Why, indeed, should your success in a game depend on what you do in that game? Surely the answer to that is obvious.
Now, twitch combat isn't the only way to prevent combat from being completely stupid and boring, but it is probably the most common.
You do realize that picking a target and selecting a skill is doing something in a game. Twitch combat is only one kind of skill.
Stupid and boring combat is not exclusive to tab target and twitch does not make combat smart and fun.
“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”
I fear this discussion will go nowhere unless posters on both sides stop trivializing the opposing side's preferred style of combat.
Both have merits, although the thought that twitch combat somehow takes away from planning and tactics is absurd. To see someone try to describe the logic behind that idea should be entertain- ...err, interesting.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Why, indeed, should your success in a game depend on what you do in that game? Surely the answer to that is obvious.
Now, twitch combat isn't the only way to prevent combat from being completely stupid and boring, but it is probably the most common.
That depends on exactly what it is you do. In his example, his success in the game would depend on how he built his character vs the other being learning to get the timing of certain visual queues memorized.
And as far as non-twitch combat being boring.....Have you played WoW lately? I stopped recently because I couldn't keep up with the need for raiding. It wasn't for boring combat. In fact, the most popular mods downloaded in WoW are to assist with combat rotations since it's actually more difficult that probably 95% of the people in this forum will admit do.
I never said that non-twitch combat was boring. I liked Liberty or Death, for example, and that's about as non-twitchy as you can get. What I said was basically that if you're going to have combat, you should do something to prevent it from being boring.
It's been several years since I played WoW, but back then, WoW's combat was rather bad. Not completely awful; Runescape's combat is the worst I've seen. But bad.
I think the biggest difference in the systems is when they swing back.
The whole thing really falls into games are going to keep on advancing towards "realistic" simulated fantasy and dice roll mechanics are old. Standing there bashing each other over the head rolling dice to decide the out come worked for PnP because there was a lot more imagination involved. In games it looks silly.
They're hardly perfect now but it's taking baby steps towards "realistic" fantasy.
I think it boils down to......"Because they can" I don't think online games from last decade could have supported combat closer to real time.
I enjoy both styles. I am playing GW2 and I think there is room for it and of course improvements. That said, I also enjoy games where I build my character and HE does the dodging.
Subspace was an online game with twitch combat in 1997.
Turn based combat can really easily be broken down into pattern. So let say for normal mob : 1 , 2 , 2 , 4 , 1 , 2 ...
It depends on the game and how it is implemented. Chess, for example, features turn-based combat, but if you try to follow such a simple repetition, you're going to get completely destroyed by even a mediocre opponent.
The key, I think, is making players respond to what is going on in ways that don't become boring and predictable.
Originally posted by Lobotomist Let me explain you idea behind twitch combat in mmo. Maybe you be more receptive when you understand it :
Combat is something you do over and over , for hundreds of thousands times in course mmo.
Turn based combat can really easily be broken down into pattern. So let say for normal mob : 1 , 2 , 2 , 4 , 1 , 2 ...
This turns into boredom. And since the combat is the majority of play , and its pattern repetition. Developers decided to make combat more twitch , because twitch is unpredictable (more or less)
Playing a certain game that shall remain nameless, I can already see patterns in its "action combat" down to waiting 10 seconds then position myself correctly to interrupt a mobs aoe then back stab.
Action combat is not synonymous with good combat. There have been plenty of games with action combat that still had bad combat.
Originally posted by Lobotomist Let me explain you idea behind twitch combat in mmo. Maybe you be more receptive when you understand it :
Combat is something you do over and over , for hundreds of thousands times in course mmo.
Turn based combat can really easily be broken down into pattern. So let say for normal mob : 1 , 2 , 2 , 4 , 1 , 2 ...
This turns into boredom. And since the combat is the majority of play , and its pattern repetition. Developers decided to make combat more twitch , because twitch is unpredictable (more or less)
Playing a certain game that shall remain nameless, I can already see patterns in its "action combat" down to waiting 10 seconds then position myself correctly to interrupt a mobs aoe then back stab.
You are fighting AI. You are bound to face patterns whether the game has twitch combat or no (duh).
Not necessarily simple enough patterns to be human-recognizable. Or few enough to recognize them all.
While MMO gamers of 45 and older are most likely not a significant part of the MMO playerbase at the moment, that will most certainly start changing dramatically in the next 10 years or so.
There's no way that the average 50 or 60-year old is going to be able to compete in twitch or "action-based" games with 20-year olds soaked in Red Bull. Some will try and some will probably die. Literally. Heart-attacks.
So either the action-combat will be toned down, or MMO's will split into 2 genres...
/popcorn
There wasn't that many playing Pong when it was new, either.
But the 40 bracket is when the joint injuries start showing up, be it from long gaming hours or those weekend tennis matches catching up. The last thing people want with joint injuries is twitch style combat. I can't lift my arm above 90 degrees without pain, do you think I'm going to willingly advocate for more shoulder damage just to play a game? Do you think I want to be in combat every step of the way to have "fun"? It's not fun popping narcotics to kill boars, that's for sure.
The devs have reduced the problems with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, but there's other more insidious conditions that's even more detrimental, and repetitive clicking as a sport is going to hit the 20 year-olds like a ton of bricks if it's not remedied. There's little merit of pushing damaging ergonomics, and especially over stupid ePeen.
Have you tried using a gamepad? That's a lot more injury-friendly than a mouse.
Why, indeed, should your success in a game depend on what you do in that game? Surely the answer to that is obvious.
Now, twitch combat isn't the only way to prevent combat from being completely stupid and boring, but it is probably the most common.
That's the funny thing about roleplaying.......one person's mana is another's poison. MMOs aren't just about combat nor is one style of combat better or more entertaining than the other. It goes to show just how much game developers are still clueless after all these years, when they haven't learned to resist the stream of lemmings jumping off the cliff. (In other words, something new and exciting shouldn't equate to every upcoming MMO embracing twitchy combat).
If your game isn't about combat, then it doesn't matter much if you have good combat. Most (not all!) MMORPGs, however, are almost entirely about combat, with any other features being (often half-baked) things to make you better at combat. And if your game is almost entirely about combat, having bad combat is a big problem.
I'd like to see a happy middle ground between reflexes and strategy. I do not wish to ever go back to full tab target auto lock combat though. Seriously, it's not like we're playing Street Fighter or Marvel vs Capcom here, THOSE are twitchy games. It's really time to move passed tab target stuff. Clicking on a sprite and loading up a macro and winning because of your gear score. They have games for that already. That stuff existed because of technical limitations IMO. It has a place in turn based games but not in the more free roaming games imo.
"As far as the forum code of conduct, I would think it's a bit outdated and in need of a refre *CLOSED*"
There is a difference of how players want to play. It used to be most players wanted to pretend their *character* was in the game. Most players today want to be in the game *themselves*, NOT their characters. For me, this is a HUGE Roleplaying division. My character may have a dexterity of 100+, but no matter what, he is stuck with my dismal dexterity of maybe 10 in a twitch-fest game. A character may have an Intelligence of 10, but most players will scour the web for game info that would give their characters the equivalent of 100+ Intelligence.
Twitch combat is not, in itself, a bad thing. I enjoy it in certain games. RPGs are not those kinds of games, for me. Twitch combat is also why I avoid FPS games.
Wow, great post. Sometimes I am really shocked by the amount of insight players in this community have. Despite the endless arguing, the mmorpg community really is special. Twitch combat is the prioritizing of real life skills over the skills your character is supposed to have and is thus fundamentally anti-rpg. Brilliant!
I just want to add that the current generation of gamers are the Facebook generation of gamers, they want to superimpose their real life into the internet. That mindset is fundamentally at odds with the foundation of "role-playing" which is, essentially, playing the role of someone you aren't in real life. This is why every mechanic being introduced today to mmorpgs is hostile to the rpg part. And this is also the basis of the vast majority of argument here at mmorpg.com, which all boil down to whether you are pro-rpg or anti-rpg, in one guise or another. The next generation of gamers will likely be made up of people who have rejected the "project your real life into the internet" philosophy of their parents, and at that point you will have a reversal back toward pro-rpg dynamics.
If your game isn't about combat, then it doesn't matter much if you have good combat. Most (not all!) MMORPGs, however, are almost entirely about combat, with any other features being (often half-baked) things to make you better at combat. And if your game is almost entirely about combat, having bad combat is a big problem.
But "bad" is subjective.
Some people like D3 type action combat. Some don't.
Some people like Shadowrun Returns type turn based combat. Some don't.
Originally posted by SomeHuman I totally agree. I like some "twitch" games, but I usually turn to a FPS for that. I prefer a more strategic combat in an MMORPG. I'd be all for a turn-based combat system in some of the up-and-coming titles. I have more fun playing a round of Hearthstone than I do running around ESO smacking stuff. But I enjoy the world exploration and other elements of your typical mmorpg like ESO.
I wish there were more mmorpgs to consider turn-based combat. Considering so many classic RPGs used it, I'm suprised there aren't more mmorpgs to try it.
Why, indeed, should your success in a game depend on what you do in that game? Surely the answer to that is obvious.
Now, twitch combat isn't the only way to prevent combat from being completely stupid and boring, but it is probably the most common.
That depends on exactly what it is you do. In his example, his success in the game would depend on how he built his character vs the other being learning to get the timing of certain visual queues memorized.
And as far as non-twitch combat being boring.....Have you played WoW lately? I stopped recently because I couldn't keep up with the need for raiding. It wasn't for boring combat. In fact, the most popular mods downloaded in WoW are to assist with combat rotations since it's actually more difficult that probably 95% of the people in this forum will admit do.
Doesn't that make it easy then?
Easy? I never thought of WoW's combat as easy. Not in the sense or context it's generally referenced here at MMORPG.COM. But if by easy, you mean giving me more information as to help me make a better decisions, then yes.
WoW used to be difficult when you could have 4 or more action bars filled with abilities, a bunch of conditional abilities thrown in the mix, procs, and no helper addons, and class imbalances that made some PvP fights interesting. Now everything is easy mode, every class has been normalized into oblivion, and is basically boring as hell.
PvP in MMO's has become more and more bland it seems. GW2 with it's limited action sets is pretty lame, which has me worried for Wildstar's PvP. The same goes for ESO's PvP systems.
Personally i keep waiting for an MMO to utilize a fluid combat system that works similar to Ninja Gaiden 2 on Xbox or Devil May Cry. That would be "in my opinion" the pinnacle of immerssive and responsive combat...Tera came the closest with it's very in depth combo systems but still remained clunky with weird pacing but it was certainly fun while I played.
I'm not sure I found EQ or WoW combat boring. In group combat you had to react to what was going on. You had to heal or stop dpsing or kick or bash or feign death or CC based on what was happening. It was something many people failed to be able to accomplish on a consistent basis. In solo play it's a little different. It's a lot less complicated and usually doesn't end up quite as interesting, but it depends on the class. Paladins were fairly interesting as they could heal them selves efficiently at the right moment to win the fight. Necormancers/Druids/Bards/Shaman were all pretty fun to play in EQ solo and required a fair amount of being able to do things at the right time. I wouldn't say turn based combat is boring. It all depends on the situation. These games aren't even true turn based. They are real time turn based. Turn based would be more like a chess match or fallout or shadowrun returns or civilization. Personally I don't have a problem with stats being used to evade and it. Sometimes it's not that much fun to have to be worrying about combat so much. Turn based combat can actually be really relaxing. I do enjoy FPS style combat in single player RPGs to an extent.
Why, indeed, should your success in a game depend on what you do in that game? Surely the answer to that is obvious.
Now, twitch combat isn't the only way to prevent combat from being completely stupid and boring, but it is probably the most common.
That depends on exactly what it is you do. In his example, his success in the game would depend on how he built his character vs the other being learning to get the timing of certain visual queues memorized.
And as far as non-twitch combat being boring.....Have you played WoW lately? I stopped recently because I couldn't keep up with the need for raiding. It wasn't for boring combat. In fact, the most popular mods downloaded in WoW are to assist with combat rotations since it's actually more difficult that probably 95% of the people in this forum will admit do.
Doesn't that make it easy then?
Easy? I never thought of WoW's combat as easy. Not in the sense or context it's generally referenced here at MMORPG.COM. But if by easy, you mean giving me more information as to help me make a better decisions, then yes.
WoW used to be difficult when you could have 4 or more action bars filled with abilities, a bunch of conditional abilities thrown in the mix, procs, and no helper addons, and class imbalances that made some PvP fights interesting. Now everything is easy mode, every class has been normalized into oblivion, and is basically boring as hell.
PvP in MMO's has become more and more bland it seems. GW2 with it's limited action sets is pretty lame, which has me worried for Wildstar's PvP. The same goes for ESO's PvP systems.
Personally i keep waiting for an MMO to utilize a fluid combat system that works similar to Ninja Gaiden 2 on Xbox or Devil May Cry. That would be "in my opinion" the pinnacle of immerssive and responsive combat...Tera came the closest with it's very in depth combo systems but still remained clunky with weird pacing but it was certainly fun while I played.
This is partly why I was looking forward to playing Blade & Soul, but it sucks that NCSoft just decided to sit on it the past couple years with seemingly no progress towards releasing the localized English version. It seems like they just abandoned it to place all their chips on Wildstar.
The combat in Blade & Soul isn't exactly as fluid as Ninja Gaiden or DmC, but it's a variation of Tera style combat that sounds like a lot of fun and more combo/resource reliant than Tera. I'm looking forward to Wildstar's release mainly just in the hopes that NCSoft will start to pay some more attention to B&S.
Originally posted by LagKingBong There are plenty of turn-based MMO's for those more prone to skill debilitations like arthritis, bad eyes and bad reflexes. Or chess. FFXIV, to start, is a super easy combat system requiring barely any coordination.
Name 10. I can think of 3, maybe 5 if I look hard. Does that qualify as "plenty" for you?
Wizard101. Atlantica 2. Pirate101.
There is a difference of how players want to play. It used to be most players wanted to pretend their *character* was in the game. Most players today want to be in the game *themselves*, NOT their characters. For me, this is a HUGE Roleplaying division. My character may have a dexterity of 100+, but no matter what, he is stuck with my dismal dexterity of maybe 10 in a twitch-fest game. A character may have an Intelligence of 10, but most players will scour the web for game info that would give their characters the equivalent of 100+ Intelligence.
Twitch combat is not, in itself, a bad thing. I enjoy it in certain games. RPGs are not those kinds of games, for me. Twitch combat is also why I avoid FPS games.
Then new RPG's are NOT for you. I get sick of turn based combat - bleh!
if I am involved in a battle, I want to be able to move around. When you fight in RL, you don't just stand there and fight - you move around. It is more realistic and more involving (well, except for ESO combat which is just mashing keys).
We are a significant part of the gaming audience. Do not think for one second you're going to get twitch combat in every MMORPG from now on without us putting up a fight. You might be surprised how powerful our wallets can speak for us. Other than GW2, how many of your fabulous twitchy style MMORPGs are considered truly successful? Whether it is due fully or in part to the combat, it is and always will remain a factor when you are dealing with gamers and their preferences.
Why, indeed, should your success in a game depend on what you do in that game? Surely the answer to that is obvious.
Now, twitch combat isn't the only way to prevent combat from being completely stupid and boring, but it is probably the most common.
That's the funny thing about roleplaying.......one person's mana is another's poison. MMOs aren't just about combat nor is one style of combat better or more entertaining than the other. It goes to show just how much game developers are still clueless after all these years, when they haven't learned to resist the stream of lemmings jumping off the cliff. (In other words, something new and exciting shouldn't equate to every upcoming MMO embracing twitchy combat).
If your game isn't about combat, then it doesn't matter much if you have good combat. Most (not all!) MMORPGs, however, are almost entirely about combat, with any other features being (often half-baked) things to make you better at combat. And if your game is almost entirely about combat, having bad combat is a big problem.
Once again, you are not proving that one combat mechanic is superior to another, the term good is subjective and you know it, no matter your penchant for sidestepping the issue. There is no doubt here that combat plays a significant role even in early RPGs let alone MMORPGs and even if it wasn't, why would any gamer not want all aspects of the MMORPG to be appealing, no matter how significant in the over-all picture? There is an audience out there for all kinds of play styles and combat mechanics and so forth. I certainly don't see the need or the reason for developers to arbitrarily dismiss any segment of the gaming audience by ceasing to make any future MMOs that cater to them. This lemming style of development is not only illogical, it doesn't even make good business sense.
well im a old bastard myself am excited for titanfall hope it will replace bf4 which I am disappointed in now in my mmos im bored stiff not finding a game I like much with a good community of players I liked tera accept for its childish cartoony crap I am sick and tired of this skill rotation crap tired o no skill just read online use these skills in this order over and over and over again ug boring tired of it give me some good combat where skill is in place where if I make a mistake I am dead no 50 skills to choose from no rotation of skills to do max dps uts all old and boring played out we need some good innovation i know we have a few now mortal online has tried they got the making for a great game but they mested up being to hardcore eso looks promising i believe that the rainged will be op and have a advantage at times
We are a significant part of the gaming audience. Do not think for one second you're going to get twitch combat in every MMORPG from now on without us putting up a fight. You might be surprised how powerful our wallets can speak for us. Other than GW2, how many of your fabulous twitchy style MMORPGs are considered truly successful? Whether it is due fully or in part to the combat, it is and always will remain a factor when you are dealing with gamers and their preferences.
Diablo 3 .. sold 15M boxes. PoE is successful.
There are lots of RPGs with twitch combat that is successful .. how about Borderlands 2 .. that is even a FPS.
The only reason MMORPGs are less so is that their combat is *not* actiony enough. GW2 has a bit closer to action combat, but still quite far compared to true action RPGs.
We are a significant part of the gaming audience. Do not think for one second you're going to get twitch combat in every MMORPG from now on without us putting up a fight. You might be surprised how powerful our wallets can speak for us. Other than GW2, how many of your fabulous twitchy style MMORPGs are considered truly successful? Whether it is due fully or in part to the combat, it is and always will remain a factor when you are dealing with gamers and their preferences.
Diablo 3 .. sold 15M boxes. PoE is successful.
There are lots of RPGs with twitch combat that is successful .. how about Borderlands 2 .. that is even a FPS.
The only reason MMORPGs are less so is that their combat is *not* actiony enough. GW2 has a bit closer to action combat, but still quite far compared to true action RPGs.
Who would want it though in a MMORPG, when things like immersion/story/character development is much more important? Let alone active combat is a tiring feature, that will burn players out faster?
It's all about the pacing to get your value out of a franchise, unless you regard franchises as but disposable entertainment (then it'll be a quite expensive hobby with little to show for it).
Let me explain you idea behind twitch combat in mmo. Maybe you be more receptive when you understand it :
Combat is something you do over and over , for hundreds of thousands times in course mmo.
Turn based combat can really easily be broken down into pattern. So let say for normal mob : 1 , 2 , 2 , 4 , 1 , 2 ...
This turns into boredom. And since the combat is the majority of play , and its pattern repetition. Developers decided to make combat more twitch , because twitch is unpredictable (more or less)
Now if someone would come up with good turn based system that is not pattern based....
Procs is the mmorpg version of becoming a twitch game and I hate them. They are annoying and your not reacting to the action, but rather the proc lights, woopty do, who wants to stare at those?
Proc lights up - mmorpg player: "oh boy i get to press the number 4 button, presses button, oh yes big crit, I am so good"
Let me explain you idea behind twitch combat in mmo. Maybe you be more receptive when you understand it :
Combat is something you do over and over , for hundreds of thousands times in course mmo.
Turn based combat can really easily be broken down into pattern. So let say for normal mob : 1 , 2 , 2 , 4 , 1 , 2 ...
This turns into boredom. And since the combat is the majority of play , and its pattern repetition. Developers decided to make combat more twitch , because twitch is unpredictable (more or less)
Now if someone would come up with good turn based system that is not pattern based....
Procs is the mmorpg version of becoming a twitch game and I hate them. They are annoying and your not reacting to the action, but rather the proc lights, woopty do, who wants to stare at those?
Proc lights up - mmorpg player: "oh boy i get to press the number 4 button, presses button, oh yes big crit, I am so good"
lol I just envisioned a room full of lab monkey trained to push a button when a light flashes to win the banana.
Comments
You do realize that picking a target and selecting a skill is doing something in a game. Twitch combat is only one kind of skill.
Stupid and boring combat is not exclusive to tab target and twitch does not make combat smart and fun.
--John Ruskin
I fear this discussion will go nowhere unless posters on both sides stop trivializing the opposing side's preferred style of combat.
Both have merits, although the thought that twitch combat somehow takes away from planning and tactics is absurd. To see someone try to describe the logic behind that idea should be entertain- ...err, interesting.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
yes, he does, that's why he said what he did. I suppose ifu you read his first sentence with a slight sarcasm it will make sense.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
...Looks at his sig...
Huh?
Unless you're going to be swimming in outer space, you bet you're exchanging those phat raid lewts for a better ship.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
I never said that non-twitch combat was boring. I liked Liberty or Death, for example, and that's about as non-twitchy as you can get. What I said was basically that if you're going to have combat, you should do something to prevent it from being boring.
It's been several years since I played WoW, but back then, WoW's combat was rather bad. Not completely awful; Runescape's combat is the worst I've seen. But bad.
Subspace was an online game with twitch combat in 1997.
It depends on the game and how it is implemented. Chess, for example, features turn-based combat, but if you try to follow such a simple repetition, you're going to get completely destroyed by even a mediocre opponent.
The key, I think, is making players respond to what is going on in ways that don't become boring and predictable.
Action combat is not synonymous with good combat. There have been plenty of games with action combat that still had bad combat.
Not necessarily simple enough patterns to be human-recognizable. Or few enough to recognize them all.
Have you tried using a gamepad? That's a lot more injury-friendly than a mouse.
If your game isn't about combat, then it doesn't matter much if you have good combat. Most (not all!) MMORPGs, however, are almost entirely about combat, with any other features being (often half-baked) things to make you better at combat. And if your game is almost entirely about combat, having bad combat is a big problem.
I'd like to see a happy middle ground between reflexes and strategy. I do not wish to ever go back to full tab target auto lock combat though. Seriously, it's not like we're playing Street Fighter or Marvel vs Capcom here, THOSE are twitchy games. It's really time to move passed tab target stuff. Clicking on a sprite and loading up a macro and winning because of your gear score. They have games for that already. That stuff existed because of technical limitations IMO. It has a place in turn based games but not in the more free roaming games imo.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Wow, great post. Sometimes I am really shocked by the amount of insight players in this community have. Despite the endless arguing, the mmorpg community really is special. Twitch combat is the prioritizing of real life skills over the skills your character is supposed to have and is thus fundamentally anti-rpg. Brilliant!
I just want to add that the current generation of gamers are the Facebook generation of gamers, they want to superimpose their real life into the internet. That mindset is fundamentally at odds with the foundation of "role-playing" which is, essentially, playing the role of someone you aren't in real life. This is why every mechanic being introduced today to mmorpgs is hostile to the rpg part. And this is also the basis of the vast majority of argument here at mmorpg.com, which all boil down to whether you are pro-rpg or anti-rpg, in one guise or another. The next generation of gamers will likely be made up of people who have rejected the "project your real life into the internet" philosophy of their parents, and at that point you will have a reversal back toward pro-rpg dynamics.
But "bad" is subjective.
Some people like D3 type action combat. Some don't.
Some people like Shadowrun Returns type turn based combat. Some don't.
I wish there were more mmorpgs to consider turn-based combat. Considering so many classic RPGs used it, I'm suprised there aren't more mmorpgs to try it.
WoW used to be difficult when you could have 4 or more action bars filled with abilities, a bunch of conditional abilities thrown in the mix, procs, and no helper addons, and class imbalances that made some PvP fights interesting. Now everything is easy mode, every class has been normalized into oblivion, and is basically boring as hell.
PvP in MMO's has become more and more bland it seems. GW2 with it's limited action sets is pretty lame, which has me worried for Wildstar's PvP. The same goes for ESO's PvP systems.
Personally i keep waiting for an MMO to utilize a fluid combat system that works similar to Ninja Gaiden 2 on Xbox or Devil May Cry. That would be "in my opinion" the pinnacle of immerssive and responsive combat...Tera came the closest with it's very in depth combo systems but still remained clunky with weird pacing but it was certainly fun while I played.
This is partly why I was looking forward to playing Blade & Soul, but it sucks that NCSoft just decided to sit on it the past couple years with seemingly no progress towards releasing the localized English version. It seems like they just abandoned it to place all their chips on Wildstar.
The combat in Blade & Soul isn't exactly as fluid as Ninja Gaiden or DmC, but it's a variation of Tera style combat that sounds like a lot of fun and more combo/resource reliant than Tera. I'm looking forward to Wildstar's release mainly just in the hopes that NCSoft will start to pay some more attention to B&S.
We are a significant part of the gaming audience. Do not think for one second you're going to get twitch combat in every MMORPG from now on without us putting up a fight. You might be surprised how powerful our wallets can speak for us. Other than GW2, how many of your fabulous twitchy style MMORPGs are considered truly successful? Whether it is due fully or in part to the combat, it is and always will remain a factor when you are dealing with gamers and their preferences.
Once again, you are not proving that one combat mechanic is superior to another, the term good is subjective and you know it, no matter your penchant for sidestepping the issue. There is no doubt here that combat plays a significant role even in early RPGs let alone MMORPGs and even if it wasn't, why would any gamer not want all aspects of the MMORPG to be appealing, no matter how significant in the over-all picture? There is an audience out there for all kinds of play styles and combat mechanics and so forth. I certainly don't see the need or the reason for developers to arbitrarily dismiss any segment of the gaming audience by ceasing to make any future MMOs that cater to them. This lemming style of development is not only illogical, it doesn't even make good business sense.
Diablo 3 .. sold 15M boxes. PoE is successful.
There are lots of RPGs with twitch combat that is successful .. how about Borderlands 2 .. that is even a FPS.
The only reason MMORPGs are less so is that their combat is *not* actiony enough. GW2 has a bit closer to action combat, but still quite far compared to true action RPGs.
Who would want it though in a MMORPG, when things like immersion/story/character development is much more important? Let alone active combat is a tiring feature, that will burn players out faster?
It's all about the pacing to get your value out of a franchise, unless you regard franchises as but disposable entertainment (then it'll be a quite expensive hobby with little to show for it).
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
Procs is the mmorpg version of becoming a twitch game and I hate them. They are annoying and your not reacting to the action, but rather the proc lights, woopty do, who wants to stare at those?
Proc lights up - mmorpg player: "oh boy i get to press the number 4 button, presses button, oh yes big crit, I am so good"
lol I just envisioned a room full of lab monkey trained to push a button when a light flashes to win the banana.