Party
From Neverend
Parties are based on leadership points. Someone who plays solo will use skill points in other areas instead of leadership. Somoene who uses a few leadership points can create a small party of 3 or 4. Someone with a great number of leadership points can have a party of nine total. When forming larger parties, party members divide power more in large groups than a smaller group or a solo player.
PVP is based on party vs party combat.
Individuals are more effective against groups. Look at Star Wars- the Jedi actually do worse in groups. Martial arts movies such as Fist of Legend have one man defeating a room full of others. Unleashed has Jet Li facing off against multiple combatants. Neo fights countless Smith Agents.
What makes an individual more effective when facing a group? Adrenaline, desperation, confidence, heightened senses, awareness, survival instinct, and multiple targets that are more easily hit with combo moves that rely on momentum from the last hit.
When an individual faces an individual, things are actually more fair, as their powers are matched.
Take an RPG such as Chrono Trigger. Why do bosses have so much more HP than characters? To present a challenge, of course.
Now if an individual is fighting multiple players, he "adjusts" to amount of players he's fighting. The players in the group do nost adjust, however. If someone aided the single player, they would be a group of two, and neiher would get an individual bonus (or their bonus would be halved).
So how does an individual adapt to a group? Add X where X is the amount of players being fought. Add X of what? HP would seem superficial, but other things can work just as well to show the ability to "take more hits."
A dodge/parry/avoid/counterattack bonus would allow the player enhanced reflexes in dealing with multiple attackers.
A strength or defense bonus would make the player more resilient.
A luck bonus would allow lucky strikes, critical hits, dodges, or increased chance of special moves.
A resistance bonus would allow resistance to attacks, spells, and ranged weapons by lowering, avoiding, or nullifying damage.
Whatever the bonus, the individual who faces a group of 5 attackers is now 5 times stronger in some way. He is essentially a "boss" against this group, who will have a much harder time of taking him down.
(Of course, one of them could step away from the group and duel him personally to even the playing field. That would be oh so cool.)
So why would players party at all? Think of Chrono Trigger, where players have double and triple techs. Spells such as W. Meteo in FFIV require 2 casters, and a spell in Dragonquest IV requires four casters.
Attacks that require a party add variety to combat, for all melee, all ranged, all casting, and a mixed party.
Fighter + mage: flaming sword Fighter + ranger: range and charge attack Ranger + mage: Flaming arrow Double spells Triple spells Quadruple spells Quintuple spells Double volleys Triple volleys Quaduple volleys Quintuple volleys Double strikes Triple strikes Quadruple strikes Quintuple strikes
"Tech" style attacks become available when conditions are met, such as skill, type of attack, element, ammunition, weapon type, specific weapon, etc. Both players have the name of the technique present and can execute it.
Disgaea has similar group attacks, where characters gang up on a single character and use multiple attacks. The strength of each attack is relative to character level, so a weak character will do weak damage or even 0 damage when in a combo.
Formation attacks also exist, such as forming a flying V, a phalanx, a skirmish, a perimeter formation, encircle formation, line formation, column and row formation, provoker and backstabber or flanker, and other attacks that rely on more than one player to execute.
So an individual has more power, but a party has more attacks and variety available. Think of a powerful anime "boss" who needs several characters to defeat. The characters are doing everything they can quickly, while the boss demonstrates power and confidence in dealing with the group.
Thus both individuals vs groups become matched, individuals vs individuals become matched, and groups vs groups become matched.
how about adding styles/spells/attacks that will only work if the character is not grouped.ยด
Maybe this can be affected by the nature of the skill
i think you could transform any type of style/attack into a single character only skill just my thoughts skills like berserk for instance is most often used (in computer games) to give the character a boost to his offensive and reduce his defense now you could say that being in bloodlust the berserker cant usually differenciate between friends and foes and would be dangerous to his companions (most pen and paper rpgs have this as a basic rule) conisdering this you could turn the berserk/fury/bloodlust into a single player only skill like a skill that would encompass the high movemoent possibility of being alone, heighten the defensice value while reducing attack speed
or wide swing, the character uses as much space he can get to launch his attack, reducing attack speed while giving a boost to the damage done
or for casters, a skill that increases casting speed while reducing spell effectiveness
i just dont like the idea of plain boni and prefer to have them incorporated somehow into the game, i think imho that this is a elegant way to deal with it i think it would be a possibility, not more, you have to see if you like the idea, again this might result in much work and maybe those resources are better used somewhere else
[edit] Motive
Past MMORPG's have:
-greed -power -sociability -difficulty of foe
to be the reasons players join groups.
In hack and slash games where the invidual character is meant to grind constantly to become better than competing players, ther is little incentive for cooperation besides taking down a large enemy, and even then you're greedily hoping it will drop one or two rare items. But help with a quest or other task serves no purpose to these players, and you may have to pay them money just for help with a task or mission.
So what makes players want to join a group?
-City influence. If you can impose rules in an area, whether it be good, evil, or neutral, you have more power to convince others of right and wrong, or your own views. This may be a group dedicating to robbing, stealing, protecting others, defending cities, healing, crafting, selling goods, importing and trading, gathering resources, providing help, policing, repairing buildings, maintianing cities, etc.
-Greed vs just. Bandits will try to kill and steal from the weak, while noble groups will fight bandits and protect the weak. Neutral groups will do either.
-Religion. Players can follow a religion, create a sect, or create a new religion with a custom god or idol. Religion allows influence in many different areas, including training, benefits, and abilities that pertain to certain religions such as Norse, Greek, Deimos, Angelus, or custom. Atheism is a religion in that it believes Gods are simply natural overpowered beings, which gives its followers resistance to gods.
-Secrets. Trade secrets, religious secrets, secret passwords, secret storage rooms. A secretive group can help those who are worthy of joining, and not be publicized heavily if they rely on shady activities such as thievery and assassination.
-Fun. A sex club, food club, entertainment club, or gambling club can help others have a good time.
-Training. A fighter's guild will help fighters, a mage guild will help mages, a ranger guild will help rangers.
-Racial protection. In a city full of humans, vampires may prefer to stay together in enclosed, secretive, secluded hideouts where they can conduct meetings without beign bothered or hunted by others, as long as they remain a secret. The same applies to succubi, cyborgs, etc.
-Treasure hunting and profit. Mining, crafting, and business guilds may work together, or even use buildings and objects that require players to cooperate, such as a refinery or lumber mill. Group crafts may require several people or require a large output to produce anything useful. Also applies to magic items and spells.
-Storage and lore. Items, scrolls, money, goods, and disposable items can be stored by a trustworthy guild. Some may have loans, personal banking accounts, or bond notes. Others may provide low level equipment to newbies, or rent out equipment.
-Building. Guilds that maintian cities, run cities, gaurd cities, fortify cities, build and craft for cities, beautify cities, and lead the populace.
-Healing. Churches and cleric centers can heal others for free or for a fee, to members or non-members.
-Research. Spells or craft recipes may have some secret recipe ro ingredient that needs trial and error to discover, or a spell may have a formula that requires careful study and balance to be discovered.
-Power. As guilds grow, some will try to be the most powerful, largest, strongest, and best. In order to prevent this, measures can be taken such as increased upkeep costs or resource costs, or an easy method for members to withdraw and form their own guild with existing members. In this way, guilds will try to be small with trusted members, as any large guild can create an offshoot branch that could be a potential rival, who has just had experience and use of the guild's resources to create a potential enemy.
