Post by Kitsunenotsume on Jun 3, 2017 6:11:54 GMT -5
It has bothered me for some time that the primary combat paradigm has been to encourage NPCs to focus fire the party down one-by-one, while reducing or distributing their own damage across multiple targets.
While perhaps somewhat cynical in description, it is an accurate summary of what I have observed when relying on a single tank and dedicating combat turns to 'support' actions like Triage.
By any metric, this is the opposite of the ideal tactic: Removing incoming damage sources from the opponent one by one, while hampering and distributing their efforts across the breadth of your resources.
It has occurred to me recently, as a result of discussions with others and observing combat in organized groups, that the crux of the issue is that there is a disparity between NPCs and PCs.
Clearly there is an issue with determining the metric of difficulty between a PC guided by individually intelligent tactics, and an NPC incapable of advanced combat placement.
What we can look at is trends:
Individually, a PC has access to significantly more healing (potion-spam, for example) and can use environmental advantage such as closing doors, thereby able for individually force multiply.
Collectively, it is observable that NPCs tend to be far more coordinated - PCs tend to wander off, or lag, or stop paying attention, or try to type something out, or activate an ability at the start of an attack sequence, while every NPC will trigger aggro at roughly the same time and hone in one the one sod who popped their head around a corner and use every round they have for the purpose of killing that PC until someone else gets close enough.
While by no means pure factors, The outcome is that what is 'balanced' for a single player coordinating with them-self becomes unfeasible for a group.
Which contributes to the rise of the Damage Negation Build, a tank in fancy words. Given that players can often identify that one-on-one combat is resource taxing to succeed at, characters not focused on absorbing or negating as much damage a possible will leave their associated spawn's damage as 'Someone Else's Problem', so that they can focus on their primary role. After all, a Gunner suffers from a -4 penalty in melee, and the Medic suffers from Attacks of Opportunity, and clearly neither should be the target of attacks according to traditional role-based logic, exemplified by other games (example would be a WoW of a raid taking 2 tanks, 2-5 healers, and everyone else is DPS). This damage therefore gets to be taken by the specialist focused on avoiding, negating, or absorbing damage efficiently above all other contributions - a build who's only purpose with the party is to be better than everyone else at taking damage.
Unfortunatwly, Engines does not align with that sort of approach, and the entire situation quickly falls into a Free Rider Problem: In this case the resource is incoming damage - when enough people stop paying hitpoints, the debt becomes too much for the remainder to sustain. If everyone attempts to take on their individual mob, it is effectively just a large number of 1v1 fights; However, for each member who opts out of taking the damage from their respective spawn, the rest of the party must take that damage output. As more the party opts out, the remainder must deal with proportionally more damage, encouraging those who can't afford to take the modified incoming damage to either attempt to opt-out or suffer detrimental effect. With large enough parties this would imply that if the front-most members (the tanks) are unable to withstand the damage of an individual mob multiplied by the quantity of the party then everyone will be steamrollered akin to a series resistor burnout - and that is indeed what happens. As has been mentioned on Discord many times "Once the tank folds, it's a wipe".
The solution, therefore, seems to lie in making individual combat sustainable for the weaker members, and adjusting the payoff ratios to encourage individuals to pull their share.
Ultimately, this requires a significant shift in psychology for combat, but there is a mechanical element as well. As noted above, PCs individually have a significant force-multiplier against individual mobs, and as has been noted on Discord is is probable that this hides a fundamental imbalance between a PC and an NPC. When the group is made large enough, this imbalance seems to magnify from a fraction over a PC, to greater than a full PCs worth of impact in sufficient numbers. Against such odds, the rational choice is to avoid being the one to address it because someone else can better than you.
[Edit: From here on down, the post makes a few horribly incorrect assumptions which have been pointed out by PE. That said, Any alterations I figure I'll make in a seperate post.. Thank you for bearing with my ramble.]
I have very little visibility into how NPC stats are distributed, but from discussion it is implied that NPCs are generated with a selection of combat stats of appropriate level, assigned all their abilities into their chosen weapon and armor, and dropped in front of the PCs. While Isuspect is is very probably wrong, this simplification suggests that half an NPC's abilities go into offense, and the other half into defense. Additionally, for every 'Charachter Level' the NPC qualifies for, they get +5 HP - NPCs, near as I know, have no purpose for Stamina or Toxicity, and therefore are free to have the maximum health possible.
Thanks to the assistance of fellow players, I have assembled some data which highlights part of the problem - PCs don't run optimal combat builds. While some people can and do, many do not invest all their abilities and effort into Soldier-esque min-max combat.
Among the PCs I polled*, only 28.2% of abilities were invested in Offense ability trees (All of us have only one weapon focus), and only 14.4% were invested in defensive trees (James has none). Additionally, out of the 4 characters polled, everyone had taken every rank of Endurance they qualified for (11.6% of total abilities spent), an expense that an NPC in their bare minimum gear would never require. As noted below, for full disclosure, among the same group I observed 25% utility and 20% crafting investment, which is likely much higher than normal, but still a large and significant portion more that what would be expected to be invested by an NPC (and 4 more merchantilism abilities than an npc could even use). This is in addition to the factor of PCs often choosing to invest at least half their rank-ups into stamina or toxicity, leaving their net health lower at the trade-off of being able to use more abilities or potions in a row. Even then, NPCs don't worry about potion-stun, or not having enough stamina to activate their ability at a key moment (or assess what a key moment is).
As it stands, it appears, based on my limited field of observation, that primarily combat-focused characters are likely to emerge victorious out of on-level solo combat without expending significant resources. Everyone else seems to find themselves relying on the effectively min-maxed NPC hirelings to cope.
While it may already be accounted for, my general assessment is that it may be possible to level the playing field somewhat by introducing variance to the mobs as spawned, based on the distribution of investment on the participant characters. Rather than, say, splitting abilities just between the weapons of choice and armor of choice, to take into account the relative split of investment of the party, and adjust accordingly. If a party is comprised entirely of weapon/armor combat characters, give the NPCs all weapon and armor abilities. If the party consists of rogues, tamers, and medics - divert some of that ability investment away from raw combat. If the party has General skills (like endurance), perhaps the NPCs should be picking up Agility and Fortitude.
Likewise, with stat investments, it seems both unreasonable and impractical to assume every NPC has max HP, and it might be appropriate to reduce the health of individual mobs in exchange for a more frequent ability or potion uses; reflecting extra stamina or toxicity respectively.
I by no means presume that this is the only answer, or that it an optimal answer, or that my data is correct, or even that I'm asking the right question. However, based off the various discussion I have observed and participated in, I feel this is a matter worth investigating.
Cheers,
~Kit
*:Thank you to modular , drunkensolamnic , and sparky for data. Unfortunately, this means that my data was heavily skewed; with 3 crafters, 1 medic, and 0 tanks, I am missing a goood section of the population. If anyone wants to help expand my data, all the more appreciated.
Various categories of skill are the same as what I have broken down on the wiki.
While perhaps somewhat cynical in description, it is an accurate summary of what I have observed when relying on a single tank and dedicating combat turns to 'support' actions like Triage.
By any metric, this is the opposite of the ideal tactic: Removing incoming damage sources from the opponent one by one, while hampering and distributing their efforts across the breadth of your resources.
It has occurred to me recently, as a result of discussions with others and observing combat in organized groups, that the crux of the issue is that there is a disparity between NPCs and PCs.
Clearly there is an issue with determining the metric of difficulty between a PC guided by individually intelligent tactics, and an NPC incapable of advanced combat placement.
What we can look at is trends:
Individually, a PC has access to significantly more healing (potion-spam, for example) and can use environmental advantage such as closing doors, thereby able for individually force multiply.
Collectively, it is observable that NPCs tend to be far more coordinated - PCs tend to wander off, or lag, or stop paying attention, or try to type something out, or activate an ability at the start of an attack sequence, while every NPC will trigger aggro at roughly the same time and hone in one the one sod who popped their head around a corner and use every round they have for the purpose of killing that PC until someone else gets close enough.
While by no means pure factors, The outcome is that what is 'balanced' for a single player coordinating with them-self becomes unfeasible for a group.
Which contributes to the rise of the Damage Negation Build, a tank in fancy words. Given that players can often identify that one-on-one combat is resource taxing to succeed at, characters not focused on absorbing or negating as much damage a possible will leave their associated spawn's damage as 'Someone Else's Problem', so that they can focus on their primary role. After all, a Gunner suffers from a -4 penalty in melee, and the Medic suffers from Attacks of Opportunity, and clearly neither should be the target of attacks according to traditional role-based logic, exemplified by other games (example would be a WoW of a raid taking 2 tanks, 2-5 healers, and everyone else is DPS). This damage therefore gets to be taken by the specialist focused on avoiding, negating, or absorbing damage efficiently above all other contributions - a build who's only purpose with the party is to be better than everyone else at taking damage.
Unfortunatwly, Engines does not align with that sort of approach, and the entire situation quickly falls into a Free Rider Problem: In this case the resource is incoming damage - when enough people stop paying hitpoints, the debt becomes too much for the remainder to sustain. If everyone attempts to take on their individual mob, it is effectively just a large number of 1v1 fights; However, for each member who opts out of taking the damage from their respective spawn, the rest of the party must take that damage output. As more the party opts out, the remainder must deal with proportionally more damage, encouraging those who can't afford to take the modified incoming damage to either attempt to opt-out or suffer detrimental effect. With large enough parties this would imply that if the front-most members (the tanks) are unable to withstand the damage of an individual mob multiplied by the quantity of the party then everyone will be steamrollered akin to a series resistor burnout - and that is indeed what happens. As has been mentioned on Discord many times "Once the tank folds, it's a wipe".
The solution, therefore, seems to lie in making individual combat sustainable for the weaker members, and adjusting the payoff ratios to encourage individuals to pull their share.
Ultimately, this requires a significant shift in psychology for combat, but there is a mechanical element as well. As noted above, PCs individually have a significant force-multiplier against individual mobs, and as has been noted on Discord is is probable that this hides a fundamental imbalance between a PC and an NPC. When the group is made large enough, this imbalance seems to magnify from a fraction over a PC, to greater than a full PCs worth of impact in sufficient numbers. Against such odds, the rational choice is to avoid being the one to address it because someone else can better than you.
[Edit: From here on down, the post makes a few horribly incorrect assumptions which have been pointed out by PE. That said, Any alterations I figure I'll make in a seperate post.. Thank you for bearing with my ramble.]
I have very little visibility into how NPC stats are distributed, but from discussion it is implied that NPCs are generated with a selection of combat stats of appropriate level, assigned all their abilities into their chosen weapon and armor, and dropped in front of the PCs. While Isuspect is is very probably wrong, this simplification suggests that half an NPC's abilities go into offense, and the other half into defense. Additionally, for every 'Charachter Level' the NPC qualifies for, they get +5 HP - NPCs, near as I know, have no purpose for Stamina or Toxicity, and therefore are free to have the maximum health possible.
Thanks to the assistance of fellow players, I have assembled some data which highlights part of the problem - PCs don't run optimal combat builds. While some people can and do, many do not invest all their abilities and effort into Soldier-esque min-max combat.
Among the PCs I polled*, only 28.2% of abilities were invested in Offense ability trees (All of us have only one weapon focus), and only 14.4% were invested in defensive trees (James has none). Additionally, out of the 4 characters polled, everyone had taken every rank of Endurance they qualified for (11.6% of total abilities spent), an expense that an NPC in their bare minimum gear would never require. As noted below, for full disclosure, among the same group I observed 25% utility and 20% crafting investment, which is likely much higher than normal, but still a large and significant portion more that what would be expected to be invested by an NPC (and 4 more merchantilism abilities than an npc could even use). This is in addition to the factor of PCs often choosing to invest at least half their rank-ups into stamina or toxicity, leaving their net health lower at the trade-off of being able to use more abilities or potions in a row. Even then, NPCs don't worry about potion-stun, or not having enough stamina to activate their ability at a key moment (or assess what a key moment is).
As it stands, it appears, based on my limited field of observation, that primarily combat-focused characters are likely to emerge victorious out of on-level solo combat without expending significant resources. Everyone else seems to find themselves relying on the effectively min-maxed NPC hirelings to cope.
While it may already be accounted for, my general assessment is that it may be possible to level the playing field somewhat by introducing variance to the mobs as spawned, based on the distribution of investment on the participant characters. Rather than, say, splitting abilities just between the weapons of choice and armor of choice, to take into account the relative split of investment of the party, and adjust accordingly. If a party is comprised entirely of weapon/armor combat characters, give the NPCs all weapon and armor abilities. If the party consists of rogues, tamers, and medics - divert some of that ability investment away from raw combat. If the party has General skills (like endurance), perhaps the NPCs should be picking up Agility and Fortitude.
Likewise, with stat investments, it seems both unreasonable and impractical to assume every NPC has max HP, and it might be appropriate to reduce the health of individual mobs in exchange for a more frequent ability or potion uses; reflecting extra stamina or toxicity respectively.
I by no means presume that this is the only answer, or that it an optimal answer, or that my data is correct, or even that I'm asking the right question. However, based off the various discussion I have observed and participated in, I feel this is a matter worth investigating.
Cheers,
~Kit
*:Thank you to modular , drunkensolamnic , and sparky for data. Unfortunately, this means that my data was heavily skewed; with 3 crafters, 1 medic, and 0 tanks, I am missing a goood section of the population. If anyone wants to help expand my data, all the more appreciated.
Various categories of skill are the same as what I have broken down on the wiki.
