I don't understand why they changed the job system in FF14. I wasn't a huge fan of 11, but the most interesting part of that game was the ability to combine two jobs together. I know in 14 you can take skills from each job, but it feels less in depth. I had trouble getting into it.
It's cool you're having fun but honestly I cannot fathom being seriously engaged in the combat with a 2.5 second cooldown, even on the melee classes. To be engaged in combat I have to be reacting or pressured to act appropriately. With 2.5 seconds between abilities, I found neither of those happening when I played ffxiv.
I mean, you even state here the content is "too easy". That's basically the whole point.
45-50 casts per minute on the most engaging classes in xiv. Sure it's less than other games (wow having classes that are anywhere from 50CPM(best frost mage) to some almost hitting 100)
Just the content is designed around it. xiv feels less of a mess and less spammy, doesn't mean you cannot be engaged. Could say the spam is less engaging as your presses mean less
Certain MMOs have different pacing, nothing wrong with that. Slower games usually gives the players more time to think on their strategy while faster games forces you to think fast. I can enjoy both of those.
Difficultyy have nothing to do on how the the game is paced even if fast combat can be tougher for certain players.
Mob AI, hit points, attack strenght, types of of attack and similar things is what makes a game hard or easy. Timing to use the right skill at the right moment can also add to that.
It is not the combat mechanics or pacing that makes a game hard or easy, GW2 was hard the first beta weekend and easy 4 weeks later in the third beta weekend even though it used the exact same mechanics. It is not even the time to kill an opponent that makes a game hard or easy.
When an average player actually have a tough time killing a mob of his or her own level it is hard while when you can take down a large bunch of them without any effort (TERA comes to mind) it is very easy.
Hard games require strategy to win any fight besides ones that are several levels below you. Easy games only require strategy for endgame dungeons and raids. And yes, easy games are boring for me at least but you can still make an easy game with any combat mechanics or a very hard game using the exact same mechanics.
Combat and group mechanics are important for MMOs but it is if they are fun or not that really matter there. Balancing the difficulty is another topic.
While some of them (Especially Runescape) were wildly popular at the time they've dropped off a lot over the years. And that's the point. New MMOs aren't really coming out to replace old ones as the popularity of the old ones is universally dropping. It used to be new MMOs were coming out to great excitement so fast you couldn't even keep track of them all.
Look at this site on up coming MMORPG. And ESO sold pretty well. Quite respectable copies sold. Some one posted 4 upcoming mmorpg release this year. Grant 3 of them are cash shop pay to win.
You keep bashing those games that come out never success yet you keep yelling how great companies keep pumping out new mmorpg a few years ago.
So why exactly should companies keep pumping out mmorpg when you keep yelling how much a fail they are.
And one of them I know for a fact isn't a AAA MMO. It's an indie kickstarter and the only one on that list I actually paid into.
The others don't look like games on the scale of say LOTRO, SWTOR, or ESO. Asian ports it looks like. Games that at best will be as popular as ArcheAge and BDO, and at worst will be games like Skyforge and Dragon's Prophecy that are forgotten soon after release. Hardly anything to get excited about with the exception of Crowfall which almost definitely will not be releasing in 2018.
The problem is that games are releasing that AAA devs are releasing the same old WoW Clone bullcrap over and over and over. It's not that I won't support a game that comes out with an original and enjoyable concept. It's that I don't support games coming out with the same tired out boring core content of quest grinding and then gear grinding.
That's why I paid into Crowfall. It actually looks fun. And maybe it or something like it will eventually catch on and become a massive success, get cloned by a AAA company, and entirely revive the MMO industry. But the AAA WoW Clone Stat grinder route is only going to keep getting worse and worse.
While some of them (Especially Runescape) were wildly popular at the time they've dropped off a lot over the years. And that's the point. New MMOs aren't really coming out to replace old ones as the popularity of the old ones is universally dropping. It used to be new MMOs were coming out to great excitement so fast you couldn't even keep track of them all.
Look at this site on up coming MMORPG. And ESO sold pretty well. Quite respectable copies sold. Some one posted 4 upcoming mmorpg release this year. Grant 3 of them are cash shop pay to win.
You keep bashing those games that come out never success yet you keep yelling how great companies keep pumping out new mmorpg a few years ago.
So why exactly should companies keep pumping out mmorpg when you keep yelling how much a fail they are.
And one of them I know for a fact isn't a AAA MMO. It's an indie kickstarter and the only one on that list I actually paid into.
The others don't look like games on the scale of say LOTRO, SWTOR, or ESO. Asian ports it looks like. Games that at best will be as popular as ArcheAge and BDO, and at worst will be games like Skyforge and Dragon's Prophecy that are forgotten soon after release. Hardly anything to get excited about with the exception of Crowfall which almost definitely will not be releasing in 2018.
The problem is that games are releasing that AAA devs are releasing the same old WoW Clone bullcrap over and over and over. It's not that I won't support a game that comes out with an original and enjoyable concept. It's that I don't support games coming out with the same tired out boring core content of quest grinding and then gear grinding.
That's why I paid into Crowfall. It actually looks fun. And maybe it or something like it will eventually catch on and become a massive success, get cloned by a AAA company, and entirely revive the MMO industry. But the AAA WoW Clone Stat grinder route is only going to keep getting worse and worse.
You said yourself there were lots of mmorpg released, but as you know they aren't successful. It is pretty delusional to think companies keep throwing large money doing it.
And quite honestly, some of those AAA Wow clone you said are actually quite successful, GW2, ESO, FFXIV. That's why they get the big budget. I think someone mentioned ESO sold 8.5 million copies so they most likely recoup their investment. Same with GW2 and FFIV.
It is really just a math problem. If a company going to spend 50 million budget making a game with 10 million upkeep yearly after. How much copies do they need to sell and how many subscriber they need to keep after?
Honestly budget is another issue with the WoW Clone model. When your content is scripted quests and dungeons you have to continually be releasing new quests and dungeons to keep content from going stale. When your content is player interaction and creativity you simply need to provide tools your players can use to have fun.
I don't think MMO players are any whinier than any other gamer demographic. They legit have a lot to complain about. There have been enough original MMO concepts by major developers you can count them all on one hand since 2004. There was Planetside 2 if you count it (Really just an updated re-release of the original) and... That's as many as I can think of.
It's like I said in another threat. I think what the smarter AAA devs might be doing at this point is waiting for the wave of kickstarter titles to come out, see which ones are successful, rip off all the good parts and try to be the WoW to the EQ.
Action combat games typically have few active skills available, so you just don't need to engage your brain. Like in ESO, you have attack, power attack, 5 skills plus your ultimate (iirc, haven't played in ages). Do you really need much "wit" to choose what to do next? Most of your skills form part of your rotation, so your decision making comes down to:
Do I continue with rotation?
Do I block?
Do I dodge / move?
Do I use my 1 situational ability?
I don't know about you, but making a choice between 4 possible choices is pretty easy. Compare that to a well designed tab-target system. You lose the active blocking from the decision making, but that last choice (the 1 situational) becomes a choice of lots of situational abilities. So, instead of choosing between 4 options, you're now choosing between 20 options.....that requires more "wit".
Well IDK how long you played ESO but you have either forgotten that ESO and a lot of modern MMOs like it have the abilities you use do double, triple or quadruple duty compared to the single purpose use of abilities in older MMOs.
Many are also situational in that they behave differently depending on circumstances - most of the execute abilities act that way depending on the health % of the target.
Take Poison Injection for example. It's a bow ability that deals direct damage + a DOT and if the target is < 50% health both the DD and the DOT component do double damage. But that's not all. If you have the Long Shots passive fully trained and you move out to maximum range its damage is increased by 12% and if you have the Hawk Eye passive fully trained and you precede poison injection with 5 light attacks that increases its damage by an additional 25%.
There are many abilities that have CC components or proc heals or do all kinds of other things in addition to their core function.
To a casual player that doesn't spend the time to try to understand what they're doing then yes, ESO can seem simplistic but if you actually take the time, like an archer in the example above that does 5 light attacks while moving back to max range and then lets Poison injection fly when the boss' health is <50% then you're using the system with intelligence.
I only played ESO in the beta, so never got very far. I hated the combat, it was far too easy and boring for me. I keep getting tempted to play the game, but as soon as I watch any gameplay videos I am reminded of how poor the combat is.
What you've just described all sounds to me like the meta game has depth. Thats fine, I was aware of that. But, nothing you've said makes the actual combat sound like it has any depth to it.
So, lets try it objectively. With your favourite ESO class / character, please list out all the options you have for what to do next in combat. On the combat skills, if you could list whether it is a skill that's part of your standard rotation, or if it is something you only use situationally that would be great. My guess is your list will be something like:
Attack
Power Attack
Block
Move
Dodge
Skill 1 (rotation)
Skill 2 (rotation)
Skill 3 (rotation)
Skill 4 (situational)
Skill 5 (situational)
Ultimate (situational)
Potion
When assessing "depth", skills that form part of your rotation aren't really included - there is no choice, you are just executing a pre-planned rotation. If that rotation is really long, it can be called complex, but a rotation is never "deep" and requires no "wit".
So, assuming your combat options are similar to what I've listed, at any given moment you have to make a choice between rotation (attack, power attack, skills 1-3), block, move, dodge, skills 4, 5 and ultimate, and a potion. Thats a choice of 8 different things to do next.
In LotRO, my captain generally had a choice of about 40 different things she could do next. It meant the decision making process was a lot harder, i.e. it had a lot more depth and required more intelligence / "wit" to get it right.
In SW:TOR, my jedi shadow only had a choice of about 7 things he could do next, because most skills formed part of a complex rotation. This made the gameplay very shallow, as choosing what to do next was too easy.
Action combat games typically have few active skills available, so you just don't need to engage your brain. Like in ESO, you have attack, power attack, 5 skills plus your ultimate (iirc, haven't played in ages). Do you really need much "wit" to choose what to do next? Most of your skills form part of your rotation, so your decision making comes down to:
Do I continue with rotation?
Do I block?
Do I dodge / move?
Do I use my 1 situational ability?
I don't know about you, but making a choice between 4 possible choices is pretty easy. Compare that to a well designed tab-target system. You lose the active blocking from the decision making, but that last choice (the 1 situational) becomes a choice of lots of situational abilities. So, instead of choosing between 4 options, you're now choosing between 20 options.....that requires more "wit".
Well IDK how long you played ESO but you have either forgotten that ESO and a lot of modern MMOs like it have the abilities you use do double, triple or quadruple duty compared to the single purpose use of abilities in older MMOs.
Many are also situational in that they behave differently depending on circumstances - most of the execute abilities act that way depending on the health % of the target.
Take Poison Injection for example. It's a bow ability that deals direct damage + a DOT and if the target is < 50% health both the DD and the DOT component do double damage. But that's not all. If you have the Long Shots passive fully trained and you move out to maximum range its damage is increased by 12% and if you have the Hawk Eye passive fully trained and you precede poison injection with 5 light attacks that increases its damage by an additional 25%.
There are many abilities that have CC components or proc heals or do all kinds of other things in addition to their core function.
To a casual player that doesn't spend the time to try to understand what they're doing then yes, ESO can seem simplistic but if you actually take the time, like an archer in the example above that does 5 light attacks while moving back to max range and then lets Poison injection fly when the boss' health is <50% then you're using the system with intelligence.
I only played ESO in the beta, so never got very far. I hated the combat, it was far too easy and boring for me. I keep getting tempted to play the game, but as soon as I watch any gameplay videos I am reminded of how poor the combat is.
What you've just described all sounds to me like the meta game has depth. Thats fine, I was aware of that. But, nothing you've said makes the actual combat sound like it has any depth to it.
So, lets try it objectively. With your favourite ESO class / character, please list out all the options you have for what to do next in combat. On the combat skills, if you could list whether it is a skill that's part of your standard rotation, or if it is something you only use situationally that would be great. My guess is your list will be something like:
Attack
Power Attack
Block
Move
Dodge
Skill 1 (rotation)
Skill 2 (rotation)
Skill 3 (rotation)
Skill 4 (situational)
Skill 5 (situational)
Ultimate (situational)
Potion
When assessing "depth", skills that form part of your rotation aren't really included - there is no choice, you are just executing a pre-planned rotation. If that rotation is really long, it can be called complex, but a rotation is never "deep" and requires no "wit".
So, assuming your combat options are similar to what I've listed, at any given moment you have to make a choice between rotation (attack, power attack, skills 1-3), block, move, dodge, skills 4, 5 and ultimate, and a potion. Thats a choice of 8 different things to do next.
In LotRO, my captain generally had a choice of about 40 different things she could do next. It meant the decision making process was a lot harder, i.e. it had a lot more depth and required more intelligence / "wit" to get it right.
In SW:TOR, my jedi shadow only had a choice of about 7 things he could do next, because most skills formed part of a complex rotation. This made the gameplay very shallow, as choosing what to do next was too easy.
I had max level (for the time that I played) Loremaster, Minstrel and Burglar in LOTRO and there is no way that even back in the early group days when things were more group based and both CC and fellowship maneuvers were very much part of group play you had 40 viable options at any time during a fight. You're just counting the skill bar clutter full of things you seldom if ever used. In most fights you used the same handful of skills you used in all fights.
And then there was the GCD, and individual CDs and self-rooting while casting and auto weapon attacks. Lots of old style crap I don't miss at all.
What you call wit I call an illusion of depth.
That kind of 40 ability system with a real need to use all 40 things might work in single player turn based CRPGs like Divinity OS2. But even there, too many counters and counter counters and it also starts to feel like ability bloat.
In an ESO dungen fight where I typically heal, I'm managing 10 skills not 5, many of which are short 15 -20 second duration buffs or HOTS or DOTs that need refreshing periodically constantly deciding whether I now need to use individual hots, ground targeted hots, direct heals, group buffs, target debuffs, AOE damage, single target damage, picking the correct spot for my defensive or offensive ultimate...
While I''m doing that I'm also weaving light and heavy attacks in between abilities since in ESO you don't get a free auto-attack ride, moving constantly to avoid area damage or deciding whether I need to block dodge or interrupt depending on what may have targeted me and what type of attack it's about to send my way.
It doesn't matter how good the tank is, adds or bosses with special attacks that ignore aggro tables may or may not come after me so I have to always be ready to counter that if and when it comes. You always need to manage that as well.
You can also play ESO really badly and get carried through dungeons and that is not only ridiculously easy to do it also looks ridiculous and is easy to spot when you see someone almost exclusively light attacking, typically with a bow, and just trying to kite if any mob ever gets on them.
All I can tell you, as someone who has played a lot of MMOs for a long time, is that ESO combat played well is much more engaging than LOTRO combat ever was for me. I never want to go back to the faux difficulty and ability bloat of LOTRO and its ilk.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
So I'm still waiting for some answers to my main question...
Since, according to Mmorpg.com's ratings system that these games (GW2, FFXIV, ESO, BDO) are the "best" right now. The fact that tons of fellow forum users on this site are suggesting repeatedly those particular games are great.
What is the draw? Is it all about the pvp (because obviously the pve sucks)? How are they overcoming the total lack of the need to use all of these abilities until "end game"? Is it because reaching "end game" is only a couple of mindless days away from creating a character, then the "actual" game begins....pvp?
What about the pvp interests them the most? Again, I've stated that all of my past experiences with pvp have been battlegrounds type (open field, etc.) zerg rushes. I hate that. Some good 1v1 threats while out in the wilderness farming mobs could be great. (You're leveling in the woods alone - You see out of the corner of your eye, someone else scamper behind some trees - Oh crap, I hope they aren't going to attack me, but if they do, then it's ON!) Is there any meaningful pvp in these mmos?
Point being....what is it that I'm missing?! I'm willing to do some pvp, if that's where all the fun is (apparently). But is there a point to it? Exp? Loot? Special points to buy gear to show I'm a badass in pvp?
I don't play games like MMO's for the combat myself. I play them for fun. I love questing and lore. Unlike a majority of players I tend to take my time and do every little side quest I can find before I even touch main quest lines in most games. I will pvp some times but it's very rare anymore.
While I see you complaining about combat what have you done to handicap yourself to make it harder? Have you tried not wearing armor, etc....
I do wish games like WoW would go back to having to use support skills to take down mobs don't enjoy the run in aoe everything down as much as I did the original format myself. The only thing that sucked about that system was when you went to certain instances you had to pretty much have certain classes which meant others being left behind.
I had max level (for the time that I played) Loremaster, Minstrel and Burglar in LOTRO and there is no way that even back in the early group days when things were more group based and both CC and fellowship maneuvers were very much part of group play you had 40 viable options at any time during a fight. You're just counting the skill bar clutter full of things you seldom if ever used. In most fights you used the same handful of skills you used in all fights.
And then there was the GCD, and individual CDs and self-rooting while casting and auto weapon attacks. Lots of old style crap I don't miss at all.
What you call wit I call an illusion of depth.
That kind of 40 ability system with a real need to use all 40 things might work in single player turn based CRPGs like Divinity OS2. But even there, too many counters and counter counters and it also starts to feel like ability bloat.
In an ESO dungen fight where I typically heal, I'm managing 10 skills not 5, many of which are short 15 -20 second duration buffs or HOTS or DOTs that need refreshing periodically constantly deciding whether I now need to use individual hots, ground targeted hots, direct heals, group buffs, target debuffs, AOE damage, single target damage, picking the correct spot for my defensive or offensive ultimate...
While I''m doing that I'm also weaving light and heavy attacks in between abilities since in ESO you don't get a free auto-attack ride, moving constantly to avoid area damage or deciding whether I need to block dodge or interrupt depending on what may have targeted me and what type of attack it's about to send my way.
It doesn't matter how good the tank is, adds or bosses with special attacks that ignore aggro tables may or may not come after me so I have to always be ready to counter that if and when it comes. You always need to manage that as well.
You can also play ESO really badly and get carried through dungeons and that is not only ridiculously easy to do it also looks ridiculous and is easy to spot when you see someone almost exclusively light attacking, typically with a bow, and just trying to kite if any mob ever gets on them.
All I can tell you, as someone who has played a lot of MMOs for a long time, is that ESO combat played well is much more engaging than LOTRO combat ever was for me. I never want to go back to the faux difficulty and ability bloat of LOTRO and its ilk.
Nice one, thanks for the updated information.
I can definitely confirm that I had about 40 options in combat on my captain. I raided and pvp'd from launch through til Isenguard and definitely used that many active things. Only about 7 skills were part of my rotation, the other 40+ were all situational. It meant when things were going well, you only needed your rotation and it was boring. But when things got hard, you definitely needed all 40.
Part of this is because it was the captain class, a jack of all trades. I did, at differing times, raid with guardian, champion, burglar and loremaster. The captain was definitely the deepest class, closely followed by LM and Burg, but champ and guardian were shallower.
Still, most of what you've just described about the combat in ESO does not add much to the depth. Depth is purely a measure of the meaningful decisions you have to make during combat and whenever you limit the possible number of actions you can perform, you reduce the depth. I agree that most tab-targetting games suffer from skill bloat and that adds nothing to depth either. However, I personally cannot play action combat games anymore because they are too shallow and boring. I find the learning process far too quick, the combat too predictable. My brain is just going through the motions. The only thing that requires skill is on the physical side - reaction times and aiming - but they are both things you learn over time so there's no real skill there, just commitment.
May I ask why you describe lotro and it's ilk as "faux difficulty"? I find the notion of difficulty fascinating and spend a lot of time thinking about it.
To me, "faux difficulty" would be something like increasing stats on bosses. It makes it seem more difficult, but in reality the difficulty is the same, you just need the next tier of gear. I would also use it to describe games that punish players, rather than challenge them. The sort of mechanics where you wipe after a single mistake, so the "difficulty" is actually just maintaining concentration for 5-10 minutes, and not on the content itself. In the 5 years I played LotRO, it didn't really have any of that (outside a bit of radiance fun).
I had max level (for the time that I played) Loremaster, Minstrel and Burglar in LOTRO and there is no way that even back in the early group days when things were more group based and both CC and fellowship maneuvers were very much part of group play you had 40 viable options at any time during a fight. You're just counting the skill bar clutter full of things you seldom if ever used. In most fights you used the same handful of skills you used in all fights.
And then there was the GCD, and individual CDs and self-rooting while casting and auto weapon attacks. Lots of old style crap I don't miss at all.
What you call wit I call an illusion of depth.
That kind of 40 ability system with a real need to use all 40 things might work in single player turn based CRPGs like Divinity OS2. But even there, too many counters and counter counters and it also starts to feel like ability bloat.
In an ESO dungen fight where I typically heal, I'm managing 10 skills not 5, many of which are short 15 -20 second duration buffs or HOTS or DOTs that need refreshing periodically constantly deciding whether I now need to use individual hots, ground targeted hots, direct heals, group buffs, target debuffs, AOE damage, single target damage, picking the correct spot for my defensive or offensive ultimate...
While I''m doing that I'm also weaving light and heavy attacks in between abilities since in ESO you don't get a free auto-attack ride, moving constantly to avoid area damage or deciding whether I need to block dodge or interrupt depending on what may have targeted me and what type of attack it's about to send my way.
It doesn't matter how good the tank is, adds or bosses with special attacks that ignore aggro tables may or may not come after me so I have to always be ready to counter that if and when it comes. You always need to manage that as well.
You can also play ESO really badly and get carried through dungeons and that is not only ridiculously easy to do it also looks ridiculous and is easy to spot when you see someone almost exclusively light attacking, typically with a bow, and just trying to kite if any mob ever gets on them.
All I can tell you, as someone who has played a lot of MMOs for a long time, is that ESO combat played well is much more engaging than LOTRO combat ever was for me. I never want to go back to the faux difficulty and ability bloat of LOTRO and its ilk.
Nice one, thanks for the updated information.
I can definitely confirm that I had about 40 options in combat on my captain. I raided and pvp'd from launch through til Isenguard and definitely used that many active things. Only about 7 skills were part of my rotation, the other 40+ were all situational. It meant when things were going well, you only needed your rotation and it was boring. But when things got hard, you definitely needed all 40.
Part of this is because it was the captain class, a jack of all trades. I did, at differing times, raid with guardian, champion, burglar and loremaster. The captain was definitely the deepest class, closely followed by LM and Burg, but champ and guardian were shallower.
Still, most of what you've just described about the combat in ESO does not add much to the depth. Depth is purely a measure of the meaningful decisions you have to make during combat and whenever you limit the possible number of actions you can perform, you reduce the depth. I agree that most tab-targetting games suffer from skill bloat and that adds nothing to depth either. However, I personally cannot play action combat games anymore because they are too shallow and boring. I find the learning process far too quick, the combat too predictable. My brain is just going through the motions. The only thing that requires skill is on the physical side - reaction times and aiming - but they are both things you learn over time so there's no real skill there, just commitment.
May I ask why you describe lotro and it's ilk as "faux difficulty"? I find the notion of difficulty fascinating and spend a lot of time thinking about it.
To me, "faux difficulty" would be something like increasing stats on bosses. It makes it seem more difficult, but in reality the difficulty is the same, you just need the next tier of gear. I would also use it to describe games that punish players, rather than challenge them. The sort of mechanics where you wipe after a single mistake, so the "difficulty" is actually just maintaining concentration for 5-10 minutes, and not on the content itself. In the 5 years I played LotRO, it didn't really have any of that (outside a bit of radiance fun).
I describe it as faux difficulty because it feels artificial and unnecessary to me now in retrospect. There is, IMO, a sweet spot in games between the extremes of pushing one button over and over and the other extreme that stops adding to the enjoyment by having too many similar extra things to do and forcing them on you with artificial cool downs.
I also don't see a lot of difference between managing abilities and meta elements like positioning, active blocks, etc. vs. managing just abilities. It isn't just a physical thing since all the actions require making a decision first.
I enjoyed LOTO back in its time when I played it but I enjoy the more action oriented combat in modern MMOs much more. For one thing it's more about watching the action intently and not so much about watching cluttered UI elements which the multiple hot bar MMOs were all about in the old days.
Having 15 or so things to manage at once feels like the sweet spot to me.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
MMORPG combat can be fun but I wouldn't call it particularly good. Combat doesn't allow you enough time to think which removes the tactical bits of rpg combat and its very static compared to action games.
The only thing that can make me enjoy mmorpg combat is playing with people I know
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
I describe it as faux difficulty because it feels artificial and unnecessary to me now in retrospect. There is, IMO, a sweet spot in games between the extremes of pushing one button over and over and the other extreme that stops adding to the enjoyment by having too many similar extra things to do and forcing them on you with artificial cool downs.
I also don't see a lot of difference between managing abilities and meta elements like positioning, active blocks, etc. vs. managing just abilities. It isn't just a physical thing since all the actions require making a decision first.
I enjoyed LOTO back in its time when I played it but I enjoy the more action oriented combat in modern MMOs much more. For one thing it's more about watching the action intently and not so much about watching cluttered UI elements which the multiple hot bar MMOs were all about in the old days.
Having 15 or so things to manage at once feels like the sweet spot to me.
There is definitely a sweet spot to hit, but I think it's different for every person.
For me, 15 things to manage at once isn't enough. That is too easy for me. When I was playing LotRO, not only was I raiding and pvping on my captain, I was also our raid leader and guild leader. So, during a raid, not only would I need to play my captain to perfection, managing my 40 or so active hotkeys, but I was having to pay attention to everything going on in the fight, all of my team mates and guide everyone through it.
I still found it easy.
I always thought LotRO was pretty easy in terms of mechanics. Can you imagine my shock when I went to WAR and found it even easier? Can you imagine my utter disappointment playing SW:TOR which had maybe 10% of the difficulty of LotRO?!? I struggled to comprehend the reason for making combat easier than it already was.
Then I tried action combat in MMOs. I'd obviously played action combat single player games and seen how easy it was there, but I had assumed that MMOs would somehow add more depth to it. I was wrong. Once you get past the initial excitement of dodging attacks and timing blocks, you're left with something even shallower.
Luckily for me, Camelot Unchained is answering the call! I realise I'm in the minority which is why the genre has moved towards easy, shallow action combat. It's what the masses can handle and prefer. I don't deny that it can be fun, or more visceral. Its just for me, that fun only lasts a very short amount of time, but I play MMOs long term. Camelot Unchained is the only MMO on the horizon that is developing a deep combat system and I cannot wait!
Something I've kind of wished to see more of for awhile is games that have limited ability bars but the ability to make trade-offs to expand them.
In Guild Wars 1 you had 8 ability slots to slot a few hundred abilities into. It made build customization very important and it also meant rather than juggling 20+ abilities. Some of which you may not even want... you were instead focusing on a small number of abilities, each of which you deemed important enough to go into your build.
The issue is the number of abilities people consider to be the sweet spot depends heavily on personal preference. 8 may be ideal for some. Some would prefer more. Some might prefer as low as 6.
Personally I think it would be cool to have a system that makes getting more ability slots an option that you can trade off against other passive benefits. For instance a very basic barbarian build may have the player with six ability slots and high constitution/strength. Or you might want a utility mage that has a spell up their sleeve for every situation who has 15 ability slots but very few other passive benefits.
So if your comfortable spot is picking the 6 most essential abilities and managing them very well you can plow through things on your very basic barbarian build. While your wizard with 15 ability slots isn't going to have the hardest hitting spells or the best survivability, but may have that one trick that's just right for stopping a raging barbarian in his tracks.
Interesting idea @Eldurian but still not something I'm in favour of. The GW1 model you describe just moves the depth from the combat itself, into the meta game. I'd rather have depth in the combat, or both.
With balancing ability slots with native stats, that's also an interesting idea but you know people will just min-max to whatever is optimum. For example, I would personally opt for as many ability slots as possible, but as I focus on endgame I know that inevitably I'll need to spec a certain way to beat certain content.
If we're going to remove combat depth from ability selection by reducing the number of active abilities, then I'd like to see combat depth added in other ways. For example, movement in MMO combat is generally relegated to "get out of the shit" or "kite like mad". There is no depth to that, deciding whether to move or not is a really easy decision.
So, how about adding back collision detection. Lets add in squad formations and terrain advantages. How about changing active abilities based on formation? Lets remove threat levels / taunting in favour of positional tanking. These sorts of things would (hopefully) make combat far more interesting, deeper, and also a bit more realistic whilst still keeping your toolbars small.
With balancing ability slots with native stats, that's also an interesting idea but you know people will just min-max to whatever is optimum. For example, I would personally opt for as many ability slots as possible, but as I focus on endgame I know that inevitably I'll need to spec a certain way to beat certain content.
So that's another issue with the WoW Clone model. Predictable dungeons. The ability to "min-max" for certain content comes from being able to watch/read guides where they tell you all about that content or just knowing the content because you have run it before and you know it will be the exact same content the next time you run it.
On that front, I think Runescape's dungeoneering is a great example of more what I would look for in PVE dungeons. The challenges you will face are highly randomized. You don't know what skillset is going to be optimal.
The system I envision would allow a huge amount of respeccing and alteration to your build based on your current needs. It's largely gear based with gear designed to be pretty disposable so comparable to EVE in that switching ships / equipment set can radically alter your function of you know how to use that new equipment set. I feel like that's a more realistic system anyway. Real life soldiers are trained to use a diverse set of weapons and skills. Not just specialize in one weapon.
Respeccing for content though is more about making sure your party is synergistic and diverse. A good party is a party that covers all bases. So much more akin to a Dungeons and Dragons party than your average MMO party that wants you to run a specific skillset for a specific boss.
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Difficultyy have nothing to do on how the the game is paced even if fast combat can be tougher for certain players.
Mob AI, hit points, attack strenght, types of of attack and similar things is what makes a game hard or easy. Timing to use the right skill at the right moment can also add to that.
It is not the combat mechanics or pacing that makes a game hard or easy, GW2 was hard the first beta weekend and easy 4 weeks later in the third beta weekend even though it used the exact same mechanics. It is not even the time to kill an opponent that makes a game hard or easy.
When an average player actually have a tough time killing a mob of his or her own level it is hard while when you can take down a large bunch of them without any effort (TERA comes to mind) it is very easy.
Hard games require strategy to win any fight besides ones that are several levels below you. Easy games only require strategy for endgame dungeons and raids. And yes, easy games are boring for me at least but you can still make an easy game with any combat mechanics or a very hard game using the exact same mechanics.
Combat and group mechanics are important for MMOs but it is if they are fun or not that really matter there. Balancing the difficulty is another topic.
The others don't look like games on the scale of say LOTRO, SWTOR, or ESO. Asian ports it looks like. Games that at best will be as popular as ArcheAge and BDO, and at worst will be games like Skyforge and Dragon's Prophecy that are forgotten soon after release. Hardly anything to get excited about with the exception of Crowfall which almost definitely will not be releasing in 2018.
The problem is that games are releasing that AAA devs are releasing the same old WoW Clone bullcrap over and over and over. It's not that I won't support a game that comes out with an original and enjoyable concept. It's that I don't support games coming out with the same tired out boring core content of quest grinding and then gear grinding.
That's why I paid into Crowfall. It actually looks fun. And maybe it or something like it will eventually catch on and become a massive success, get cloned by a AAA company, and entirely revive the MMO industry. But the AAA WoW Clone Stat grinder route is only going to keep getting worse and worse.
You said yourself there were lots of mmorpg released, but as you know they aren't successful. It is pretty delusional to think companies keep throwing large money doing it.
And quite honestly, some of those AAA Wow clone you said are actually quite successful, GW2, ESO, FFXIV. That's why they get the big budget. I think someone mentioned ESO sold 8.5 million copies so they most likely recoup their investment. Same with GW2 and FFIV.
It is really just a math problem. If a company going to spend 50 million budget making a game with 10 million upkeep yearly after. How much copies do they need to sell and how many subscriber they need to keep after?
I don't think MMO players are any whinier than any other gamer demographic. They legit have a lot to complain about. There have been enough original MMO concepts by major developers you can count them all on one hand since 2004. There was Planetside 2 if you count it (Really just an updated re-release of the original) and... That's as many as I can think of.
It's like I said in another threat. I think what the smarter AAA devs might be doing at this point is waiting for the wave of kickstarter titles to come out, see which ones are successful, rip off all the good parts and try to be the WoW to the EQ.
What you've just described all sounds to me like the meta game has depth. Thats fine, I was aware of that. But, nothing you've said makes the actual combat sound like it has any depth to it.
So, lets try it objectively. With your favourite ESO class / character, please list out all the options you have for what to do next in combat. On the combat skills, if you could list whether it is a skill that's part of your standard rotation, or if it is something you only use situationally that would be great. My guess is your list will be something like:
- Attack
- Power Attack
- Block
- Move
- Dodge
- Skill 1 (rotation)
- Skill 2 (rotation)
- Skill 3 (rotation)
- Skill 4 (situational)
- Skill 5 (situational)
- Ultimate (situational)
- Potion
When assessing "depth", skills that form part of your rotation aren't really included - there is no choice, you are just executing a pre-planned rotation. If that rotation is really long, it can be called complex, but a rotation is never "deep" and requires no "wit".So, assuming your combat options are similar to what I've listed, at any given moment you have to make a choice between rotation (attack, power attack, skills 1-3), block, move, dodge, skills 4, 5 and ultimate, and a potion. Thats a choice of 8 different things to do next.
In LotRO, my captain generally had a choice of about 40 different things she could do next. It meant the decision making process was a lot harder, i.e. it had a lot more depth and required more intelligence / "wit" to get it right.
In SW:TOR, my jedi shadow only had a choice of about 7 things he could do next, because most skills formed part of a complex rotation. This made the gameplay very shallow, as choosing what to do next was too easy.
And then there was the GCD, and individual CDs and self-rooting while casting and auto weapon attacks. Lots of old style crap I don't miss at all.
What you call wit I call an illusion of depth.
That kind of 40 ability system with a real need to use all 40 things might work in single player turn based CRPGs like Divinity OS2. But even there, too many counters and counter counters and it also starts to feel like ability bloat.
In an ESO dungen fight where I typically heal, I'm managing 10 skills not 5, many of which are short 15 -20 second duration buffs or HOTS or DOTs that need refreshing periodically constantly deciding whether I now need to use individual hots, ground targeted hots, direct heals, group buffs, target debuffs, AOE damage, single target damage, picking the correct spot for my defensive or offensive ultimate...
While I''m doing that I'm also weaving light and heavy attacks in between abilities since in ESO you don't get a free auto-attack ride, moving constantly to avoid area damage or deciding whether I need to block dodge or interrupt depending on what may have targeted me and what type of attack it's about to send my way.
It doesn't matter how good the tank is, adds or bosses with special attacks that ignore aggro tables may or may not come after me so I have to always be ready to counter that if and when it comes. You always need to manage that as well.
You can also play ESO really badly and get carried through dungeons and that is not only ridiculously easy to do it also looks ridiculous and is easy to spot when you see someone almost exclusively light attacking, typically with a bow, and just trying to kite if any mob ever gets on them.
All I can tell you, as someone who has played a lot of MMOs for a long time, is that ESO combat played well is much more engaging than LOTRO combat ever was for me. I never want to go back to the faux difficulty and ability bloat of LOTRO and its ilk.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
While I see you complaining about combat what have you done to handicap yourself to make it harder? Have you tried not wearing armor, etc....
I do wish games like WoW would go back to having to use support skills to take down mobs don't enjoy the run in aoe everything down as much as I did the original format myself. The only thing that sucked about that system was when you went to certain instances you had to pretty much have certain classes which meant others being left behind.
I can definitely confirm that I had about 40 options in combat on my captain. I raided and pvp'd from launch through til Isenguard and definitely used that many active things. Only about 7 skills were part of my rotation, the other 40+ were all situational. It meant when things were going well, you only needed your rotation and it was boring. But when things got hard, you definitely needed all 40.
Part of this is because it was the captain class, a jack of all trades. I did, at differing times, raid with guardian, champion, burglar and loremaster. The captain was definitely the deepest class, closely followed by LM and Burg, but champ and guardian were shallower.
Still, most of what you've just described about the combat in ESO does not add much to the depth. Depth is purely a measure of the meaningful decisions you have to make during combat and whenever you limit the possible number of actions you can perform, you reduce the depth. I agree that most tab-targetting games suffer from skill bloat and that adds nothing to depth either. However, I personally cannot play action combat games anymore because they are too shallow and boring. I find the learning process far too quick, the combat too predictable. My brain is just going through the motions. The only thing that requires skill is on the physical side - reaction times and aiming - but they are both things you learn over time so there's no real skill there, just commitment.
May I ask why you describe lotro and it's ilk as "faux difficulty"? I find the notion of difficulty fascinating and spend a lot of time thinking about it.
To me, "faux difficulty" would be something like increasing stats on bosses. It makes it seem more difficult, but in reality the difficulty is the same, you just need the next tier of gear. I would also use it to describe games that punish players, rather than challenge them. The sort of mechanics where you wipe after a single mistake, so the "difficulty" is actually just maintaining concentration for 5-10 minutes, and not on the content itself. In the 5 years I played LotRO, it didn't really have any of that (outside a bit of radiance fun).
I also don't see a lot of difference between managing abilities and meta elements like positioning, active blocks, etc. vs. managing just abilities. It isn't just a physical thing since all the actions require making a decision first.
I enjoyed LOTO back in its time when I played it but I enjoy the more action oriented combat in modern MMOs much more. For one thing it's more about watching the action intently and not so much about watching cluttered UI elements which the multiple hot bar MMOs were all about in the old days.
Having 15 or so things to manage at once feels like the sweet spot to me.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
The only thing that can make me enjoy mmorpg combat is playing with people I know
For me, 15 things to manage at once isn't enough. That is too easy for me. When I was playing LotRO, not only was I raiding and pvping on my captain, I was also our raid leader and guild leader. So, during a raid, not only would I need to play my captain to perfection, managing my 40 or so active hotkeys, but I was having to pay attention to everything going on in the fight, all of my team mates and guide everyone through it.
I still found it easy.
I always thought LotRO was pretty easy in terms of mechanics. Can you imagine my shock when I went to WAR and found it even easier? Can you imagine my utter disappointment playing SW:TOR which had maybe 10% of the difficulty of LotRO?!? I struggled to comprehend the reason for making combat easier than it already was.
Then I tried action combat in MMOs. I'd obviously played action combat single player games and seen how easy it was there, but I had assumed that MMOs would somehow add more depth to it. I was wrong. Once you get past the initial excitement of dodging attacks and timing blocks, you're left with something even shallower.
Luckily for me, Camelot Unchained is answering the call! I realise I'm in the minority which is why the genre has moved towards easy, shallow action combat. It's what the masses can handle and prefer. I don't deny that it can be fun, or more visceral. Its just for me, that fun only lasts a very short amount of time, but I play MMOs long term. Camelot Unchained is the only MMO on the horizon that is developing a deep combat system and I cannot wait!
In Guild Wars 1 you had 8 ability slots to slot a few hundred abilities into. It made build customization very important and it also meant rather than juggling 20+ abilities. Some of which you may not even want... you were instead focusing on a small number of abilities, each of which you deemed important enough to go into your build.
The issue is the number of abilities people consider to be the sweet spot depends heavily on personal preference. 8 may be ideal for some. Some would prefer more. Some might prefer as low as 6.
Personally I think it would be cool to have a system that makes getting more ability slots an option that you can trade off against other passive benefits. For instance a very basic barbarian build may have the player with six ability slots and high constitution/strength. Or you might want a utility mage that has a spell up their sleeve for every situation who has 15 ability slots but very few other passive benefits.
So if your comfortable spot is picking the 6 most essential abilities and managing them very well you can plow through things on your very basic barbarian build. While your wizard with 15 ability slots isn't going to have the hardest hitting spells or the best survivability, but may have that one trick that's just right for stopping a raging barbarian in his tracks.
With balancing ability slots with native stats, that's also an interesting idea but you know people will just min-max to whatever is optimum. For example, I would personally opt for as many ability slots as possible, but as I focus on endgame I know that inevitably I'll need to spec a certain way to beat certain content.
If we're going to remove combat depth from ability selection by reducing the number of active abilities, then I'd like to see combat depth added in other ways. For example, movement in MMO combat is generally relegated to "get out of the shit" or "kite like mad". There is no depth to that, deciding whether to move or not is a really easy decision.
So, how about adding back collision detection. Lets add in squad formations and terrain advantages. How about changing active abilities based on formation? Lets remove threat levels / taunting in favour of positional tanking. These sorts of things would (hopefully) make combat far more interesting, deeper, and also a bit more realistic whilst still keeping your toolbars small.
On that front, I think Runescape's dungeoneering is a great example of more what I would look for in PVE dungeons. The challenges you will face are highly randomized. You don't know what skillset is going to be optimal.
The system I envision would allow a huge amount of respeccing and alteration to your build based on your current needs. It's largely gear based with gear designed to be pretty disposable so comparable to EVE in that switching ships / equipment set can radically alter your function of you know how to use that new equipment set. I feel like that's a more realistic system anyway. Real life soldiers are trained to use a diverse set of weapons and skills. Not just specialize in one weapon.
Respeccing for content though is more about making sure your party is synergistic and diverse. A good party is a party that covers all bases. So much more akin to a Dungeons and Dragons party than your average MMO party that wants you to run a specific skillset for a specific boss.