I'm not commenting on tab targeting and trinity but what makes wow combat great and what makes wow arena so popular and competitive is the fact that all classes have a shitton of very different things they can do, its balanced really well and goddamn I'm still to find a game that does animations/triggering so well. The combat has literally the best responsiveness of any mmo ever made. I can still remember the horrors of playing age of conan or star wars the old republic, clunky pieces of shit.
i recently have come to the conclusion that there is several things i like when it comes to combat
- tab targetting - trinnity for group based combat - as many skills as possible..
wow fits this cattegory perfectly...
to me there are two things that make WoW outstand when it comes to combat compared to other games that fit the above profile..
- annimations, very very fluent - skill interaction, there is much more interaction between skills then in other MMO's
so whats your opinion on this?
1. WoW combat simply WORKS! All the time, every time. Period. End of story!
2. No Ability Lag. I remember when I switched to Rift and would be in the middle of a open world zone boss fight. The ability lag was ridiculous.
3. Tab Targeting is more accurate. There is also something else with WoW that I noticed was missing in other games like FFXIV. WHen using Tab Targeting in WoW. It's like the game knows what target I should be TABbing to next. It would tab to the correct target mor often than not, certainly withing 1 or 2 more tabs. Where in FFXI I'd be tabbing and tabbing until finally, I had to stop DPS and mouse click on the target I wanted.
People say that WoW's combat is just "tab target spam 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3" but it is far, far more complex than that.
It just looks simple, and appears simple, and "feels" simple because it is so well designed and implemented.
Also, you have to remember, anyone here who calls anything about an MMO simple is also likely a veteran of several MMOs, so you have to remember that your perspective, your experience greatly shapes how "easy" things are to you.
Some of WoW's classes/specs are far more complex than others, but even the simpler ones are full of nuance that really differentiate players.
That's really what makes WoW's combat so good is all of the nuance brought forth by layers on top of layers on top of layers of "simple" systems and features that, when added together, form a fairly complex interaction of player, character, and world.
Or, simply put - because Blizzard really knows what the F they are doing, and designs all of their games really, really, really well... which is why everything they produce becomes a huge success - for 20+ years!
That kind of consistent success in freaking unheard of.
for me it is simple, i always got feeling that when i hit the skill the skill works, not wait around generally the response time was near as dammit immediate
I like how complex the combat system can get. If you ever put enough time into raiding in top 100 guilds, there are so many little things that you can learn and study that when you put them all into play, that's what makes the difference.
And if you don't want to put the time in for that, you can still do okay.
So yeah, I think it's a good combat system just for how easy it is to pick up and learn, and how difficult it can be trying to master every little thing.
When all is said and done, more is always said than done.
What makes Wow combat so good is the devs spent time making it fluid in the first place. Now devs spend more time on graphics because that's all anyone talks about. If the graphics are good then the game gets high praise. I blame this on the modern player base for this. They are always screaming for realistic graphics. Its amazing that after all this time Wows combat is still the best in mmo's. Now instead of giving us good combat we get gimmicks with so called action combat. And hotbars with 6 or 8 choice at a time. This is because devs know most gamers today grew up on consoles and get confused if they have to many choices on hotbars.
One of the things I think Blizzard does well is balance between classes. While not perfect, it is much better than most games out there.
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
OP it is true they got that part right but when you figure the MAIN GAME,why does it matter? The main game which is linear questing can be played while eating,watching tv and your eyes closed pressing 1/2/31/2/3. Linear questing is or at least the way Blizzard designed it to EASILY hand hold you to max level.Why even bother to play a game like that unless you want no challenge and no thinking?It also 100% totally removes the Trinity system,so again why bother? So in reality the ONLY game Blizzard has resides inside of instances doing boss runs,so the ANTI mmo.
Also since the main game"linear questing" is so easy,why would you care or even need a lot of skills? You see i think too many Wow fanbois are lost in this dream that the only game that exists is instancing content,are you forgetting about the entire game?
So point being,IF they actually knew how to create a mmo,then yes everything would be great but they don't so it is meaningless outside of instances,they should have just created 3 buttons that said kill in 3 hits and move on to next quest. That is why i got so bored so fat with WoW,i got tired of constantly waddling around chasing yellow markers for quests and being incredibly bored with combat,i seriously was half asleep i could do the combat with my eyes closed.Only reason you needed to have your eyes open was to watch for aggro because they copied Everquest and just dumped a ton of mobs into tiny areas to force you to fight everything to get to your goal.
Then YOU have problem. Not game. Learn difference.
Implying that blizz dont know how to make mmo... lol
Personally, what i love the most is the speed. I remember trying LotRO once and i actually had tons of fun playing it, but the combat was so excruciatingly slow that i had to change back to WoW. Besides, Blizzard puts a lot of effort on the audio department; for me at least, it's not the same fighting with the sounds off, the effects are just way too gratifying. The only thing that always bothered about this particular matter is that they never added the Holy Light effect from Warcraft III. I have that bastard as a ringtone on my cellphone, it's just too damn good.
Btw, i hate the now called "action combat". That crap is for consoles, not mouse + keyboard. I have no idea why they decided to make it trending in PCs, but i curse the day they did it. Now the kewl kid thinks that every game should have it, and it pisses me off so bad.
Personally, what i love the most is the speed. I remember trying LotRO once and i actually had tons of fun playing it, but the combat was so excruciatingly slow that i had to change back to WoW. Besides, Blizzard puts a lot of effort on the audio department; for me at least, it's not the same fighting with the sounds off, the effects are just way too gratifying. The only thing that always bothered about this particular matter is that they never added the Holy Light effect from Warcraft III. I have that bastard as a ringtone on my cellphone, it's just too damn good.
Btw, i hate the now called "action combat". That crap is for consoles, not mouse + keyboard. I have no idea why they decided to make it trending in PCs, but i curse the day they did it. Now the kewl kid thinks that every game should have it, and it pisses me off so bad.
Thats why i only play a Warden in LOTRO combat... Its much more high speed and fun then the others for me.... Actually its the most fun class i ever played in any MMO... however, in the big battles, they just felt lost and thats when i moved on.
i am currently having such a relation with the Brewmaster monk in WoW.. There is so much fun and depth in this class, it is beyound any other class for me...( tough seems like Legion will be Monks bane with all the changes, so i am looking forward trying a Holy Paladin mellee healer, or the good old druid in Legion again.
In the last few years i have learned to accept games as they are, and when they become less fun(or a class for that) its time for a change to move on. Recognising what Blizzard does, i know it will be best to move on to another class when your main gets chnaged to much...there should be some other class that fits you better..
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Not sure about now but when it was released and up until the day I quit, there wasn't a single MMORPG that has the fluidity and smoothness of their combat all the way from their GCD and combat animations.
People told me RIFT had really good and fluid combat but compared to WoW, I found it clunky and jarring.
They've also had some really good balancing moves and one of it was moving to PvP gear. I know that is a generally contentious topic but it allowed them to smooth out the balancing problems and interplay between the classes while abstracting it away from PvE balance, which was constantly banging up against PvP balance. My biggest issue with the PvP gear was that it didn't work in OWPvP (which was mostly dead and/or never really worked in WoW anyway) and the difficulty in newer PvPers to obtain competitive gear. They did fix that though.
i recently have come to the conclusion that there is several things i likedislike when it comes to combat
- tab targetting - trinnity for group based combat - as many skills as possible..
wow fits this cattegory perfectly...
to me there are two things that make WoW outstand when it comes to combat compared to other games that fit the above profile..
- annimations, very very fluent - skill interaction, there is much more interaction between skills then in other MMO's
so whats your opinion on this?
I only needed to change one word in your post to give you a whole different perspective as to why your post title should be corrected to read "What makes WoW combat so good for me."
In short, everything you like about video gaming combat, I dislike.
Shhhhhhh. You can't say that around here. You'll break the illusion that WoW is terrible and all the haters will shrivel up and implode.
Just stopped listening to the haters... But to each its own... Tough telling people their opinion about a game is wrong, now thats just silly ....
and to people saying this is my opinion, thats true, but i guess i still have millions of people that agree with me, and thats still more then any other MMO out there.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I like wow, but I actually wish they made you pick 2 dozen skills out of a pool, and that the AI had more to it in the sense of blocking and dodging.
I do agree that the newer games are just too spammy and fast. FF14 slows the GCD nor than what wow is and it requires better team interplay.
I think wildstar would have done far better if they had kept combat like wow. Action combat in raiding/dungeons just doesn't work, ala GW2. Fun ideas, just not the right balance to pull off fun, consistent pve challenges.
WoW's combat is dated and has been dumbed down by multitudes.
That being said, what used to make it great was that there were so many ways to approach an encounter. So many ways to react during an encounter.
The combat has been dumbed down but it still remains one of the highest skill caps to exist.
People still "react" to encounters, except the game has been around for such a long time, it only takes a few pulls for top end players to have a good idea of what the "best" way to approach the encounter will be.
No matter what they chance, talent wise, class wise, the framework of these classes has been around since the game released, people know what they need to do, and with the recent changes, it's easier for brand new players to mash buttons and do decently too.
But yeah, the combat still can get pretty ridiculous if you try and min/max it.
When all is said and done, more is always said than done.
Responsiveness is what makes WoW's combat better than most other MMOs.
This and the fact most skills have a counter. So it lead to some complex options, I know as a Paladin I had so many options of play styles I never got board. Well that was the case before they simplified the classes and specs locked you out of class skills. Thats where they lost me.
WoW engine is butter. When people say "clunky" to describe another game's combat what they mean is, "I press button, no worky as expected"
It's many little layers of feedback and responsiveness that make good combat (aka polish). Blizz makes sure that when you press a button, you get auditory and visual cues that match your expectation of the desired interaction. A couple fractions of a second off and it 'feels' wrong and when you compound that with the fact the MMO's tend to have a lot of time spent in combat, you can quickly get to "clunky" with just a few missing or incorrectly done pieces.
Beyond a pretty fantastic netcode foundation, smooth animations, great sound design, excellent visual feedback indicators and so on - I think the core class design is among the best - if not THE best in the genre.
Every single skill/ability has obviously been given a lot of design attention - and Blizzard understands that just giving players a bunch of combat skills won't do. You have to create abilities for a variety of situations and they ALL have to make sense. Unlike games like The Old Republic and EverQuest 2 - they don't just add things to fill your hotbars. They add them when there's a specific need or "power fantasy" that needs to be indulged.
It's pretty much the perfect combination of arsenal variety and a sensible filler ceiling.
That said, I'm none too fond of how they've devolved the game into something where every class can fill almost any role - and where they've become afraid of leaving classes with specific tasks that only they can handle.
Also, I feel the current level-up rhythm is off - and that there's too much time between upgrades. I actually preferred the talent trees in certain ways - and though I agree that fewer, more meaningful choices, is the superior design - I think they went too far, and didn't really manage to make the builds distinct enough.
Thankfully, they seem to have realised this for Legion - but we'll have to wait and see if they manage to enhance it enough.
To the above poster...FFXI does all of that and imo better.Netcode?lmao FFXI you can play solidly with a 500-1200 ping and on JPN servers,i highly doubt you could pull that off in Wow.Matter of fact dude in this video at around 7:15 says "why am i lagging so much".
As to animations,even i know FFXI only has a couple vertices as does WOW,animations may be smooth but utilizing only 1-2 vertices in an animation is total amateur hour,they had better be smooth or get a new profession.
How about "leaving combat" seriously,you need to have that show up on the screen?Just more unneeded screen clutter added to the spam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnY2hzzn7oU Skip to around 50 secs and tell me that is smooth animations/graphics?I can't see a single thing that is going on in that combat,it just looks like FAST spam and nothing is visible.The ability to fly in on a flame also looks silly and unrealistic.
4:45 really again shows the spam and non visible combat,all that 360 spinning around in circles and spam animations and words flying all over the screen. SO it is always opinion on what you want from a game for me i don't like stuff that looks silly and spammy.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
To the above poster...FFXI does all of that and imo better.Netcode?lmao FFXI you can play solidly with a 500-1200 ping and on JPN servers,i highly doubt you could pull that off in Wow.Matter of fact dude in this video at around 7:15 says "why am i lagging so much".
As to animations,even i know FFXI only has a couple vertices as does WOW,animations may be smooth but utilizing only 1-2 vertices in an animation is total amateur hour,they had better be smooth or get a new profession.
How about "leaving combat" seriously,you need to have that show up on the screen?Just more unneeded screen clutter added to the spam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnY2hzzn7oU Skip to around 50 secs and tell me that is smooth animations/graphics?I can't see a single thing that is going on in that combat,it just looks like FAST spam and nothing is visible.The ability to fly in on a flame also looks silly and unrealistic.
4:45 really again shows the spam and non visible combat,all that 360 spinning around in circles and spam animations and words flying all over the screen. SO it is always opinion on what you want from a game for me i don't like stuff that looks silly and spammy.
I've only tried FFXI briefly, so I can't speak in detail about it.
I was immediately turned off by the terrible visual aesthetic and drone-like quest design. WoW looks so much more vibrant and attractive to me.
As for "leaving combat" - I don't really know why that's relevant.
We're talking about why WoW combat is so good. Obviously, a lot of people think it's fantastic - so we're not asking IF it's good, but WHY it's good.
I've played WoW for years, so I don't really need to watch a youtube video to know it's one of the smoothest games around.
But I completely agree the animations are quite primitive and lacking in detail. I'm not sure why you point that out though, unless you don't know what smooth means. I said they were smooth - not highly detailed.
Smooth, to me, is about speed, fluidity and world integration. It's not really about how many cells a given animation has.
WoW is very old now, and it clearly suffers in terms of detail. I wouldn't dispute that at all.
But in terms of overall combat - including animations, feel, responsiveness, class abilities, balance - and so on - it's more or less unmatched in my experience. I've played almost all major MMOs - but I admit that FFXI isn't one I have a lot of experience with.
I dislike most asian MMOs - as they don't seem to cater to my preferences and playstyle. They seem overtly grindy and gamey. Maybe I'll give it another shot down the line.
Comments
2. No Ability Lag. I remember when I switched to Rift and would be in the middle of a open world zone boss fight. The ability lag was ridiculous.
3. Tab Targeting is more accurate. There is also something else with WoW that I noticed was missing in other games like FFXIV. WHen using Tab Targeting in WoW. It's like the game knows what target I should be TABbing to next. It would tab to the correct target mor often than not, certainly withing 1 or 2 more tabs. Where in FFXI I'd be tabbing and tabbing until finally, I had to stop DPS and mouse click on the target I wanted.
It just looks simple, and appears simple, and "feels" simple because it is so well designed and implemented.
Also, you have to remember, anyone here who calls anything about an MMO simple is also likely a veteran of several MMOs, so you have to remember that your perspective, your experience greatly shapes how "easy" things are to you.
Some of WoW's classes/specs are far more complex than others, but even the simpler ones are full of nuance that really differentiate players.
That's really what makes WoW's combat so good is all of the nuance brought forth by layers on top of layers on top of layers of "simple" systems and features that, when added together, form a fairly complex interaction of player, character, and world.
Or, simply put - because Blizzard really knows what the F they are doing, and designs all of their games really, really, really well... which is why everything they produce becomes a huge success - for 20+ years!
That kind of consistent success in freaking unheard of.
That's how good it is.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
how about getting a naga mouse and using shift, ctrl and alt..
i never use macro's.. Its totally unnecesary and a funkiller..
this tells me more about your mindset then about the game..
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
This post is all my opinion, but I welcome debate on anything i have put, however, personal slander / name calling belongs in game
where of course you're welcome to call me names im often found lounging about in EvE online.
Use this code for 21days trial in eve online https://secure.eveonline.com/trial/?invc=d385aff2-794a-44a4-96f1-3967ccf6d720&action=buddy
And if you don't want to put the time in for that, you can still do okay.
So yeah, I think it's a good combat system just for how easy it is to pick up and learn, and how difficult it can be trying to master every little thing.
Implying that blizz dont know how to make mmo... lol
The only thing that always bothered about this particular matter is that they never added the Holy Light effect from Warcraft III. I have that bastard as a ringtone on my cellphone, it's just too damn good.
Btw, i hate the now called "action combat". That crap is for consoles, not mouse + keyboard. I have no idea why they decided to make it trending in PCs, but i curse the day they did it. Now the kewl kid thinks that every game should have it, and it pisses me off so bad.
i am currently having such a relation with the Brewmaster monk in WoW.. There is so much fun and depth in this class, it is beyound any other class for me...( tough seems like Legion will be Monks bane with all the changes, so i am looking forward trying a Holy Paladin mellee healer, or the good old druid in Legion again.
In the last few years i have learned to accept games as they are, and when they become less fun(or a class for that) its time for a change to move on. Recognising what Blizzard does, i know it will be best to move on to another class when your main gets chnaged to much...there should be some other class that fits you better..
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
People told me RIFT had really good and fluid combat but compared to WoW, I found it clunky and jarring.
They've also had some really good balancing moves and one of it was moving to PvP gear. I know that is a generally contentious topic but it allowed them to smooth out the balancing problems and interplay between the classes while abstracting it away from PvE balance, which was constantly banging up against PvP balance. My biggest issue with the PvP gear was that it didn't work in OWPvP (which was mostly dead and/or never really worked in WoW anyway) and the difficulty in newer PvPers to obtain competitive gear. They did fix that though.
I only needed to change one word in your post to give you a whole different perspective as to why your post title should be corrected to read "What makes WoW combat so good for me."
In short, everything you like about video gaming combat, I dislike.
and to people saying this is my opinion, thats true, but i guess i still have millions of people that agree with me, and thats still more then any other MMO out there.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I like wow, but I actually wish they made you pick 2 dozen skills out of a pool, and that the AI had more to it in the sense of blocking and dodging.
I do agree that the newer games are just too spammy and fast. FF14 slows the GCD nor than what wow is and it requires better team interplay.
I think wildstar would have done far better if they had kept combat like wow. Action combat in raiding/dungeons just doesn't work, ala GW2. Fun ideas, just not the right balance to pull off fun, consistent pve challenges.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
That being said, what used to make it great was that there were so many ways to approach an encounter. So many ways to react during an encounter.
People still "react" to encounters, except the game has been around for such a long time, it only takes a few pulls for top end players to have a good idea of what the "best" way to approach the encounter will be.
No matter what they chance, talent wise, class wise, the framework of these classes has been around since the game released, people know what they need to do, and with the recent changes, it's easier for brand new players to mash buttons and do decently too.
But yeah, the combat still can get pretty ridiculous if you try and min/max it.
Wow combat flows so good that it doesn't matter to me about tab targeting.
It's many little layers of feedback and responsiveness that make good combat (aka polish). Blizz makes sure that when you press a button, you get auditory and visual cues that match your expectation of the desired interaction. A couple fractions of a second off and it 'feels' wrong and when you compound that with the fact the MMO's tend to have a lot of time spent in combat, you can quickly get to "clunky" with just a few missing or incorrectly done pieces.
Every single skill/ability has obviously been given a lot of design attention - and Blizzard understands that just giving players a bunch of combat skills won't do. You have to create abilities for a variety of situations and they ALL have to make sense. Unlike games like The Old Republic and EverQuest 2 - they don't just add things to fill your hotbars. They add them when there's a specific need or "power fantasy" that needs to be indulged.
It's pretty much the perfect combination of arsenal variety and a sensible filler ceiling.
That said, I'm none too fond of how they've devolved the game into something where every class can fill almost any role - and where they've become afraid of leaving classes with specific tasks that only they can handle.
Also, I feel the current level-up rhythm is off - and that there's too much time between upgrades. I actually preferred the talent trees in certain ways - and though I agree that fewer, more meaningful choices, is the superior design - I think they went too far, and didn't really manage to make the builds distinct enough.
Thankfully, they seem to have realised this for Legion - but we'll have to wait and see if they manage to enhance it enough.
As to animations,even i know FFXI only has a couple vertices as does WOW,animations may be smooth but utilizing only 1-2 vertices in an animation is total amateur hour,they had better be smooth or get a new profession.
How about "leaving combat" seriously,you need to have that show up on the screen?Just more unneeded screen clutter added to the spam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnY2hzzn7oU
Skip to around 50 secs and tell me that is smooth animations/graphics?I can't see a single thing that is going on in that combat,it just looks like FAST spam and nothing is visible.The ability to fly in on a flame also looks silly and unrealistic.
4:45 really again shows the spam and non visible combat,all that 360 spinning around in circles and spam animations and words flying all over the screen.
SO it is always opinion on what you want from a game for me i don't like stuff that looks silly and spammy.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I was immediately turned off by the terrible visual aesthetic and drone-like quest design. WoW looks so much more vibrant and attractive to me.
As for "leaving combat" - I don't really know why that's relevant.
We're talking about why WoW combat is so good. Obviously, a lot of people think it's fantastic - so we're not asking IF it's good, but WHY it's good.
I've played WoW for years, so I don't really need to watch a youtube video to know it's one of the smoothest games around.
But I completely agree the animations are quite primitive and lacking in detail. I'm not sure why you point that out though, unless you don't know what smooth means. I said they were smooth - not highly detailed.
Smooth, to me, is about speed, fluidity and world integration. It's not really about how many cells a given animation has.
WoW is very old now, and it clearly suffers in terms of detail. I wouldn't dispute that at all.
But in terms of overall combat - including animations, feel, responsiveness, class abilities, balance - and so on - it's more or less unmatched in my experience. I've played almost all major MMOs - but I admit that FFXI isn't one I have a lot of experience with.
I dislike most asian MMOs - as they don't seem to cater to my preferences and playstyle. They seem overtly grindy and gamey. Maybe I'll give it another shot down the line.