PVP

I don't like instants at all in this combat system.

So for something like Death Touch to be fair, it seems to me that we should rethink what it is entirely. I think Sciamano's suggestion of a "heal over time" is a good suggestion, but one that unfortunately solves one problem while introducing several others - namely, why use Death Touch if it's not going to give you a way to win?

I kind of like the idea that Death Touch becomes a type of link between you and your opponent. If you get out of range the link is destroyed. So if you're running all over the place you're no longer going to get the benefit (which would be a slow (not instant) transfer of hit points). If you stack Death Touch the link would be stronger, maybe have a slightly larger range. This adds a bit of skill into the mix, having to keep a close distance to keep the link going, but gaining the benefit of sucking more life out of your opponent the longer you keep the link active.

 

Just because you can't Kite someone doesn't mean that there is no strategy behind it

 

You don't understand how the internet works. Your comment suggests that you are somehow using skill by manipulating what you can't even know is happening behind the scenes.

 

Honestly, not true. Kiting works even if you disregard latency, sure latency can compound the issue but AI is the bigger 'problem'. That said, even with better AI I still see kiting being possible. Only sure mitigation would be to have NPCs with massive AOE range and imba damage.

Even in PVP with low latency, I'd say that movement is a tactic not a weakness.

 

What does PvP truly mean for you? How have you PvP'd in other games? IMHO, it seems like you want PvP balanced around you and your playstyle (or inability to play like others).

Of course kiting people requires skill, I know a bunch of people who DON'T play ranged BECAUSE of that fact alone. They go Melee so they don't have to worry about anything but getting into the other person's face and mashing buttons along with their auto-attacks. But it's the same thing with Ranged, albeit a much harder process. The act of being able to kite people ALONG with dishing out reasonable damage and keeping them away WHILE preventing the enemy to cream your face in = skill, no doubt about it.

"I don't understand how the internet works", really?

 

Jatvardur, that's just not true.

Latency is the problem. How do I know that? Because the AI is server side, and it waits for you to move on your client before it reacts. PVP and PVE are no different. The AI or the person has to react to where you say you are on your client. By the time the AI or the person reacts, you're somewhere else.

This is exactly why I keep harping on turn based "elements" to support fair and competitive combat. It's unfortunate, but the internet simply doesn't have the capability of providing an environment that can react to what you're doing in real time. It just doesn't exist, there's always going to be a lag (even if the devs try to trick you into thinking there's not by showing you what you want to see on your client).

 

Yes, really you have no idea.

I'm not saying this as an insult. Most people have no idea. I only understand the basics. But I know enough to understand that you're completely and totally wrong.

 

It sounds like latency is your problem. It may also be true of SotA but it is not true of all games, ever. Frankly, there is no way you could assert that either.

Not all online games require a centralized server, some can be played point-to-point (should be low latency). Let's not forget multi-player console games (latency essentially zero; AI often questionable). Goldeneye on the N64 was awesome, btw. Funnily enough, kiting is still a viable tactic here. I'd call running and dodging my friends like a lunatic on console games kiting, certainly close enough and it had nothing to do with AI or latency.

 

I would think that it would stack at least partially if not entirely, the help would come from the fact it doesn't give instant help you would have to get a bunch rolling at the same time. It still keeps its usefulness in a longer fight but you don't want to just spam it by itself. I am not saying it is a complete fix but it could help.

What that guy is doing isn't typical kyting he is exploiting the fact that AI doesn't attack and move at the same time. If latency was the only issue then if you stayed in range at all times a mob would still hit you even if you moved, the issue is that if they have to turn whatsoever then they don't attack. Granted nerfing instants would HELP but it would not solve this issue, at the same time it would also break more things.

I believe that in a hangout they said that it wouldn't be too hard to add collision from a tech standpoint because it is already in for NPC's more of the problem would be in "balancing" it such as people standing in door ways and etc, I think it was more or less "we will see later on"....but D.L.M.B. I might have heard it wrong. I would like at least for the shield "dig in" type abilities to be a collision even if its not a constant mechanic.

I am not saying I want the entire game to be moving and for them to compete with super fast paced combat I am just saying I do not believe that all instants should be removed completely. Just because I like having some instant abilities doesn't mean I want everything to be instant.

Also roleplaying is something that a LB game generally does better than other game but it doesn't mean that the game is purely about RP, combat should be good combat not based on roleplaying. I am not trying to make it a competition between if there are more RPers or PvPers or anything along those lines. The point is that there are a LOT of people who enjoy both sides of the game seperately and lots who enjoy them both.

 

My point in showing that was to demonstrate how there's lag between when you do something and when your PVE opponent does something. That's not all bad AI...a lot of what you're seeing in that video is the game catching up to what the player is doing. Yes, the devs could speed up the movement of NPC's. Yes, the devs could make NPC's attack more often. But what's really going on here, I believe, is the NPC's are being more honest about where they are. I think when you play against another player, you don't get that honesty because there is a third piece to the puzzle that doesn't exist in PVE. PVE is just Client to Server. PVP is Client to Server to Client to Sever to Client to Sever...

Yes. It will be interesting to see what Chris says about this. I don't think they can do it. They're having a hard enough time just getting things like polearms to work right. I don't see how they're going to be able to get player collision right. I hope they can though.

I understand that. I don't mind having instants if they make sense. If they're challenging. If they can be countered. But the current application of instants is horrible. I don't know how any one could defend them as they have been implemented.

I'm one of those people that likes RP and PVP equally well. The problem we're having right now is that PVP is being made in an FPS vacuum that has nothing to do with RP. Instead of RP driving development decisions to make PVP great. PVP has been silo-ed away from RP, and this has resulted in PVP being almost a type of mini-game based on FPS arena combat. Kill Ratios and Leader Boards mixed with twitchy mechanics and what I'm sure is scheduled for a shardfall near you, "capture the flag". The whole thing stinks. With each release I get the impression that when it comes to PVP, RG is completely hands off - which is why PVP looks more like a bad version of Quake II instead of something that belongs in a roleplaying game.

I have a secondary concern about this...because we have a small group of pvpers here, I fear that's who the devs are listening to. Which is also probably why we have the pvp that we do. What I think the devs should be doing is listening to the core group of people playing this game (and that's not joe average PK). The problem is that the core group of people playing this game probably have little interest in pvp PRECISELY because it's a bad version of Quake II instead of something that belongs in a roleplaying game.

 

Yes, absolutely tiresome. You are desperate to have a narrow definition of kiting: i.e. one that makes you correct. To reinforce your point you told someone that they didn't understand the internet. Seriously? That's not cool, nor even correct. It cannot be the fault of other players if you are unable to kite, don't change the definition to fit your post.

I provided the perfect counter-example (which is general) and in reply you provide something very specific. General is not the same as specific. Even if SotA has terrible AI, terrible latency and terrible combat it does not mean that kiting is a poor tactic in general (which was really your point).

That video looks like an AI 'problem' rather than latency. Your posts have been suggesting that latency is the issue. Setting AI to blindly follow in combat has almost nothing to do with latency, and certainly not here. Importantly, kiting needs neither poor latency nor poor AI to still be effective.

 

It's a great tactic in a game that has terrible AI, terrible latency and terrible combat. You make a compelling argument against your own point. I agree.

This is why I suggest that some people don't understand the internet. How would you fix AI so that latency was not the problem?

Would you speed up the NPC movement rate so they can make up for any latency?
Would you make NPC's automatically face players so they don't get hit in the back?
Would you have NPC AI logic "guess" what the players will do next?

Latency is there even if you don't see it. When you move your player, that message is sent back to the sever. The AI has to calculate what you've just done. That may take only fractions of a second, or it may take many seconds depending on what's going with all the other players on the server at the time. Meanwhile, you're still moving, still sending commands. Which is the ENTIRE reason you're able to kite anything. Can you kite things in real life? No, you can't, because in real life the AI is significantly better? No, it's because in real life we don't send our thoughts to a central server that tells the rest of the world where we were .04848484 seconds ago. (Although this does appear to happen in real life through the central nervous system of the human body).

So how "conceptually" do you propose to improve AI so that latency is not a noticeable problem? Or would that take the fun out of the game for you because kiting would no longer be a viable pursuit?

Please don't argue the semantics of this going forward.

 

No.

This is like pulling teeth.

I said that even if SotA is terrible it does not negate a tactic in general. You are desperate to rule out kiting based upon SotA, which is specific. You need to accept that kiting is not limited to SotA, nor to MMOs. Shooting down kiting based upon a pre-alpha "MMO" is incredulous logic.

I'm not a game developer but I've played enough games to know that more advanced AI (relative to SotA) can be implemented which mitigates problems of latency. I could guess that if Google were to create MMO AI they'd do a great job of it by using predictive AI that gets better with each trial, but I digress.

I can't talk of your MMO experience but you should know that SotA is not exactly indicative of the best combat AI at the moment.

See that the above comment on improving AI. I'm not against improving AI. It makes no sense for the game to be easy: no one has asked for that, so don't put words into our mouths. Games are not real life, we are all aware of that. The sides of the monitor give it away every time.

Latency is not the only reason for kiting. That is the flaw in your logic.

All of which concerns kiting NPCs, which is related to but not the same as kiting players. SWTOR provides a good example of watching range classes trying to kite melee classes. There were some melee classes who could wipe the floor with a mage if both players were close to each other. The mage could try to kite but often failed. I put this down to poor balancing on SWTOR's part (my opinion). It should be possible for an experience mage to not only escape an experience melee player but also have some reasonable chance of killing them. If you give range players great short distance attacks then you make them competitive with melee at short range, plus completely dominant at range. This means that you must make range players poor in close-combat but excellent at distance. Ergo, we arrive back at kiting. The range player must not stay stuck to one position or the melee class will close down that distance and do damage.

 

The internet wasn't designed for MMO's. MMO's are a kludge based on what the internet can and can not do. Nothing that Google or anyone else does will change that. That's why internet security is impossible, that's why kiting is possible. The more freedom you give players to jump and move around, the less control you have over kiting (and latency).

Kiting is not just a viable strategy, it's an unfortunate byproduct of giving players too much freedom within an environment that rewards stupid player actions.

 

Kiting is not restricted to MMOs. Kiting exists in games where latency is zero. We've already covered this. Kiting is about range. Latency might make kiting AIs easy, but against an adversary of equal ability then the point is moot.

Predictive AI will help to combat latency by predicting a player's movements. If you know nothing of AI and predictive algorithms then I'd suggest reading up on it before commenting.

AI could perhaps be improved by making melee range longer and making the AI less about following. If the AI did not follow the player in the above so closely then he would not be able to kite them in the same way. Load up any established MMO, test this, and take notes.

 

What you think is great AI is smoke and mirrors. The latency is still there. There's no "zero latency" because these games do not control the internet. The internet creates it, and the internet IS it. Unless you're playing games inside your own little world that doesn't touch the internet, you can't do much about that unless you're using turn based elements - which is what and why I'm proposing this.

Established MMO's are not fixing latency, they're covering it up so that you don't see it. When it comes to PVE, that's acceptable. But when it comes to PVP, it's not.

 

I didn't say that latency wasn't there (except games played locally, which I will qualify again):

Not all games are played across the internet. We've already established that. Games played locally, or even on the same console have a latency so close to zero that it makes no practical sense to talk about it. The issue of these posts is about kiting and it's definition. Kiting exists outside of the MMOs and the internet. It is a crucial point.

Separately, poor AI programming can make kiting easier but poor AI does not define what kiting is.

Fixing latency would not be the correct expression but rather compensate for the fact that latency exists. If you are bested by someone who has lower latency then I agree that is not necessarily skill: i.e. kiting someone who suffers from latency is not a display of skill. Infact, the only time you could infer skill is if the player with higher latency beats the player of lower latency. Infer, but no prove.

As a side topic, Cloudflare and Fireeye are doing some interesting stuff in the area of predictive security.

 

I removed all the semantics and off topic distractions. I'm not really sure what you're arguing anymore.

Chris said in his response to the OP that we would discuss what he plans to solve and what he doesn't. My guess would be that player collision, latency and kiting are three things he doesn't plan to solve, because he can't (without making combat more turn-based) which many people would claim is "not fun".

And while I probably don't know 1/10,000th of what Chris knows about this stuff. I know that people said the card system wouldn't be fun and they were wrong. I know that people said selective multiplayer wouldn't be fun and they were wrong. I know that people said you can't test pvp this early in development and they were wrong.

Turn based elements can be fun. The devs just have to work on it like they do anything else.

 

Kiting and that your definition of it was wrong.

 

But if there were no latency who would we blame for getting our asses kicked??