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Fewer Skills, Less Actionbars - Action Combat? Is this the new trend?
Talint
Member UncommonPosts: 168
Yesterday I posed this question - http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/392500/Why-Are-People-Against-the-Holy-Trinity-in-Games.html - asking why people are against the "Holy Trinity"
Today I will pose this question. Is the new trend of MMOs, action oriented, fewer skills, and less hotbars? If you look at the old juggernauts of the MMO world, EQ 1, EQ 2, and Vanilla WoW, you literally were able to use all of your skills (usually 30+) at any given point. You were not limited to 8, 10, or 12. Fast forward 10 - 12 years later and you see games like GW2 with this action styled dodging and rolling around, while only being able to use a set amount of your skills during a single combat period.
Is this the way MMOs are leaning? What I think to be a more casualized, less intensive, easier learning style? Are MMO companies attempting to make combat more fun? Or are they instead trying to make it easier for the younger (or older) gamer?
I look forward to hearing back from all of you,
Talint
Comments
I think they are trying to make it more like the CGI trailers we see with combat involved, where the moving,dodging,parrying are not automatic and require there own hotkeys. Also usually games with 30+ spells use the same spell animation with a different color in each spell but its just the same but with stylized combat you click an ability and it uses multiple animations in some games.
While I do agree that with the 30+ skills, a lot of them do use the same animation with different colors, the skills still do different things. So animations become a little more obsolete.
I always like the action styled combat system in rpg games since champions online. I don't mind the action bars getting shorter to a few slots to use such as 7 slots on one bar, when I play world of warcraft where I have to used alot of keys to use certain abilities, I end up binding keys 6-= and others on keys that don't even use, like strafing and unused keys such as q, e, r, f, mostly anything near my wasd control keys, so I could have faster reaction times on pressing certain keys, just got to makes sure I press the right one.
I like Action Combat better because it's more faster pace to where combat usually ends at 1-10 seconds, while in dungeons, sometimes depending on how hard the boss is and the mechanics of the boss itself, will take at least 7-12 minutes to take down or more. It's not your typical game to just "stand there and spam fireballs" type of combat like other mmorpg games, it's more fast pace and I always perfer to throw fireballs point blank against enemies, and if that certain game got physics, I will see that body fly 3 miles away from me.
that's not really true, this was only in the very very beginning of the game
That's not the original Everquest.
That pic is Everquest. If you say "Everquest had only 8 spell slots", you're kind of juggling with the truth.
Everquest had hundreds of spell and ability slots, it was only in the very very early beginning that it had 8.
Specifying that is kind of important.
Other posters are talking about returning to the roots of older MMOs that also had limited slot bars. It is and it isn't the same. The differences now are that we now have action combat. and we have very limited customization of action bars. One of the biggest complaints about GW2 is the shallowness of it's combat system. And I think it's a direct result of the inability choose what your abilities are outside tying them to the weapon you equip. And then to only have 5 slots change. This really limits what you can do.
It's definitely Everquest, but not the original Everquest. They bastardized the game by trying to adopt many of the WoW designs. EQ had 8 spells slots through at least the first few expansions.
Sigh, what does WoW have to do with EQ's spell slot. It came from the increased demand from the community and the constantly increasing AA system. Anyway......
The picture listed is from recent EQ, after many many UI changes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWisI2lSc_A
This is the original UI.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Yes, the original UI that lasted less than 2 years before it was overhauled and spell slots were added through AA immediately after. EQ has been using more than 8 for over a decade.
The "coonsolification" of pc games? Maybe... Hope not, I have absolutely no use for consoles. I don't have any use for the whole hyperkinetic b.s of "action" combat either.
It has less to do with going back to the roots of older MMOs and acknowledging that World of Warcraft's design of multiple ability bars was just stupid.
(hint: Becasue they were needed)
The game designers perform an enhancement to the UI because it was a needed change but that part has to be dismissed because a new system that has only surface similarities but is the only example of a successful implementation is being challenged.
But history says, it really wasn't all that successful, so that has to be omitted.
No, 5 slots being tied to weapons is just stupid. WoW had options, more options is always better than few options. If being a minimalist makes you more efficient, then guess what? In WoW, you can run with a single bar. In fact, there were popular addons that did exactly that.
Well and truely said! Yes EQ1 changed things well before precious WoW (and the WoW-ification of MMO's). and the classes had more then just the 8 abilities, you could only have the 8 loaded at a time, as a Shaman back in those days I would quick sit and swap out ones constantly to keep up buffs (of which there were many) on party members through our adventuring. They also had sense enough to get rid of having your screen stuck covered with your spell-book while meditating.
Yes, but that is also the point. People wanted a reskin of Original EQ. EQ only had 8 spell slots. Now you still can only have as many slots as you need for AA's, which means you need to purchase the AA's that have the abilities and then slot them. it is not like EQ2, WoW or SWTOR that by time a character is level 50 they have so many abilities you need 5 bars to be able to see the abilities. Even though EQ allows you to have that many ability slots, you will never use that many.
Personally, I am welcoming EQNext and it's lack of hot buttons. Now a days in Rift, EQ2, WoW, SWTOR, you name the game. You either have a macro to play your game for you (which means you really aren't playing the game, just copy/pasting whatever macro you googled) or you are running the googled rotation of the month. If I hear another player ask me "What rotation do you run with" or "What's your macro" one more fucking time, I'll reach through my damn monitor and strangle the asstard.
It's a game, you play it, if you need a fucking macro or rotation to think for you, go play Life, or Monopoly, because seriously, thinking is hard, right? These are thing no player should be forced into. PvP and raids should not be broken down into who's macro or rotation is the best. That is not skill, that's google.
I am sorry, but I am going to disagree with this. There is going to ALWAYS be a way to output the greatest amount of damage. This is done via a rotation. Some rotations are better than others, and there will always be a 'best' rotation - that is how MMos are. So please don't say that "if you need a rotation to play, go play something else because thinking is hard" - that is very ignorant.
And you can also download a bot for games with action combat. GW 2 had a HUGE problem with it, and they had to drop the major ban stick on a fairly big amount of their player base.