Hi
I've been wondering if theres any way to put both action and target combat together in the same game. So, i have an ideia that maybe could fit those two combats.
Would be really nice if theres two sub-classes for each class, each one focused on one kind of combat.
For example: we have the class of magic, and the two sub-classes are the Mage and the Sorcerer, that way, the Mage if focused on action combat, being the skills more focused on AoE with low damage and no cast time, while the Sorcerer is focused on target combat, having skills with big damage to a single target and cast time.
We have the Bow Classes, being them Hunter and Archer. Hunter is a class who needs to run to get their prey, that way, he is the action combat class, who have ton of mobility skills and no cast time in skills. While the Archer is someone who needs to focus his aim to give a good shot, so, the Archer have a bigger damage and have cast time for the skills, that way, being the target combat sub-class.
Same way we have Warriors and Guardian. Being Warrior someone who uses a big sword and is focused on running trough the enemies using taunt, but have an lower defense and need constant help from support, that way, being the action combat class. While the Guardian is someone who uses Sword and Shield, and due to the heaviness of those weapons, he can't run that much, and consequently, he can't taunt that much mobs, but he have a bigger defense, and is someone more indepedent.
I think that an system like that would be nice, because both action and target combat communities could play the game without bigger problems. Obviously that the action combat classes is going to have a few target skills and vice-versa. But the idea is that the sub-classes is focused on an specific combat system.
I don't mind having target based and action based abilities, but I'm not up for the idea of differentiating these two things. This would become a very hard and unbalanced eco system and it will start developing into a problem that many MMORPG's face which is that not everything will be viable in PvP or in PvE. Thus it will result in discrimination towards players that are not playing "meta" classes and will subsequently not be picked by other players for premade groups. I think the most balanced decision here would be to implement both action based and target based spells if that is something the class fantasy allows, but the classes shouldn't be purely action or target based, because of major balancing issues. If a class has target based spells and if there AoE is action based without a cast time, but would deal considerably lower damage than the spells that you actually need to cast it would be beneficial and optimal, but I want to make a big remark here that no CROWD CONTROL spells should be action based since that would be a heavy imbalance to the environment.
~ Yours Truly