test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Great things in 4E that the devs ignored
ndie1750
Member Posts: 23 Arc User
Another post of mine has encouraged me to create this. I do enjoy this game immensely, but do not understand why some mechanics were emulated from 4th ed, while the seemingly best, and most universally enjoyed by table-toppers were not.
And no, I won't get into things that are clearly "in development" such as more classes, paragon paths, etc, nor will I write a book with all of my complaints, however following will simply be my top 3.
#1: The threat system
There is no "agro meter" in tabeltop obviously, however in 4th edition all tanks can "mark" enemies. Unlike in game, marks do not last until the tank is hit once, rather, once a defender marks an enemy, that enemy takes significant penalties to attacking anyone else. If the enemy ignores the mark and still tries to attack a squisher member, most defenders have class-based mechanics that further punish the enemy on top of it's reduced offenses (most often in the form of damage). If the enemies stupidly ignore the defender's mark mechanics, the defender can easily pull off the most damage of the group through this punishing mechanic.
How much damage the rogue is doing, how much healing the cleric pumping out, etc., is all meaningless in terms of threat. Now keeping all the enemies marked is often impossible. Which is where the controllers come in (shutting down ranged opponents, etc).
#2: The healing system
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?307331-Why-are-there-healing-potions-in-this-game
Seriously, 4E has the best healing I have ever experienced in any RPG, single player, tabletop, or MMO. Yes it would have to be modified to fit this game, just as at-wills, encounters, dailies, and action points were modified.
#3: Weapon and armor choices
Do i really need to elaborate on this? Mayhaps so I will. Yes, I am sure more weapons and armors will come out with time. However this has to do more with types of weapons and armors.
My cleric can wield a spear and have his holy symbol emblazoned on his shield. My fighter that uses 2-handers can wield a polearm, opening up a whole slew of new feat options focused on knocking enemies prone, etc.
How about you? Anything you wish they would've been a little bit more loyal to rather than simple tossing WOTC some coin and letting them draw in us table-top fanboys with a D&D teaser?
And no, I won't get into things that are clearly "in development" such as more classes, paragon paths, etc, nor will I write a book with all of my complaints, however following will simply be my top 3.
#1: The threat system
There is no "agro meter" in tabeltop obviously, however in 4th edition all tanks can "mark" enemies. Unlike in game, marks do not last until the tank is hit once, rather, once a defender marks an enemy, that enemy takes significant penalties to attacking anyone else. If the enemy ignores the mark and still tries to attack a squisher member, most defenders have class-based mechanics that further punish the enemy on top of it's reduced offenses (most often in the form of damage). If the enemies stupidly ignore the defender's mark mechanics, the defender can easily pull off the most damage of the group through this punishing mechanic.
How much damage the rogue is doing, how much healing the cleric pumping out, etc., is all meaningless in terms of threat. Now keeping all the enemies marked is often impossible. Which is where the controllers come in (shutting down ranged opponents, etc).
#2: The healing system
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?307331-Why-are-there-healing-potions-in-this-game
Seriously, 4E has the best healing I have ever experienced in any RPG, single player, tabletop, or MMO. Yes it would have to be modified to fit this game, just as at-wills, encounters, dailies, and action points were modified.
#3: Weapon and armor choices
Do i really need to elaborate on this? Mayhaps so I will. Yes, I am sure more weapons and armors will come out with time. However this has to do more with types of weapons and armors.
My cleric can wield a spear and have his holy symbol emblazoned on his shield. My fighter that uses 2-handers can wield a polearm, opening up a whole slew of new feat options focused on knocking enemies prone, etc.
How about you? Anything you wish they would've been a little bit more loyal to rather than simple tossing WOTC some coin and letting them draw in us table-top fanboys with a D&D teaser?
Post edited by ndie1750 on
0
Comments
I always found threat or aggro in mmos silly. If the mob is smart, it would play like players do, go for healers and spell casters first, melee last.
Potions are basically the healing surge of 4e. I forget the exact thing, but i read that they had been working on healing surges, but converting to a real time mmo potions worked better. Convincing people to get and use potions is bad enough, i can't even imagine trying to convince people set on trinity logic to get used to 4e.
The standard weapons and armor tend to stick to the narrow, with some rare or cosmetic ones being more interesting. I think it would be harder to do with how far the game is now, DDO really did this part better, being able to wear and use (even if badly) armor and weapons generally not usable by your class.
That game had lots of linked aggro (one of the 5 mobs is the chief and the others will follow him by attacking the target of the chief). There was no real AoE threat skill (it had a very long CD) and if the tank wasn't building threat on the right mob then whenever the cleric casted a heal, he would get swarmed and die, same with AoE attackers like mages or druids. There were also packs of mobs with unlinked aggro and the tank needed to build constant aggro on everyone of them to keep the cleric safe. There was also the fact that some classes (summoners, druids, archers) had very effective single target CC skills, and if everyone of them kept one of the adds CCed all the time the party could go on on killing each one of them one by one.
It also has perma aggro, meaning that if you put threat in a mob and then you retaliate and a minute after you go back to that same mob without resetting aggro (dieing/desconnecting/changing maps) you will have permament aggro and it will only vanish until you or the mob die. Additionaly the mob will gain a rush attack against you and an atk.sp.+atk buff.
Aaaaanyway, i'm not saying that game was omgwtfthebest, far from that, but the threat mechanics were actually good and i liked them, NW could take some ideas from it. It was fun!.
I want this class in NW.
The game right now has cloth, leather, chain, scale, and plate. Only hide is missing, but since hide was what was used by rangers and rangers haven't been introduced yet...
The one change on this front is that fighters started with scale armor proficiency, but guardian fighters get to wear plate, which only paladins began with proficiency in in the 4E PnP game.
And there are other weapon types out there in addition to the standards. They are less common, but they are out there. Most rogue weapons are dagger-type knives, but there are axes, too, for example.
And since the game lets you change the appearance of items, it doesn't matter what has the "best" stats. You can get that dagger but make it look like an axe if you want an axe.
Same goes for every weapon-wielding class. I know that there is at least one option for all of them.
No, not a great variety, but the game is still young.
This. I like the fact that newer MMOs are doing away with the old school aggro model where the mob looks at the tank the entire time while 45 people beat on it from behind and 10 clerics casting the same heal spell in rotation are keeping the tank propped up.
More weapon and Armour types are coming.
In 4e the fighter's marking mechanic was that anything he hit with an attack was marked. The mark induces a -2 penalty to hit if targeting anyone but the fighter and also the fighter could make additional attacks against them. The penalty to hit + the extra damage from the fighter's extra attacks often makes it the best option for DMs to just attack the fighter in those circumstances.
Make fighters mark everything they attack and give enemies a damage debuff if they attack anything but the fighters. The marking system in this game is a travesty compared to how central it is to 4th ed.
I am not sure that, "universally enjoyed," can be applied to any aspect of any PnP RPG let alone one of the most panned large scale releases in PnP gaming history.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.