Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

I think there will always be a certain portion of the playerbase who"ll want the game to be as mindless as possible, and I think with WoW bringing in the BNet crowd we"ve seen that portion grow substantially, but I don"t think that"s a good reason to design with them in mind. You"re not going to out-WoW WoW.

Azrayne said:

I wouldn"t say it"s been hashed out indefinately at all. In fact I haven"t, in memory, ever seen such a discussion on this board. But sure just make some sweeping statement about an old game instead of actually putting a point forward.

Click to expand...

Well you would know, eh? Trust me, it has.

Maybe it has, but in this case I too am at a loss for understanding of the argument. Could you at least point us to where the discussion took place or give a brief summary/keywords we could search for? I"m curious as well.

I can definately see an argument for moving away from heavy CC focus in a game like WoW which adheres to the EQ model fairly closely, it creates a lot of issues in terms of class selection and balance.

But we"re discussing here a hypothetical future MMO in which the game is balanced around assuming no pure DPS classes. It won"t be a matter of Johnny who has 5k dps and CC out the ass and Fred who has 5k DPS but no CC other than a 2 second stun competing for the same group spots, because all classes will be able to fill the role of either tank, healer or CC/debuff adequately while still providing roughly equal DPS. In a situation like that I can"t see a complaint against it unless you have some issue with CC as a mechanic. And that"s a whole other ballgame.

Azrayne said:

I can definately see an argument for moving away from heavy CC focus in a game like WoW which adheres to the EQ model fairly closely, it creates a lot of issues in terms of class selection and balance.

But we"re discussing here a hypothetical future MMO in which the game is balanced around assuming no pure DPS classes. It won"t be a matter of Johnny who has 5k dps and CC out the ass and Fred who has 5k DPS but no CC other than a 2 second stun competing for the same group spots, because all classes will be able to fill the role of either tank, healer or CC/debuff adequately while still providing roughly equal DPS. In a situation like that I can"t see a complaint against it unless you have some issue with CC as a mechanic. And that"s a whole other ballgame.

Click to expand...

I think the reason aCC/debuff focus classis a bad idea

Click to expand...

To reiterate. In case you haven"t noticed, by the way, more and more classes have been getting CC of some sort in WoW. Whether this is an overall positive or negative direction in PVP is a different discussion, but by gum golly a class thatfocuseson CC or debuffs, in a word, sucks. We"ve also seen what happens when you have powerful debuffs that don"t have overlap, leading to another intelligent Blizzard move with WotLK in giving buffs/debuffs of different names but the same, non-overlapping effects, to different classes. Some have the preferred flavor (100% uptime rather than say 95%), but they"re all available from 2-4 classes now. And that"s a good thing.

PS: In order to look to the future...we must understand...the past...

FoghornDeadhorn said:

To reiterate. In case you haven"t noticed, by the way, more and more classes have been getting CC of some sort in WoW. Whether this is an overall positive or negative direction in PVP is a different discussion, but by gum golly a class thatfocuseson CC or debuffs, in a word, sucks. We"ve also seen what happens when you have powerful debuffs that don"t have overlap, leading to another intelligent Blizzard move with WotLK in giving buffs/debuffs of different names but the same, non-overlapping effects, to different classes. Some have the preferred flavor (100% uptime rather than say 95%), but they"re all available from 2-4 classes now. And that"s a good thing.

PS: In order to look to the future...we must understand...the past...

Click to expand...

Forget PvP, that"s an argument in itself, I thought we were discussing PvE here. I still don"t see the point you"re trying to make, all you"ve said in that paragraph is that you think CC classes suck for some unspecified reason (bearing in mind that our hypothetical CC class is a hybrid, so we"re DPSing and CCing, preferably in some intertwined fashion), and that you think giving powerful, unique debuffs to a single class is a bad idea, on which I"ll agree with you.

Do you just not enjoy CC? Or do you have some real reason you think it"s a bad mechanic?

I think this discussion is flawed because we"re both arguing on different assumptions. Correct me if I"m wrong, but you seem to be under the impression I"m arguing for simply inserting an enchanter-like CC exclusive class into a game like WoW that follows the original EQ holy trinity model. I"m arguing for a revamp of the holy trinity in itself to make all characters adequate DPSers and instead putting in CC/debuffing as the third role.

A heavy CC focused class requires content that relies on heavy CC. There, you have just made one class mandatory for experiencing group content. Congrats. Back to the old days of the holy trinity. Good job.

He"s saying you should make it into the third role, such that a group is made up of a Tank, a Healer, and the remaining slots go to Utility (CC and Debuff/etc). No DPS role, DPS is spread amongst the new trinity.

Its no different a make-up than WoW"s Tank, Healer and rest DPS, except that the last role is skill-based rather than mindless.

Twobit Whore said:

A heavy CC focused class requires content that relies on heavy CC. There, you have just made one class mandatory for experiencing group content. Congrats. Back to the old days of the holy trinity. Good job.

Click to expand...

How is that any different to tanks and healers? As I"ve already said, I"m not saying we should just take WoW and throw in a random CC class, I"m arguing for a revamp of the system that will have all classes DPSing equally and CC/debuffing replacing DPS as the third role. Yes it means you"ll need to design content with CC in mind, but I don"t see how thats at all different to the current system where you require a tank and a healer and X amount of DPS for content. You"re just making it so everyone does roughly equal DPS, replacing the old DPS characters with CC/debuff characters, and maybe altering the tank/healer/CC ratios a bit.

Isn"t that what we have now in WoW?

Every DPS class/spec has some sort of CC. Repentance, Wyvern Sting, traps, sap, sheep, succubus, fear, etc. What class lacks CC in some useful form?

Your argument should be aimed at the content, not the classes.

Twobit Whore said:

Isn"t that what we have now in WoW?

Every DPS class/spec has some sort of CC. Repentance, Wyvern Sting, traps, sap, sheep, succubus, fear, etc. What class lacks CC in some useful form?

Click to expand...

I honestly don"t know which classes have what for CC anymore, it"s been so long since I actually saw it used anywhere. You could replace my sheep button with a blank macro and I probably wouldn"t notice for two weeks.

What I"d like to see is for "DPS" to cease to be a role. And for that, you need something to replace it, which is where CC come in. I"d like to see a situation where all classes can fulfill their main role while still doing competative DPS, which means that the classes previously defined by their DPS need some other active form of contributing to the group. I"d like to see all classes hybridized to an extent, so tanks are tanking and DPSing, healers are meleeing/nuking and healing at the same time blood mage style, and CC classes are meleeing/nuking with CC and debuffs attached.

It would probably require a shift away from tank and spank content, but personally I"m bored as fuck with that anyway.

I think the implications of Tank/CC/Healer with all having equal DPS vs. the current paradigm are pretty dangerous and bad.

Twobit Whore said:

Isn"t that what we have now in WoW?

Every DPS class/spec has some sort of CC. Repentance, Wyvern Sting, traps, sap, sheep, succubus, fear, etc. What class lacks CC in some useful form?

Your argument should be aimed at the content, not the classes.

Click to expand...

Have shamans gotten a useful CC now? Haven"t played since BC.

Man... all future MMO"s will be required to have the first 10 levels not be an introduction to their game, but instead as a deprogramming from WoW"s style.

The impact of WoW on gaming will be looked at 25 years from now as something that is probably a once in a lifetime thing.

You"re all looking at it in a very small way. CC is the main aspect of the role, but it can be expanded.

Tank - take damage
Healer - remove damage
Utility - hinder damage (be it by stopping an enemy completely, disabling it in some way, weakening it, strengthening the group to minimize the time they are subject to the incoming damage, etc.)

As someone else mentioned though, a large part of this is in content design. But still, abilities for utility can be re-made to be more dynamically reactive like tanking and healing with a bit of careful thought.

Zeste said:

Man... all future MMO"s will be required to have the first 10 levels not be an introduction to their game, but instead as a deprogramming from WoW"s style.

Click to expand...

Exactly! I don"t know if it has to replace the introduction to the game completely, but it definitely needs to be a large part of it.

So what happens when utility doesn"t have tank and/or healer?

Could you elaborate a bit more, I don"t understand what you"re trying to get at with your question.

Ninajrr said:

Could you elaborate a bit more, I don"t understand what you"re trying to get at with your question.

Click to expand...

He saying, what exactly does this solve or change? It just makes the trinity worse. 3 class roles you have to have to do anything. 4 if dps is considered a part of it and a differant role.



Also, pure CC would fill the roll of a tank. They are negating damage. Through stuns, roots, mez, or parry/dodge/armor isn"t really different, except in the case of damage breaking the CC.

Ninajrr said:

Could you elaborate a bit more, I don"t understand what you"re trying to get at with your question.

Click to expand...

That"s why this discussion is pointless for me to wade into. We"ve been over this, been over this before. It"s been played out in theory and in practice. You should understand the question fully or you"re way back in the mechanics comprehension line.