Thunderheart posted on the official forums a design document about the revamp of the HAM (Health-Action-Mind) bars. One of the most important systems related to the combat. It sounds like this thing shoud move on the test server, and then live, quite soon. In the last days SOE announced the delay of the real combat revamp and that brough to a revolt of the players since not only the combat revamp is absolutely necessary, but it’s also from the release that it gets delayed, month after month. So this design document should be related to the tweaks they expect to finish before the launch of JTL, the space expansion.

To comment the system the best way is to understand their approach. It seems to me that they chosed to focus on precise elements to “solve” the known issues and produce a better system that is also nothing different from what the players have used till now. And this is both good and bad, depending on the aim. It fits perfectly Raph’s methodology: consider gameplay systems like “riddles” to solve. You have a set amount of issues and you need to find solutions to bring back those issues to a “normal” value, mantaining the balance.

In this case the problems they focused about the current HAM system are principally two:
+ Special moves damage you when you use them. The original idea was about adding a strategical depth, the result is that it “feels” wrong and it’s also not easy and intuitive to manage as a positive gameplay element during combat.
+ The impossibility to heal the “mind” pool. Support classes like medics can heal damage only related to the health and the action pool, making the PvP pivot completely around the mind pool.

If these are the issues I think that they did a good work. To explain the new proposal I think it’s better to imagine directly the new interface. We have still three pools, health, action, and mind. Starting from the right and going toward the left we could see, firstly, a black zone. The black still represents the “wounds” and the wounds limit the max value you can have in that pool. This isn’t related to the combat system since you can heal this part only *outside* the combat dynamics and it’s also not directly relevant. Then we have a red, green, or blue bar (health, action or mind) which represent the actual energy, as you get hit and take damage you loose energy. The bar goes toward the left leaving behind a white zone. When the bar is all white you are incapacitated. This is the zone you can actively heal during the combat. At this point the special moves don’t use anymore your energy on the bar, damaging yourself. Instead there’s a new (dark color) bar that goes up and down *inside* the space of the previous one. You basically have another bar inside your energy bar. This is the bar that you’ll use when performing a special move. This special bar cannot be healed directly, it heals by itself with the time, plus it’s directly affected by the energy bar since the more energy you loose the more you’ll loose “space” for the special bar.

With this system the use of specials relies completely on an apposite bar with its own regeneration rate and that is only directly affected by your current energy. The more you get hit, the less specials you’ll be able to perform. At this point what they wrote isn’t really clear about how they expect to solve the second problem. They don’t specifically say anything about it so my guess is that with the new system the mind pool behaves exactly as the other two. If this is the case I can say that the solution they proposed achieves their aims:
+ With the new system the use of special moves is more comprehensible and also concretely usable as a gameplay element during the combat.
+ The mind pool going back to a “default” behaviour brings various good consequences. Not only this fixes the PvP problems but the system becomes way more intuitive since it works without “exceptions”.

It’s a success? If I consider their riddle-like strategy I can say it is. They focused two problems and they worked out a better system that fixes the issues, is more coherent and doesn’t create side effects. But it’s not all. As I said this is an extremely focused approach. The curent combat system works on top of different elements and the HAM is just a gear, strictly connected with the rest. It’s not easy to judge it without knowing how the other parts affects the HAM mechanics concretely. Also, I think SWG could use a completely different approach where you observe the design from a broader point of view, opening more possibilities instead of having a strictly psychotic approach focused on a “blind” point of view (you can only see and solve the “inner” issues, but you loose the view on the outside, toward a growth).

Their design methodologies are also tied to a few posts I wrote on Q23 boards (original thread here), where I was discussing one of the most used system: “Risk Vs. Reward”. Which I hate. Specifically I was just commenting how much World of Warcraft’s design was far superior compared to Dark Age of Camelot and a part of the analysis was about the implementation and use of the “fatigue” bars. My point is that often games are designed to use the “frustration” as a strong gameplay element. The whole “risk vs reward” just relies on the use of the frustration and nearly every death penalties applied in every game is simply a balance achieved about frustration. I think there are better solutions. I think that the use of “frustration” isn’t a good thing and an active obstacle to the fun. Having a bar decreasing means that you are loosing possibilities, in WoW you have the opposite mechanic. The more you fight and the more the game gives you possibilities. Fighting opens the gameplay instead of closing it toward a death (your or the one of your enemy). The combat gameplay nourish itself, the fun brings more fun and your actions open more paths to choose. If you represent the combat like an algorithm, you’ll be able to see that SWG or DAoC work as a “tree” diagram where the “branches” are the beginning and the “trunk” the end. WoW transforms it so that you start from the trunk, and then you develop possibilities and strategies. If you die, you do it in a “possible-otherwise” state. If you die in DAoC, you do it in a “destiny-has-choosed” situation. And this brings *directly* to frustration. While WoW brings fun, possibilities, strategical depth and a whole better general feeling.

This was just to demonstrate that “good design” doesn’t depend on a situation you need to solve. Design isn’t about solving, it’s about creating. You can intend it as a methodology where you start with a few aims and observations and then work out a way to solve them, but this is a passive, psychotic attitude that will never produce something really positive. In this precise case I think that the game really needs a positive attitude, not a passive one. SWG has many resources and they need to be used with more creativity. The game seems way too much “fatigued”. It’s stressed even if the situation should be really good. And something -active- needs to be done to move the game in this direction. The combat system doesn’t need to be fixed, it needs to be transformed to use different design ideas, to be more fun, to be more realistic and tied to the setting, to be more compelling. A lot of work should be done to add different and important gameplay elements. The controls need to change, there’s the need to include the environment, more movement involved, implement arcs of fire. NEW gameplay elements, not just the old ones adjusted.

Everyone should remember that you can add or discard the pieces of the puzzle, not just organize them the best you can. If you limit the point of view you’ll also kill the potential. SWG is about potential still unexpressed within the game.