Combat

Amathe

Nowadays, mmo group encounters (and especially large group encounters) are often the dance of the circles. Get out of the red circle. Stand in the green circle. Now stand on one foot and hop. Duck! Blah blah. Personally I hate all that. If I wanted to play Frogger I would just play Frogger.

Original Everquest wasn't like that. Or if it was, it was either in encounters I did not undertake or ones that went in after I left. I started to see more and more of that type of group combat beginning with WoW. 

I'm wondering is Pantheon is going to stay the current course and have people play musical chairs and call it combat, or whether there will be something new? Or perhaps, something old. 

"And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost."

Sinist

I think from what I have read, combat is going to be much slower than it is in most games these days where the focus is on less arcade style of play and more endurance, strategy, resource management, etc... I think there will be some skills they mentioned that will be activated, but not twitch style of play that we see in most games today.

If I had to guess, I would say it will be EQ like in subtle play and style, but with the complexity of systems that Vanguards classes and interactions bought. So deep combat with slow endurance style play. That is at least what I would like to see. I don't mind the active combat scenarios if used sparingly, but if I see that constant "jump through the hoop" style of arcade play, I am going to be very disappointed. We have enough of that twitch play these days.

Amsai

Im 100% with you on this subject at least Sinist (as amazing as that is ^.~). Oh and that "jump through the hoop" style of arcade play you speak of? I always called it "dance dance revolution" because these actiony titles make it so that you have to follow a perfectly choreographed set of dance steps to succeed. Oh and 15 min. speed past everything rinse and repeat dungeos are what I called Rundgeons! But yes, basically I hope for everything you said and emphasis on the infrequent use of active combat scenarios.

Hrimnir

I don't mind having to dodge abilities and stuff like that.  I mean hell it happened in EQ, you had to get behind a dragon to avoid a breath, or something like that.  Its the degree to which you have to do it.  When it becomes more about the spastic twitching to avoid things, that gets old quick.

Edit:  Things I liked about EQ raiding was having to pay attention to your debuffs, and you might have to carry a dispel potion to remove a debuff that was applied to you.  Or you might have something you needed to alert your healer to cure a disease, etc.  There are many ways to complicate an encounter and just having you dodge circles on the ground is really a simplistic way of viewing things.

zanfire

Hrimnir said:

I don't mind having to dodge abilities and stuff like that.  I mean hell it happened in EQ, you had to get behind a dragon to avoid a breath, or something like that.  Its the degree to which you have to do it.  When it becomes more about the spastic twitching to avoid things, that gets old quick.

Edit:  Things I liked about EQ raiding was having to pay attention to your debuffs, and you might have to carry a dispel potion to remove a debuff that was applied to you.  Or you might have something you needed to alert your healer to cure a disease, etc.  There are many ways to complicate an encounter and just having you dodge circles on the ground is really a simplistic way of viewing things.

That floor dance, memorize the script twitch play is what killed FF14 for me (along with a bunch of other stuff). I spend a majority of my time playing FFXI and a short period in EQOA and EQ2 so having something that not the new age "everything is action!" is going to be great. If people want those, there is lituarally dozens of WoW clones or action combat spam fests to choose from, i just want something that does a lot of what i loved in FFXI but with some obvious modern enhancements.

This game and ones like it can't come fast enough... 

CalmOceans

I read that Pantheon will have static camps again. Which is why it might interest me as an MMO.

I don't know any other MMO that actually had the pulling+CC mechanic like EQ did, the fact Pantheon will have it is interesting.


Regarding raids, I have never felt as much thrill and excitement in MMO as being the designated puller for a 54 man EQ raid. The fact I could wipe my own raid, and I managed to do this once (stupid inktu'ta stonemites), as the designated puller, was super exciting to me.

(although, where is my bard)

Dullahan

As Hrimnir said, there was actually some of that in EQ. The difference was you didn't see any lines. There were point blank AEs, frontal AEs, huge dragon breath AEs and much more over the years. What made it better was that it was less predictable. Controlling the mob and timing was everything. Nothing was telegraphed.

Adamantine

I expect Pantheon to have the "same" combat as Vanguard, which I would think is a lot like EverQuest.

So: Thinking about which ability you use next is very important. Combat is quite dynamic - certain abilities only open under certain circumstances (most importantly finisher lines after critical hits), random special chances appear on the mob (weakness and expoits system), depending upon class various counters have to be considered (hitpoints of course, but also endurance and/or mana as well as various counters classes got specifically, like Jin for Monk and Disciple, Blood Points for Blood Mage, Phenomena for Druids, Virtue for Paladins, or the Dreadful Countenance debuff for Dread Knights).

Careful design of macros is important, especially because of instant cast with no global cooldown abilities and item useage (which also involved no global cooldown).

Strategy is important, especially in raids.

Positioning is important, especially in raids.

But reflexes - are not completely unimportant, but are much less important than in other games. And there are certainly not some color schemes on the ground to follow.

Especially there is a global cooldown which gives you some leeway for bad ping.



Thanks to having such a system, despite having a ping of 500ms as a european player on the last remaining server in the USA, I managed to successfully and quite well play a Dread Knight tank in Vanguard.

Despite being definitely quite undergeared for these opponents (no PotA armor), I successfully main tanked raids up to Arch Magus Zodifin and Belzane. I wasnt any great, being undergeared, but I managed. Also for example Kotasoth, Dresla, Summoner Physik, and many more (for which I wasnt undergeared). I failed at least once against Masuke, though, I dont remember why, but I think it was the first raidboss I ever tried to actually tank.

Despite being DK, I managed to snatch the aggro of most tanks a lot, except well played ones with defnitely substantly better gear. I could literally rule mobs that have been volatile against piercing damage because I had the best spear in the game (which btw sadly was from the entry level of the Ancient Port Warehouse, they never added a level 55 spear).

Thus, yes I definitely want that back.

Oh and dont think that technical advances will remove this issue. There are physical limits like lightspeed that wont go away. If I play on USA, I will have bad ping. Thats why I never did that - until the european server was hopelessly dead.

Fourplay

Hrimnir said:

I don't mind having to dodge abilities and stuff like that.  I mean hell it happened in EQ, you had to get behind a dragon to avoid a breath, or something like that.  Its the degree to which you have to do it.  When it becomes more about the spastic twitching to avoid things, that gets old quick.

Edit:  Things I liked about EQ raiding was having to pay attention to your debuffs, and you might have to carry a dispel potion to remove a debuff that was applied to you.  Or you might have something you needed to alert your healer to cure a disease, etc.  There are many ways to complicate an encounter and just having you dodge circles on the ground is really a simplistic way of viewing things.

I think developers overuse the dodge roll because action rpg is a fad and they are trying to avoid ability bloat.(One dodge roll vs 20 situational abilities to counter a specific move)

I prefer depth over worrying about ability bloat. Just give me an efficient way to swap situational abilities out.

Sinist

zanfire said:

Hrimnir said:

I don't mind having to dodge abilities and stuff like that.  I mean hell it happened in EQ, you had to get behind a dragon to avoid a breath, or something like that.  Its the degree to which you have to do it.  When it becomes more about the spastic twitching to avoid things, that gets old quick.

Edit:  Things I liked about EQ raiding was having to pay attention to your debuffs, and you might have to carry a dispel potion to remove a debuff that was applied to you.  Or you might have something you needed to alert your healer to cure a disease, etc.  There are many ways to complicate an encounter and just having you dodge circles on the ground is really a simplistic way of viewing things.

That floor dance, memorize the script twitch play is what killed FF14 for me (along with a bunch of other stuff). I spend a majority of my time playing FFXI and a short period in EQOA and EQ2 so having something that not the new age "everything is action!" is going to be great. If people want those, there is lituarally dozens of WoW clones or action combat spam fests to choose from, i just want something that does a lot of what i loved in FFXI but with some obvious modern enhancements.

This game and ones like it can't come fast enough... 

They won't play them though, they all sit around and complain about their mainstream games, then... they come to new games that try to escape such development circles and demand it also provide the same thing.

The community here and the developers are going to have to put on some very thick armor to deflect the tantrums that will grow as the game gets more popular. I have seen it in every game of note. They have to resist the mainstream demands as those folks won't be around long, they are locusts that game hop. If they appeal to them, the result will be a game that is dead in a few months because the locusts have moved on and the core crowd having quit playing in disgust.

Obviously this is my humble opinion, but this game can not survive appealing to mainstream. It didn't work for the numerous games before it that tried, it won't work for them.

TheJoda

It really should be a form of action combat, the "tab" targeting is so dated.  From the small video clips they have released it looks EQ like in design and use.

Sinist

TheJoda said:

It really should be a form of action combat, the "tab" targeting is so dated.  From the small video clips they have released it looks EQ like in design and use.

Yeah, read the site, it will go long way to informing on the type of game it is.

If you want action arcade spam, this game is not for you.

Adamantine

TheJoda said:

It really should be a form of action combat, the "tab" targeting is so dated.

Tab targetting wasnt introduced because they didnt have action games back then.

Thanks to tab targetting, I can concentrate on what ability to chose next. Which is what I want my games to be about.

Or, to answer on the intellectual level of your posting: Action combat is for people who dont like to think during their gaming. Its so kiddo.

Vorthanion

I call it the Simon Says Syndrome and too many developers have caught the disease.  I shouldn't be penalized for wanting to change up the order in which I use my skills.  I want my doge and parry to be stat based, not twitch.  I'm playing a role in a role playing game after all, not Mortal Kombat.  There are plenty of those games out there now in multiple genres and multiple platforms, it's about time we slow pokes who like to think things through got some developer attention in a modern game.

carotid

CalmOceans said:

I read that Pantheon will have static camps again. Which is why it might interest me as an MMO.

I don't know any other MMO that actually had the pulling+CC mechanic like EQ did, the fact Pantheon will have it is interesting.


Regarding raids, I have never felt as much thrill and excitement in MMO as being the designated puller for a 54 man EQ raid. The fact I could wipe my own raid, and I managed to do this once (stupid inktu'ta stonemites), as the designated puller, was super exciting to me.

(although, where is my bard)

Oh how I miss my bard. That was such a fantastic and kick in the a.s.s. character to play.

(forgot "the") :-P

Vorthanion

TheJoda said:

It really should be a form of action combat, the "tab" targeting is so dated.  From the small video clips they have released it looks EQ like in design and use.

Playstyles can't be categorized as outdated, they're merely different.  Twitch has been around just as long, yet you don't consider it outdated, oh the hypocrisy.

Sinist

Vorthanion said:

TheJoda said:

It really should be a form of action combat, the "tab" targeting is so dated.  From the small video clips they have released it looks EQ like in design and use.

Playstyles can't be categorized as outdated, they're merely different.  Twitch has been around just as long, yet you don't consider it outdated, oh the hypocrisy.

Well, some are only old enough to have experienced one type and so naturally everything they were too young or not born to see is "outdated" It is classic, teenager thinking.

Shaigh

Sinist said:

Vorthanion said:

TheJoda said:

It really should be a form of action combat, the "tab" targeting is so dated.  From the small video clips they have released it looks EQ like in design and use.

Playstyles can't be categorized as outdated, they're merely different.  Twitch has been around just as long, yet you don't consider it outdated, oh the hypocrisy.

Well, some are only old enough to have experienced one type and so naturally everything they were too young or not born to see is "outdated" It is classic, teenager thinking.

Others would know that you can incorporate action combat, tab-targeting and twitch into the same game. In fact everquest relies on all three.

Sinist

Shaigh said:

Sinist said:

Vorthanion said:

TheJoda said:

It really should be a form of action combat, the "tab" targeting is so dated.  From the small video clips they have released it looks EQ like in design and use.

Playstyles can't be categorized as outdated, they're merely different.  Twitch has been around just as long, yet you don't consider it outdated, oh the hypocrisy.

Well, some are only old enough to have experienced one type and so naturally everything they were too young or not born to see is "outdated" It is classic, teenager thinking.

Others would know that you can incorporate action combat, tab-targeting and twitch into the same game. In fact everquest relies on all three.

What is your point?

Jownz

Remember when you had to have a cc class for group pulls ? Or you would all die. New term should be Massive Single player Online Game. MSOG... RPG and Group MMO's are no more.

Sinist

Jownz said:

Remember when you had to have a cc class for group pulls ? Or you would all die. New term should be Massive Single player Online Game. MSOG... RPG and Group MMO's are no more.

Can't have that, it makes the game too difficult and gets in the way of the clever face rolling action of todays quality MMOs!