I Have a Dream

Sandbox gamer

Author: vajuras

I like the idea alot about real time dodging, but a few questions come to mind when I read this. First of all is the question on how attacking will work.If real tims dodging it put into place then that would make most attacks have a certain range or area of effect that the target must get out of to dodge the attack, correct?Also, the question on how you could balance real time dodging with projectile use. If you shoot an arrow and the target moves to the side, thats a pretty easy dodge.

I think this is also where shields should come into play. Games like WoW handle shields in a moronic way. If you are charging an opponent at speed, it should be harder to hit you, if you have a big ass shield in front of you, it should be even harder to hit you.

 I have been messing with dark messiah multiplayer and it isnt great, but it does have some nice ideas.

actually what i miss in a mmo is a really dense forest.

i mean tons of places are called "forrest of ..." but is it really a realistic forrest where you could easily put an archer to a disadvantages runnig between trees ?

We really need realtime dodging -OR- a more intelligent way to dodge attacks server-side.

Why?  If you played a table top game, were you rolling dice or jumping around the dining room to avoid getting hit? 

The problem, if you got a large group of people all targetting you at the sametime then you'll get hit.

Yes. Except it's not a problem, it's the way things work in real life.  Despite what you see in the movies, if five relatively fit men attack Bruce Lee in his prime, Bruce Lee was going to run or get beat up.

Dodging and aiming does add some player hand/eye coordination skill, but it doesn't really resemble actually physical prowess.  I'm pretty sure I would beat the crap out of Fatal1ty in a street fight or a boxing match, but I couldn't touch him in a Team Fortress 2 session. 

So in summary, don't confuse punching keys and moving a mouse with 'realism', or assume that everyone wants that gameplay mechanic.  If I am going to play a game for an 8 hour session, I don't want to be stabbing at the keyboard and swinging my mouse around constantly.

I dont think real time aiming should be implemented in an online MMORPG, simply because of how difficult it would be, and how many people are playing the game on a laptop, making it inconvenient for those people. A game like that is suited better for Gaming Consoles.

Actually, Bruce Lee wrote extensively on fighting multiple opponents as did Miyamoto Musashi in "The Book of Five Rings." The basic principle is to get all of your opponents on one side and then try to herd them into a corner where you can take them out more easily.

In the terms of military science, this is called attacking the flank. When you break down combat to a struggle to gain flank on an opponent, you have actually added an element of strategy to the proceedings while also making it more realistic.

Ah finally someone thinks this! if we actually had to dodge while playing mmos think how much less likely we would get bored! I personaly would love to see this put into mmo, especially if they did a good job of it

Actually, Bruce Lee wrote extensively on fighting multiple opponents as did Miyamoto Musashi in "The Book of Five Rings."

OK, but he couldn't actually do it, which I believe was my point.

With Bruce Lee, we will never know. In the case of Musashi, that would be a resounding yes. Musashi was one of the few samurai of that era that made it to the age 60. So yeah, it works.

From personal experience, I was able to outflank about five guys in a backyard paintball free-for-all. I was actually able to herd them into a corner of the play area and take them out in mass. For about two weeks, I felt hung like Ron Jeremy ;-)

Flanking is a staple of basic military science. You can win out over superior numbers, but it requires you to fight smarter, not harder.

1. I don't believe you.

2. In military tactics, a flanking maneuver, also called a flank attack, is an attack on the sides of an opposing force. If a flanking maneuver succeeds, the opposing force would be surrounded from two or more directions, which significantly reduces the maneuverability of the outflanked force and its ability to defend itself. A psychological advantage may also be present, as flank forces usually do not expect to be attacked.

You can't flank 5 people by yourself, since they would simply turn and then you're no longer on their flank.  See how that works?

Yeah, the technical definition isn't exactly what I'm getting at.

It is possible to herd a small group of people in one direction single handedly though. It DOES involve attacking the sides of the group and patiently tightening the circle. In the case above, I had good cover and I was able to alternate between the sides I was attacking. This caused my opponents to bunch up which made it easier to attack them as one unit rather than as several. I also had to constantly be moving so that they couldn't get an accurate idea of where I was.

Trust me, that was a one time trick and it never worked again. But it can, in fact, be done.

Of course, if a bunch of guys are rushing you, how hard is it to keep your distance and circle them? Groups of people move slowly. If you can keep them in a group, you can force them to use more energy and eventually win through attrition.

Here, read this and it should make some of what I'm saying clear.

http://www.defendu.com/multiple_attackers.htm

and here's a video of a man being attacked by five other men and winning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=6Tv3LMNnkMg

Notice how he keeps his distance and never lets them surround him. This can only be reflected in a video game that has active dodging.

As the OP pointed out, Asheron's Call had dodging, you could dodge war spells from mages (i.e Fireballs or Lightning Bolts, which did huge damage if they hit you, but could be easily dodged, at least most of the time for someone who knew what they were doing), arrows from archers could also be dodged, and this is where AC1 made a great call, as archers could scale their arrows to be fired faster (but with less accuracy) which made them harder to dodge, but for characters who had missle defence trained it often meant that they would miss, or the archer could opt to have their arrows fire more accuratley, which increased crit chances, but made them far easier to player-dodge. Melee characters could also be "dodged" by jumping from roof to roof and making them follow you, or by heading indoors and breaking their lock etc.

As Jimmy has also mentioned not being surrounded and being aware of enemy positioning plays a huge part. For example I would much prefer to have 2 or 2 mages in front of me, so that I could predict the angles of oncoming spells etc, than be hedged in and attacked from all sides/angles.

Thanks for your comments sifttified and everyone else this was a great discussion I think

I like the concept.  I am unsure if it can be done on an international server where players in different parts of the world can have short or long ping times.  Each player would need to have a limited amount of time to react from when their pc received notification of the attack.  The person with short ping times might see an enemy dodge an attack long after the attack was completed, which negates the attempt to make a MMO more like a first person shooter.