Dev Discussion #48 - Training (PvP)

My initial feedback is only tangentially related to the question.

I don't like the fact that this is still a question that is open to players at this point, Alpha or not.

My specific feedback is that this is too complex a topic to say because I prefer not to view the mechanics in this way. Mechanics that allow or disallow 'training' have a much bigger impact on other aspects of gameplay which should be considered first, in my opinion.

Whether or not this is possible in a game should be emergent from the other requirements of gameplay, and not particularly up for discussion from this perspective.

tl;dr "Mu, the question is wrong."

Is this going to be different inside dungeons than outside them? Because this is really two or more questions.

What kind of tools would people have to defend themselves when this happens? Do Bards get AoE sleep, for instance? Even if so, and that'd be one of the strongest defense types, eventually this wears off, or you get too many trains of enemies dropped on you relative to your cooldowns. This sort of thing seems like it will just become a contest of who can train better, and who can defend trains better. But to defend a train, you'd have to either clear it, re-train it on your opponents, or stall it back out long enough for your team to wipe the attackers. None of the ways this works sound appealing when considered in terms of what shape of fight, or game, they create.

Can Bards sleep or Tanks tank out huge numbers of enemies, while the rest of the parties fight? That says certain things about how normal combat with those mobs will go. If your mobs are interesting and strong enough to be fun in normal circumstances, you won't have these sorts of things as serious options vs a train.

If you want to build a game around this sort of tactic, it's possible, (after all, minion waves are a thing), but then mobs become worthless on their own, and all of PvP becomes about who can more effectively manage to attack or defend these tactics.

I'm fine with MOBAs, but it's not exactly what I come to MMORPGs for. If I ever find myself thinking "I want to clear some minion waves", I'll go play BDO.

I don't really understand the question because, in a mechanically challenging game, I don't see how a player could do this without dying the process. Kiting strong enemies around without actually fighting them seems like it should just result in you getting killed.

I don't think we're at the stage where this even makes sense to discuss. Threat generation as shown in the Tank Update is still in relatively early stages, and abilities that dissolve Threat to place it on other players have serious implications for PvE and raid encounters - imagine if you get say a smoke bomb ability as a rogue that drops all threat which you could use to dump enemies on someone, now the DPS has an easy escape option for mistakes they make during a raid and devalue tank skill.

Supporting this type of play explicitly will cause balance issues elsewhere, when we haven't even finished defining what "elsewhere" is. I don't think training should be supported explicitly, as it's very likely to degrade the quality of existing PvE play.

How is this not already decided by the games mechanics and systems design?

You either think the game can be pleasant to experience with this kind of behavior offering no discouragement or you think it is negative towards your goals for player experience. You will get empty pro and anti sentiment with this question without any real focus.

Steven has frequently talked about mob training being possible. He seems to like it or not see problems with it. If Steven really wants to know if people are with his stance he should just ask himself. There is clearly something being unsaid with this question. What is Steven or his staff worried about? What do you really want addressed?

Have long leashes on mobs so that this is possible, but give players different tools to address this mechanic. Aggro shifting abilities, pacifier abilities, fear abilities, etc etc etc.

Also, trying to pull a long train should be very difficult and result in very high chances of death. Mobs should have slows/roots/stuns/other CC that start to trigger way more often if there's several mobs clumped up together. Additionally, aggroing more mobs within the same location should trigger their social AI which will increase the aggro on the original train puller, so it's not as easy to lose the train.