PvP game design

[Slamz]

3. You can impliment FPS theories to the RPG chaundra. AoC did some of that. If you want to hit something with a sword you walked up to it and hit it. If it runs you follow it and hit it from behind. Dump AOE concepts totally. They break every game. If you want to hit something with spells you have to aim and hit it. If it moves bummer for you. Same with friendly spells. You need to aim to hit it.

This is one of my central questions.

Can you make it fun, fast and skillful WITHOUT requiring aiming?

The problem I have with aiming is that you are no longer "role playing". That is, how good of a marksman your dwarf is should be based on the character's skill with the rifle, not your skill with the mouse. If we're using your skill with the mouse, then it's not a pure RPG anymore.

Not that I'm violently opposed to this, just that I'd like to think of a way to keep it pure RPG while capturing as much of the pace and player skill of the FPS as possible. We just need to shift the "skill" away from aiming and towards...something else.

Possibly pre-game preparation? Or would that be too obscure for most folks to find fun?



For example, in a deck building card game like Magic: The Gathering, you have:

Pre-game skill -- how you build your deck
In game skill -- how you play your cards
Random element -- how your cards turn up

So maybe an MMORPG can have:

Pre-combat skill -- how you setup your abilities
Combat skill -- how you use those abilities
Random element -- character skill rolls

WOW/WAR type games have "combat skill" but I don't think that having tons of hotkeys is really helping us capture the fast-paced, skill-based gameplay of an FPS. When you have 15 different abilities you can use at any time, fights MUST last long enough for you to use a fair number of those abilities in order for it to really feel skillful.

But maybe if we move some of that skill to a pre-combat setup, we can quicken the pace without sacrificing skill.