Personally though, I think the answers are already out there, we've seen enough different systems to know what we individually like.
Yep, this. As mentioned, I enjoy making those decisions on which skills or spells to load. However, that doesn't mean I think every game should only allow X number of usable skills at a given time. I don't need every game tailored to me.
If I came across a game I absolutely loved that allowed unlimited skills to be hotkeyed I would decide for myself if it was a big enough deal to keep me from playing. Then again, I'd simply like to come across a new MMO I love in the first place... but that's a different rant entirely.
It does dumb down the game because it turns every mob into ´mob´
I will give two examples of skills that are being ´taken away´...
Lets suppose you are fighting a goblin, and then a skeleton.
With your 6-8 keys, those two mobs are exactly the same (assuming same level). They both run up to you and whack you with swords.
Now lets add a skill ´ turn undead´.
This spell can be used to fear the skeleton for 4 seconds, but not the goblin.
Now these two mobs are completely different in how you fight them.
Now lets add a rock elemental that punches you in the face as it´s main attack.
And now lets add ´disarm´ another skill that is getting taken away when we reduce the game to 8 keys.
That skeleton attacks you, you can turn it ( fear it for 4 seconds) and then you can disarm it, which reduces the damage it can do to you.
That goblin runs at you, you can disarm it
That rock elemental runs at you, those two skills are useless
Just in that brief example, You now have 3 mobs which would be exactly the same in your game, but would be completely different if players had those two extra abilities to use. Yes, there will ALWAYS be players who even if you gave them disarm and turn undead would still cast fireballx8 in the face. But in a good game, those type of players should always perform worse than players who use all their skills effectively. If I turn that skeleton and then disarm him, maybe I escape the encountered uninjured, where if you cast fireballx8 you finish at 75% health.
By removing skills, you turn every player in Fireballx8 and you turn that skeleton, goblin and rock elemental into ´mob lvl 12´
I will use WOW as an example, even though it has a lot of action bars, they still have dumbed it down
When fighting mobs while leveling, there are two mobs.. have ranged, does not have ranged. That is it... everything else is just the graphic used to represent the mob. You may fight a ranged mob differently than a melee only mob.
As far as your skills. 1-90 I can level any character easily by only using 3 skills. Nothing about the mob at all changes what keys I press. I run up to the mob, any mob, and press 123332 mob is dead. Nothing about the mob, nor nothing the mob does changes what abilities I use and in what order I use them.
that is dumbed down gameplay compared to what I talked about before.
An excellent post. Couldn't of said it better myself. Classic EQ right there with disarm. Fear undead or hell even invis vs undead or other many spells and /disciplines.
- Immersion/casual fun: unlimited skillbars and number of skills.
Limited skill bars are a great thing, particularly for the fact that it makes game designers think a lot more about what skills they want to create (so that they all have some sort of "usefulness").
They are also necessary for a true competitive MMORPG: to limit the number of factors affecting the end result, for balance, etc.
For immersion/fun however, it's probably more interesting to be unlimited in skills. Think Elder Scrolls (NOT the online version!) and their spells. The light/nightvision/breath underwater/levitate spells have nothing to bring in a competitive environment, as they could create massive imbalances.
This raises another question though... I am wondering if the graal of "The Perfect Equilibrium" (i.e. perfect skill balance) that MMORPGs strive to attain is worth pursuing. My experience is that buggy and imbalanced games (often at release) tend to be more fun - and bring fonder memories - than mathematically flawless ones (that feel a bit cold).
I'm a bit of a fan of both sides here. I do enjoy a complex system with many options and reactive abilities such as the skeleton/goblin scenario. However, i'm not as "hardcore" as i used to be and i don't play nearly as much these days. I just don't have the time. For that reason i enjoy the limited skill-sets as well, simply because i can be AFK for a week or a month and it will only take me a couple of minutes to get back in to the action. With more complex games it could take hours to get back in to your old keybindings and setting the muscle memory for that Fear Undead reactive skill you had on shift-F5. And maybe i only had 3 hours to play that week, and i had to spend them "learning" my game again.
It seems like most MMORPGs nowadays are going with the concept of the "limited skill bar" wherein you might have tons of skills you can choose from, but you can only have a select few (6-12ish) on your bar to use in combat at any given time. GW1/GW2, ESO, and Wildstar are designed like this; and even EQ Next will use this concept.
Yet, despite the apparenty popularity of this design with developers, I see so many people here complain about the limited skill bar. Saying things like it "dumbs down" the game, or makes combat worse/less-varied.
Well my friends, I think you're wrong. I think that limited skill bars are (usually) a very good thing for a game, and here are a few reasons why:
1. Build Variety: Imagine you have a game where each character has 20 skills, and can have all of them on their bar. How many different skill builds are there for this character? Answer is pretty easy here one. Now imagine a game where each character has 20 skills, but can only choose 10 to be on their bar. How many different skill builds now? The answer is 184,756. True, most of these probably are not optimal or are very similar to others...but even if only one percent of these builds are viable, that's still over a THOUSAND different ways you can choose to build your character.
I know I've spent hours just theorycrafting different builds, and agonizing over what skill goes in that last slot. You just don't get this kind of investment in your character's build from a game that lets you put all your skills on the bar at the same time.
2. More Interesting/Versatile Skills: I think that limiting the skill bar really forces both players and developers to be more creative with how they use/create skills, and this can create a really interesting combat dynamic in the game. For example, the spellslinger's blink ability in wildstar teleports them forward a fairly short distance and stuns anything they blink through. So in effect this one ability functions as: a chase, an escape, or an offensive/defensive stun.
And remember, all this utility is on the SAME cooldown. This really makes you consider how you want to use this ability because if you use it one way, you sacrifice the other uses of it. For example, if I use it to initiate combat on a player with a stun...then I'm not going to be able to use it to escape if things go poorly, and vice versa.
3. No "Macroable" Skills: In games with MASSIVE skill bars like Rift, macros that just basically shot skills off in a sequence with one button were very common. The reason they were common was because there was essentially one skill rotation that was optimal under just about any circumstance. So instead of pressing 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9; players would just press 1,1,1,1,1....and get the same effect. So in effect, that massive skill bar gets reduced to just a few buttons because so many of the skills are always fired in the same sequence and there is never any reason to deviate from that.
This is definitely not so in a limited skill bar game. Like I mentioned earlier, a lot of skills in these games are multi-purpose, and trying to force them into a rotation is going to really screw you over.
GW2, GW1, DDO, all prove you wrong on this dude.
ddo allows you to have multiple skill bars at the same time. As you get higher level DDO makes it rather important for spell casters to slot there spells, which as you get higher can number in 20 to 30 spells. That requires you to place them on multiple skill bars, and to go to different skill bars using shift 1 thru 9 to get to which bar you want to use before using the skill.
I always thought that limited skill bar was kind of lame since I saw it in Everquest.
========================== The game is dead not, this game is good we make it and Romania Tv give it 5 goat heads, this is good rating for game.
It does dumb down the game because it turns every mob into ´mob´
I will give two examples of skills that are being ´taken away´...
Lets suppose you are fighting a goblin, and then a skeleton.
With your 6-8 keys, those two mobs are exactly the same (assuming same level). They both run up to you and whack you with swords.
Now lets add a skill ´ turn undead´.
This spell can be used to fear the skeleton for 4 seconds, but not the goblin.
Now these two mobs are completely different in how you fight them.
Now lets add a rock elemental that punches you in the face as it´s main attack.
And now lets add ´disarm´ another skill that is getting taken away when we reduce the game to 8 keys.
That skeleton attacks you, you can turn it ( fear it for 4 seconds) and then you can disarm it, which reduces the damage it can do to you.
That goblin runs at you, you can disarm it
That rock elemental runs at you, those two skills are useless
Just in that brief example, You now have 3 mobs which would be exactly the same in your game, but would be completely different if players had those two extra abilities to use. Yes, there will ALWAYS be players who even if you gave them disarm and turn undead would still cast fireballx8 in the face. But in a good game, those type of players should always perform worse than players who use all their skills effectively. If I turn that skeleton and then disarm him, maybe I escape the encountered uninjured, where if you cast fireballx8 you finish at 75% health.
By removing skills, you turn every player in Fireballx8 and you turn that skeleton, goblin and rock elemental into ´mob lvl 12´
I will use WOW as an example, even though it has a lot of action bars, they still have dumbed it down
When fighting mobs while leveling, there are two mobs.. have ranged, does not have ranged. That is it... everything else is just the graphic used to represent the mob. You may fight a ranged mob differently than a melee only mob.
As far as your skills. 1-90 I can level any character easily by only using 3 skills. Nothing about the mob at all changes what keys I press. I run up to the mob, any mob, and press 123332 mob is dead. Nothing about the mob, nor nothing the mob does changes what abilities I use and in what order I use them.
that is dumbed down gameplay compared to what I talked about before.
An excellent post. Couldn't of said it better myself. Classic EQ right there with disarm. Fear undead or hell even invis vs undead or other many spells and /disciplines.
Actually, it's ideas like this that made me create this OP in the first place. No one will argue that they want less mob variety. But there is really no correlation between mob variety and a limited skill bar. So this is a straw man argument.
In fact BOTH examples given above work AGAINST this argument. WoW is given as an example of a game with no mob variety, yet is does not have a limited skill bar. And Everquest is given as an example of a game with lots of mob variety, yet it DOES have a limited skill bar.
So I mean, you guys have basically worked to invalidate your own argument .
Totally hate the limited Skill sets. Honestly they were the entire reason I quite GW2. I remember telling my friend how dumb it was that I had all these great skills but could only build my toon to be able to react to one situation or another. The example I used was I might plan on single pulling some MoBs to clear a quest and I could set up a great single target skill set but inevitably there would be a multi-pull situation or I would run into a quest that really required you have your AoE skills slotted and ready to go.
It basically totally annoyed me that I couldn't "react" fluidly to changing situations as needed or employ different strategies and tactics on the fly based on the situation.
This is the same reason why I am not playing Wildstar (or one of the reasons) and why I have passed on several games so far.
Also, it isn't very realistic that you would learn a skill but magically "forget" the skill just because it isn't slotted. I mean I am ex-military and I don't forget how to fire my rifle just because I have my pistol equipped in my hand hehe. Basically the limited action skill sets take alot of the roleplay out of the character and make it much harder to suspend disbelief and immerse yourself in the game. I know this isn't important to some people, but I kind of like using my imagination to place myself in my toons shoes so to speak. That is a huge part of my enjoyment in just about any game I play.
But as a ex-military you know that you can't carry all the time your pistol, your rifle, your grenade launcher, your rocket launcher, your tank, your coppter, adn whatever with you.. usually your are reduced to a few skills, like pistol, knife and rifle.. although you are also trained in grenade launcher, rocket launcher, sniper rifle, full auto, and whatever.
your confusing 'equipment' with skills, just using a rifle alone, there are numerous uses, often 'positional' prone being optimal for long range 'aimed' again, do you aim for head, body, or even some other body part (assuming your skilled enough to do so) single shots, or 'burst' although that varies on the 'rifle' some of the older assault rifles just could not be used in 'burst mode' too much recoil. for instance a 'prone' aimed shot could take longer to do whereas a crouched aimed shot at a target at medium range instead of long, would be much quicker, to simulate that you would need different types of attack, quite a few of them. The more realistic you tried to make it, the more skill types you would have to create. By limiting it just to half a dozen skills for a particular weapon, is simplifying things, and not really trying to simulate it at all accurately, or to put it another way, its been dumbed down. Also just because a pistol has a much less effective range, does not mean it only has a couple of ways of being used. But the short answer, the fewer skills associated with a weapon type, the less realistic or dumbed down the results.
Less is more led to the creation of the MOBA......anything that leads to a MOBA is an abomination when it comes to MMORPGs.
How about we call them what they are instead? few skills = action MMORPGs and many skills = MMORPGs.
I prefer depth and options over simplified gameplay. There is no reason to take a class that has 100 possible skills to use and limit them to 6-8 at a time, it takes away what a class can do by limiting their roles at one time. This is also done to hide poor game design and force people into ordered groups....another flawed game design.
And no, games like GW1 and their elk do not stand up to games like EQ1, AC1, SWG, DaoC when it comes to combat.....also really loved the part where you say skills cant be macro'ed yet used TESO as an example, a game with as many BOTS as actual players.
Limited slots on a hot bar is a great thing. It creates a diverse class. For an example in EQ my wizard could just be as affective as the other but we may have several different spells "memmed". I would rather have class builds based off their arsenal and what skills/spells they can have active on their hot bar rather than talent trees or other class builds.
I believe to have true freedom within a class you don't bottleneck the players into talent trees or points of anything of those types of class builds. What you do is simply allow the player to have full freedom of their class while they get to create different hot/skill bar sets for different situational circumstances based on their style of player. So you can have 2 wizards. One's play style is burst damage while the other is crit damage and yet both are very effective.
Actually, it's ideas like this that made me create this OP in the first place. No one will argue that they want less mob variety. But there is really no correlation between mob variety and a limited skill bar. So this is a straw man argument.
In fact BOTH examples given above work AGAINST this argument. WoW is given as an example of a game with no mob variety, yet is does not have a limited skill bar. And Everquest is given as an example of a game with lots of mob variety, yet it DOES have a limited skill bar.
So I mean, you guys have basically worked to invalidate your own argument .
Your argument is invalidated because you are leaving out the known fact that EQ1 became the first MMORPG to have players create their own UIs to replace the games limited version which was done for the purpose of the console version. The player created UIs popularity alongside what was done by players for AC1 led to the next gen of MMORPGS, DaoC/SWG to have more toolbars and SWG even went farther with a customizable UI. It also led Blizzard to allow mods in game.
3. No "Macroable" Skills: In games with MASSIVE skill bars like Rift, macros that just basically shot skills off in a sequence with one button were very common. The reason they were common was because there was essentially one skill rotation that was optimal under just about any circumstance.(...)
This, the "optimal" rotation, is also enforced in games such as e.g. SWTOR by having some skill X build up stacks of something that give the other skill Y a massive buff, like +50% chance to crit. That way you really always want to execute skill X three times for the max stacks before you fire off skill Y. And there usually is a direct 1-to-1 between these "build up" skills and the "consumer".
How can people call "limiting choice" a good think? I don't get it. Noone limits you to only use 6 skills if you want, even if you COULD use 20. Your choice.
Don't limit my experience and immersion. And no i don't think it is a good thing to explore a new map, getting ambushed by 10 goblins and not being able to fireball them, because i currently "forgot" how to do that in order to "learn" how to run a bit faster.
Seriously. I don't get that at all. Limiting skills is not making build diversity better. It makes it frustrating and boring. There is always a best way to do xy and you have to switch for the next zone. Id much rather have a random event spawn on me and REACT to it with all my possibilitys.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
I tried GW1 and I very quickly ended up disliking the whole idea. Not interested in repeating the experience.
Maybe if they came up with a complex system such as for the Guardian in LotR I would bother, but only having 6-12 skills total ? Just have fun with that, but I'll look elsewhere.
So you complain about only pushing 3 buttons but now im limited to pushing 1 button and have no way to improving that or changing anything based on the situation. If I change it to something else with no heal, CC, or break CC. So upping my skills to 4 buttons I have no way to counter being ganked by someone. I just have the ability to pull down my pants.
If you have ever played any kind of PVP you would know you need way more than 10 buttons to PVP efficiently. If you ever raided you would know you need tons of abilities even as just a dps to counter whatever is thrown at you.
I tried GW1 and I very quickly ended up disliking the whole idea. Not interested in repeating the experience.
Maybe if they came up with a complex system such as for the Guardian in LotR I would bother, but only having 6-12 skills total ? Just have fun with that, but I'll look elsewhere.
I'd be interested to know what your rotations are. I've played every single class in WoW and each and every one can/could be boiled down to a single bar. Sure, I've got my holy $#^& bar, but 90-95% of the time I can get by on one bar, even 5 or 6 skills when I'm facerolling.
I'm not suggesting limiting skills per se, but make it so that people actually need to make trade-offs, create more passive abilities, create some passive RNG abilities, so instead of long CDs and having to remember to pop them ever so often, reduce the CD and make it an RNG with attached stat modifier to increase proc rate.
Originally posted by AzrileIt does dumb down the game because it turns every mob into ´mob´ ...That skeleton attacks you, you can turn it ( fear it for 4 seconds) and then you can disarm it, which reduces the damage it can do to you.That goblin runs at you, you can disarm itThat rock elemental runs at you, those two skills are useless
Nothing prevents a a game like GW from having disarm, turn, and fireball skills - you just need to figure out which you wish to carry on your limited bar. Makes the game more interesting.
Actually, it's ideas like this that made me create this OP in the first place. No one will argue that they want less mob variety. But there is really no correlation between mob variety and a limited skill bar. So this is a straw man argument.
In fact BOTH examples given above work AGAINST this argument. WoW is given as an example of a game with no mob variety, yet is does not have a limited skill bar. And Everquest is given as an example of a game with lots of mob variety, yet it DOES have a limited skill bar.
So I mean, you guys have basically worked to invalidate your own argument .
Your argument is invalidated because you are leaving out the known fact that EQ1 became the first MMORPG to have players create their own UIs to replace the games limited version which was done for the purpose of the console version. The player created UIs popularity alongside what was done by players for AC1 led to the next gen of MMORPGS, DaoC/SWG to have more toolbars and SWG even went farther with a customizable UI. It also led Blizzard to allow mods in game.
and the train keeps on a rollin.
ummm this seems completely irrelevant to the argument.
So you complain about only pushing 3 buttons but now im limited to pushing 1 button and have no way to improving that or changing anything based on the situation. If I change it to something else with no heal, CC, or break CC. So upping my skills to 4 buttons I have no way to counter being ganked by someone. I just have the ability to pull down my pants.
If you have ever played any kind of PVP you would know you need way more than 10 buttons to PVP efficiently. If you ever raided you would know you need tons of abilities even as just a dps to counter whatever is thrown at you.
And that's why in a limited skill bar game its important to have multi-purpose skills, and build some functionality into the basic game system. For example, in wildstar, you break root by dodge rolling, and stun can be reduced by a QTE.
Also your statement about PvP is completely false. MOBA PvP is almost always waaaay more complex and involved thsn MMORPG PvP, yet moba's have like 4 skills. If you want any evidence of this, the prize pool for the dotav2 international is over 9 million dollars. Do you really think a game with bad pvp would generate such a huge prize pool?
I tried GW1 and I very quickly ended up disliking the whole idea. Not interested in repeating the experience.
Maybe if they came up with a complex system such as for the Guardian in LotR I would bother, but only having 6-12 skills total ? Just have fun with that, but I'll look elsewhere.
I'd be interested to know what your rotations are. I've played every single class in WoW and each and every one can/could be boiled down to a single bar. Sure, I've got my holy $#^& bar, but 90-95% of the time I can get by on one bar, even 5 or 6 skills when I'm facerolling.
I'm not suggesting limiting skills per se, but make it so that people actually need to make trade-offs, create more passive abilities, create some passive RNG abilities, so instead of long CDs and having to remember to pop them ever so often, reduce the CD and make it an RNG with attached stat modifier to increase proc rate.
This has been my experience with unlimited skill bars as well. I played a shaman once in wow, and I had like over 30 skills it seemed...but I would normally only use like 5 of them. The other skills were so specific that they just sat on my bar unused like 99% of the time.
So you complain about only pushing 3 buttons but now im limited to pushing 1 button and have no way to improving that or changing anything based on the situation. If I change it to something else with no heal, CC, or break CC. So upping my skills to 4 buttons I have no way to counter being ganked by someone. I just have the ability to pull down my pants.
If you have ever played any kind of PVP you would know you need way more than 10 buttons to PVP efficiently. If you ever raided you would know you need tons of abilities even as just a dps to counter whatever is thrown at you.
And that's why in a limited skill bar game its important to have multi-purpose skills, and build some functionality into the basic game system. For example, in wildstar, you break root by dodge rolling, and stun can be reduced by a QTE.
Also your statement about PvP is completely false. MOBA PvP is almost always waaaay more complex and involved thsn MMORPG PvP, yet moba's have like 4 skills. If you want any evidence of this, the prize pool for the dotav2 international is over 9 million dollars. Do you really think a game with bad pvp would generate such a huge prize pool?
MOBA isnt MMORPG. The question you asked was MMORPGs.
Originally posted by Creslin321
Originally posted by CrazKanuk
Originally posted by Adamantine
Less choices means - you have less choices.
Duh.
I tried GW1 and I very quickly ended up disliking the whole idea. Not interested in repeating the experience.
Maybe if they came up with a complex system such as for the Guardian in LotR I would bother, but only having 6-12 skills total ? Just have fun with that, but I'll look elsewhere.
I'd be interested to know what your rotations are. I've played every single class in WoW and each and every one can/could be boiled down to a single bar. Sure, I've got my holy $#^& bar, but 90-95% of the time I can get by on one bar, even 5 or 6 skills when I'm facerolling.
I'm not suggesting limiting skills per se, but make it so that people actually need to make trade-offs, create more passive abilities, create some passive RNG abilities, so instead of long CDs and having to remember to pop them ever so often, reduce the CD and make it an RNG with attached stat modifier to increase proc rate.
This has been my experience with unlimited skill bars as well. I played a shaman once in wow, and I had like over 30 skills it seemed...but I would normally only use like 5 of them. The other skills were so specific that they just sat on my bar unused like 99% of the time.
Just because you dont utilize your skills doesnt mean other people dont. Also that 1% of the time I bet you were happy you had the option of using more than just 6 skills.
It does dumb down the game because it turns every mob into ´mob´
I will give two examples of skills that are being ´taken away´...
Lets suppose you are fighting a goblin, and then a skeleton.
With your 6-8 keys, those two mobs are exactly the same (assuming same level). They both run up to you and whack you with swords.
Now lets add a skill ´ turn undead´.
This spell can be used to fear the skeleton for 4 seconds, but not the goblin.
Now these two mobs are completely different in how you fight them.
Now lets add a rock elemental that punches you in the face as it´s main attack.
And now lets add ´disarm´ another skill that is getting taken away when we reduce the game to 8 keys.
That skeleton attacks you, you can turn it ( fear it for 4 seconds) and then you can disarm it, which reduces the damage it can do to you.
That goblin runs at you, you can disarm it
That rock elemental runs at you, those two skills are useless
Just in that brief example, You now have 3 mobs which would be exactly the same in your game, but would be completely different if players had those two extra abilities to use. Yes, there will ALWAYS be players who even if you gave them disarm and turn undead would still cast fireballx8 in the face. But in a good game, those type of players should always perform worse than players who use all their skills effectively. If I turn that skeleton and then disarm him, maybe I escape the encountered uninjured, where if you cast fireballx8 you finish at 75% health.
By removing skills, you turn every player in Fireballx8 and you turn that skeleton, goblin and rock elemental into ´mob lvl 12´
I will use WOW as an example, even though it has a lot of action bars, they still have dumbed it down
When fighting mobs while leveling, there are two mobs.. have ranged, does not have ranged. That is it... everything else is just the graphic used to represent the mob. You may fight a ranged mob differently than a melee only mob.
As far as your skills. 1-90 I can level any character easily by only using 3 skills. Nothing about the mob at all changes what keys I press. I run up to the mob, any mob, and press 123332 mob is dead. Nothing about the mob, nor nothing the mob does changes what abilities I use and in what order I use them.
that is dumbed down gameplay compared to what I talked about before.
An excellent post. Couldn't of said it better myself. Classic EQ right there with disarm. Fear undead or hell even invis vs undead or other many spells and /disciplines.
Actually, it's ideas like this that made me create this OP in the first place. No one will argue that they want less mob variety. But there is really no correlation between mob variety and a limited skill bar. So this is a straw man argument.
In fact BOTH examples given above work AGAINST this argument. WoW is given as an example of a game with no mob variety, yet is does not have a limited skill bar. And Everquest is given as an example of a game with lots of mob variety, yet it DOES have a limited skill bar.
So I mean, you guys have basically worked to invalidate your own argument .
Not only did they invalidate their own arguments, they also forgot an important aspect to mmos. Teamwork.
Yes, I believe soloing should be viable and rewarding, but it doesn't mean that there shouldn't be rewarding options for multiplay as well.
Let's take the example of Disarm/Turn Undead. Instead of Player A having both abilities, he only has Turn Undead, which is not effective vs. the goblin or elemental in the example. However, Player A joins up with Player B who has disarm and Player C who has Banish Elements. So, now these three teammates have a large arsenal available to cover a wider variety of fights, and can use their individual skills tactically to overcome a larger variety of enemies.
Now if developers created these types of experiences, along with a limited action set, and along with a variety of skills that are effective vs. enemies of different types (while being all but useless vs. other types of enemies), then the developer is creating two things. First, they are creating challenge for the solo player who doesn't have all tools to fight all things all of the time. So you'll have to use skill in order to defeat enemies which you are not effective against. Secondly, they are creating reasons for players to team up and cooperate, and not because these enemies are necessarily designed to not be soloable. Grouping becomes effective and it's not exactly an artificial reason to group (because the dungeon tells me to).
Additionally, if you've built your action set to let's say be extremely effective vs. the undead, then perhaps the player should go out of their way to seek areas that have a higher concentration of undead enemies.
The success of limited action bars really hinges on developers supporting that feature with a wider variety of gameplay options.
Limited skill bars are destroying what little complexity this genre once had. Sorry, but even though I'm older doesn't mean I have trouble using a keyboard. Any game with limited skill bars is a shadow of what it could be, even the two I'm currently playing now.
It means less choices and a dumbed down interface/genre in my opinion, and that's not likely to change.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV Have played: You name it If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
Your argument is invalidated because you are leaving out the known fact that EQ1 became the first MMORPG to have players create their own UIs to replace the games limited version which was done for the purpose of the console version. The player created UIs popularity alongside what was done by players for AC1 led to the next gen of MMORPGS, DaoC/SWG to have more toolbars and SWG even went farther with a customizable UI. It also led Blizzard to allow mods in game.
and the train keeps on a rollin.
ummm this seems completely irrelevant to the argument.
Of course, because it invalidates the argument you provided. Cant have that! Much like ignoring my first post.
Your argument breaks down to this.
I like less options and I hate more options, because of potato, or at least may as well be potato since its all based on your personal preferences, not actual facts.
Examples,
Fact: Less is not more.
Less does not give more options than more.
Less does not provide more depth of combat than more.
More, is more.
To remove more, for less is to make things simpler.
Comments
Yep, this. As mentioned, I enjoy making those decisions on which skills or spells to load. However, that doesn't mean I think every game should only allow X number of usable skills at a given time. I don't need every game tailored to me.
If I came across a game I absolutely loved that allowed unlimited skills to be hotkeyed I would decide for myself if it was a big enough deal to keep me from playing. Then again, I'd simply like to come across a new MMO I love in the first place... but that's a different rant entirely.
- Nellus
An excellent post. Couldn't of said it better myself. Classic EQ right there with disarm. Fear undead or hell even invis vs undead or other many spells and /disciplines.
Why limited skill bars a bad thing
-Less abilities to pay attention to or manage properly in a given fight reducing effort required from the player
-Doesn't make variety at all because there will always be a cookie cutter for pve and pvp that you will choose
-Less complexity due to low number or even non existent amount of non rotational abilities
-Lots of same key spamming in all of those games makes for boring gameplay
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
I think it boils down to two things:
- Competition/challenge: limited skillbars,
- Immersion/casual fun: unlimited skillbars and number of skills.
Limited skill bars are a great thing, particularly for the fact that it makes game designers think a lot more about what skills they want to create (so that they all have some sort of "usefulness").
They are also necessary for a true competitive MMORPG: to limit the number of factors affecting the end result, for balance, etc.
For immersion/fun however, it's probably more interesting to be unlimited in skills. Think Elder Scrolls (NOT the online version!) and their spells. The light/nightvision/breath underwater/levitate spells have nothing to bring in a competitive environment, as they could create massive imbalances.
This raises another question though... I am wondering if the graal of "The Perfect Equilibrium" (i.e. perfect skill balance) that MMORPGs strive to attain is worth pursuing. My experience is that buggy and imbalanced games (often at release) tend to be more fun - and bring fonder memories - than mathematically flawless ones (that feel a bit cold).
I'm a bit of a fan of both sides here. I do enjoy a complex system with many options and reactive abilities such as the skeleton/goblin scenario. However, i'm not as "hardcore" as i used to be and i don't play nearly as much these days. I just don't have the time. For that reason i enjoy the limited skill-sets as well, simply because i can be AFK for a week or a month and it will only take me a couple of minutes to get back in to the action. With more complex games it could take hours to get back in to your old keybindings and setting the muscle memory for that Fear Undead reactive skill you had on shift-F5. And maybe i only had 3 hours to play that week, and i had to spend them "learning" my game again.
ddo allows you to have multiple skill bars at the same time. As you get higher level DDO makes it rather important for spell casters to slot there spells, which as you get higher can number in 20 to 30 spells. That requires you to place them on multiple skill bars, and to go to different skill bars using shift 1 thru 9 to get to which bar you want to use before using the skill.
I always thought that limited skill bar was kind of lame since I saw it in Everquest.
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The game is dead not, this game is good we make it and Romania Tv give it 5 goat heads, this is good rating for game.
Actually, it's ideas like this that made me create this OP in the first place. No one will argue that they want less mob variety. But there is really no correlation between mob variety and a limited skill bar. So this is a straw man argument.
In fact BOTH examples given above work AGAINST this argument. WoW is given as an example of a game with no mob variety, yet is does not have a limited skill bar. And Everquest is given as an example of a game with lots of mob variety, yet it DOES have a limited skill bar.
So I mean, you guys have basically worked to invalidate your own argument .
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
GW is the only game that offers a good LAS system, havn't played TSW though.
Rest is shit (specially ESO)
your confusing 'equipment' with skills, just using a rifle alone, there are numerous uses, often 'positional' prone being optimal for long range 'aimed' again, do you aim for head, body, or even some other body part (assuming your skilled enough to do so) single shots, or 'burst' although that varies on the 'rifle' some of the older assault rifles just could not be used in 'burst mode' too much recoil. for instance a 'prone' aimed shot could take longer to do whereas a crouched aimed shot at a target at medium range instead of long, would be much quicker, to simulate that you would need different types of attack, quite a few of them. The more realistic you tried to make it, the more skill types you would have to create. By limiting it just to half a dozen skills for a particular weapon, is simplifying things, and not really trying to simulate it at all accurately, or to put it another way, its been dumbed down. Also just because a pistol has a much less effective range, does not mean it only has a couple of ways of being used. But the short answer, the fewer skills associated with a weapon type, the less realistic or dumbed down the results.
Less is more led to the creation of the MOBA......anything that leads to a MOBA is an abomination when it comes to MMORPGs.
How about we call them what they are instead? few skills = action MMORPGs and many skills = MMORPGs.
I prefer depth and options over simplified gameplay. There is no reason to take a class that has 100 possible skills to use and limit them to 6-8 at a time, it takes away what a class can do by limiting their roles at one time. This is also done to hide poor game design and force people into ordered groups....another flawed game design.
And no, games like GW1 and their elk do not stand up to games like EQ1, AC1, SWG, DaoC when it comes to combat.....also really loved the part where you say skills cant be macro'ed yet used TESO as an example, a game with as many BOTS as actual players.
I couldn't agree more OP.
Limited slots on a hot bar is a great thing. It creates a diverse class. For an example in EQ my wizard could just be as affective as the other but we may have several different spells "memmed". I would rather have class builds based off their arsenal and what skills/spells they can have active on their hot bar rather than talent trees or other class builds.
I believe to have true freedom within a class you don't bottleneck the players into talent trees or points of anything of those types of class builds. What you do is simply allow the player to have full freedom of their class while they get to create different hot/skill bar sets for different situational circumstances based on their style of player. So you can have 2 wizards. One's play style is burst damage while the other is crit damage and yet both are very effective.
Excellent post OP
Your argument is invalidated because you are leaving out the known fact that EQ1 became the first MMORPG to have players create their own UIs to replace the games limited version which was done for the purpose of the console version. The player created UIs popularity alongside what was done by players for AC1 led to the next gen of MMORPGS, DaoC/SWG to have more toolbars and SWG even went farther with a customizable UI. It also led Blizzard to allow mods in game.
and the train keeps on a rollin.
This, the "optimal" rotation, is also enforced in games such as e.g. SWTOR by having some skill X build up stacks of something that give the other skill Y a massive buff, like +50% chance to crit. That way you really always want to execute skill X three times for the max stacks before you fire off skill Y. And there usually is a direct 1-to-1 between these "build up" skills and the "consumer".
How can people call "limiting choice" a good think? I don't get it. Noone limits you to only use 6 skills if you want, even if you COULD use 20. Your choice.
Don't limit my experience and immersion. And no i don't think it is a good thing to explore a new map, getting ambushed by 10 goblins and not being able to fireball them, because i currently "forgot" how to do that in order to "learn" how to run a bit faster.
Seriously. I don't get that at all. Limiting skills is not making build diversity better. It makes it frustrating and boring. There is always a best way to do xy and you have to switch for the next zone. Id much rather have a random event spawn on me and REACT to it with all my possibilitys.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Less choices means - you have less choices.
Duh.
I tried GW1 and I very quickly ended up disliking the whole idea. Not interested in repeating the experience.
Maybe if they came up with a complex system such as for the Guardian in LotR I would bother, but only having 6-12 skills total ? Just have fun with that, but I'll look elsewhere.
6 skills. So lets see what that means.
1. Basic Single target attack
2. AOE attack
3. Mount
4. CC
5. Break CC
6. Heal
So you complain about only pushing 3 buttons but now im limited to pushing 1 button and have no way to improving that or changing anything based on the situation. If I change it to something else with no heal, CC, or break CC. So upping my skills to 4 buttons I have no way to counter being ganked by someone. I just have the ability to pull down my pants.
If you have ever played any kind of PVP you would know you need way more than 10 buttons to PVP efficiently. If you ever raided you would know you need tons of abilities even as just a dps to counter whatever is thrown at you.
I'd be interested to know what your rotations are. I've played every single class in WoW and each and every one can/could be boiled down to a single bar. Sure, I've got my holy $#^& bar, but 90-95% of the time I can get by on one bar, even 5 or 6 skills when I'm facerolling.
I'm not suggesting limiting skills per se, but make it so that people actually need to make trade-offs, create more passive abilities, create some passive RNG abilities, so instead of long CDs and having to remember to pop them ever so often, reduce the CD and make it an RNG with attached stat modifier to increase proc rate.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Nothing prevents a a game like GW from having disarm, turn, and fireball skills - you just need to figure out which you wish to carry on your limited bar. Makes the game more interesting.
ummm this seems completely irrelevant to the argument.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
And that's why in a limited skill bar game its important to have multi-purpose skills, and build some functionality into the basic game system. For example, in wildstar, you break root by dodge rolling, and stun can be reduced by a QTE.
Also your statement about PvP is completely false. MOBA PvP is almost always waaaay more complex and involved thsn MMORPG PvP, yet moba's have like 4 skills. If you want any evidence of this, the prize pool for the dotav2 international is over 9 million dollars. Do you really think a game with bad pvp would generate such a huge prize pool?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
This has been my experience with unlimited skill bars as well. I played a shaman once in wow, and I had like over 30 skills it seemed...but I would normally only use like 5 of them. The other skills were so specific that they just sat on my bar unused like 99% of the time.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Not only did they invalidate their own arguments, they also forgot an important aspect to mmos. Teamwork.
Yes, I believe soloing should be viable and rewarding, but it doesn't mean that there shouldn't be rewarding options for multiplay as well.
Let's take the example of Disarm/Turn Undead. Instead of Player A having both abilities, he only has Turn Undead, which is not effective vs. the goblin or elemental in the example. However, Player A joins up with Player B who has disarm and Player C who has Banish Elements. So, now these three teammates have a large arsenal available to cover a wider variety of fights, and can use their individual skills tactically to overcome a larger variety of enemies.
Now if developers created these types of experiences, along with a limited action set, and along with a variety of skills that are effective vs. enemies of different types (while being all but useless vs. other types of enemies), then the developer is creating two things. First, they are creating challenge for the solo player who doesn't have all tools to fight all things all of the time. So you'll have to use skill in order to defeat enemies which you are not effective against. Secondly, they are creating reasons for players to team up and cooperate, and not because these enemies are necessarily designed to not be soloable. Grouping becomes effective and it's not exactly an artificial reason to group (because the dungeon tells me to).
Additionally, if you've built your action set to let's say be extremely effective vs. the undead, then perhaps the player should go out of their way to seek areas that have a higher concentration of undead enemies.
The success of limited action bars really hinges on developers supporting that feature with a wider variety of gameplay options.
Limited skill bars are destroying what little complexity this genre once had. Sorry, but even though I'm older doesn't mean I have trouble using a keyboard. Any game with limited skill bars is a shadow of what it could be, even the two I'm currently playing now.
It means less choices and a dumbed down interface/genre in my opinion, and that's not likely to change.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
Of course, because it invalidates the argument you provided. Cant have that! Much like ignoring my first post.
Your argument breaks down to this.
I like less options and I hate more options, because of potato, or at least may as well be potato since its all based on your personal preferences, not actual facts.
Examples,
Fact: Less is not more.
Less does not give more options than more.
Less does not provide more depth of combat than more.
More, is more.
To remove more, for less is to make things simpler.
You, like things simple.
I don't, I like complexity and depth.