AoE and Gameplay

[Nemeon Lion]

Everytime I try a new MMO it always bothers me the way they implement AoE in the game (especially since that's my favorite playstyle).

Since in most MMOs nowsdays you play solo and only party with other players if you need to take out a boss or for the simple fun of levelling together, the monsters are implemented in a way that AoE isn't really usefull for the solo player.

Imagine this situation. You are a Mage. You have the lowest armor and HP of all the classes. You can, however, use AoE spells to attack various monsters at the same time, effectivelly increasing your team damage output.

But what happens when you try to solo the monsters yourself? Since you have little armor and HP, if you even dare to attack more then 1 monster at the same time, you'll die. In this situation, the usage of AoE spells actually hinders you instead of helping you.

But we also need to consider the other end of the stick. If Mages could withstand 4 or 5 monsters attacking them while they AoE'd them all out, it would mean that this particular class could level way faster then any other in the game.

I hope GW2 adresses this problem. My proposal was to implement weak, but numerous monsters in a type of "squadron" where if you attack one monster in the squadron, all the other sqaudron members attack you as well. The same mechanin already present in GW1. This means that even a low armoured, low HP class with AoE spells can make full use of them. In order to balance things out in terms of levelling speed with the other classes, give them ways to attack more then one foe at the same time. Cyclone Axe for the Warrior is a good example.


Discuss away.

[Naor Vyr]

Thats pretty much how things work in fantasy, so whats the point again?
Guild wars was meant to be a team game from the beginning, no matter the fact that some people found out solo builds that was overused by the public who thought it would be more satisfiing to possibly wipe an area alone than bear the possible failure of a pug.
Mages were always and everywhere was supposed to have soldier mercenaries, unless they are the uberepicarchwizardlord of the 9 towers and all this crap. and since GW is a balanced game, u wont see players like this...also most fantasy worlds offers armor spells for mages like in gw.
AoE skills for other classes are fine by me as long as they make sense. Cyclone axe makes sense. Sand shards doesn't.
More enemies working together but more vulnerable? No thanks...many classes have the purpose of concentrating on 1 enemy at a time (mesmer,general spike, assa) and for me it always made more sense. what is the point of getting yourself nearly killed only to wipe out the entire mob in the same exact second when u are 5hp away from death? Doesnt it makes more sense to weaken and kill the mob 1 by 1? u shoot a fireball on 5 enemies who are close to each other, dmging them for 10hp each. Next moment 5 bloodthirsty foes are about to gangrape you. U shoot lighning on 1 foe, who is close to 4 other. u damage it for 50hp. 5 foes coming at you, by the time they would reach you u alrdy killed 1 or 2 of them...(u realized im not talking about specificly gw here)

[Rhinala]

I totaly agree with Naor Vyr
I never played a mage in other games so i dont have the expiriance here but i find that long bow pulls can be a wonderfull help.
Pull the closest enemy when he is far from his frinds start using you devestating spells, or use a spell that hit one in that way you will aggro less enemies.

[Nemeon Lion]

The problem isn't killing enemies.

The problem is that if you are a player that enjoys AoE, you won't be able to use it when you solo play, which will be most of the time.

A big group of weak enemies caters for the AoE style of play as well to the "one-target" type of play since that type of play will kill enemies one by one, effectivelly reducing pressure off you, while the AoE type has to endure all damage until all the enemies die.

[Bashor]

The OP isn't talking about GW here. He's talking about games where you can solo(no farm-builds). And GW2 will be one of those.
They already stated that you can, technically, reach the level cap without ever joining a party.
With that in mind, read Nemeon's post again.
Now everything makes more sense, doesn't it? Ye, it does.
And it's, unfortunately, true.
But hey..you know, ANet also stated that there will be less skills. But these will therefore be more flexible. That could also mean that you can switch skills from AOE to ehmm...[insert proper term].
An example:
You have the standart fireball attack from GW. It deals say over9000! damage.
Now if you switch it to AOE, it deals less damage(on one target) but can attack multiple enemies.

[Nemeon Lion]

The problem aren't the spells themselves, but the way the monsters are implemented.

If the monsters are implemented in a way that fighting more then 1 at the same time means death for the solo play, then even if the AoE is powerfull you can't use it.

Rather then giving a monster powerfull abilities, it could probably be better, and more epic if you ask me (killing 5 grawls is always better then killing 1 at a time), to spread those abilities through multiple monsters. In a real-life situation, if you attacked a wolf you couldn't expect the rest of the pack 1 meter away to stay asleep, would you?

[The Boz]

Monsters in GW are organized in mobs. Aggro one monster, you aggro the whole mob. I don't see why they would change this to conform to some 1v1 solo duel rule of other MMOs.

Furthermore, if AoE is your thing, then it is your concious choice to sacrifice single-target damage for area damage. All I see you complaining about is "But I want to do great AoE AND single target damage so I can solo!", to which I answer with a big resounding No.

[dark3]

Uhm.. ok Anet stated GW2 will be solo-able, but they also stated you'll be able to bring with you a "companion" which won't use party slots(much like the current ranger pet mechanic). That's the solution to the whole problem: you're a mage? Brig a "tank" companion! You're a physical attacker? Bring a healer! You're a healer? Bring a dmg-dealer etc.
/problem solved :grin:

[Nemeon Lion]

Furthermore, if AoE is your thing, then it is your concious choice to sacrifice single-target damage for area damage. All I see you complaining about is "But I want to do great AoE AND single target damage so I can solo!", to which I answer with a big resounding No.


I don't remember stating that. :huh:

[Tru Reptile]

Hmmm.. maybe something like:

Fire Blast (yeah, generic name)
Energy cost: 5, 10, 15
Casting time: 1, 2, 3 seconds
(level 1) Strike target foe for 1...60 fire damage. (Level 2) Strike target foe and 1 additional adjacent foe for 1...60 fire damage. (Level 3) Strike target foe and 2 additional adjacent foes for 1...60 fire damage.

Basically, the longer you hold down the skill button the more mobs you hit. The more enemies you want to hit the higher the cost of the spell and the longer the casting time.

I dunno.

[raspberry jam]

MMO (...) solour doin it wrong

MMOs are inherently team games. Even ones that are intended for a large amount of soloability, such as WoW, are first and foremost team games. Thus, any implementation must consider that first.

[Wethospu]

Hmmm.. maybe something like:

Fire Blast (yeah, generic name)
Energy cost: 5, 10, 15
Casting time: 1, 2, 3 seconds
(level 1) Strike target foe for 1...60 fire damage. (Level 2) Strike target foe and 1 additional adjacent foe for 1...60 fire damage. (Level 3) Strike target foe and 2 additional adjacent foes for 1...60 fire damage.

Basically, the longer you hold down the skill button the more mobs you hit. The more enemies you want to hit the higher the cost of the spell and the longer the casting time.

I dunno.

This could lead to an interesting game mechanic.
That spells consumed energy during casting. This would favour smarter interrupting. Only problem would be that then you could use canceling a lot. That could be fixed that canceling a skill would either consume whole energy or trigger recharge timer.

Completely off-topic though.

[Nemeon Lion]

ur doin it wrong

MMOs are inherently team games. Even ones that are intended for a large amount of soloability, such as WoW, are first and foremost team games. Thus, any implementation must consider that first.


Your probably right. But it just confuses me why a class designed for AoE capabilities can't make use of it when playing solo.

Probably the reason implemented companions on GW2 was to give the solo player the ability to "team" and make full use of their class spells.

[Simply Kedde]

You're going in the right direction now. You're not really meant to be able to have a whole lotta weak bad mobs charge at you all at once to die from one or two powerful aoe spells. How'd that be fair compared to say a warrior having to bash them to death one by one?
Even if said warrior would have acces to a bit of aoe in say cyclone axe it couldn't even compare to the arcane might of an elementalist thus making an ele far superior overall.

[raspberry jam]

Indeed. The only way the warrior could have a fair role then would be to change the way she plays. When single target damage doesn't work anymore she'd have to rely on the other capability she has - great survivability. In other words, we'd be back at tank & nuke gameplay.

[Rhinala]

The caster class is designed for both AoE and single target and should be used accordingly to the situation.
I don't think as a solo play game it will have the mass enemies that gw1 have.

In the fantasy world the mage is a powerful caster with week armor, without his spells he is very easily killed (as it should be)
most of the armor solutions are implemented in the earth spells, some games use spell like mana shield where you use your mana as armor till you cancel or it is depleted (i was a bit of topic here soz)

If the game will be more about AoE you will give the ele an advantage and will cause a huge imbalance + the week armor and constant beating from the enemies will probably kill you.

[sorudo]

if they spread the enemy's out and remove the mob patrols, then you can solo but it's up to you to decide how many at ones you want to attack.
btwm GW2 isn't going to be like GW1, and they said that playing solo is possible, so i don't think the GW1 mob we know is in GW2.

[Wuzzman]

I would give a pretty decent reply, but this is thread is written on a pure pve perspective, which is almost always the least interesting perspective to view game balance on. In which I can say balancing the range aoe class will not be very important. The same old conventions used in other games will be used in here. Any pve is based on group mechanics and honestly a mage class will never aoe and tank 4-5 monsters. It will just completely removes any reason to group with classes besides another mage if they can nuke and tank at the same time. Guild Wars 2 won't change that so......

[Wuzzman]

if they spread the enemy's out and remove the mob patrols, then you can solo but it's up to you to decide how many at ones you want to attack.
btwm GW2 isn't going to be like GW1, and they said that playing solo is possible, so i don't think the GW1 mob we know is in GW2.

Solo is a funny term in Guild Wars history. If they remove henchmen, then yeah I see Guild Wars going certain routes. If you want to improve survivability between solo player and monsters and still keep the mob mechanics intake, a very simple solution is to drastically decrease the damage monsters can do and add health potions. Also giving squishes some sort of increased "evasion" rate would help as well. Of course by the time they do all this, we wouldn't be looking at Guild Wars anymore, but meh its pve what can you do.

[Akirai Annuvil]

Of course by the time they do all this, we wouldn't be looking at Guild Wars anymore, but meh its pve what can you do.
Unfortunately most players would prefer a free WoW over a free GW.

;-; Me sad.

[Simply Kedde]

^Most players are sad ;_;

[Rhinala]

Most people go with the flow and the hype.

[The Boz]

Most people are idiots, you know that, right?

[Xunlai Agent]

Most people are idiots, you know that, right?
Yes, it's a fact of life.

[Nemeon Lion]

Yes, it's a fact of life.


Unfortunally.

[jasmine leb]

ANYWAY.. back on topic..

Guild Wars wasn't exactly designed for solo play. Although I think it would be a nice concept, it probably won't happen. But then again it's not like there's a lot of information released about GW2 so things may be a little different. In what way though, I would have no idea.

I like the Mind Blast idea.. creative.

[GADefence]

1) If GW ever gets "you have gotten rank 3 fireblast!" . . . no, just no.

2) Wow's popular, so is crack.

3) In all due respective truths, GW2 will NOT be a solo game. You have companions that will come with you, and blessings to make your stronger if they don't. This means that either A) Someone (blessing you) will make you stronger (probably means a god) - hence help. Or B) It's as solo as GW is with a hero.

[Tru Reptile]

1) If GW ever gets "you have gotten rank 3 fireblast!" . . . no, just no.

Huh? :huh:

The effect of that skill would be determined by how long the skill is pressed. Where did you get "you have gotten rank 3 fireblast!" from?