10-18-2019, 01:20 PM
I'm probably just being old and grumpy.
I keep thinking about "skillful gameplay" and how hard it is to find in online gaming. Especially in MMORPGs and even more especially in PvP and extra super especially when discussing something like a 1v1 fight (or a 1vX fight).
First person shooters mostly inject skill into the game by rewarding clever ambushes, situational awareness and twitch/aiming skill. In a good FPS, a fresh faced newbie can beat a 3 year veteran by outplaying him with good old human player skill. Even if it's 5v1 or 50v1, that newbie still stands a good chance of getting at least a kill out of it because FPS games are inherently skillful. I've ambushed and killed entire teams in games like DayZ just because I had a great position, the perfect gun for the job and several of them were dead before they knew where I was. It feels skillful. Choices I made and my own ability to land hits with a gun lead to me killing a group I'd never beat in some worse circumstances.
Ship combat games usually do a good job of this too, without the twitch. Understanding wind angles, how this impacts each ship's performance, how to best use your gun layout vs their gun layout and proper timing of turns and aiming can make a sizable difference.
But then there's a typical MMORPG warrior vs warrior duel. There is frequently little to no room for player skill to shine. You do 120 dps, I do 100 dps. You have 2000 health and 100 armor, I have 1500 health and 80 armor. I'm just flat out going to lose and there's no human player skill that's going to change that. Maybe there's a little bit of stunning and interrupting but the margin by which skillful use can swing a 1v1 fight against a higher level opponent is going to be minimal. My best bet is to rely on lag to help me escape via running away. In a "melee combat game" like Mount & Blade, it's a different story. Directional parrying is a human player skill so if I'm better at parrying then I can probably beat that higher level opponent.
So MMORPGs tend to inject skill via "group synergy". 1v1 there's little to no room for skill but understanding how my 5 man team can work together better than your 5 man team at least throws a lot more variables into the mix and therefore creates space for human player skill to make a difference.
But then think of movies like Harry Potter. They don't go into a lot of depth on this but there's at least a concept of "magical defense". Someone shoots a spell at you, there are ways to parry that spell if you're quick enough. Or you outdraw them and kill them first. But how would you do that in a game without making it twitch based (and therefore, lag dependent). If I see a fireball coming at me and there is a counterspell for that, then the fireball needs to move slow enough for me to see it coming and counter it but ideally not so slow that countering it is easy or obvious.
I just keep wondering if there are ways to make a non-twitch based RPG PvP setup where even a 1v1 feels skillful.
I'm sure the secret ingredient is "active defense". Or maybe decisions on switching your character between stances. Not rock-paper-scissors but maybe rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock. Similar to group synergy (or naval combat), maybe the key is to throw more complication at it so that there are more decisions to be made and therefore more ways to do things wrong, even 1v1.
I just hate the old MMORPG trope of I-kick-you-then-you-kick-me until someone runs out of hit points and I get depressed about the future of ever seeing a really good, skill based RPG PvP setup that doesn't simply lean hard on group synergy.
(I do recall thinking that Guild Wars 2 did a good job of this. They added interesting ways for things to interact. Ability X + Ability Y yielded Effect Z that you couldn't get any other way. It was fast paced but not quite twitchy. Shame about the lack of maps and content, but looking back I still think GW2 was one of my favorite actual RPG PvP combat systems.)
I keep thinking about "skillful gameplay" and how hard it is to find in online gaming. Especially in MMORPGs and even more especially in PvP and extra super especially when discussing something like a 1v1 fight (or a 1vX fight).
First person shooters mostly inject skill into the game by rewarding clever ambushes, situational awareness and twitch/aiming skill. In a good FPS, a fresh faced newbie can beat a 3 year veteran by outplaying him with good old human player skill. Even if it's 5v1 or 50v1, that newbie still stands a good chance of getting at least a kill out of it because FPS games are inherently skillful. I've ambushed and killed entire teams in games like DayZ just because I had a great position, the perfect gun for the job and several of them were dead before they knew where I was. It feels skillful. Choices I made and my own ability to land hits with a gun lead to me killing a group I'd never beat in some worse circumstances.
Ship combat games usually do a good job of this too, without the twitch. Understanding wind angles, how this impacts each ship's performance, how to best use your gun layout vs their gun layout and proper timing of turns and aiming can make a sizable difference.
But then there's a typical MMORPG warrior vs warrior duel. There is frequently little to no room for player skill to shine. You do 120 dps, I do 100 dps. You have 2000 health and 100 armor, I have 1500 health and 80 armor. I'm just flat out going to lose and there's no human player skill that's going to change that. Maybe there's a little bit of stunning and interrupting but the margin by which skillful use can swing a 1v1 fight against a higher level opponent is going to be minimal. My best bet is to rely on lag to help me escape via running away. In a "melee combat game" like Mount & Blade, it's a different story. Directional parrying is a human player skill so if I'm better at parrying then I can probably beat that higher level opponent.
So MMORPGs tend to inject skill via "group synergy". 1v1 there's little to no room for skill but understanding how my 5 man team can work together better than your 5 man team at least throws a lot more variables into the mix and therefore creates space for human player skill to make a difference.
But then think of movies like Harry Potter. They don't go into a lot of depth on this but there's at least a concept of "magical defense". Someone shoots a spell at you, there are ways to parry that spell if you're quick enough. Or you outdraw them and kill them first. But how would you do that in a game without making it twitch based (and therefore, lag dependent). If I see a fireball coming at me and there is a counterspell for that, then the fireball needs to move slow enough for me to see it coming and counter it but ideally not so slow that countering it is easy or obvious.
I just keep wondering if there are ways to make a non-twitch based RPG PvP setup where even a 1v1 feels skillful.
I'm sure the secret ingredient is "active defense". Or maybe decisions on switching your character between stances. Not rock-paper-scissors but maybe rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock. Similar to group synergy (or naval combat), maybe the key is to throw more complication at it so that there are more decisions to be made and therefore more ways to do things wrong, even 1v1.
I just hate the old MMORPG trope of I-kick-you-then-you-kick-me until someone runs out of hit points and I get depressed about the future of ever seeing a really good, skill based RPG PvP setup that doesn't simply lean hard on group synergy.
(I do recall thinking that Guild Wars 2 did a good job of this. They added interesting ways for things to interact. Ability X + Ability Y yielded Effect Z that you couldn't get any other way. It was fast paced but not quite twitchy. Shame about the lack of maps and content, but looking back I still think GW2 was one of my favorite actual RPG PvP combat systems.)
