10-18-2009, 12:15 AM
I was playing Aion and thinking about the merits and pitfalls of friendly fire and area effect damage, as a combination.
Pretty much any game that is going to have any sort of mass PvP potential has to decide how it should work.
A) No friendly fire. Lots of AE. (Warhammer)
Good = Helps break up zergs.
Bad = "AE Spam" becomes the new trend and big clashes tend to be fairly mindless since there's no reason not to drop AE everywhere.
B) Friendly fire. Lots of AE. (Planetside)
Good = Helps break up zergs but makes you cautious about spamming it since you'll kill your own team.
Bad = people will complain about friendly fire. If you implement a really good anti-TK system, people will complain about that, too.
C) No friendly fire. Little or no AE. (Aion)
Good = No spamming of AE, no mass deaths.
Bad = WTFOMG zergfestivals that tend to result in lag and crashes, as there is nothing really stopping 400 players from clashing for extended periods of time
D) Friendly fire. Little or no AE. (Never been done?)
Good = No spamming of AE, no mass deaths and harder for a clumsy person to ruin the game for themselves or anyone else.
Bad = Zerg fests and complaints about friendly fire?
I think "D" might be interesting.
Mass zerg on zerg warfare would be difficult. Players would want to spread out more because they want a clean line of fire, but there's a lot less potential for total mayhem if nobody is firing explosives.
Pretty much any game that is going to have any sort of mass PvP potential has to decide how it should work.
A) No friendly fire. Lots of AE. (Warhammer)
Good = Helps break up zergs.
Bad = "AE Spam" becomes the new trend and big clashes tend to be fairly mindless since there's no reason not to drop AE everywhere.
B) Friendly fire. Lots of AE. (Planetside)
Good = Helps break up zergs but makes you cautious about spamming it since you'll kill your own team.
Bad = people will complain about friendly fire. If you implement a really good anti-TK system, people will complain about that, too.
C) No friendly fire. Little or no AE. (Aion)
Good = No spamming of AE, no mass deaths.
Bad = WTFOMG zergfestivals that tend to result in lag and crashes, as there is nothing really stopping 400 players from clashing for extended periods of time
D) Friendly fire. Little or no AE. (Never been done?)
Good = No spamming of AE, no mass deaths and harder for a clumsy person to ruin the game for themselves or anyone else.
Bad = Zerg fests and complaints about friendly fire?
I think "D" might be interesting.
Mass zerg on zerg warfare would be difficult. Players would want to spread out more because they want a clean line of fire, but there's a lot less potential for total mayhem if nobody is firing explosives.