Originally posted by Torcip I think the majority of you people are confusing advanced AI with Intelligent AI. An AI who can be program to wipe the floor with a group, can also be programmed to be stupid. Not every Mob that shares the same AI has to be a genius.
Well said.
And indeed, since EQN is trying to combine many different races into the world, it would even make sense to have a mix of different lvls of 'intelligence' for different mobs. (i.e. goblins / ogres have dumber AI, humans / bosses / demons have smarter AI)
Originally posted by Torcip I think the majority of you people are confusing advanced AI with Intelligent AI. An AI who can be program to wipe the floor with a group, can also be programmed to be stupid. Not every Mob that shares the same AI has to be a genius.
Well said.
And indeed, since EQN is trying to combine many different races into the world, it would even make sense to have a mix of different lvls of 'intelligence' for different mobs. (i.e. goblins / ogres have dumber AI, humans / bosses / demons have smarter AI)
It's exciting heady stuff. And having developers focus on bringing the AI up to a respectable level as a priority is a treat. It's about time that a challenging fight meant more than just a mob with more hit points. It can mean instead one that is noticeably more intelligent than others. This is the feature of EQN that I am most looking forward to. PVE with a challenge similar to PVP would be a nice change of pace.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Originally posted by Torcip I think the majority of you people are confusing advanced AI with Intelligent AI. An AI who can be program to wipe the floor with a group, can also be programmed to be stupid. Not every Mob that shares the same AI has to be a genius.
Well said.
And indeed, since EQN is trying to combine many different races into the world, it would even make sense to have a mix of different lvls of 'intelligence' for different mobs. (i.e. goblins / ogres have dumber AI, humans / bosses / demons have smarter AI)
It's exciting heady stuff. And having developers focus on bringing the AI up to a respectable level as a priority is a treat. It's about time that a challenging fight meant more than just a mob with more hit points. It can mean instead one that is noticeably more intelligent than others. This is the feature of EQN that I am most looking forward to. PVE with a challenge similar to PVP would be a nice change of pace.
I couldn't agree more.
And after playing games like Shadow of the Colossus, Dragon's Dogma, Last of Us, etc. I'm ready to start seeing more challenging & interesting dynamics in our MMOs. I have been for quite some time. While I enjoy the simplicity of the EQ model, I'm also the type of gamer that enjoys a challenge. Sadly almost no MMOs really challenge their players. The 'difficulty' in most of these games is how much time you can spend farming X or Y. The actually combat can be done 1 handed while eating a sandwich.
I'm ready for smarter games, and I really really hope (but have my doubts) that the rest of the genre is too.
Where can I buy some of that EQN Kool Aid? There is nothing intelligent about mob's actions and reactions.. HENCE "ARTIFICIAL" grrrrrrrrr Computer opponents will only do what the program tells them to do.. NO MORE.. It doesn't learn from your actions, it only responds to code.. The only thing a dev can do is use various levels of code (1-10) with 1 being the dumbest.. It's just like playing strategy games like Civ.. You can play on dumb mode or God mode.. The only thing the EQN devs are doing is increasing SOME of the mob difficulty.. But it really isn't going to make a difference.. It still smells like Zergfest combat to me.. I have yet to hear anything that proves otherwise.. GW2 all over again..
Originally posted by Rydeson Where can I buy some of that EQN Kool Aid? There is nothing intelligent about mob's actions and reactions.. HENCE "ARTIFICIAL" grrrrrrrrr Computer opponents will only do what the program tells them to do.. NO MORE.. It doesn't learn from your actions, it only responds to code.. The only thing a dev can do is use various levels of code (1-10) with 1 being the dumbest.. It's just like playing strategy games like Civ.. You can play on dumb mode or God mode.. The only thing the EQN devs are doing is increasing SOME of the mob difficulty.. But it really isn't going to make a difference.. It still smells like Zergfest combat to me.. I have yet to hear anything that proves otherwise.. GW2 all over again..
Could you go into a little more detail why it smells like zergest combat? Using the actual details we have been provided, not simply basing it on previous games. I've yet to hear anything that makes it out to be like GW2.
They've made it very very clear (most companies avoid discussing other games directly) that they have played GW2, understand it's shortcomings, and are not making a system like GW2's. They have said this a few times in a few different ways. Doesn't seem to be any confusion on their end.
Obviously it has yet to be seen, but calling them liars (which you are basically doing) seems silly until there is evidence.
If all they can do is put mobs on hard mode, great. I would much rather have hard/difficult mobs then simply adding 100000000 HPs.
But I believe that reacting to code is essentially the same thing as learning for AI.
No they won't become Skynet, but in the moment, if I do A and mob does B and I continue to repeat the same pattern, hopefully mob starts to do B C D before I do A to counter me and actually plan ahead.
Until we see other wise, I am taking SOE and Storybricks word as the truth. The details they have released have been clear and pretty straight forward. They are either completely lying or have something great, not a lot of wiggle room for them from what they have stated.
Originally posted by Rydeson Where can I buy some of that EQN Kool Aid? There is nothing intelligent about mob's actions and reactions.. HENCE "ARTIFICIAL" grrrrrrrrr Computer opponents will only do what the program tells them to do.. NO MORE.. It doesn't learn from your actions, it only responds to code.. The only thing a dev can do is use various levels of code (1-10) with 1 being the dumbest.. It's just like playing strategy games like Civ.. You can play on dumb mode or God mode.. The only thing the EQN devs are doing is increasing SOME of the mob difficulty.. But it really isn't going to make a difference.. It still smells like Zergfest combat to me.. I have yet to hear anything that proves otherwise.. GW2 all over again..
Could you go into a little more detail why it smells like zergest combat? Using the actual details we have been provided, not simply basing it on previous games. I've yet to hear anything that makes it out to be like GW2.
They've made it very very clear (most companies avoid discussing other games directly) that they have played GW2, understand it's shortcomings, and are not making a system like GW2's. They have said this a few times in a few different ways. Doesn't seem to be any confusion on their end. Devs have a bad habit of misleading people to sell their product or hype a game.. I remember all the HOO HAW from GW2 of "we're not doing quest anymore".. Well guess what? The heart thingies in GW2 are EXACTLY that.. Then I remember the same hype of "I swing a sword, I swing a sword" line... ummm That is all you do in GW2 as well.. In fact their zerg action combat is easier and lamer then old trinity combat..
Obviously it has yet to be seen, but calling them liars (which you are basically doing) seems silly until there is evidence. In today's world it is the sellers duty to PROVE their product, not for me to disprove it..
If all they can do is put mobs on hard mode, great. I would much rather have hard/difficult mobs then simply adding 100000000 HPs. I don't want either.. I want OLD world role play corrected..
But I believe that reacting to code is essentially the same thing as learning for AI.
No they won't become Skynet, but in the moment, if I do A and mob does B and I continue to repeat the same pattern, hopefully mob starts to do B C D before I do A to counter me and actually plan ahead. Think about it. With EQN you'll have limited hotkeys to press.. especially when it goes console.. 80% of your button mashing will be the same 3 or 4 keys.. You have no choice but to be the same thing..
Until we see other wise, I am taking SOE and Storybricks word as the truth. The details they have released have been clear and pretty straight forward. They are either completely lying or have something great, not a lot of wiggle room for them from what they have stated.
Well.. there you go.. you want to believe SOE without question.. I however sees what happens when people drink the kool aid from politicians, religions fanatics, and corporations selling pipe dreams.. I'm very pessimistic when it comes to taking anyone's word.. especially SOE.. When SOE sold and released an expansion packet, then turned around and did NGE.. NO WAY they can tell me they didn't know they were selling content that was going to be obsolete in weeks.. That was just DIRTY BUSINESS..
Anyways.. as for the action combat.. There are only 2 options.. 1) ROLE defining combat, or 2) Chaotic Zerg.. You either give the players the ability to control the combat with role defining abilities like CC, Taunt, Kiting, Fearing, etc etc, OR you let it become a free for all. (GW2). There is no middle of the road here.. It's why many do not like PvP and action combat, because it isn't always about skill, most of the time it's all about the right class, at the right time..
If mobs are going to ignore Mr. Plate Meat Shield and go after Mr Squishy, because that is what code tells them to do.. Then players have 2 choices.. Find a way to "control" the fight (this brings us back to taunting.. will stuns become the new taunt).. or Mr Squishy either dies a lot, OR is physically able to tank that mob alone.. (Which I think is very much the case here).. And if cloth wearing squishy's can tank one or more mobs solo,, There is no real need for ROLES.. We are back to ZERGFEST just like GW2..
Seeing as I wrote extremely intelligent AI which pretty much slaughtered the players in Neverwinter Nights in 2002, I must say you don't need an MIT engineer to make challenging, intelligent AI.
The AI we have right now in most MMOS is so stupid-simple, you have NO idea. I've coded that, too, and really... it is STUPID simple to code it. That's why when I see aggro snafus like NWO had at launch with the healers tanking, I just facepalm.
All they would have to do to make it 10X as intelligent as any existing MMO is take the existing "aggro" mechanic and just add a second dimension of "target value". I'm pretty sure Blizzard actually did this and removed it save for internal tests because players died left right and center.
Fast forward, and we're up to the challenge, I think. The code has existed for years and years, no one used it because they were babying players.
*raises hands*
Preach, brother!
[mod edit]
Rofl... you can lead a horse to water...
Anyone else... if you're truly interested in how they are doing it in EQN, you can get an education on utility-based AI with two 1-hour lectures, one form the 2010 Game Developers Conference and the other one from 2012:
PS. Despite this JJ guy's repeated posts to the contrary, that actually is the guy responsible for the AI you keep discussing in this thread.
The 1st post he made was some 3 liner troll post.
The 2nd post he made was on another account, first post, and said he enjoyed all the posts the 1st user made. Which is one.
He picked a name up, and ran with it. I can't believe you fell for it!
Has he written anything even intelligent as of yet? No. Just read his post history!
Why would he come to this forum? Why would he use his real name?
Why does he refuse to post anything meaningful?
It is obvious he is using the guy's identity.
I could make a dupe account called IAMBILLGATES, put a link to microsoft in my signature, but that doesn't make me Bill Gates. In fact, I would consider anyone who thought I was Bill Gates to be a moron.
Seeing as I wrote extremely intelligent AI which pretty much slaughtered the players in Neverwinter Nights in 2002, I must say you don't need an MIT engineer to make challenging, intelligent AI.
The AI we have right now in most MMOS is so stupid-simple, you have NO idea. I've coded that, too, and really... it is STUPID simple to code it. That's why when I see aggro snafus like NWO had at launch with the healers tanking, I just facepalm.
All they would have to do to make it 10X as intelligent as any existing MMO is take the existing "aggro" mechanic and just add a second dimension of "target value". I'm pretty sure Blizzard actually did this and removed it save for internal tests because players died left right and center.
Fast forward, and we're up to the challenge, I think. The code has existed for years and years, no one used it because they were babying players.
*raises hands*
Preach, brother!
[mod edit]
Rofl... you can lead a horse to water...
Anyone else... if you're truly interested in how they are doing it in EQN, you can get an education on utility-based AI with two 1-hour lectures, one form the 2010 Game Developers Conference and the other one from 2012:
PS. Despite this JJ guy's repeated posts to the contrary, that actually is the guy responsible for the AI you keep discussing in this thread.
The 1st post he made was some 3 liner troll post.
The 2nd post he made was on another account, first post, and said he enjoyed all the posts the 1st user made. Which is one.
He picked a name up, and ran with it. I can't believe you fell for it!
Has he written anything even intelligent as of yet? No. Just read his post history!
Why would he come to this forum? Why would he use his real name?
Why does he refuse to post anything meaningful?
It is obvious he is using the guy's identity.
I could make a dupe account called IAMBILLGATES, put a link to microsoft in my signature, but that doesn't make me Bill Gates. In fact, I would consider anyone who thought I was Bill Gates to be a moron.
Believe what you will. Fact is that you're trolling the real guy. I already showed you, way way back, with a link to his twitter account, definitive proof of who he is when he tweeted a link based on the discussion on this thread minutes after that post (my link to his 2009 Red Couch GDC interview) was posted here.
What I find amusing is that you are so blinded by your hostile forum warrior pose that you can't tell shit from shinola.
Do you imagine that all real developers have an account here with 2,000 posts? Rofl.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Originally posted by Rydeson Where can I buy some of that EQN Kool Aid? There is nothing intelligent about mob's actions and reactions.. HENCE "ARTIFICIAL" grrrrrrrrr Computer opponents will only do what the program tells them to do.. NO MORE.. It doesn't learn from your actions, it only responds to code.. The only thing a dev can do is use various levels of code (1-10) with 1 being the dumbest.. It's just like playing strategy games like Civ.. You can play on dumb mode or God mode.. The only thing the EQN devs are doing is increasing SOME of the mob difficulty.. But it really isn't going to make a difference.. It still smells like Zergfest combat to me.. I have yet to hear anything that proves otherwise.. GW2 all over again..
Could you go into a little more detail why it smells like zergest combat? Using the actual details we have been provided, not simply basing it on previous games. I've yet to hear anything that makes it out to be like GW2.
They've made it very very clear (most companies avoid discussing other games directly) that they have played GW2, understand it's shortcomings, and are not making a system like GW2's. They have said this a few times in a few different ways. Doesn't seem to be any confusion on their end. Devs have a bad habit of misleading people to sell their product or hype a game.. I remember all the HOO HAW from GW2 of "we're not doing quest anymore".. Well guess what? The heart thingies in GW2 are EXACTLY that.. Then I remember the same hype of "I swing a sword, I swing a sword" line... ummm That is all you do in GW2 as well.. In fact their zerg action combat is easier and lamer then old trinity combat..
I do not disagree that companies are known to say one thing and do another. All you can do is wait and see what happens. Unless you are able to tell the future, we have no idea what will actually end up in the game. Heck it could all be a huge joke and EQN is a card game...they can do and say whatever they want. When the time comes to play, we will know the truth. Until then you are just guessing and making assumptions based on the past, which doesn't have to repeat itself.
Obviously it has yet to be seen, but calling them liars (which you are basically doing) seems silly until there is evidence. In today's world it is the sellers duty to PROVE their product, not for me to disprove it..
They can't prove anything. They could say there game is the most amazing thing ever and it could be complete garbage to you. They have stated that the AI will be something new and challenging that doesn't rely on zerging and you are saying this isn't true. If I say the sky is blue and you say it is red, not much I can do to prove you wrong. When you remove logic from the conversation, it is done.
If all they can do is put mobs on hard mode, great. I would much rather have hard/difficult mobs then simply adding 100000000 HPs. I don't want either.. I want OLD world role play corrected..
What do you mean exactly and how do they go about doing it?
But I believe that reacting to code is essentially the same thing as learning for AI.
No they won't become Skynet, but in the moment, if I do A and mob does B and I continue to repeat the same pattern, hopefully mob starts to do B C D before I do A to counter me and actually plan ahead. Think about it. With EQN you'll have limited hotkeys to press.. especially when it goes console.. 80% of your button mashing will be the same 3 or 4 keys.. You have no choice but to be the same thing..
I have thought about it and haven't come to the same conclusion. In GW2, I used all 15-30 skills on a constant basis. With limited skills, you normally get higher quality ones that need to be used constantly. Instead of 50 and only using 20 frequently. They've also said there will be combos and spellweaving (whatever that is) which could lead to quite a few more abilities then just simply 12 buttons on the bar.
FFXIV AAR allows for like 32 skills easily (128 is possible with creative shifting I believe) on the PS3 controller. Just because some games use buttons on a 1 to 1 basis, doesn't mean all games do or have to.
Regardless, you seem to again be predicting the future based on your perceived vision of how the game will translate to the PS4 (if it even does). And doesn't actually account for AI.
Until we see other wise, I am taking SOE and Storybricks word as the truth. The details they have released have been clear and pretty straight forward. They are either completely lying or have something great, not a lot of wiggle room for them from what they have stated.
Well.. there you go.. you want to believe SOE without question.. I however sees what happens when people drink the kool aid from politicians, religions fanatics, and corporations selling pipe dreams.. I'm very pessimistic when it comes to taking anyone's word.. especially SOE.. When SOE sold and released an expansion packet, then turned around and did NGE.. NO WAY they can tell me they didn't know they were selling content that was going to be obsolete in weeks.. That was just DIRTY BUSINESS..
I am very untrustworthy of the world in general. Doesn't mean I can't take a game and the devs at face value. I'm not blindly believing anything they throw out, but until I see something that shows me otherwise, I'll believe they are at least trying to do what they are saying. For me, I give them 100 points or an A. They can easily lose points if they start doing things I find shady or untruthful, but so far, I've yet to hear them back pedal or break any promises.
You are free to start at 0 and make them earn points, but it is going to be a long process as until you see the final product, you have no clue what the game will be like, despite comparing to every game and anything that has ever happened in the past. NGE != equal EQN being crap. Companies can improve and learn from their mistakes, it is possible.
Anyways.. as for the action combat.. There are only 2 options.. 1) ROLE defining combat, or 2) Chaotic Zerg.. You either give the players the ability to control the combat with role defining abilities like CC, Taunt, Kiting, Fearing, etc etc, OR you let it become a free for all. (GW2).
Completely agree. Also believe they have made it clear that they are designing combat to be role oriented. Again, you can choose to believe them or not, but they said roles and specific class/skill templates will be important. You can't just faceroll the entire game with any template you want. Maybe you don't need to have X Y Z classes in every single encounter, instead you do need A B Y in one, A L X in another, X Y C in another, etc.
That is the whole point of multi-classing. Figuring out how to handle a situation and building your character and group accordingly. Instead of simply showing up with X tanks, X healers, X dps and winning.
There is no middle of the road here.. It's why many do not like PvP and action combat, because it isn't always about skill, most of the time it's all about the right class, at the right time..
Everything is about the right class. Try to do the trinity without the trinity....
But, the higher you get in the PVP ladder or the harder the PVE becomes, the more "skill" is required, but having the right class does help.
Seems to me that people don't like PVP and action combat because they have to think outside the box and be active, instead of just showing up and winning with a pre-designed structure that if followed correctly will result in a win.
PVP is chaos, but from my days in DAoC and just PVP in general, a well organized group can destroy a much larger zerg. Heck a highly skilled player can kill quite a few if it is 1 Good Mage vs 5 bad Mages. There are countless videos on youtube showing this. Numbers can be a huge advantage or the reason for losing.
If mobs are going to ignore Mr. Plate Meat Shield and go after Mr Squishy, because that is what code tells them to do.. Then players have 2 choices.. Find a way to "control" the fight (this brings us back to taunting.. will stuns become the new taunt).. or Mr Squishy either dies a lot, OR is physically able to tank that mob alone.. (Which I think is very much the case here).. And if cloth wearing squishy's can tank one or more mobs solo,, There is no real need for ROLES.. We are back to ZERGFEST just like GW2..
Don't see any indication of this, actually the opposite. They have said that classes will play roles that we are familiar with, but there won't be a reliance on taunt or traditional healing.
The demo showed a warrior using his shield and movement abilities to CC mobs and keep them back. Showed a caster using abilities to get out of range and to CC mobs. Both showing that players are responsible for staying a live and can't just stand around DPSing mindlessly.
Again going pack to DAoC, PVP in general, or MOBA gameplay, you do not need taunt like abilities to be a tank.
CC is the best taunt there is. Not getting hit > soaking up damage. Standing there getting hit isn't intelligent for a mob or player to do.
Teamwork, communication, good class/template builds, etc will be important from what I have seen. There is no indication that people can just roll in and DPS everything into the ground in a few seconds. Again, until we actually see real footage, it is all just assuming.
Being cautious is smart and helps from setting yourself up to be disappointed, but there is a point where you are no longer cautious and just being negative without any light at the end of the tunnel. I assume the Devs aren't liars trying to fool me once again and will stay hopeful, without letting the light blind me to the truth.
Originally posted by Rydeson Originally posted by lizardbonesOriginally posted by DullahanWhat people don't understand, is its not that classes in gw2 aren't diverse, its just without devoted roles like healers or tanks and a system of threat management, classes inevitably become some form of dps and combat degenerates into fleeing and chasing, aka, the zerg.
People understand threat based mechanics just fine. They also understand there isn't just one way to do things. It is possible, as people have explained in this thread, to have players fulfill different roles in combat, without having dedicated class roles. It doesn't have to involve direct threat management. It may be more difficult because players will have to switch from healing to dps and possibly to some form of crowd control in the same fight, but it is certainly possible. That all sounds good, but unlikely.. Either combat will be structured roles, or chaotic zerg.. It can't be both or somewhere in the middle.. The things you bring up such as people switching from heals to CC to support, only exist in fights that last longer then 10 seconds.. GW2 tried to do that, and it's a joke.. CC in gw2 is a 2 second delay in combat.. Why even bother then.. That is where people just say , the hell with it, and just ZERG.. If you are going to have roles, combat has to last longer then a burp..
The fights can be structured without resorting to taunt/dps threat management. It exists right now in LoL and probably in DOTA2. My example was just one possibility. If a strong mob switches targets, then someone supports that target. It just doesn't have to be a "tank".
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Obviously, certain people wouldn't be happy until I actually pasted the entire AI design doc into this thread. Since I can't really do that -- for reasons which should be obvious to pretty much everyone else but him (and which I'm sure will just spawn a new round of contortionist justification) -- I'll just drop this in here...
I'm sure we'll have a laugh about it when I'm out there in October. :-)
Now can we not make this about me? In fact, this entire thread is so ridiculous, that it should be nuked from orbit. (It's the only way to be sure.)
I'm glad that most of you are excited by the prospects. I certainly understand the skepticism. We've all been burned before, haven't we? Just hang out a little bit longer, eh?
Thanks, folks!
President & Lead Designer of Intrinsic Algorithm, Author of Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI, Game AI consultant, GDC AI Summit advisor, co-founder of AIGPG | IntrinsicAlgorithm.com
Coming from the software development world I know for a FACT that SOE is not employing people from MIT's AI department for their game. This would be the only way to produce AI even close to challenging enough to make the "Trinity" system obsolete. However, even MIT hasn't created AI advanced enough to make this claim.
Additionally, we had "difficult" AI back in 2004 during EQ2's closed beta. We started testing AI that would dynamically choose, on the fly, whom to attack based on class & actions they were taking. Mobs would randomly scream out "Kill the healer! It is keeping the weaklings alive!" (an undead skeleton within the instanced orc dungeon in Commonlands outside Freeport). I don't know what happened to it as mobs stopped doing that kind of stuff shortly before launch. Nothing was said about it, and launch went on without a further word on it.
The thing is, it made the game actually difficult and fun to play even with trinity. Tanks had to constantly watch their aggro or risk a healer or nuker being fried. It most certianly did NOT make Trinity obsolete.
ps: wtf with this whole "Trinity" name? CC (ie: control from enchanters, etc) has always been a critical role in Everquest. So why only pick Tank/Healer/DPS and call it Trinity???
Anyways, we've had basic-advanced AI since 2004, but no one has been using it. In the instances it was attempted it never made the game impossible, but from what I've been told by developers in the industry it made it that much harder to make new content for the game as they always had to consider how the AI would be used in that situation. This is the only reason I can guess as to why they stopped using it????
Either way, don't believe this nonsense about EQ:N. They're following the current "trend" of PR buzz phrases to catch people's eyes. They should just come out and say that they want to move away from selective roles like Tank/Healer/Dps/Control. After all, we all know dungeons in Everquest 1 cannot be done without that specific setup right guys? (In before I post about constantly doing DPS only dungeon runs etc in EQ1, or before someone else does)
Seriously, it really is getting frustrating reading about this "Advanced AI" when it doesn't exist. It's like the CEO of Spandex coming out to tell everyone we have conquered the effects of "Gravity" to a room that has at LEAST one Physicist/Engineer that knows for a fact we haven't yet.
/endRant
I agree 100% at least some have intellect
"The King and the Pawn return to the same box at the end of the game"
I cant believe how many people have fallen for this. This is a straw man...
Poor AI was never the reason for the trinity. As many people have pointed out, back when we had terrible AI, the triniity did not exist (or even work). It was created at a later date as a simplified battle system, that would encourage limited gameplay. It was not because the AI was poor... but because player engagement was.
By separating the combat into three clearly defined roles, it was possible to make it less challengeing, and more engaging. As each player knew what role they had to play, and then could be satisfied with how well they performed it.
This was not a result of a technical issue, it was the result of psycholgical manipulation of the game rules, to create a more desirable game, which kept players engaged for longer. It is one of the basics of how sub games have manipulated the users to feel happy about paying a monthly fee for content which isnt actually engaging (i.e. button mashing).
I cant believe how many people have fallen for this. This is a straw man...
Poor AI was never the reason for the trinity. As many people have pointed out, back when we had terrible AI, the triniity did not exist (or even work). It was created at a later date as a simplified battle system, that would encourage limited gameplay. It was not because the AI was poor... but because player engagement was.
By separating the combat into three clearly defined roles, it was possible to make it less challengeing, and more engaging. As each player knew what role they had to play, and then could be satisfied with how well they performed it.
This was not a result of a technical issue, it was the result of psycholgical manipulation of the game rules, to create a more desirable game, which kept players engaged for longer. It is one of the basics of how sub games have manipulated the users to feel happy about paying a monthly fee for content which isnt actually engaging (i.e. button mashing).
You must be living in a dark world, everything is not a conspiracy.
The trinity or roles didn't start in mmorpg. You had it in D&D, your dungeon master was controlling the enemy , so you could say that it was intelligent enough. As a player you would keep the plate user in front while the caster was in the middle or the rear.
The tank was a way they found to simulate exactly that in rpg games. It was in baldur's gate and many other rpg computer games, not just in sub game to milk the costumer.
I have yet to see anything better than the tactical combat of trinity based games.
I cant believe how many people have fallen for this. This is a straw man...
Poor AI was never the reason for the trinity. As many people have pointed out, back when we had terrible AI, the triniity did not exist (or even work). It was created at a later date as a simplified battle system, that would encourage limited gameplay. It was not because the AI was poor... but because player engagement was.
By separating the combat into three clearly defined roles, it was possible to make it less challengeing, and more engaging. As each player knew what role they had to play, and then could be satisfied with how well they performed it.
This was not a result of a technical issue, it was the result of psycholgical manipulation of the game rules, to create a more desirable game, which kept players engaged for longer. It is one of the basics of how sub games have manipulated the users to feel happy about paying a monthly fee for content which isnt actually engaging (i.e. button mashing).
You must be living in a dark world, everything is not a conspiracy.
The trinity or roles didn't start in mmorpg. You had it in D&D, your dungeon master was controlling the enemy , so you could say that it was intelligent enough. As a player you would keep the plate user in front while the caster was in the middle or the rear.
The tank was a way they found to simulate exactly that in rpg games. It was in baldur's gate and many other rpg computer games, not just in sub game to milk the costumer.
I have yet to see anything better than the tactical combat of trinity based games.
It is not a conspiracy, it is just a business practice. You know, like putting the milk in the back of the store, or putting the candy at the register. It is a conspiracy that all supermarkets do this? I dont think so, I think it is just a trick to make money.. like pricing at 99 cents, rather than a dollar.
D&D (or more likely AD&D) did not have the concept of aggro. There was no artificial construct that dictated who the mob attacked. This is the basis of the trinity. By building a ruleset that allowed the players to control WHERE the damage would land, and by making this not specifically tied to healing/damage of the players, the trinity was created. Previous rules had the mobs attacking the closest, weakest, most damaging, or even random players. This proved too difficult for teams of players to properly manage, and when you added variables such as CC, agro ranges, mob tethering etc... it became too difficult for most casual players. The move to the trinitiy was an effort to simply the overlying battle system, to something that was more clearly understandable to the more casual userbase.
Monthly sub based games used this as it was both simple, and effective. It brought in a group element, and kept the players engaged for longer. This was a good moneymaker, and as such has been copied by most games since. (i.e. following good business practice).
You must be living in a dark world, everything is not a conspiracy.
The trinity or roles didn't start in mmorpg. You had it in D&D, your dungeon master was controlling the enemy , so you could say that it was intelligent enough. As a player you would keep the plate user in front while the caster was in the middle or the rear.
The tank was a way they found to simulate exactly that in rpg games. It was in baldur's gate and many other rpg computer games, not just in sub game to milk the costumer.
I have yet to see anything better than the tactical combat of trinity based games.
D&D did not have the holy trinity.There was no aggro mechanic the only way a fighter could tank was if he could physically block all enemies from reaching people behind him and that wouldn't stop enemy ranged attacks.
Who the enemy attacked was up to the DM and he would base it on enemy intelligence and rolls there was no mechanic where a fighter could force enemies to attack him and ignore everyone else. D&D had basic tactical combat roles and each class was better at one than another but it didn't have the Trinity.
depends on what you consider "smart" - creating challenging ai isnt difficult - every simple chess program does it...simply programm it to respond to every action with the optimal counter action - et voila challenging battles...but that has nothing to do with ai...
if youre talking about "real" ai, you talk about the ability to create and adapt - especially outside of battle - and that to me is mostly marketing... what they probably will do is have simply scripted events like
every hour mobs gain 1 mob, once they reach 10 mobs, attack the nearest village...things like that...
Arguments that the trinity system is based on money-making decisions are out of line.
In MMO's, the party's combat encounter IS the game. Developers need to employ how the game is played, the rules, the game pieces, etc. The best way to make the combat game fun and challenging is to require each party member to contribute to the success, or cause the failure, of each encounter. So, how do you make each party member's actions essential to the success or failure of the encounters? Simple, you make it so that each player relies on each other's actions during the fight.
So, the trinity is essentially the one and only rule set for combat encounters that truly offers the condition that combat encounters rely on teamwork to get through the encounter. AI has been programmed with the agro meters and hate generation from heals, debuffs, dps and taunts are carefully balanced so that each player has to carefully consider when they can start nuking, what kind of heals to use and when, how often to taunt, etc. The rule set also provides how players need to react when mob agro changes: tanks have to quickly seize aggro, dpsers can cast some kind of threat reduction spell, healers have to change targets, mezzers need to mezz, etc.
Making smarter AI, smart enough to make the trinity obsolete, is less about EQ Next offering some kind of cutting edge AI and more about EQ Next offering a NEW rule set for combat encounters. As an example, imagine checkers being upgraded to chess: chess has more rules, each piece has its own movement abilities, the way pieces protect each other are way more complicated than in a game like checkers. But, both are players on the same exact playing board.
I can't imagine what they have in mind, though. Combat encounters and the rules that guide them remain the most critical part of an MMO. If the encounters are too simple by design the game will not last.
Quite possibly - that said it is developers job to cater to players. They are your customers and if they don't enjoy your product they will not play it. For game studio to invest time and money it takes a significant amount of people interested in the game, even if it is niche game. If by and large people are not able to figure out this new advanced combat or new and advanced system then companies are not going to make it.
The problem arises when mmo games that are supposed to be played for hundreds if not thousands of hours cater almost exclusively to the skill level of someone who has played only a few hours.
Arguments that the trinity system is based on money-making decisions are out of line.
In MMO's, the party's combat encounter IS the game. Developers need to employ how the game is played, the rules, the game pieces, etc. The best way to make the combat game fun and challenging is to require each party member to contribute to the success, or cause the failure, of each encounter. So, how do you make each party member's actions essential to the success or failure of the encounters? Simple, you make it so that each player relies on each other's actions during the fight.
So, the trinity is essentially the one and only rule set for combat encounters that truly offers the condition that combat encounters rely on teamwork to get through the encounter. AI has been programmed with the agro meters and hate generation from heals, debuffs, dps and taunts are carefully balanced so that each player has to carefully consider when they can start nuking, what kind of heals to use and when, how often to taunt, etc. The rule set also provides how players need to react when mob agro changes: tanks have to quickly seize aggro, dpsers can cast some kind of threat reduction spell, healers have to change targets, mezzers need to mezz, etc.
Making smarter AI, smart enough to make the trinity obsolete, is less about EQ Next offering some kind of cutting edge AI and more about EQ Next offering a NEW rule set for combat encounters. As an example, imagine checkers being upgraded to chess: chess has more rules, each piece has its own movement abilities, the way pieces protect each other are way more complicated than in a game like checkers. But, both are players on the same exact playing board.
I can't imagine what they have in mind, though. Combat encounters and the rules that guide them remain the most critical part of an MMO. If the encounters are too simple by design the game will not last.
Why is it out of line?
We can all see that the trinity was NOT always the default, and that it was phased in, as part of multiple games. 'Occam's razor' tells us that the simplest solution is most often the best. The simple solution is that the trinity provided a working model that made the developers money. Others that tried more complex systems found that their 'innovation' failed to make them money, and they went broke. This is as simple as it gets... as it is Darwinism. Changes that bring an advantage flourish, while those that do not (or bring a disadvantage) do not.
No matter how dumb/smart the AI is, if it is bound by the simple 'agrro' rules that created the trinity, it will operate in the same way. It is only a marketting ploy to try to convince us that this is a limitation of the AI. The simple truth is that dumb AI can easily avoid the trinity, by simply not following the logic that dictated its success.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford
The argument that the AI doesn't exist has been debunked thoroughly. It's hilarious that people with no credentials in the field of game AI (or game design at all), made sweeping statements about what is possible or likely. It's pretty obvious that the people arguing against the possibility or likely-hood of advanced AI, have no interest to ever look beyond the trinity system. These people consider the trinity integral for MMORPGs. It has nothing to do with what is possible with AI.
So I'm going to go ahead and remind everyone why so many people want to do away with the trinity to begin with. The trinity forces every class to fit into one of three jobs: Tank, Healer, or DPS. Each class must do their job just as well as the next. Otherwise, in the difficult "endgame" content, some classes are clearly superior to others.
In WoW, a "hybrid" just means you can pick one of many different jobs to do. It does not mean you do multiple jobs with less efficiency simultaneously. They even decided to take out the 5% less dmg/healing/tank penalty that they put in to preserve the spirit of the hybrid. The reality is even 5% makes those classes less desirable.
Classic EQ on the other hand, didn't balance every class to do these jobs equally well. Clerics were better healers than druids and shamans (much better, in fact). Warriors were needed for tanking raid mobs. Hybrids did multiple things less well.
This caused classes like Clerics, Wizards, and Rogues to be highly sought after for raiding. Where as most other classes you wanted just 1-2 for their unique buffs. There was a limit to the use for multiple warriors, shamans, and enchanters for example. Paladins and SKs pretty much lacked a purpose in raiding at all. Ranger were strictly worse at high end content until there were morphed into a more pure DPS class in Luclin (not classic).
There is not much a place for certain class concepts in a trinity system. Such as "tanky dps." If you need an off-tank, you want another pure tank class; not some tanky hybrid. So "tanky dps" can be inherently overpowered (monks in velious), because they do just as much dmg as squisher dps classes, but have more survivability. Alternately, they may be underpowered (rangers until Luclin) because their tankyness isn't used and they do less DPS than dedicated DPS classes.
The trinity basically puts a tight cap on class versatility and customization. Everyone ends up being pure Tanks, Healers, and DPS for the endgame. Only when the trinity is lifted (in the form of PvP, for trinity games) do you see more in between.
Some people love "just tanking" or "just healing." Most people don't. Most people enjoy a bit more variety than this. Which is why EQN came up with the no trinity, horizontal progression model. To keep things interesting and customizable.
On somewhat of a side note: the trinity is bad for PvP. It encourages extremely powerful healing. If there are powerful heals, they should be on somewhat long cooldowns. Which is never the case in trinity games. There is no real way to set up ideal PvP gameplay when powerful heals with no cooldown have to be taken into account.
You can make it so the healers die fast, but that's lame for the healer.
You can make it so that you need to run healers oom, which is extremely boring.
You can make it so you need to chain CCs in order to actually kill people...this is the WoW system and most people hate it.
I would say healing is the main reason Arena in WoW is not popular as a spectator esport, or liked by the majority of players.
depends on what you consider "smart" - creating challenging ai isnt difficult - every simple chess program does it...simply programm it to respond to every action with the optimal counter action - et voila challenging battles...but that has nothing to do with ai...
if youre talking about "real" ai, you talk about the ability to create and adapt - especially outside of battle - and that to me is mostly marketing... what they probably will do is have simply scripted events like
every hour mobs gain 1 mob, once they reach 10 mobs, attack the nearest village...things like that...
You don't understand anything about programming. A chess program is easy. You can easily see how they work by looking at the notation. They are calculating every possible move several moves deep, and evaluating the end result. A chess board is static, with a very refined set of rules, which makes it easy to code. The chess computer isn't responding to you in any meaningful way, it is just analyzing the new position.
This is only truly about the decision to not include the taunt ability. Even with the most advanced AI science could muster you could still have an ability/spell that would force the mob to focus on the tank.
Originally posted by Swiftrevoir This is only truly about the decision to not include the taunt ability. Even with the most advanced AI science could muster you could still have an ability/spell that would force the mob to focus on the tank.
This.
It does not even need to be ability or spell,lets imagine i meet a cave troll in dungeon,i know its stupid ,i know he will attack me like crazy when he see me.
MMO terms,i pull him ,rest of the party stays back and when we are fighting they stab him or whatever.
In RPG terms,we make a trap or i shoot his cub(if there is one) and make him angry ,i shoot him in the knee so we decide who attacks who etc...
But if some advanced AI dev says that theres no anger in the world or MMOs ,well then maybe the AI is just as dumb as its programmers.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014. **On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
Comments
Well said.
And indeed, since EQN is trying to combine many different races into the world, it would even make sense to have a mix of different lvls of 'intelligence' for different mobs. (i.e. goblins / ogres have dumber AI, humans / bosses / demons have smarter AI)
I'll not wade through the posts.....
It doesn't take ground breaking AI to make the false trinity obsolete. It was obsolete to begin with.
It's exciting heady stuff. And having developers focus on bringing the AI up to a respectable level as a priority is a treat. It's about time that a challenging fight meant more than just a mob with more hit points. It can mean instead one that is noticeably more intelligent than others. This is the feature of EQN that I am most looking forward to. PVE with a challenge similar to PVP would be a nice change of pace.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I couldn't agree more.
And after playing games like Shadow of the Colossus, Dragon's Dogma, Last of Us, etc. I'm ready to start seeing more challenging & interesting dynamics in our MMOs. I have been for quite some time. While I enjoy the simplicity of the EQ model, I'm also the type of gamer that enjoys a challenge. Sadly almost no MMOs really challenge their players. The 'difficulty' in most of these games is how much time you can spend farming X or Y. The actually combat can be done 1 handed while eating a sandwich.
I'm ready for smarter games, and I really really hope (but have my doubts) that the rest of the genre is too.
Could you go into a little more detail why it smells like zergest combat? Using the actual details we have been provided, not simply basing it on previous games. I've yet to hear anything that makes it out to be like GW2.
They've made it very very clear (most companies avoid discussing other games directly) that they have played GW2, understand it's shortcomings, and are not making a system like GW2's. They have said this a few times in a few different ways. Doesn't seem to be any confusion on their end.
Obviously it has yet to be seen, but calling them liars (which you are basically doing) seems silly until there is evidence.
If all they can do is put mobs on hard mode, great. I would much rather have hard/difficult mobs then simply adding 100000000 HPs.
But I believe that reacting to code is essentially the same thing as learning for AI.
No they won't become Skynet, but in the moment, if I do A and mob does B and I continue to repeat the same pattern, hopefully mob starts to do B C D before I do A to counter me and actually plan ahead.
Until we see other wise, I am taking SOE and Storybricks word as the truth. The details they have released have been clear and pretty straight forward. They are either completely lying or have something great, not a lot of wiggle room for them from what they have stated.
Well.. there you go.. you want to believe SOE without question.. I however sees what happens when people drink the kool aid from politicians, religions fanatics, and corporations selling pipe dreams.. I'm very pessimistic when it comes to taking anyone's word.. especially SOE.. When SOE sold and released an expansion packet, then turned around and did NGE.. NO WAY they can tell me they didn't know they were selling content that was going to be obsolete in weeks.. That was just DIRTY BUSINESS..
Anyways.. as for the action combat.. There are only 2 options.. 1) ROLE defining combat, or 2) Chaotic Zerg.. You either give the players the ability to control the combat with role defining abilities like CC, Taunt, Kiting, Fearing, etc etc, OR you let it become a free for all. (GW2). There is no middle of the road here.. It's why many do not like PvP and action combat, because it isn't always about skill, most of the time it's all about the right class, at the right time..
If mobs are going to ignore Mr. Plate Meat Shield and go after Mr Squishy, because that is what code tells them to do.. Then players have 2 choices.. Find a way to "control" the fight (this brings us back to taunting.. will stuns become the new taunt).. or Mr Squishy either dies a lot, OR is physically able to tank that mob alone.. (Which I think is very much the case here).. And if cloth wearing squishy's can tank one or more mobs solo,, There is no real need for ROLES.. We are back to ZERGFEST just like GW2..
The 1st post he made was some 3 liner troll post.
The 2nd post he made was on another account, first post, and said he enjoyed all the posts the 1st user made. Which is one.
He picked a name up, and ran with it. I can't believe you fell for it!
Has he written anything even intelligent as of yet? No. Just read his post history!
Why would he come to this forum? Why would he use his real name?
Why does he refuse to post anything meaningful?
It is obvious he is using the guy's identity.
I could make a dupe account called IAMBILLGATES, put a link to microsoft in my signature, but that doesn't make me Bill Gates. In fact, I would consider anyone who thought I was Bill Gates to be a moron.
Believe what you will. Fact is that you're trolling the real guy. I already showed you, way way back, with a link to his twitter account, definitive proof of who he is when he tweeted a link based on the discussion on this thread minutes after that post (my link to his 2009 Red Couch GDC interview) was posted here.
What I find amusing is that you are so blinded by your hostile forum warrior pose that you can't tell shit from shinola.
Do you imagine that all real developers have an account here with 2,000 posts? Rofl.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
That all sounds good, but unlikely.. Either combat will be structured roles, or chaotic zerg.. It can't be both or somewhere in the middle.. The things you bring up such as people switching from heals to CC to support, only exist in fights that last longer then 10 seconds.. GW2 tried to do that, and it's a joke.. CC in gw2 is a 2 second delay in combat.. Why even bother then.. That is where people just say , the hell with it, and just ZERG.. If you are going to have roles, combat has to last longer then a burp..
The fights can be structured without resorting to taunt/dps threat management. It exists right now in LoL and probably in DOTA2. My example was just one possibility. If a strong mob switches targets, then someone supports that target. It just doesn't have to be a "tank".
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Obviously, certain people wouldn't be happy until I actually pasted the entire AI design doc into this thread. Since I can't really do that -- for reasons which should be obvious to pretty much everyone else but him (and which I'm sure will just spawn a new round of contortionist justification) -- I'll just drop this in here...
https://twitter.com/IADaveMark/status/371712216921149440
As for MIT and AI... I mentioned it to some of my pals at the Media Lab when I saw this thread...
https://twitter.com/IADaveMark/status/368526534102876160
I'm sure we'll have a laugh about it when I'm out there in October. :-)
Now can we not make this about me? In fact, this entire thread is so ridiculous, that it should be nuked from orbit. (It's the only way to be sure.)
I'm glad that most of you are excited by the prospects. I certainly understand the skepticism. We've all been burned before, haven't we? Just hang out a little bit longer, eh?
Thanks, folks!
President & Lead Designer of Intrinsic Algorithm,
Author of Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI,
Game AI consultant, GDC AI Summit advisor, co-founder of AIGPG | IntrinsicAlgorithm.com
I agree 100% at least some have intellect
I cant believe how many people have fallen for this. This is a straw man...
Poor AI was never the reason for the trinity. As many people have pointed out, back when we had terrible AI, the triniity did not exist (or even work). It was created at a later date as a simplified battle system, that would encourage limited gameplay. It was not because the AI was poor... but because player engagement was.
By separating the combat into three clearly defined roles, it was possible to make it less challengeing, and more engaging. As each player knew what role they had to play, and then could be satisfied with how well they performed it.
This was not a result of a technical issue, it was the result of psycholgical manipulation of the game rules, to create a more desirable game, which kept players engaged for longer. It is one of the basics of how sub games have manipulated the users to feel happy about paying a monthly fee for content which isnt actually engaging (i.e. button mashing).
You must be living in a dark world, everything is not a conspiracy.
The trinity or roles didn't start in mmorpg. You had it in D&D, your dungeon master was controlling the enemy , so you could say that it was intelligent enough. As a player you would keep the plate user in front while the caster was in the middle or the rear.
The tank was a way they found to simulate exactly that in rpg games. It was in baldur's gate and many other rpg computer games, not just in sub game to milk the costumer.
I have yet to see anything better than the tactical combat of trinity based games.
It is not a conspiracy, it is just a business practice. You know, like putting the milk in the back of the store, or putting the candy at the register. It is a conspiracy that all supermarkets do this? I dont think so, I think it is just a trick to make money.. like pricing at 99 cents, rather than a dollar.
D&D (or more likely AD&D) did not have the concept of aggro. There was no artificial construct that dictated who the mob attacked. This is the basis of the trinity. By building a ruleset that allowed the players to control WHERE the damage would land, and by making this not specifically tied to healing/damage of the players, the trinity was created. Previous rules had the mobs attacking the closest, weakest, most damaging, or even random players. This proved too difficult for teams of players to properly manage, and when you added variables such as CC, agro ranges, mob tethering etc... it became too difficult for most casual players. The move to the trinitiy was an effort to simply the overlying battle system, to something that was more clearly understandable to the more casual userbase.
Monthly sub based games used this as it was both simple, and effective. It brought in a group element, and kept the players engaged for longer. This was a good moneymaker, and as such has been copied by most games since. (i.e. following good business practice).
D&D did not have the holy trinity.There was no aggro mechanic the only way a fighter could tank was if he could physically block all enemies from reaching people behind him and that wouldn't stop enemy ranged attacks.
Who the enemy attacked was up to the DM and he would base it on enemy intelligence and rolls there was no mechanic where a fighter could force enemies to attack him and ignore everyone else.
D&D had basic tactical combat roles and each class was better at one than another but it didn't have the Trinity.
depends on what you consider "smart" - creating challenging ai isnt difficult - every simple chess program does it...simply programm it to respond to every action with the optimal counter action - et voila challenging battles...but that has nothing to do with ai...
if youre talking about "real" ai, you talk about the ability to create and adapt - especially outside of battle - and that to me is mostly marketing... what they probably will do is have simply scripted events like
every hour mobs gain 1 mob, once they reach 10 mobs, attack the nearest village...things like that...
Arguments that the trinity system is based on money-making decisions are out of line.
In MMO's, the party's combat encounter IS the game. Developers need to employ how the game is played, the rules, the game pieces, etc. The best way to make the combat game fun and challenging is to require each party member to contribute to the success, or cause the failure, of each encounter. So, how do you make each party member's actions essential to the success or failure of the encounters? Simple, you make it so that each player relies on each other's actions during the fight.
So, the trinity is essentially the one and only rule set for combat encounters that truly offers the condition that combat encounters rely on teamwork to get through the encounter. AI has been programmed with the agro meters and hate generation from heals, debuffs, dps and taunts are carefully balanced so that each player has to carefully consider when they can start nuking, what kind of heals to use and when, how often to taunt, etc. The rule set also provides how players need to react when mob agro changes: tanks have to quickly seize aggro, dpsers can cast some kind of threat reduction spell, healers have to change targets, mezzers need to mezz, etc.
Making smarter AI, smart enough to make the trinity obsolete, is less about EQ Next offering some kind of cutting edge AI and more about EQ Next offering a NEW rule set for combat encounters. As an example, imagine checkers being upgraded to chess: chess has more rules, each piece has its own movement abilities, the way pieces protect each other are way more complicated than in a game like checkers. But, both are players on the same exact playing board.
I can't imagine what they have in mind, though. Combat encounters and the rules that guide them remain the most critical part of an MMO. If the encounters are too simple by design the game will not last.
The problem arises when mmo games that are supposed to be played for hundreds if not thousands of hours cater almost exclusively to the skill level of someone who has played only a few hours.
Why is it out of line?
We can all see that the trinity was NOT always the default, and that it was phased in, as part of multiple games. 'Occam's razor' tells us that the simplest solution is most often the best. The simple solution is that the trinity provided a working model that made the developers money. Others that tried more complex systems found that their 'innovation' failed to make them money, and they went broke. This is as simple as it gets... as it is Darwinism. Changes that bring an advantage flourish, while those that do not (or bring a disadvantage) do not.
No matter how dumb/smart the AI is, if it is bound by the simple 'agrro' rules that created the trinity, it will operate in the same way. It is only a marketting ploy to try to convince us that this is a limitation of the AI. The simple truth is that dumb AI can easily avoid the trinity, by simply not following the logic that dictated its success.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford
The argument that the AI doesn't exist has been debunked thoroughly. It's hilarious that people with no credentials in the field of game AI (or game design at all), made sweeping statements about what is possible or likely. It's pretty obvious that the people arguing against the possibility or likely-hood of advanced AI, have no interest to ever look beyond the trinity system. These people consider the trinity integral for MMORPGs. It has nothing to do with what is possible with AI.
So I'm going to go ahead and remind everyone why so many people want to do away with the trinity to begin with. The trinity forces every class to fit into one of three jobs: Tank, Healer, or DPS. Each class must do their job just as well as the next. Otherwise, in the difficult "endgame" content, some classes are clearly superior to others.
In WoW, a "hybrid" just means you can pick one of many different jobs to do. It does not mean you do multiple jobs with less efficiency simultaneously. They even decided to take out the 5% less dmg/healing/tank penalty that they put in to preserve the spirit of the hybrid. The reality is even 5% makes those classes less desirable.
Classic EQ on the other hand, didn't balance every class to do these jobs equally well. Clerics were better healers than druids and shamans (much better, in fact). Warriors were needed for tanking raid mobs. Hybrids did multiple things less well.
This caused classes like Clerics, Wizards, and Rogues to be highly sought after for raiding. Where as most other classes you wanted just 1-2 for their unique buffs. There was a limit to the use for multiple warriors, shamans, and enchanters for example. Paladins and SKs pretty much lacked a purpose in raiding at all. Ranger were strictly worse at high end content until there were morphed into a more pure DPS class in Luclin (not classic).
There is not much a place for certain class concepts in a trinity system. Such as "tanky dps." If you need an off-tank, you want another pure tank class; not some tanky hybrid. So "tanky dps" can be inherently overpowered (monks in velious), because they do just as much dmg as squisher dps classes, but have more survivability. Alternately, they may be underpowered (rangers until Luclin) because their tankyness isn't used and they do less DPS than dedicated DPS classes.
The trinity basically puts a tight cap on class versatility and customization. Everyone ends up being pure Tanks, Healers, and DPS for the endgame. Only when the trinity is lifted (in the form of PvP, for trinity games) do you see more in between.
Some people love "just tanking" or "just healing." Most people don't. Most people enjoy a bit more variety than this. Which is why EQN came up with the no trinity, horizontal progression model. To keep things interesting and customizable.
On somewhat of a side note: the trinity is bad for PvP. It encourages extremely powerful healing. If there are powerful heals, they should be on somewhat long cooldowns. Which is never the case in trinity games. There is no real way to set up ideal PvP gameplay when powerful heals with no cooldown have to be taken into account.
You can make it so the healers die fast, but that's lame for the healer.
You can make it so that you need to run healers oom, which is extremely boring.
You can make it so you need to chain CCs in order to actually kill people...this is the WoW system and most people hate it.
I would say healing is the main reason Arena in WoW is not popular as a spectator esport, or liked by the majority of players.
You don't understand anything about programming. A chess program is easy. You can easily see how they work by looking at the notation. They are calculating every possible move several moves deep, and evaluating the end result. A chess board is static, with a very refined set of rules, which makes it easy to code. The chess computer isn't responding to you in any meaningful way, it is just analyzing the new position.
This.
It does not even need to be ability or spell,lets imagine i meet a cave troll in dungeon,i know its stupid ,i know he will attack me like crazy when he see me.
MMO terms,i pull him ,rest of the party stays back and when we are fighting they stab him or whatever.
In RPG terms,we make a trap or i shoot his cub(if there is one) and make him angry ,i shoot him in the knee so we decide who attacks who etc...
But if some advanced AI dev says that theres no anger in the world or MMOs ,well then maybe the AI is just as dumb as its programmers.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **