Discussion: Energy/Mana, Cooldowns, or something else?

[EvilKitten]

@TankHunter678 I would really shy away from promoting the solo "one man can do everything" aproach. I would rather see groups forced to specialize in order to bring a mix into a fight. Allowing a single player to bring everything needed to a fight is bad for team play. Remove that and you are forced to either increase the number of mobs or scale up their HP/Damage to compensate for a full team all having the weapons best capable for the encounter.

EDIT: What I mean is, I think we should only have a single main weapon attack, a much weaker alternate fire, a backup pistol if our main weapon runs out of ammo and a melee weapon for close in fighting.

 

[TankHunter678]

@TankHunter678 I would really shy away from promoting the solo "one man can do everything" aproach. I would rather see groups forced to specialize in order to bring a mix into a fight. Allowing a single player to bring everything needed to a fight is bad for team play. Remove that and you are forced to either increase the number of mobs or scale up their HP/Damage to compensate for a full team all having the weapons best capable for the encounter.

EDIT: What I mean is, I think we should only have a single main weapon attack, a much weaker alternate fire, a backup pistol if our main weapon runs out of ammo and a melee weapon for close in fighting.

My honest opinion is what you are saying would kill off a lot of weapon customization. People would just look for weapons that do everything enough to get through things and then not bother.

After all if they only got 1 actually useful weapon they may as well make it counter everything (to some degree). Or we wind up with mob design built around that. Then we get back to the problem you just mentioned. They have to increase the number of mobs and/or scale up their HP/damage to compensate for a full team all having the weapons best capable for any encounter imaginable.

Instead of you know, having a wide range of mobs that force some preparation and flexibility with strong defenses against one thing or another.


The problem that you are ultimately most concerned about is team play. Majorly limiting weapons wont promote more team play. What it does promote is meta weapons that do everything by themselves. As well as promote simplified enemy design.

Mob design, and encounter design, should naturally encourage more team play. If a person is not prepared for a mob type there should be some weakness that can be exploited, but is vastly easier to exploit with the help of another person.

Also, even in MMOs you got a large group of people who wont have others around at all times to help them. They need to have some flexibility to be able to do some content on their own. If its one of those games where you absolutely have to have other people around to help you a massive chunk of potential player base is instantly lost. They wont try it because they wont have anyone to play it with them and help them. They wont try it because they have been burned by so many other games that do that and expect another troll infested wasteland where people do everything they can to get in each others way for fun.


I promote a flexible system that should reward people for being prepared. Regardless if they are trying to do content by themselves, or with a group. They should succeed or fail based on their skills, and preparation is one of those skills.

 

[EvilKitten]

I think the point is to make it so that no one weapon design can counter everything...or they can stick with the base assault rifle which would be the jack of all trades but not really do anything very well. You won't get very far that way, or at least you shouldn't. Elswhere I mentioned having the difficulty curve being like a target around our bases, the further away you get the more specialized the group will need to be to survive. Solo play would be right around the base while group play would be further afield.

 

[Kouyioue]

If anything, let soloists become a minority, an unintended game-buyer. This game will be an MMO, right? Any person who is skilled enough in their class would be able to solo anyways, but it shouldn't (at all!!) be efficient

Now for the video I posted above, what I'm trying to get at is that it would( in reality), and should be at least frowned upon a little when attempting to "one-man-army" a battalion of armed alien infantry.

The reason I didn't choose mana or enegry is because that gives people too many opportunities to just stack buffs, title abilities, and cash shop items to get near infinite ammo..... Realistic cooldowns would be fun though ! ! If the classes were specialized enough that you can't simply solo everything without getting your ass handed to you for not being skilled enough to abuse your class xD

EDIT: Orange and Green highlighter to avoid high postcount

 

[TankHunter678]

Then expect the player base to start dying off if the game puts excessive focus on group play only. Trolls love a game where you have to group up to do anything, its such a ripe breeding ground for inciting hatred and ruining peoples days. Clique players naturally shun anyone outside of their social group. People will set harsh requirements needed to be fulfilled to get into their group because if you do not fill role x then you are useless and should go look for some other group because they already have too many of your type.

Which would drive up the need for soloable content. As either you make content for the people getting shunned, or you watch your population shrink to a unsustainable small group of hardcores.

You guys are worried about a "one man army" syndrome, which we saw in Firefall after the elite ranks were put in.

Me? I just do not want solo/new/socially awkward players who have not found a group to play with get punished because of fear of a "one man army" syndrome. I do not want to see our weapons horribly limited by a fear of a "one man army" syndrome.

THMPR runs are naturally a group event. Why? Because a group makes it easier to keep the THMPR alive. Big world boss alien monsters are naturally a group event. Why? Because such enemies are so durable that it would take a single player a immensely long time to kill it. Mob design, encounter design, can easily naturally push for grouping up to make things easier.

Don't use "but its an MMO!" as an excuse to punish socially awkward people and empower exclusionists, cliques, and trolls.

There is a reason why every MMO out there designs for both solo players, and groups.

 

[Omnires]

Even in games where there are no classes or games where you can change classes at a press of a button are set up in such a way that if you truly know what you are doing you are doing you should be able to solo most of them. It is ill-advised mind up because of the time and worked needed to even try and solo, but it is still possible. And given how most Humans are like water they'll alway take the path of least resistance.

Even in games where everyone had to pick one class and stay that class. Anyone with enough mastery of the game and enough skills as a player should be able to solo things. Again it is ill-advised, but it should not be impossible.

For example. In one game I played I soloed one of the end game bosses with max attack max evasion assassin class build, it toke me 4 hours of non-stop fighting to kill him but I proved it could be done. But if I had a team of people with me we could have killed the bosses in 10 to 15 mins.

Another example. In a game where there no classes and everyone can make up their own class based on what weapons and abilities they have. It is possible for me to fight and end game dungeons and bosses solo. But it is just a lot faster and easier to take a group with you because it cuts down the amount of time and amount work needed to clear it. Even more so if the thing is time-based. It is either try and solo this thing with would take about two or three hours while eating up a lot of durability on your gear. Or go in with a group of people and only have spend about 15mins clearing it and you don't have make as many repairs on your later.

My point is, one man army or not people will tend to always pick the easier path in doing things. That is unless they or an odd person like me, who do things like try and fight end game bosses naked or in newbi gear just to see if it is possible to kill them even if talks like 9 hours to do so. lol

 

[SundownKid]

I think there's a market for solo and group events, but I think the head dev wants to make it a wargame. With that in mind, cooldowns would encourage people to time their abilities with others (like maybe a napalm gun that repels giant insects from going near a thmpr, one guy arms the gun while another uses a sound grenade, or suppressing fire) and necessitate different roles.