carrying a sniper rifle, and so on as all that makes is it brings "the math approach" i dislike in most players/games these days.
i agree with you about different enemy types, that's where FF lost most of it's potential, but "1 frame load out to rule them all" would, imho do even more damage...and, i get what you are sayin, you're just going the wrong way about it, again, imho
I'm not talking about any math or number crunching, either.
I'm talking about a high level theory of the types of roles in an MMORPG, and how and why they might, or might not, be practical to apply to a shooter with horizontal progression.
People keep ignoring what I am talking about and talking about what THEY want to talk about. It's possible that some poster's have problems understanding a purely abstract thought, no offense to anyone. Different people's minds work in different ways.
I don't want to talk about how you think a specific character archetype, classless or classed, should be designed. Not in this thread anyway. I don't care about your ideas for how the mobs should respond, or adaptable abilities or any of 10,000 other things. Read the green and get back to me. Or go start your own thread, I'll probably be more than happy to respond on topic in there.
@Beemann: glad u got the idea..totally agree with you
@Col. Kernel: you missed my point, but nvm. as u said different minds work in different ways. peace
@Col. Kernel: you missed my point, but nvm. as u said different minds work in different ways. peace
Part of the problem with the trinity is that it's based off of very old and primitive game engines that have very strict limits on how players interact with their world. The only things you encountered in, say, Everquest, were either friendly NPCs, or hostile mobs, and you had ONE answer to all hostile mobs: kill them.
Things aren't so boxed in anymore. They don't need to be.
My next issue is with the aging concept of "agro." bottom line is: the player on top of a specified chart gets targeted. No questions. Problem is, this is very binary, un-intuitive, and constricting. It forces devs to design some characters that are "supposed to be" on top of the chart and those that aren't. The gameplay's been scripted out before we make a single choice. It also leads to the invariable creation of "taunts." Let me pull back the curtain on 'taunts' for a moment:
They're fake damage. That's it. A taunt is literally nothing more than a cut in line at the agro office.
It's a sorry excuse for characters to exist which sport neither mobility nor firepower, trading them all for "survivability" or "utility." If that STILL makes perfect sense to you, think about this: what's the point of having a character who's slow and hits like a (relative) toddler in a game where firepower and mobility are the inevitably singular keys to victory? If you answered "so the other guys can be careless and forego all defense to hog all the glory," you are correct. As long as your goal is to deplete a lifebar while evading attempts to do the same to you, damage and mobility WILL be the final word, regardless of all player options.
Firefall was in a position to address this old conundrum; it failed. Now Ember is in that same position.
"Roles" don't need to be planned out; they need to be functions that emerge as part of player response to the environment and available technology. In a game that plans to espouse horizontal progression above all, this is critically important in my mind. It's made all the more practical and effective if you design an interactive world with objects, devices, terrain and creatures that can be interacted with--nay, DEMAND interaction in more ways than just shooting them. I know it's a 'shooter MMO' but if there are no other goals in the game besides shooting and moving fast, then no other roles will emerge; no matter how many character options we get, we will inevitably be stuck with 3-4 "roles" while everything in between gets laughed at or shouted down as "sub-optimal."
I've seen it countless times in countless games: if damage per second is the bottom line, you really have one role--damage. If there are things that can kill you faster than you kill them, then you get role two--tanks. You'll only get three if you force the game down a very specific pacing, since 'healers' don't really deplete enemy lifebars and are thus dead weight in battles that don't last long and don't threaten much damage. The fourth role, the buffer-debuffer, is completely superfluous unless, again, the game is forced into a very specific pacing by enemy lifebars and damage output.
Now, when enemies aren't the only thing we have to respond to, THAT'S when things actually get interesting and real "roles" start to show up. THAT'S what I'm hoping to see in Ember.
Things aren't so boxed in anymore. They don't need to be.
My next issue is with the aging concept of "agro." bottom line is: the player on top of a specified chart gets targeted. No questions. Problem is, this is very binary, un-intuitive, and constricting. It forces devs to design some characters that are "supposed to be" on top of the chart and those that aren't. The gameplay's been scripted out before we make a single choice. It also leads to the invariable creation of "taunts." Let me pull back the curtain on 'taunts' for a moment:
They're fake damage. That's it. A taunt is literally nothing more than a cut in line at the agro office.
It's a sorry excuse for characters to exist which sport neither mobility nor firepower, trading them all for "survivability" or "utility." If that STILL makes perfect sense to you, think about this: what's the point of having a character who's slow and hits like a (relative) toddler in a game where firepower and mobility are the inevitably singular keys to victory? If you answered "so the other guys can be careless and forego all defense to hog all the glory," you are correct. As long as your goal is to deplete a lifebar while evading attempts to do the same to you, damage and mobility WILL be the final word, regardless of all player options.
Firefall was in a position to address this old conundrum; it failed. Now Ember is in that same position.
"Roles" don't need to be planned out; they need to be functions that emerge as part of player response to the environment and available technology. In a game that plans to espouse horizontal progression above all, this is critically important in my mind. It's made all the more practical and effective if you design an interactive world with objects, devices, terrain and creatures that can be interacted with--nay, DEMAND interaction in more ways than just shooting them. I know it's a 'shooter MMO' but if there are no other goals in the game besides shooting and moving fast, then no other roles will emerge; no matter how many character options we get, we will inevitably be stuck with 3-4 "roles" while everything in between gets laughed at or shouted down as "sub-optimal."
I've seen it countless times in countless games: if damage per second is the bottom line, you really have one role--damage. If there are things that can kill you faster than you kill them, then you get role two--tanks. You'll only get three if you force the game down a very specific pacing, since 'healers' don't really deplete enemy lifebars and are thus dead weight in battles that don't last long and don't threaten much damage. The fourth role, the buffer-debuffer, is completely superfluous unless, again, the game is forced into a very specific pacing by enemy lifebars and damage output.
Now, when enemies aren't the only thing we have to respond to, THAT'S when things actually get interesting and real "roles" start to show up. THAT'S what I'm hoping to see in Ember.
Last edited:
Likes:
Sik San
Roles could be applied or you could go the way of Hellgate: London and have no healer but use potions and skills to mitigate damage and reduce incoming damage. It is really about how you want the player to behave. Do you want to reward players who are good at evading enemy fire to create a twitch-like shooter where the different frames merely represent different costumes with maybe one or two unique skills or do the frames have innate stat differences?
Now we get to details.
Are all weapon types available immediately? What's the ammo situation on weapons? What are the restrictions on abilities? How do these match up against frequency of enemies? The system you're defending is possibly the most restrictive one suggested thus far
Are you expecting good hitboxes in an mmofps with what will likely be a limited budget? Additionally if there's a viable exploit in enemy defenses why wouldn't I just use that every time? What use have I for specialized weapons that I don't really need?
Are all weapon types available immediately? What's the ammo situation on weapons? What are the restrictions on abilities? How do these match up against frequency of enemies? The system you're defending is possibly the most restrictive one suggested thus far
Are you expecting good hitboxes in an mmofps with what will likely be a limited budget? Additionally if there's a viable exploit in enemy defenses why wouldn't I just use that every time? What use have I for specialized weapons that I don't really need?
I defend the system because it has depth in it. It means that there are more knobs to tweak to get a good balance. It means that you can have a wide range of different weapons yet each of those weapons has a purpose, a role, in a players arsenal besides it shoots different. It allows a variety of mobs to be designed that have a variety of defenses and each offer a different challenge that can be overcome without simply being a block of HP running around.
What it also means is that a player who is prepared will have a much easier time dealing with a situation where that weakspot I talked about could be in a position where you would need someone to flank it to hit. Such as the Shield Crawler in Firefall.
The system has already proven itself to be effective, just take a look at the Borderlands series which is designed around multiple defensive types and the elements that counter them as well as weakspot vulnerabilities. It is considered one of the more addicting shooter games thanks to its inclusion of diablo-esque mechanics and approach to loot.
Now if you really want to get into nitty gritty details we could talk about how armored enemies show up in farther off zones and just like in the Borderlands series. In addition (just like in the Borderlands series) the players can receive both warnings about mobs spotted in a given section of the map and a tutorial lesson about the various defenses and the means to counter them. Then it is up to the players initiative to arm themselves properly.
It is up to the player to go seek out the options. If they do not then they will be in for a rude awakening and maybe a destroyed THMPR which will get them to go outfit themselves properly.
Availability? The plan is to have a robust crafting system, and anti-armor options can be made with basic materials found in areas where armored creatures are not there so that they can prepare for thumping in that zone full of armored creatures. There can also be anti-armor consumables one can get from vendors.
Restrictions on abilities? That depends on how you balance your frame build.
How frequent are the enemies? That can depend on the area, the weather, and whether the enemy is nocturnal or not.
Why should you use these specialized options instead of just going for the weakspots? It makes your job easier when you got a THMPR to protect and do not have the luxury of dancing with each individual armored/shielded mob one at a time when you got a swarm barreling down on the THMPR.
What it also means is that a player who is prepared will have a much easier time dealing with a situation where that weakspot I talked about could be in a position where you would need someone to flank it to hit. Such as the Shield Crawler in Firefall.
The system has already proven itself to be effective, just take a look at the Borderlands series which is designed around multiple defensive types and the elements that counter them as well as weakspot vulnerabilities. It is considered one of the more addicting shooter games thanks to its inclusion of diablo-esque mechanics and approach to loot.
Now if you really want to get into nitty gritty details we could talk about how armored enemies show up in farther off zones and just like in the Borderlands series. In addition (just like in the Borderlands series) the players can receive both warnings about mobs spotted in a given section of the map and a tutorial lesson about the various defenses and the means to counter them. Then it is up to the players initiative to arm themselves properly.
It is up to the player to go seek out the options. If they do not then they will be in for a rude awakening and maybe a destroyed THMPR which will get them to go outfit themselves properly.
Availability? The plan is to have a robust crafting system, and anti-armor options can be made with basic materials found in areas where armored creatures are not there so that they can prepare for thumping in that zone full of armored creatures. There can also be anti-armor consumables one can get from vendors.
Restrictions on abilities? That depends on how you balance your frame build.
How frequent are the enemies? That can depend on the area, the weather, and whether the enemy is nocturnal or not.
Why should you use these specialized options instead of just going for the weakspots? It makes your job easier when you got a THMPR to protect and do not have the luxury of dancing with each individual armored/shielded mob one at a time when you got a swarm barreling down on the THMPR.
Likes:
Demigan
Square peg in square hole is not, and never will be, depth
From a developer end, yes, there are more factors. That doesn't mean there will be good balance (ever) or that the game has more depth from a player standpoint. Additionally, a small company struggling to regain goodwill should not pursue a quantity over quality method of development, which is exactly what you're advocating.
What's been described previously is purely stats based. Anything regarding actual weapon handling is just something you're adding to the discussion. Weapon differentiation needn't be tied to a tired resistances and weaknesses system
Except the punishment is HP blocking, and the challenge is "do you have thing?", which isn't actually a challenge at all, it's simply a gear check
1. Preparation being what in terms of challenge? A grind to get the right equipment? Or a quick trip to the forums or a wiki page?
2. I don't know if you remember or not, but FireFall's hit detection was not exactly the greatest. Even if Ember 's is better though, why would I bother getting a specialized weapon when enemies have Lost Planet-tier weak points that I can just shoot?
A vertical progression gear grind that is not, in any sense of the word, deep?
From the sounds of things, Ember will not be a loot driven game. Therefore emulating loot driven games is nonsensical
So your solution is to tell players where something is, what it's weak to, and hand them the solution on a platter? Something about depth and challenge?
Except if you've already told them the solution, why would they ever fail?
Okay so now it's a linear grind with no depth at the end. Congrats
That sounds incredibly new user unfriendly and incredibly minmax-y all at once
If only there were the possibility of having other players around. Maybe your experience was different, but unless I went out of my way to avoid other players, I'd end up with people wandering through dive bombing shit while I as thumping. Not to mention the fact that the frequency for weak spots appearing in pretty much every game that has them is quite high. On the flip side, if I go to your high armor zones and have all anti armor weapons, where's the challenge? By crafting I've just made the game simpler and less challenging, rather than just increasing the scope of my excursions
On the flip side, you could make it such that weapons fill different roles naturally. A shotgun is not a machinegun is not a rocket launcher is not a mortar. You could also necessitate crafting to improve supply lines by making scarcity an actual factor. Not only could areas be temporarily mined out, but your abilities could be based on a resource. Certain spots on theap might have crashed ships or abandoned/capturable bases that you can use to resupply, but getting into the deep shit requires a concentrated effort by players, and smart resource management and snappy shooting by scouts and builders in order to succeed. Instead of having binary options for enemy healthpools, create enemies with simple behaviours that become dangerous in concert. Near the start you get an enemy that shoots at you with a slow projectile, but a later enemy can slow you, or tries to melee you and forces you to pick your positioning more carefully when paired with the first enemy. You might decide on a high single target damage load out to pick out the problem enemy and eliminate them, or you might pick something AOE focused and try to group them up. You might decide to go short range to maximize your chance of hitting, or go long range and hope to end the fight before it starts. All of these are open and intuitive systems that can apply a lot of depth with relatively few factors if handled well, and they can take the strain of expansion a lot better than binary choices ever could
That's one of many solutions to the issue of differentiated roles that doesn't require unbalanceable hyperspecialization or square peg square hole decisions
From a developer end, yes, there are more factors. That doesn't mean there will be good balance (ever) or that the game has more depth from a player standpoint. Additionally, a small company struggling to regain goodwill should not pursue a quantity over quality method of development, which is exactly what you're advocating.
What's been described previously is purely stats based. Anything regarding actual weapon handling is just something you're adding to the discussion. Weapon differentiation needn't be tied to a tired resistances and weaknesses system
Except the punishment is HP blocking, and the challenge is "do you have thing?", which isn't actually a challenge at all, it's simply a gear check
1. Preparation being what in terms of challenge? A grind to get the right equipment? Or a quick trip to the forums or a wiki page?
2. I don't know if you remember or not, but FireFall's hit detection was not exactly the greatest. Even if Ember 's is better though, why would I bother getting a specialized weapon when enemies have Lost Planet-tier weak points that I can just shoot?
A vertical progression gear grind that is not, in any sense of the word, deep?
From the sounds of things, Ember will not be a loot driven game. Therefore emulating loot driven games is nonsensical
So your solution is to tell players where something is, what it's weak to, and hand them the solution on a platter? Something about depth and challenge?
Except if you've already told them the solution, why would they ever fail?
Okay so now it's a linear grind with no depth at the end. Congrats
That sounds incredibly new user unfriendly and incredibly minmax-y all at once
If only there were the possibility of having other players around. Maybe your experience was different, but unless I went out of my way to avoid other players, I'd end up with people wandering through dive bombing shit while I as thumping. Not to mention the fact that the frequency for weak spots appearing in pretty much every game that has them is quite high. On the flip side, if I go to your high armor zones and have all anti armor weapons, where's the challenge? By crafting I've just made the game simpler and less challenging, rather than just increasing the scope of my excursions
On the flip side, you could make it such that weapons fill different roles naturally. A shotgun is not a machinegun is not a rocket launcher is not a mortar. You could also necessitate crafting to improve supply lines by making scarcity an actual factor. Not only could areas be temporarily mined out, but your abilities could be based on a resource. Certain spots on theap might have crashed ships or abandoned/capturable bases that you can use to resupply, but getting into the deep shit requires a concentrated effort by players, and smart resource management and snappy shooting by scouts and builders in order to succeed. Instead of having binary options for enemy healthpools, create enemies with simple behaviours that become dangerous in concert. Near the start you get an enemy that shoots at you with a slow projectile, but a later enemy can slow you, or tries to melee you and forces you to pick your positioning more carefully when paired with the first enemy. You might decide on a high single target damage load out to pick out the problem enemy and eliminate them, or you might pick something AOE focused and try to group them up. You might decide to go short range to maximize your chance of hitting, or go long range and hope to end the fight before it starts. All of these are open and intuitive systems that can apply a lot of depth with relatively few factors if handled well, and they can take the strain of expansion a lot better than binary choices ever could
That's one of many solutions to the issue of differentiated roles that doesn't require unbalanceable hyperspecialization or square peg square hole decisions
Hey beeman instead of dismantling a response into tiny bits so you can throw an argument at each of them how about you actually just respond to it in full?
Because the way you do it angers me and each time makes me think you just want everything to be simple, lack any form of depth, and should not in any way try to take lessons or ideas from games that since Firefall have proven a number of systems to work. Oh also like in the recoil thread be perfect accuracy and highly abusable for aimbotting.
By the way, if the enemy does not have different defensive options of their own that requires different responses of their own then AoE becomes the answer to everything. On the developer side HP becomes the only answer to AoE. Thus we just get right back to where Firefall was. Everyone just runs maximum AoE. Because your option does not fix the "binary" enemy health pools. It makes the problem worse, it simplifies combat. Players do not need to think about an engagement, they simply need enough AoE and enough ammo to scrub everything off the planet systematically.
Further weapon design does fill different roles naturally. However when the enemy design does not call for anything different it wont matter. People will just use what eliminates the most generic squishy mobs at once. Just like in Firefall.
Oh and that
comment? Let me point something out:
If you do not TEACH players anything, do not give them adequate warning all they will do is complain that things are OP. Because they would rather not think at all if they can. They will just beg, and beg, and beg, for the developer to change it so they automatically win.
Because the way you do it angers me and each time makes me think you just want everything to be simple, lack any form of depth, and should not in any way try to take lessons or ideas from games that since Firefall have proven a number of systems to work. Oh also like in the recoil thread be perfect accuracy and highly abusable for aimbotting.
By the way, if the enemy does not have different defensive options of their own that requires different responses of their own then AoE becomes the answer to everything. On the developer side HP becomes the only answer to AoE. Thus we just get right back to where Firefall was. Everyone just runs maximum AoE. Because your option does not fix the "binary" enemy health pools. It makes the problem worse, it simplifies combat. Players do not need to think about an engagement, they simply need enough AoE and enough ammo to scrub everything off the planet systematically.
Further weapon design does fill different roles naturally. However when the enemy design does not call for anything different it wont matter. People will just use what eliminates the most generic squishy mobs at once. Just like in Firefall.
Oh and that
comment? Let me point something out:
If you do not TEACH players anything, do not give them adequate warning all they will do is complain that things are OP. Because they would rather not think at all if they can. They will just beg, and beg, and beg, for the developer to change it so they automatically win.
Last edited:
Likes:
Wintersiege and OziriusSVK
It's not a false dichotomy, it's simple logic (which is exactly what a dichotomy is).
You don't seem to understand the concept. By moving away from archetypes and making sure each loadout is geared against (in this example) 3 enemy unit types but each in the form of a different role (DPS, tanking, debuff) you can have far more viable loadouts than with a rigid archetype structure.
Where in FireFall the Biotech was a healer and DOT specialist, it could hardly swap roles into a DPS tank like the Dreadnaught. With this new system you could, but it would be based on the enemy composition combined with your loadout instead of a set role you'll have no matter how the fight goes. With my system, the medic could one moment be healing, then be fulfilling the DPS role, then tank, then become a debuffer. These roles would all be cycled through as the enemy composition changes (IE you murder them).
And that's just not something the core archetypes can offer as you seem to propose them.
With my system, each separate option in the loadout needs to be balanced against the unit it's good against... And that's it. Since the system would be build to prevent using a weapon and ability aimed at destroying armored units you can't have an OP combination. You also wouldn't have a problem with "one-size-fits-all" loadouts, since any loadout you pick would leave you vulnerable against a few other enemy unit types. That's not to say it's impossible to overcome as long as you play solo encounters, but the moment you play team encounters (like the T.H.M.P.R.) you'd better mix and match loadouts with your allies before beginning, because it turn into a nasty fight if you find out there's a unit type no one is good against between your enemies.
It would become a more difficult fight. There's half a dozen ways you could do this btw. If you have a weapon that's bad against a particular unit type, let's say armored unit, then you get reduced damage against that target. But there is always the possibility of keeping one or two small weakspots on the enemy that you can exploit for normal/increased damage.
If you have a weapon that's "normal" against armored units you could have next to no damage reduction and two or three weakspots on the enemy you can exploit, or the weakspots might be somewhat bigger.
If you have a weapon that's designed against armored units you not only have some bonus damage for hitting them normally, but hitting specific spots of the target will create weakspots there for your allies to shoot and kill the target more quickly.
That's just one way, just like having a trinity system can be done in half a dozen ways.
You didn't understand a word of what I said!
My point was that the skill-ceiling and skill-floor aren't necessarily based on the archetypes/hybridization/whatever class/loadout system you invented, they are based on the actual mechanics that you create inside your game.
Look at Firefall, the skill-floor and skill-ceiling have been going up and down a lot depending on the way the classes worked. With the vertical progression the skill-floor and skill-ceiling got lower and lower the higher your level became, allowing you to engage more dangerous opponents because it took you less time and skill to murder them.
Or how about when those charging lizard-things were OP as hell? At some point I had an army that could do two Heavy thumpers at the same time anywhere... Except in any area where those charging lizard-things were running around, there we could barely fill a single medium thumper half-full before having to send it away or it would get destroyed. The skill-ceiling changed purely because the enemy had a mechanic, health and DPS that just wasn't possible to handle with the tools and mechanics available to the players.
Ergo: It's the tools and mechanics that the players and the AI have at their disposal that determine the skill-ceiling and skill-floor. The archetypes can ofcourse change the skill-floor and skill-ceiling for understanding what everything can do.
And as I already pointed out, my system only has to balance each weapon and ability separately, rather than every weapon, ability and armor available to each separate class. That last part is much harder than just "make sure this weapon does not outperform the other weapons in it's class".
Because everything would be an all-round style build, they would just be geared against different unit types and have weaknesses and strengths. This doesn't mean you are instantly screwed when engaging a unit type you aren't strong against, it can increase the skill level and difficulty required, but since every other loadout would have the same "problem" during solo encounters/exploration and have to adapt to the situation by changing their playstyle it would just be part of the solo experience. Group experiences would be based on making sure the loadouts are all complementing eachother, this prevents groups from having 5 players with the exact same loadout, which you see just about everywhere else and creates much more stale gameplay overall.
So in short: The experience of each playthrough changes every time depending on the enemies you encounter and the loadout you had selected. This gives a massive range of possibilities and choices without any being inferior compared to other choices.
You treat it as one's and zero's. Either it's trivial, or it'll completely stomp you into the ground. Do you really think there's no gray area?
And the point of my system would be to throw as many different unit-types against it. As I already explained in I think my first post, you wouldn't be fighting primarily aranha or lizard things if you choose to fight somewhere, you would be fighting a mixture of different enemy types (which could potentially still belong to a single race), so at no point would it be cookie-cutter clear what kind of loadout you should have to pick.
And imagine if you pick a loadout that's not primarily suited against all the enemy targets you encounter... Then you can still use your ability/armor 'normally' against units that your weapon is bad against (if that one is present), use your weapon and armor normally against the units that your ability is bad against, and use your ability and weapon normally against the unit your armor is bad against. because you can't min/max your loadout you can't stab yourself in the foot if you meet a unit that's strong against your chosen loadout!
You don't seem to understand the concept. By moving away from archetypes and making sure each loadout is geared against (in this example) 3 enemy unit types but each in the form of a different role (DPS, tanking, debuff) you can have far more viable loadouts than with a rigid archetype structure.
Where in FireFall the Biotech was a healer and DOT specialist, it could hardly swap roles into a DPS tank like the Dreadnaught. With this new system you could, but it would be based on the enemy composition combined with your loadout instead of a set role you'll have no matter how the fight goes. With my system, the medic could one moment be healing, then be fulfilling the DPS role, then tank, then become a debuffer. These roles would all be cycled through as the enemy composition changes (IE you murder them).
And that's just not something the core archetypes can offer as you seem to propose them.
With my system, each separate option in the loadout needs to be balanced against the unit it's good against... And that's it. Since the system would be build to prevent using a weapon and ability aimed at destroying armored units you can't have an OP combination. You also wouldn't have a problem with "one-size-fits-all" loadouts, since any loadout you pick would leave you vulnerable against a few other enemy unit types. That's not to say it's impossible to overcome as long as you play solo encounters, but the moment you play team encounters (like the T.H.M.P.R.) you'd better mix and match loadouts with your allies before beginning, because it turn into a nasty fight if you find out there's a unit type no one is good against between your enemies.
It would become a more difficult fight. There's half a dozen ways you could do this btw. If you have a weapon that's bad against a particular unit type, let's say armored unit, then you get reduced damage against that target. But there is always the possibility of keeping one or two small weakspots on the enemy that you can exploit for normal/increased damage.
If you have a weapon that's "normal" against armored units you could have next to no damage reduction and two or three weakspots on the enemy you can exploit, or the weakspots might be somewhat bigger.
If you have a weapon that's designed against armored units you not only have some bonus damage for hitting them normally, but hitting specific spots of the target will create weakspots there for your allies to shoot and kill the target more quickly.
That's just one way, just like having a trinity system can be done in half a dozen ways.
You didn't understand a word of what I said!
My point was that the skill-ceiling and skill-floor aren't necessarily based on the archetypes/hybridization/whatever class/loadout system you invented, they are based on the actual mechanics that you create inside your game.
Look at Firefall, the skill-floor and skill-ceiling have been going up and down a lot depending on the way the classes worked. With the vertical progression the skill-floor and skill-ceiling got lower and lower the higher your level became, allowing you to engage more dangerous opponents because it took you less time and skill to murder them.
Or how about when those charging lizard-things were OP as hell? At some point I had an army that could do two Heavy thumpers at the same time anywhere... Except in any area where those charging lizard-things were running around, there we could barely fill a single medium thumper half-full before having to send it away or it would get destroyed. The skill-ceiling changed purely because the enemy had a mechanic, health and DPS that just wasn't possible to handle with the tools and mechanics available to the players.
Ergo: It's the tools and mechanics that the players and the AI have at their disposal that determine the skill-ceiling and skill-floor. The archetypes can ofcourse change the skill-floor and skill-ceiling for understanding what everything can do.
And as I already pointed out, my system only has to balance each weapon and ability separately, rather than every weapon, ability and armor available to each separate class. That last part is much harder than just "make sure this weapon does not outperform the other weapons in it's class".
Because everything would be an all-round style build, they would just be geared against different unit types and have weaknesses and strengths. This doesn't mean you are instantly screwed when engaging a unit type you aren't strong against, it can increase the skill level and difficulty required, but since every other loadout would have the same "problem" during solo encounters/exploration and have to adapt to the situation by changing their playstyle it would just be part of the solo experience. Group experiences would be based on making sure the loadouts are all complementing eachother, this prevents groups from having 5 players with the exact same loadout, which you see just about everywhere else and creates much more stale gameplay overall.
So in short: The experience of each playthrough changes every time depending on the enemies you encounter and the loadout you had selected. This gives a massive range of possibilities and choices without any being inferior compared to other choices.
You treat it as one's and zero's. Either it's trivial, or it'll completely stomp you into the ground. Do you really think there's no gray area?
And the point of my system would be to throw as many different unit-types against it. As I already explained in I think my first post, you wouldn't be fighting primarily aranha or lizard things if you choose to fight somewhere, you would be fighting a mixture of different enemy types (which could potentially still belong to a single race), so at no point would it be cookie-cutter clear what kind of loadout you should have to pick.
And imagine if you pick a loadout that's not primarily suited against all the enemy targets you encounter... Then you can still use your ability/armor 'normally' against units that your weapon is bad against (if that one is present), use your weapon and armor normally against the units that your ability is bad against, and use your ability and weapon normally against the unit your armor is bad against. because you can't min/max your loadout you can't stab yourself in the foot if you meet a unit that's strong against your chosen loadout!
Had a reply to this, but had to bail on it due to character count (1k character limit? C'mon Grummz, what is this casual garbage?)
That's what I'd do anyway, just in paragraph form. This is better formatting and ultimately I do respond to your whole post
Having clear and easy to access responses is now advocating lack of depth? Sorry but that sounds incredibly dumb to me
Also re: systems that work
Which systems? How are we defining "Working"? The only game you've referenced so far is Borderlands, which is not what I'd call a deep game by any stretch, and is also based around a loot and level grind, while Ember wont be. Simply saying "but other games did it" or throwing out a game name doesn't lend credibility to your argument
Defensive options != RPS defensive stats. I've already described a system that factors this in
You can also limit weapon usage on the weapon itself, in addition to designing encounters better
The system you described is based around square peg -> square hole. You then said you have to explicitly tell the user what is weak to which damage type. Given that the only "skill based" process so far is having the weapon available, what does this system add by giving you the solution to the "puzzle" when it explains the existence of the system?
Turning a gradient from no options to "a plethora" of options into "zero options or my way" is a false dichotomy. Sorry
Don't mistake disagreement for misunderstanding
Are the damage types not ultimately archetypes? If I cant carry all 3, then my output is ultimately based off of what role I play in combat w.r.t. what enemies I should fight to achieve max efficiency.
As far as I'm aware, the plan is to have a similar system in Ember, whereby there are distinct roles. What the OP and I both suggested was making the roles hybridized so that everyone needs to take part in direct combat, which ultimately makes encounter balance easier
They also have to be balanced against units they're not good against, assuming the damage value is not 0. They also have to be balanced against other weapons of the same category just like in the current system. Are the enemy types pallette swaps? Because if they arent that becomes a balancing factor as well. If red units are big and slow and blue units are small and fast, having slow weapons to fight blue units is worse than having fast weapons to fight red units
More HP doesnt always equate to more difficulty, but it does inevitably move firmly into tedium. I'd like to avoid a combat system based on tedium-as-motivation, thanks
Do you not remember how hard FF could shit the bed when it came to hitboxes? Do you really want to try that shit again with a smaller team that has less cash?
Except this thread is about not having a trinity system, not creating a trinity system with damage
The details of roles and the weapons you create *are* the mechanics
Firefall had vertical progression, Ember is not planned to
If it wasn't possible to deal with them they didn't increase the skill ceiling
I do lots of damage or I do a little damage is not a massive range of possibilities.
Not when you have to balance for groups and individuals, no. And it's more of a difference between tedium and pointlessness
There will still be differences in frequency of enemies, unless all encounters are designed to have a 1:1:1 ratio of enemy types. There will also be differences in difficulty when fighting those enemies, unless they're all pallette swaps
You can always minmax in games without predefined loadouts, and fighting against enemies that you do a fraction of your normal damage to is always going to be a disadvantage unless you make the difference small enough that it wouldn't matter anyway
That's what I'd do anyway, just in paragraph form. This is better formatting and ultimately I do respond to your whole post
Having clear and easy to access responses is now advocating lack of depth? Sorry but that sounds incredibly dumb to me
Also re: systems that work
Which systems? How are we defining "Working"? The only game you've referenced so far is Borderlands, which is not what I'd call a deep game by any stretch, and is also based around a loot and level grind, while Ember wont be. Simply saying "but other games did it" or throwing out a game name doesn't lend credibility to your argument
Defensive options != RPS defensive stats. I've already described a system that factors this in
You can also limit weapon usage on the weapon itself, in addition to designing encounters better
The system you described is based around square peg -> square hole. You then said you have to explicitly tell the user what is weak to which damage type. Given that the only "skill based" process so far is having the weapon available, what does this system add by giving you the solution to the "puzzle" when it explains the existence of the system?
Turning a gradient from no options to "a plethora" of options into "zero options or my way" is a false dichotomy. Sorry
Don't mistake disagreement for misunderstanding
Are the damage types not ultimately archetypes? If I cant carry all 3, then my output is ultimately based off of what role I play in combat w.r.t. what enemies I should fight to achieve max efficiency.
As far as I'm aware, the plan is to have a similar system in Ember, whereby there are distinct roles. What the OP and I both suggested was making the roles hybridized so that everyone needs to take part in direct combat, which ultimately makes encounter balance easier
They also have to be balanced against units they're not good against, assuming the damage value is not 0. They also have to be balanced against other weapons of the same category just like in the current system. Are the enemy types pallette swaps? Because if they arent that becomes a balancing factor as well. If red units are big and slow and blue units are small and fast, having slow weapons to fight blue units is worse than having fast weapons to fight red units
More HP doesnt always equate to more difficulty, but it does inevitably move firmly into tedium. I'd like to avoid a combat system based on tedium-as-motivation, thanks
Do you not remember how hard FF could shit the bed when it came to hitboxes? Do you really want to try that shit again with a smaller team that has less cash?
Except this thread is about not having a trinity system, not creating a trinity system with damage
The details of roles and the weapons you create *are* the mechanics
Firefall had vertical progression, Ember is not planned to
If it wasn't possible to deal with them they didn't increase the skill ceiling
I do lots of damage or I do a little damage is not a massive range of possibilities.
Not when you have to balance for groups and individuals, no. And it's more of a difference between tedium and pointlessness
There will still be differences in frequency of enemies, unless all encounters are designed to have a 1:1:1 ratio of enemy types. There will also be differences in difficulty when fighting those enemies, unless they're all pallette swaps
You can always minmax in games without predefined loadouts, and fighting against enemies that you do a fraction of your normal damage to is always going to be a disadvantage unless you make the difference small enough that it wouldn't matter anyway