(Not sure this is the best section for this; mods please move if needed.)
I've been meaning to post this for a week or so. It's not directly related to CoT, but is instead a rather thorough analysis of MMO tactics applied in [i]Log Horizon[/i] (an anime about MMO players transported to a world that works similarly to the game they played, but with more realism subtly added), showing how it all developed from Agincourt on forward, and talking about common real-world MMO raid tactics on the way.
It's definitely thought-provoking, and while I doubt that CoT will have large enough raids to result in something like this, it might suggest some ideas regarding emergent behaviors given different "laws" of the game world. And maybe one day we could have operations this big. Who knows?
Click for full size. Warning: wall of walls of text.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I'm not sure that we'd ever see mass warfare in MMOs, particularly in the US market. My feeling is that 'we' wouldn't volunteer for a situation where individual success/failure is irrelevant to the success/failure of the whole. That means that small-unit dynamics would be more popular.
It seems to me, the more popular strategies in MMOs, when faced with masses of enemy, are things like 'Snipe the Keys', 'Divide and Conquer', or 'Send the Scrapper in the the Back Way'. It's not until the individual characters get especially Powerful, that we see things like 'Drop the Tanker in the Middle', or 'Pull the Whole Map'. And we don't see things like 'Blaster Novas Everything' unless 'character death' has achieved some level of irrelevance and/or Control is a major factor (such that the Nova can go off without triggering a mass-response).
It's certain that the MMO tactics discussed in that post would not work well in a real-world without 'broadcast healing',
Be Well!
Fireheart
While it would be fascinating to see this come about in MMOs, I also rather doubt that it will ever be the case. In the "real world" I'd be amazed to see such tactics or strategies used, or required, outside of single player - meaning primarily RTS - games. As Fireheart has indicated, we need look no farther than the development of raiding in WoW, or even Wildstar, to see that we'd never have the numbers for such an event. Even if it were a simple[color=red]*[/color] case of following the tactic's or strategy's dance steps, as it were, it'd likely still fall flat. Again, one need look no farther than WoW to see how much trouble people can have doing just that in 10-person raids. Now multiply the size of that raid by 10 and... yeah.
Bottom line, the entire premise runs counter to what you'd see in a real game. You'd need a handful of main characters or "heroes" in charge[color=red]**[/color] and dozens, if not hundreds, of other players willing to play a secondary role (i.e. be subservient or "cannon fodder", to make it even less palatable). In the west we've been much too well fed with "Player 1, you're our only hope!" stories.
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[color=red]*[/color] "Simple", he says. Yeah, right!
[color=red]**[/color] Let's not forget that in scripted examples like [i]Log Horizon[/i] such people tend to have plot armor that manifests in the form of extreme competence. Heck, even random John Schmoe characters tend to show a level of competence and willingness to cooperate - and take one for the team - that would make them stand out as a player in most MMOs.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I found this to be an interesting analysis.
And I'd better leave it at that...
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While I agree creating content specifically designed for massive groups is unlikely to be popular in an MMO its actually not a new concept to include this.
CoH did it to a certain extent with the hami raids and ESO has army vs army battles in pvp.
To properly apply this kind of concept in an MMO you need so many things working right (team mechanics, engaging challenges, moments for individual effort, multiple strategic options and so forth. More importantly...as Fire here points out...it needs to be something the players want to do.
Remember, everyone is a Winner!
It would be a good experiment. Some of us are in it for exciting encounters, not grinding. And big things are it. Dynamic events even better. Dynamic invasions better still. Dynamic invasions that take over an (important, non-ignorable) zone such that players may have to reclaim it even if it takes weeks, best of all.
Some are scared of change. They shouldn't be. There are dozens of MMOs for the boring static grinders already.
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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
I was going to point out Hamidon Raids (which were "divide, then conquer" raids) as well as Rikti Mothership Raids (which were a "defend the core" type of Peeling The Onion after reaching the ship center) ... but islandtrevor72 beat me to it.
Remember, City of Heroes had Leagues of up to 48 characters engaging in a single objective collectively. Nearly every Incarnate Trial boiled down towards this concept. It isn't that much of a step from 100 characters down to 48.
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Fear of change is not exactly a reason I would think people avoid large scale encounters like this. Things like time commitment, complexity of design, ease of involvement and so forth were much larger considerations.
hundreds of players blazing away with their powers being rendered on a single pc...hello lagsville.
I like the idea but in addition to the above lil note by moi, you also have to contend with things built into the encounter that do not always allow for basic tactics to take place. could it be done? sure but the problem is that these type of encounters would only be fun if the AI was able to react in realistic ways to the tactics being used against it. then, as was mentioned previously, there is the fact that really only a few people are actually thinking and the rest are effectively just meat-shields.
I would probably try and participate a couple times but after that I would take a pass and stick to the smaller group activities....although I suspect that even though I have a pretty decent rig I would see some lag with a hundred active players (not to mention the badguys) all running using their powers like there is no tomorrow.
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Dear gods, the 'show up for a raid and then WAIT for an hour, while everybody gets ready' is what drove me out of EverQuest and into the City in the first place.
It would be great if a team could register for an event, then go off to do their various things, then be Summoned and Teleported to the TF/Event, complete it, and be Returned to where they came from, in the end.
I did get into a great SG that had a regular TF-night. The group management tools in City made it practical to assemble the league/teams on the fly and the lack of a 'holy trinity' meant that ad-hoc teams could perform and Succeed. The big-league events were still an exercise in managing chaos. I, for one, did not enjoy these situations where I had no idea what everyone else was doing and only a vague concept of what _I_ was supposed to be doing.
Be Well!
Fireheart
+1
Not only applying to the ALT you're presently on, but gives you the opportunity to ALT to another more appropriate toon. ;)
So, @GlobalName, type of deal. :D
Nah.. n00bs wont be aware immediately how this system will work. Just make it so that its a few layers deep as Default, but perhaps allow that system to be UI Dockable in some way, or the like, from the Advanced options?
I know I'm making it seem exclusionary, but I rather think of it as inclusionary, as in people that have played and now Know how the game plays, and are interested, will ask and find out about said option.
So yea... Its more user friendly to n00bs (new players arent frustrated with seasoned players nagging them to follow the leader), and vets (arent frustrated with new players trying to just learn to play) alike.
kinda like how I tell new players to take Flight travel power as they are starting out, and leave the teleport travel power to more seasoned players. ;)
The best solution for this problem is to not have the entire mini army wail at a single target, but instead break down the encounter into a large number of mini tasks that a squad or two can accomplish.
Kind of instead of having 'ok, everybody throw everything at the giant monster and listen to the 'simon says' instruction. Healers keep the tank up and off-tanks, keep kiting all the adds till we have time to deal with them' and then slog it out till victorious or wiped, try for something along the lines of:
'the enemy hordes are advancing and we don't know their objectives but they may be aiming for the high ground on the hills A, B and C. They are also pushing through these giant siege beasts and dropping troops behind our lines to harass our support. Oh, and their fliers are strafing us, and they seem to have hidden scouts that feed them intel on everything we're doing'. That simple scenario gives about a dozen different goals leading to at least four different small squad tactics to tackle the problems they pose. There's still the big battle and everything a smaller unit does will affect that, but it is not remotely 'throwing a zerg ball at a giant monster, with triggers to spice things up' anymore. And raid leaders and their lieutentants really have to make tactical and strategic decisions about which teams to send where, because they have to estimate what each team can reasonably accomplish, and which localised battles to give up on. E.g. will you allow the enemy to capture a hill, which provides superior range and firepower to their artillery, or will you allow enemy hunter-killer teams to continue to make strikes at your battlefield commanders and vulnerable support teams? Oh, you have twenty seconds to make that decision AND you have to find a way to free up a team and get it on the spot where it is most needed.
It is true that a superhero game in particular is not the best match for large armies, but that doesn't mean it is impossible to combine small unit tactics and encounters into an epic conflict where individual superheroic actions make, or break, the day.
(edit p.s. I forgot to mention that the small unit encounters can be auto-sidekicked to the raid level so that any player of any level can participate. Perhaps not at the high skill (and large number of powers required) mission critical events, but certainly at the 'hold the line and beat back the waves of enemy henchmen' scenarios, and the 'get the wounded heroes back to the triage point for treatment by crossing the battlefield as it is being bombarded' scenario.)
Wow, lots of folks throwing this in the trash at the first opportunity. [b]I didn't post this to say DO EXACTLY THIS but instead to say THERE MAY BE USEFUL ELEMENTS HERE THAT CAN BE APPLIED ELSEWHERE.[/b] Like someone's signature says (paraphrased from memory): reward tactics, not just damage dealing.
Lag city? Completely dependent on your network technology. Please avoid dialup or geosynchronous satellite. Servers have gotten a lot faster and more parallel in the last decade, too. How many are still using PC133 buses? Whereas CoT is probably not going to try for more than 50 or so person raids unless they know they can do it. (And even then, cat herding comes into play... unless you can get some decent-playing NPCs to fill the gaps!)
I'm kind of wondering how many folks remembered the later Hami raids. The main tank, backup tank, and supporters were pulling about the same task Crusty was doing. CoH always had a "target friendly player and your attacks will direct to their target" mode, which was almost always used in raids so one person could keep attacks directed. Raids had several phases dictated by the chosen strategy, and one player usually had a set of macros set up to direct traffic. [b]And it worked.[/b]
I'm not putting anything past MWM. They may well be able to pull off Zerg horde raids at some point.
And it would be nice to have some content not dumbed down to the Leeroy Common Denominator.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Okay, you got me there, Lin, I do remember 'focus on the Tanker and assist' tactics. I also remember that the Scrappers could never hang with that for long, before they'd go do something Nuts. *grin* And those 'assist' tactics worked pretty well for the ranged characters, regardless of team-size. I even remember being on a team with Two FF Defenders and how they could make the Scrapper into an invulnerable nexus of destruction.
I also agree, the content should not be dumbed down to the point of 'grind, rinse, repeat'. I anticipate that CoT will have enemy AI attached to the difficulty-slider... I wonder if 'Omniscient' will be one of the settings...
Be Well!
Fireheart
If I recall from other threads that was the default U4 setting for bots; so much so that as soon as a player character spawned in a test map every hostile entity moved to swarm on him.
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To be fair, in City of Heroes there wasn't really *too much* of a difference between the difficulty settings for the vast majority of content, it just increased the level/number of mobs and the basic strategy was the same across the whole board.
Some MMO's out there instead have different tactics needed according to the difficulty level. What this means is that on "normal" mode, the system would work one way, Hard mode there would be more encounters/different powers utilised, so that you wouldn't necessarily be able to do the same tactics *consistently* throughout the run. You would have to work out how to complete it again.
Some people like that, others don't. Personally for me, it all depends on my mood, as well as the experience I have with the content. Hell, at the start of my raiding experience in Wildstar, I could spend *days* just knocking my head against the first boss trying to defeat him. Now? If we wipe on him twice, I get annoyed[1]...
An example of this could be with the Reichsman. You could have it take several "blasts" of your weapon to depower him so you could take him down, instead of just one person taking him down.
In the STF, you could have the various difficulty levels change according to how close the AV's are at the end, so that at the *Easiest* level it would be impossible to pull more than 1, whereas on the higher difficulties it would be impossible to pull less than 2 or 3 (or all of them).
[1] But that is because we *shouldn't* be wiping on him, unless something *SERIOUSLY* went wrong (ie lag/DC of core player... and I have seen a Hami Raid wipe due to the "targeter" dying, or the main tank DC'ing)
I would look at Planetside ( or 2, but I think 1 did this better ) for a slight counter argument.
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