Dragon Age: Inquistion

[Hassat Hunter]

 

 

 

The idea of a "tank" that "taunts" enemies (always wondered how you'd taunt something undead, "Hey you, zombie dude! Yer mom!") but does about zero damage is a (mostly) MMO mechanic that's been bleeding through to single player games.

 

 

"Yo, Zombie-bro! Looky here! BRAAAAAAAINS!!!"

 

I'm pretty sure the warrior... I mean punch-bag doesn't have much brains. If they wanted brains, they would go after the person with the highest INT score

[Enoch]

 

 

 

I especially dislike specialized tank/healer roles (the addition of such to DA:O is one of the things I dislike most about that game, especially since you already have such a small party of which one will pretty much have to be a tank, iow Alistair or Shale (or the PC)).

The idea of a "tank" that "taunts" enemies (always wondered how you'd taunt something undead, "Hey you, zombie dude! Yer mom!") but does about zero damage is a (mostly) MMO mechanic that's been bleeding through to single player games.

 

It might've been an overly simplistic mechanic, but in that respect I preferred the IE games' "first come first get punched" attitude to encounters, especially combined with the enemies going for whoever hurt them the most, resulting in the player not being able to go bananas with their wizards unless they wanted to get more attention of $ENEMY than was healthy.

 

 

Agreed.  I couldn't get over the idea that the big lunk in front of the party was essentially exercising a limited type of mind control over every enemy we faced, regardless of their intelligence and training, their leadership and discipline, or their ability to comprehend human speech.

 

I couldn't help but imagine how much more interesting and fun the game would be if tactical positioning were a more realistically effective way to manage which party members faced the brunt of enemy attacks.  Of course, such an approach would've forced everybody to play the game the way I played it-- zoomed all the way out in the overhead tactical view and pausing every 4 seconds on average. 

 

am suspecting that what ruined squad-based tactical combat, were something ridiculous simple-- nomenclature. d&d 3e, originally, didn't have to contend with mmo vocabulary, so when you looks at a game like toee, there ain't no specific tank abilities or some kinda distinction 'tween a barbarian as dps or a paladin as tank. you scout ahead with your sneaky character and see a giant mob o' bugbears in a room, so what does you do? plant your most heavily armoured guy in the doorway and then lob a fireball into the room? is one way to do it. and perhaps your barbarian would actual be the guy playing as your door. when bugbears try to get past your door to reach your spellcasters, you gots folks with reach weapons or ranged turning the goblinoids into kibble. is other tactics that would work... and if enemy has spell casters too, then you has need o' changing your tactics. all this were possible in a pre-mmo world. the thing is, once tank/dps/heal distinctions became the norm, developers were able to use abilities to substitute for crafting complex tactical scenarios to challenge players. is much more difficult to come up with complex geography or scenarios in a game than it is to tweak ai a bit and add waves of mobs to challenge a party. mmo nomenclature made design easier for developers 'cause it added a layer o' tactical complexity, but it did so in a way that was much more simple to add into games than were considerations that, particularly w/o a meaningful z-axis, were technically demanding.  

 

am thinking that if mmo nomenclature hadn't become popular, developers wouldn't have been so quick to use it as a crutch. mighta happened anyway, but am doubting the change woulda been so stark and ugly.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

Could be that language had an effect, but I suspect that it is largely secondary to the passage of time and the intended audience for thegame.  DAO was trying to please the audience that had bought the IE games, sure, but it was also gunning for the larger, mostly younger crowd whose primary experience with fantasy RPGs was in MMOs and Diablo-clones.  Even if nobody had ever come up with concise terms for DPS/Tank/etc., Bioware probably still would have wanted to create a gameplay experience that wasn't going to feel too unfamiliar to that crowd. 

 

 

(IMO, by far the most annoying bit of MMO-ish nomenclature is referring to one's character as a "toon.")

[Gromnir]

swtor were our first genuine mmo experience, so perhaps we is looking at things different. when development o' da:o were progressing, we saw folks asking 'bout tank abilities and wondering which class would have the best dps. am admitting we found such discussions less than illuminating as we did not play mmos. had to learn new vocab. nevertheless, the nomenclature had a tendency to drive the discussion. inherent in a discussion o' tanks were the ability to taunt. the developers responded in the language o' the posters. rpg nomenclature were/is no longer pnp nomenclature. heck, look at josh discussions o' pillars o' eternity a bit further down on this messageboard. he is using mmo nomenclature, and as poe is 'posed to be a throwback to ie/bg/iwd roots, am doubting that the younger twitch crowd is for whom obsidian is trying to create appeal. and josh ain't a rare kinda abberation. listen to a group o' p&p gamers and They also use mmo nomenclature. it were an insidious thing-- the overthrow o' more sophisticated p&p tactics.

 

as we is in a da thread, we believe that the tank/dps/heal distinctions were off-putting to many o' the younger fans you identify. rpg and tank/dps/heals were already the norm when da"o were being developed. action/twitch were the somewhat insulting label for the young crowd. da2, in particular, seemed like a much more focused attempt to appeal to the younger crowd... folks who liked action games wherein they could press up-down-y-y and get a sooper-dooper kill strike. 

 

in any event, more than making new games appeal to the folks familiar with mmos, and create broader appeal with mmo fans, we thinks developers realized that simplistic mmo mechanics were far easier to implement than other tactical improvements. and 

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps read the pathfinder boards. paizo is trying to develop some kinda mp game, but pathfinder success were in part 'cause its rejection o' d&d 4th edition's slide towards mmo sensibilities. the thing is, you cannot read pathfinder board w/o knowing mmo nomenclature, is insidious and pervasive.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Gromnir

[Volourn]

"(IMO, by far the most annoying bit of MMO-ish nomenclature is referring to one's character as a "toon.")"

 

I agree that that is such a stupid idiotic pathetic garbage hateful retarded scumbag evil satanic nazi like term ever created. At least top 5.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Epic post by Volo, someone sig that ^

 

The expansion of MMO gameplay is a really annoying thing because it kills interesting decision making during combat. All games can be reduced to numbers, but the numbers game is so painfully obvious in an MMO it kills the actual joy of role playing and imagination. No positional tactics, no reflex requirements, no way to gimp the system in creative ways, just an endless grind in your "designated area" in one of the few "designated roles".

 

I remember when I was being crushed as a noob in WoW duels how suprising it was that my character, just a few levels beneath the opposition actually had no chance, zero, nada, to win. There was nothing to do in actual combat that could change the outcome, his numbers were bigger than my numbers and if I wanted to win I had to have bigger numbers than he did which just means more in game grinding and then he'd be beat... by numbers.

 

Being the kind of guy that uses a calculator to write "boob" I gave up on the World of Numbers and went to play something else instead.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Drowsy Emperor

[Hassat Hunter]

Like this?

[Gromnir]

aside: we find "toon" to be silly... though kinda appropriate to upcoming wildstar game.

 

personally, and while the term is not exclusive to mmo, we find the ubiquitous use o' "rape" to be the least appealing bit o' mmo shorthand. Gromnir does not spend much time with 20-somethings, so perhaps use o' "rape" by the current kewl generation is akin to excessive use o' "brilliant" in harry potter movies. hypothetical: college kids is watching a basketball game and somebody gets dunked 'pon. is the reflex reaction to yell that the dunkee got "raped"? we hope not.  nevertheless, it seems that the absence o' the aforementioned offensive term would effectively stop innumerable mmo chat discussions and queries. 

 

...

 

all of which is not good fun.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Like this?

 

Now I'm dying to hear the other four and whatever adjectives are left.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Drowsy Emperor

[Bryy]

Why are we referring to everything as Toons?

 

This isn't Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

[213374U]

I remember when I was being crushed as a noob in WoW duels how suprising it was that my character, just a few levels beneath the opposition actually had no chance, zero, nada, to win. There was nothing to do in actual combat that could change the outcome, his numbers were bigger than my numbers and if I wanted to win I had to have bigger numbers than he did which just means more in game grinding and then he'd be beat... by numbers.

 

Being the kind of guy that uses a calculator to write "boob" I gave up on the World of Numbers and went to play something else instead.

 

To be fair, that's simply a result of min-maxing becoming the norm and devs being forced to account for it. But min-maxing has its roots in P&P and uber munchkins far predate MMOs. Hell, it's not even restricted to gaming. Once something, anything, becomes competitive, there is only one path of least resistance and if you don't take it, your performance will be, by definition, suboptimal. The only difference is that, unlike with real world activities, rules that govern MMO worlds are easy to write down and then it's just about number crunching. It's a "problem" with gamers' mentality as much as it is a lack of imagination on the part of developers.

 

Why must MMO design philosophy seep through to single player games where there is no competition element is a very pertinent question, however.

[Humanoid]

I'm not so sure about the whole positioning thing. I mean, I loathe the infiltration of the role trinity of MMOs into single player games as much as anyone, but bluntly, the potential alternative of having to micromanage my positioning every few seconds to keep safe is even less appealing. Even the use of chokepoints and such is overstated I think, collision detection is only the beginning and only simulates moving around concrete pillars as opposed to actual combatants. Consider sports such as basketball or any flavour of football, just getting past one guy on a wide-open playing field isn't trivial in itself, and that's with the defender being limited in what actions they're permitted to take. (Someone tries to dribble past you? Punch them in the gut as they go by.)

 

So what I'd be looking for is some kind of abstraction of the act of actively blocking an enemy's movement. Attacks of opportunity are only half the solution, it penalises them some health for moving, but often is not a meaningful penalty given a sufficient number of hitpoints to burn. And typically it'd be a lot as opposed to one or two hits worth, a critical problem introduced by the HP inflation talked about earlier. Give up 10% of my HP in order to be able to squash that mage? Easy decision.

 

I don't have a definitive solution for this - most of what comes to mind does tend to come with potentially irritating downsides. At the extreme point you'd have 'sticky' fighting, where once engaged in melee combat, there is no lateral movement - either stand and fight or fall back. Think Zone of Control mechanics in the earlier Civilization games. Perhaps toning it down, you could have a severe movement speed penalty in the same scenario - at say 25% speed, the enemy that tries to run past eats four times as many attacks, which in most systems is something to think about and ought to be far from trivial. A different approach might be an toggled ability by a character to enter blocking mode, which might do something like trade an attack penalty but keep one designated target in place.

[Serrano]

Blood Bowl had a pretty good mechanic for trying to move past people in that if the character failed to dodge, your turn was over and your character was left in a very compromising position. I'm not sure if something similar would transfer well to a small scale tactics RPG (which Blood Bowl is really, albeit a different kind) but it did make units forming a wall or generally trying to tank fill a valuable role and also encouraged the player to weigh whether trying to run past a heavy hitter was worth the risk. 

Edited April 29, 2014 by Serrano

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

 

(IMO, by far the most annoying bit of MMO-ish nomenclature is referring to one's character as a "toon.")

 

 

 

 

I agree that that is such a stupid idiotic pathetic garbage hateful retarded scumbag evil satanic nazi like term ever created. At least top 5.

 

 

Why are we referring to everything as Toons?

 

This isn't Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

 

This got me thinking. Early on, I played on NWN1 servers and enjoyed persistent worlds. Even weirder, now and then people referred to their D&D characters as toons in 2003 on those servers. It was invariably Americans, it seems. More than a year later, a well known MMO came out: World of Warcraft. Hence, I can say with some certainty that the "toon" nomenclature came from young US D&D players, and then it migrated over to the WoW crowd, and all of the sudden it got a bad name. I don't go through the roof when I hear it used. I even use it myself, but then almost exclusively in the context of ARPGs like D3 and Torchlight, since your characters do look cartoonish in those games.

 

Enoch: Your squad CRPG idea certainly has my approval. I really hope we do get to see something like that, but with Humanoid's reservations in effect.

[Hurlshort]

I tend to use the word alt, I don't actually know anyone who uses toon.  

 

I doubt the vocabulary has anything to do with the death of TB.  You can look at Xcom and call assaults your tank (or the mechs), you can call snipers your DPS, etc.  

[Humanoid]

I've only meaningfully encountered it in WoW, and in a guild of say 30-40 people, I reckon only about a third used the term. That said, as co-GM I could boot anyone who dared do so.

[Malcador]

I tend to use the word alt, I don't actually know anyone who uses toon.  

 

I doubt the vocabulary has anything to do with the death of TB.  You can look at Xcom and call assaults your tank (or the mechs), you can call snipers your DPS, etc.  

 

Only heard that from DAoC players way back, in WoW most people say main/alt or char from what I see.

[Gromnir]

 

I doubt the vocabulary has anything to do with the death of TB.  You can look at Xcom and call assaults your tank (or the mechs), you can call snipers your DPS, etc.  

 

is having to do with the fundamental change in squad-based tactical combat in RPGs. xcom is not an rpg. stupid mmoRPG nomenclature has not permeated in a similar fashion. conversely, if you believe enoch, there is less motivation for an xcom developer to try an woo young mmorpg fans by using mmorpg staples.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Amentep]

I use the term "Toon" when playing Toon: The Cartoon Role Playing Game

 

Also, it took me some time to figure out what "accruing agro" meant.

[Gromnir]

I use the term "Toon" when playing Toon: The Cartoon Role Playing Game

 

Also, it took me some time to figure out what "accruing agro" meant.

dps, dots, aggro, cd, gcd, etc. is all terms that we first saw in reference to da:o, and all were foreign to us.  developers and fans were using such shorthand with increasing frequency and eventually we were forced to self-educate so we could decipher such mumbo-jumbo. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[IndiraLightfoot]

Don't forget ticks, and I don't mean them awful bugs.

[Malcador]

Reminds me of arguments about how it is S.Q.L not sequel and definitely not tickle-tk!

[HoonDing]

I didn't need to learn any inane MMO nomenclature; I just spammed Cone o' Cold to win.

[ManifestedISO]

Oh yeah ... find 'em, freeze 'em, and ... forget 'em.

[IndiraLightfoot]

And then we have procs, which has nothing to do with proctology, but perhaps it should have?

Proc coefficients *shudder*.

[Nepenthe]

I tend to use the word alt, I don't actually know anyone who uses toon.  

 

I doubt the vocabulary has anything to do with the death of TB.  You can look at Xcom and call assaults your tank (or the mechs), you can call snipers your DPS, etc.  

 

IIRC, back in the day alts referred to characters other than your primary ("alternates").

 

 

Don't forget ticks, and I don't mean them awful bugs.

 

Last I heard the cool kids were talking about proccing