'Fed': Let's take this idea and put it into an MMO.
I see all sorts of problems with that, not impossible though. But if you are talking about PVE, becoming MOBA fed would make the game too easy and it would very quickly get boring. Unless you had some way to reset the player, like if they die, they lose their OP-ness. You would have to make the player head towards some insanely difficult challenge though, otherwise they will never die. Lots of games do that though, like in Quake when you get DOUBLE DAMAGE!!! you run around ganking everyone like a madman but suddenly it wears off and if
In PVP, it isn't fun to be 1 shotted. And even being the fed guy that slaughters everyone can get boring eventually. With MOBAs the matches are always so short that it is never a problem, but in an MMO it would be a big problem. (Being fed for 30 minutes is a lot of fun. Being fed for weeks would lose its appeal). Also even if someone on the other team becomes fed like that, you can still sometimes handle it. Either you just keep well out of the way so you don't die and make matters worse, or you really pull together as a team and take that fed guy down and then you all get so boosted from it, that things become easier the next time.
Also you quickly reach the level limit in a moba, so there is a limit to how OP you can get. In an MMO you would have to make sure a player can't just extend their advantage to the point that they are unstoppable forever.
Let a "Death" mage spell kill anyone with less than 500 HP (tanks having 700-1000, mages 300-400). Let a "SILENCE" cleric spell drop a giant sphere into the room for an hour, and nobody can utter a word while in it.
But let these spells (they're learnable) drop only once or twice a year. Let them also require almost inexistent ingredients.
The guild that farmed this boss (equivalent of feeding a player) may get one of these spells. Now it can wreck havoc, but only if they protect their MVP in a big melee.
That sounds fun but it would be a lot more fun being the MVP king, and less fun being the minion who follows them around spamming heals or whatever. Also a problem with this is that the PVE enemies need to be so powerful that they still pose a challenge to the MVP king and his team. And this will mean that everyone else who isn't the MVP will feel so weak because they can barely even scratch the enemy. I know from experience that being a support in an MMO can become very tiresome eventually. But again it could work if it was done well enough.
Healers in some games got called whack-a-mole gameplay because you spent the whole time watching everyone's HP bar, and when it went down, you quickly target that player and click your heal. It becomes so tedious and mindless after a while, and it also means you don't get to look at the fun because you are so focused on the UI. Vanguard did an amazing job of this by making it so that healers have 2 targets, offensive and defensive. You then start attacking your offensive target and use abilities that trigger heals onto your defensive target. In other words, you heal by fighting, not just standing at the back being bored.
Another thought is that the OP spells have a chance to become meta and cookie cutter if every guild works towards having the exact same OP setup. First we must get the giant sphere that silences a whole room, then we goto x location and do y until rich and satisfied. And everyone does the same thing. But you could avoid that if you bear it in mind.
What do you think? I'd like to hear your ideas on this or where you've seen examples of imbalance that does work.
I've played some MMOs a bit like this. In Shards of Dalaya, the group content is tough for an average typical player. You would go to a dungeon full of skeletons and you would have to make sure you fight them 1 at a time or you are in trouble. Raid gear takes you ahead of that curve, but top end super addicted hardcore nerd players can end up with the best raid gear and in every single slot (and there are 20+ slots). This eventually makes them become like gods, and that player can now go into the same dungeon full of skeletons, but run through it and pull 100 of them at once. Then lead them to a room and blast hell out of them in a big fireworks display or power and uberness. It was incredibly satisfying to watch and even better if you get to that point and can do it for yourself. There was an item called a charm which was basically designed as a money sink. The first one is 500 plat which most people can afford after a while. The second one is 1500 which would take the average player a long time to save up for. But the next one is 10,000 which only super addicts can work towards. But there was also a 50k and a 100k which is kind of unfathomable amounts of money to anyone except that god player with the top end raid gear. But even that guy would need to run through dungeons every night for months to finally afford of those high end charm items. I loved this because it kept top end players in the game and meant that they always had something to work towards. Nothing makes me uninstall a game faster than feeling like I don't have much left to work towards.
Another similar game was Minions of Mirth which lets you run a team of characters within your one main avatar. The game was balanced assuming you have maybe 2 or 3, so most people would have some tank type, a healer, and a dps. But you could have up to 6 characters in your one man party (like a blobber MMO). The downside is that it took a lot more time and effort to get gear and do essential quests for all those characters, and I think exp was split between them too so took longer. But you ended up incredibly powerful if you did put in the effort. I loved that game...
- Rogue class doesn't fit into "raids" in my mind, but it's the only class that can "solo" a lot of content. For solitary players. They can also steal from players (with reservations).
Everquest was a lot like this. The classes actually had difficulty levels in the early days, an Enchanter was very complex to play, and you had to think and act fast or your group died and it was mostly your fault. A lot of pressure. So it was labelled as "High Difficulty". Then you had some basic melee characters like a Rogue and Monk who mostly just stood behind the mob and did some kicks or backstabs and not much else. I thought it was boring but a lot of people preferred to play in a more casual way and it let them take part. And there were some talented players who played these classes too, and instead of being so combat focused like me, they would be more focused on learning other things about the game. These people tended to know more about rare mobs and items and they also got rich because they spent a lot of time trading while I was busy fighting stuff.
Also classes were not balanced to be similar to each other. So some were incredibly powerful at soloing, some were terrible at it. But everyone was great at something and bad at something. The Necromancer was amazing at soloing, most of the spells are damage over time which are mana efficient but take a while to do all their damage. This meant that it wasn't very good in a group because a typical mage type class could just do big nuke direct damage to enemies. A Necro could be good in a group though if you were determined. Some classes just couldn't solo at all, or were very restricted. Cleric for example had no chance, except against undead. But the classes in that game had quite distinct personalities. Very cool.
- Clerics can't damage. No shadow priests bullshit, it only heals, deal with it. You'll be forced to make friends, so it's a social-oriented class. And it makes sense too, as girls often go for support classes and they're often social.
Great. Only a problem if someone else wants to be a healer and picks something that isn't a Cleric and then struggles to find groups because everyone wants a Cleric. But there are solutions to that. Also another problem is people picking classes without knowing how they play. So they pick a Necro and then struggle to get groups because everyone wants a Wizard instead. Etc..
- Mages can cast invisibility and can fly (both lasting for half an hour or until dispelled). Maybe fly freely like in Morrowind (but how will you deal with them without a ranged weapon then?) or they lift off the ground and can fly above water, fire, etc. It still sounds class-defining enough. In WoW you could be invisible for 15 seconds only. Why so short - to tease the player?
Again in EQ you could be invis for hours and you could fly, but it was all balanced. Invis breaks randomly, so it is very tense. Also it breaks if you cast any spell, so it is only for travelling or reaching somewhere in a dungeon. Also undead can see through it. You then have an invis vs undead, but that does not stack with normal invis, so you have to use one invis to get somewhere in a dungeon, then cower in a corner and make sure the coast is clear, and then cast your invis vs undead to get past a bunch of skeletons or whatever.
As for flying, in EQ you floated and would constantly drift downwards all the time. So you could run up a mountain and then you could basically fly over fields and forests but eventually you would be back on the ground. This also meant that you couldn't fly over enemies and kill them without being hit, because you only had maybe 10 seconds of floating out of range before you eventually floated down into range of them. And if you floated up high onto a ledge or something that seemed out of range, the mobs would just warp through the wall and end up on the ledge with you. Not the most elegant solution but it worked perfectly really.
Also the floating downwards would slow down as you moved forwards, so it lasted longer as you travel. But if you stand in one place, you flow down faster. And to cast spells you had to stand still, so basically you couldn't really float above enemies and exploit them because you would stop to cast spells and float downwards faster and in a few seconds you are getting eaten. Also enemies in the game were great, so you find a group of goblins, some would be melee types, some would be rangers shooting arrows at you, and then there would be a few goblin wizards or shamen or something which cast spells on you. So you can't really out range enemies at all in that game. But you can kite things by snaring them and then running away and cast as they slowly approach you. Then you run away again and repeat.
Vanguard (like a more modern EQ) had real flying, and flying mounts etc. But it stopped you from being able to cast spells or abilities while flying.
Shadowbane had real flying too, and no restrictions on combat. The result was lots of AFK players, flying over a group of enemies just spamming spells with a macro. They come back the next day and their character gained lots of levels and money. Not my type of game... But it was interesting to see.
I'd love to hear more ideas in that regard. What should Paladins, Barbarians, etc be able to do exclusively? Something anti-undead comes to mind for paladins, but maybe it's not very useful in a game that doesn't revolve around the undead.
In EQ Paladins had a damage boost against undead. Warriors were straight tanks and damage dealers. Paladins were basically a warrior but with some spells. They had some light heals and buffs, but they also could cast a stun spell almost constantly. The stun only lasted about 2 seconds on the enemy, but if you cast it every several seconds, it really reduces the damage you receive. Also if you time it properly you can use it to stop enemies from casting spells or fleeing. You could get a bunch of ideas from that game, this website has all the info:
https://everquest.fandom.com/wiki/Paladin
