Would FFXIII Battle Mechancs - Chain Bonus especially - Work in an MMO?

[Shurrikhan]

I'm not talking about theoreticals, or even FFXIV specifically here.
I'm simply asking about whether or not a value changed, potentially many times per second, with every hit / tick [Chain bonus] could possibly work in an MMO.

This is a technical question. If you nothing of the limitations of servers, please don't bother answering. If you have even a good guess, with some evidence as to why it would or wouldn't work, I'd appreciate it.

[WinnipegJet]

Technically it could, provided that lag doesn't ruin it. Other than that servers don't factor in much really, it's a system just like a HP bar and just need to be properly programmed. Could be fun to try.

[Shurrikhan]

If it does work, it would potentially mean that damage dealing alone isn't the end of it. The amount of damage done over a specific increment of time would also be usable as a factor of strategy, the derivative being as important as the actual value. That's not to say that most MMOs would be interested in anything so precise, but the option would then exist.

First thinking about it, I didn't see any reason why if clients could keep tabs on health dropping instantly for a given enemy, they couldn't also keep tabs on a chain gauge rising, but I wanted to be certain.

[Delsus]

As far as servers go it is possible, MMOs are designed around fighting together so latency needs to be as low as possible anyway.

The problem comes (talking specifically of FFXIII) with dealing 10 million damage in 20 seconds, as long as your dds could build a chain (will be no problem with a decent tank) fights would be so easy, the reasons it works in FFXIII is because it can be tough to build a chain on stronger bosses because if your CON or ravagers are taking too much damage you need to swap to possible SENT and MED to heal, and while you are healing the chain bonus is dropping. In an MMO this has no effect, healer tank and all dds, you would stagger most mobs very fast without the need to change for heals or w/e so just stack the classes that chain fastest (possibly one that attacks fast to keep the chaing guage high) and all mobs will drop like flies unless they have over 1 billion HP.

You may say "well limit party sized to 3 to avoid this" but then why not just play any offline RPG.

[Shurrikhan]

The problem comes (talking specifically of FFXIII) with dealing 10 million damage in 20 seconds, as long as your dds could build a chain (will be no problem with a decent tank) fights would be so easy, the reasons it works in FFXIII is because it can be tough to build a chain on stronger bosses because if your CON or ravagers are taking too much damage you need to swap to possible SENT and MED to heal, and while you are healing the chain bonus is dropping. In an MMO this has no effect, healer tank and all dds, you would stagger most mobs very fast without the need to change for heals or w/e so just stack the classes that chain fastest (possibly one that attacks fast to keep the chaing guage high) and all mobs will drop like flies unless they have over 1 billion HP.

You may say "well limit party sized to 3 to avoid this" but then why not just play any offline RPG.

Why would the system carry over the amount of damage dealt? That's not even part of the system -- it's part of the scaling. The rate at which the chain gauge is boosted, along with damage dealt in general, can be toned down or up or any which way in implementation. The numbers in an of themselves have no meaning, only the percentages (average dps for your level vs. a certain mob level), which you could expect to remain the same.

Edit:

As far as servers go it is possible, MMOs are designed around fighting together so latency needs to be as low as possible anyway.

But, does anyone know by how much it would increase? It should basically be the same as damage dealt, and no MMO seems to have trouble tracking an enemy's falling health instantly. The only difference is if the chain gauge also effects the percentage of the next attack's chain boosting effects, in which case there may be one additional layer of tracking, for a total of three between health and chain gauge. This seems common sense to me, but I've know complete idea of how this actually works on a server.

<--Never programmed with server load in mind.

[Delsus]

Why would the system carry over the amount of damage dealt? That's not even part of the system -- it's part of the scaling. The rate at which the chain gauge is boosted, along with damage dealt in general, can be toned down or up or any which way in implementation. The numbers in an of themselves have no meaning, only the percentages (average dps for your level vs. a certain mob level), which you could expect to remain the same.

Edit:


But, does anyone know by how much it would increase? It should basically be the same as damage dealt, and no MMO seems to have trouble tracking an enemy's falling health instantly. The only difference is if the chain gauge also effects the percentage of the next attack's chain boosting effects, in which case there may be one additional layer of tracking, for a total of three between health and chain gauge. This seems common sense to me, but I've know complete idea of how this actually works on a server.

<--Never programmed with server load in mind.

If dps remains the same there is no point of the chain guage, you said about FFXIII, and the point of the chain bonus is to stagger the mob as fast as possible, to then do as much damage as possible while it is staggered, if dps remained the same there would be no point, one thing I hated about FFXIII was doing millions of damage in 10 seconds, all the chain guage is about is zerging a mob down and it makes all bosses easy mode.

Also if it was implemented in a MMO, for HP, MP stamina etc the amount of data transmitted between clients and server is very low, so even high latency you will not notice much lag with these dropping, and it would be the same with the chain guage, also it would be a flat percentage increase which would be handled by the client, for example if it was programmed it would be one line of code that says if the mob is staggered increase damage by xxx% else use normal damage algorithms.

[Lienn]

The stagger system itself is a very valid mechanic for a MMO, not only the chain bonus.

It was exactly one of the examples regarding content adaptability at my lodestone blog. I do find the stagger system a very nice battle mechanics that would certainly work way better in a multiplayer/ MMO world than it did with the paradigm shift mechanics.

[Shurrikhan]

The stagger system itself is a very valid mechanic for a MMO, not only the chain bonus.

It was exactly one of the examples regarding content adaptability at my lodestone blog. I do find the stagger system a very nice battle mechanics that would certainly work way better in a multiplayer/ MMO world than it did with the paradigm shift mechanics.

Do you have a link to said blog? I'd love to see it!

[Shurrikhan]

Also if it was implemented in a MMO, for HP, MP stamina etc the amount of data transmitted between clients and server is very low, so even high latency you will not notice much lag with these dropping, and it would be the same with the chain guage, also it would be a flat percentage increase which would be handled by the client, for example if it was programmed it would be one line of code that says if the mob is staggered increase damage by xxx% else use normal damage algorithms.

This is what I was looking to confirm. Thanks a bunch, man.

Btw, just because the system would be viable in an MMO doesn't mean I'd want to adapt it to FFXIV as is. I'd much rather see something that is able to drop off more tactically, rather than being either sustained or lost completely, and only ever moving upward until drop-off. I think there's a lot that can be done with the use of derivative importance, more than just the original ramp-up style to chain bonuses (stack em fast, kill em fast).

[Merylstryfe]

You do see this in a very minor way in FFXIV. Performing certain attacks will incapacitate foes (knocking heads off of skeletons, for example). This idea could be melded pretty easily with chain gauging, build the mobs tp up to a certain level, and before they use it, perform a critical hit that sends it into a staggered (or in XIV, incapacitated) state.