VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 58: Learning the Lingo
"Huh? What do you mean? Isn’t it obvious, I’m fighting the monster..." Belladonna answered with a confused frown, leaning out of the way of a claw swipe to the face before darting forwards and blurring her fists as they slammed into the Baboon’s side in rapid succession. Each blow cracking a rib, before she spun kicked it onto the crowd of its friends, drawing the ire of three more.
Not only did she think her actions were completely justified and reasonable, because what else did she come here to do if not fight the monsters, but honestly he wasn’t appreciating just how cool she was being.
I mean if everyone else wanted to hang back and play it safe, that was fine by her. But it was at that thought that the realisation finally dawned on her.
’He must not know how my class works, even if I said I was a monk. Although... I would have thought someone like him would have known that.
Meh, I guess we all have our blind spots. Not his fault, although he didn’t have to be so mean about it.’
"Well you see," Belladonna started to helpfully explain with a smile on her face, "I have to get up close and personal with them if I want to fight, so-"
"I KNOW THAT!" He shouted again, rudely interrupting her kind explanation as he continued on with his red faced tirade,
"YOU OT’ED THE MOBS YOU MORON! NOW GET BACK IN LINE BEFORE I BOOT YOUR USELESS ASS!"
He was practically turning red in the face with how much unreasonable shouting that he was doing, and Belladonna’s confused face was only fuelling his anger. Not wanting to cause anymore trouble, she held up her hands in surrender and reluctantly got back into the formation as the trees continued their barrage.
She didn’t even get the chance to finish off her other prey, as the swordsmen quickly took over as did the man with the large shield. They started to chop away at the beasts back while it attacked the shield user, although it was no where near as quick or flashy as Belladonna’s moves.
Looking at them with an utterly baffled expression, Belladonna glanced at Vestra who shrugged in equal confusion, before the Druid leaned over and whispered to her.
"Over Threatened."
"What?" She replied, half wondering if she misheard him.
He glanced at the battle, casting another spell quickly before turning his attention back to her.
"OT, that’s what he said. It means Over Threat. Generally tanks go off a system of threat and create an artificial one with taunt skills to draw aggro. If you go over what they generate, you are Over Threat and will pull the mobs away from the tanks.
Which is not good, as it can break the formations and has often caused full party wipes."
"Oh..." Belladonna muttered softly, glancing towards the Baboon’s that the swordsmen were still slowly hacking away at, making sure not to do too much damage and create the same mistake she had.
"Sorry... I didn’t know that. These aren’t really my type of games. But how am I supposed to know when I go over? There isn’t an indicator or something."
What she said was true. This wasn’t just the first MMO that she was playing, but the first online game in a very long time. She used to play army shooters with her brother when she was young, but quickly grew away from them and hadn’t touched them in over a decade.
Single player games with world spanning stories and tear jerking character arcs were here usual games, that and a few fighting sims. Honestly if it wasn’t for the amazing beta test she was talked into going to because of her brother’s anniversary, it was unlikely that she would have ever picked up this game in the first place.
"Haha, It’s no problem," The Druid said with a kind laugh, using some of his attention to keep his general spell casting going, "I was the same when I first started.
Some games have a bar for it, but not every one. This game doesn’t, so a lot of the time you gotta just feel it. It gets easier with time, but for this game you just gotta watch your damage output and keep an eye on how they react."
Belladonna bobbed her head softly in understanding, taking a few seconds to think it over. Things like this might have been obvious to someone who played a lot of these games, but as a solo player up until now she never had to worry or care about aggro.
Still, if she could handle herself then she really didn’t see the harm in pulling them away to deal with, as it would probably take much more pressure off of the group. But if that’s the way the leader wanted to play it, she had no choice but to listen.
This was just how these games were played, right?
"Thank you for helping me," She said with true gratitude and humility, bowing her head slightly to the helpful Druid. "I don’t suppose you could help me understand all the lingo and what I’m doing wrong.
I’m just really new to online games, that’s all."
The Druid smiled warmly and nodded in confirmation, even noticing Vestra listening in and brought her into their lessons too, mainly around skill casting and timing. As a druid, he was focused more on crowd control with some healing capabilities, but not on the level of a dedicated healer.
He made sure to ingrain into them, especially Vestra as the spell caster, the importance of mana management, battlefield awareness and the right timing to use spells.
For example if your healing spell healed for 100 Hp, it was a waste to cast it at a loss of 10 Hp, just because you panicked and wanted to do your job as the healer. That was a common noob reaction in intense combat.
While the numbers weren’t something that applied to this game, the principle still stood firm, even if it took a little more understanding of your spells and teammates injuries. But in the Druid’s opinion, that was part of the genius of the game, sorting the best from the idiots who just know how to read numbers.
As for himself, he had no shame in admitting he was closer to the latter category, and doing so with a laugh.
However whilst they were laughing and joking between themselves, all while still actually participating in the fight, it still gained them a few irritated glares from the members of the group who saw themselves as above such idiot newbies. Especially their great and glorious leader.
