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Auto Attack
Grym
Member UncommonPosts: 301
I may be in the minority, but I'm a fan of auto attack based on skill points or talents. . I've played a lot of MMOs in my day and the one thing I would have to say I'm not particularly fond of is the "smash a key or click a special attack to defeat your opponent. Call me lazy, but I would love a game that utilized an intuitive AI during combat that, based upon your skills, talents, would fight the entire fight, special attacks and all, after you simply initiated attack mode. For me, keeping my eye on special attack keys, party health, mob health, etc. is a distractor. It causes me to miss the graphic animations. I'm interested in a game that uses the above mentioned AI and provides smooth, awesome combat animations that included blades clashing and sparking off one another. When's the last time you actually saw a warrior block a blow with his shield? Or two swordsmen engaged in a deadly duel where bladework/skill actually mattered? Alas, we'll probably never see this type of dynamic because games seem to be gravitating more toward the twitch mechanic so people can brag about their mad skills. Thoughts?
(My son speaking to his Japanese Grandmother) " Sorry Obaba, I don't speak Japanese, I only speak human."
Comments
World of Warcraft has just that.
What else you want?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
This feels like an indirect admission that you were 'that guy" who stood in the fire, didn't stand in the energy shield, didn't interrupt mobs, and couldn't kite so wiped the raid.
WOW is nothing like what the OP describes. Autoattack or not, if you're not at your computer reacting in the correct way, you die and/or endanger the raid.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Nope.... no... I don't believe it does. When I played that game years ago, you still had to mash a bunch of hot keys or click special attack keys. Not what I was talking about. Thanks for playing : )
(My son speaking to his Japanese Grandmother) " Sorry Obaba, I don't speak Japanese, I only speak human."
MOexposed, He means he wants something akin to FF12 or Dragon Age team mates who fight and stuff based on specific ai. Whatever thingies you select for ai will control what skills they use n stuff.
Where the AI basically plays the game for you and you just watch the visuals n stuff.
I do agree that I like the idea of it...I know what you mean though OP. Kind of a more character focused Majesty game o.o
Edit :
Fleshed out details on ff12 and dragon age team mates
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Oh, now I understand.
Well Guild Wars isnt a MMO, but it has multiplayer. That has that.
Also if he willing to wait, SWTOR has AI bots.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Being a warrior in Everquest was like this. You just watch your guy fight and press the "Kick" button whenever it comes up. Extremely boring IMO...but to each his own.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Guid wars and SWTOR wont have the same level of control as FF12 or dragon age though. In those games, you can set certain skills to be used when certain criteria are met and thats what makes them a lot more...Fun to watch imo.
I doubt you can set things like that in sWTOR and I havent tried guild wars so idk about that. Can you customize their ai to a degree there? :O
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**This bunny was cloned from bunnies belonging to Gobla and is part of the Quizzical Fanclub and the The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club**
My thoughts are: there's nothing "twitch" about clicking or pressing a button for every action you perform and I will be much happier when autoattack is phased out, Mr Lazy. You asked for it.
Yes... yes I did. And I'm ok with that.
(My son speaking to his Japanese Grandmother) " Sorry Obaba, I don't speak Japanese, I only speak human."
"For me, keeping my eye on special attack keys, party health, mob health, etc. is a distractor."
That's the point. To increase the difficulty of a game, the developer can add different obstacles to hinder your progress, but at the same time increase your personal skill.
Take the game DOTA for instance. To kill a monster, you have to right click it. To kill a friendly monster, you have to press A (attack) and then left click on the friendly monster. This requires more clicks than the previous action, thus increasing the time spent doing it, as well as the difficulty of the movement.
By demanding a special AI that guides you through your combat scene for you, is (IMO) a way too easy solution, and there wouldn't be much difference between good and bad players. And who likes that?
A game should be hard, or at least contain the possibility to choose a harder difficulty.
The thing you SHOULD be requesting, is a physics-based, non-auto-attack, action RPG combat system. Imagine actually using your shield to block certain incoming objects (swords, arrows, hammers), completely avoiding it, instead of just randomly reducing the incoming damage. Or swinging a sword, and if you hit, you hit. This would be the same with spells and skills.
We want hard, difficult and challenging controls, that allows us to immerse ourselves into the character we have built throughout months of gameplay. I want my fireball to be able to miss, and I want to be able to block the far-away incoming arrow with the well-timed click of a button. Not just a rail that guides us towards the end of a battle.
No, thanks. Auto attack and tab targetting feels wrong to me. A good combat system should feel a bit like real melee combat, there you are trying to outwit your opponent.
Using a real sword actually takes both skills and brains, you and your opponent tries out eachothers weaknesses until the right opportunity arrives and you take it.
I want a combat system that takes in mind both your and your opponents attacks and parries. One with collision detection like AoC (but I would prefer one where the blade actually stops when it hit's something) instead of targetting and without the wimpy auto attacks. In fact it should be auto parry instead of auto attack.
It is not actually that impossible to make. I have been giving it some thoughts. I would like an dynamic skillbar where you get your attacks depending what happened in the last combat round (or whatever you call it, the last strike). Say that you did a prodding attack and your opponent did an all out strike, that opens him up for you giveng you certain strikes while he gets more limited options since he overextended himself.
It works against multiple opponents as well but chances are that the one flanking you will have a field day and get nasty attacks.
A good combat system is about tactics and outwitting your opponent, not about auto attacks and pressing your fastkeys in the same order no matter what.
Of course this system might not work as well with magic, the idea was for a historical game with focus on melee combat even if low fantasy alá "Game of thrones" is fine as well. and yes, it do require a better AI than most MMOs.
But at least I am pretty bored of the same combat system where you need nothing more than a macro to win most fights. I played the same since M59 in '96 and I think there are several ways to both make combat more realistic and more fun. This idea is just an example to show the concept.
Although I might not want it as extreme as the OP I also like auto attack. Maybe it comes from my days of old school turn based RPGs that I grew up on. For me, RPGs shouldn't be about who has the better twitch skills, that's what FPS and fighting games have always been about.
That said, I don't think the controls should be dumbed down to the point where it takes no skill whatsoever and the game does all the work. I do think attacks need to be more about knowledge of the game, teamwork, and what attacks are the most efficient, not who has the better twitch skills.
My thoughts exactly.
In most RPGs, turned based or pen and paper you win combat through strategy and by being smarter than the opponent, pick the right attack or defense and you win.
I don't see auto attack doing that at all. I do agree that RPG combat should not be twitched based combat, those skills are very different but auto attacks are not the solution.
Then put extremely ausum flashy animations for eye candy @_@
Ps: he doesnt wany auto attack like in wow. He wants the entire combat system to be automatic and what the char does will be based on skills and talents. These skills and talents will give the usual skills n stuff and rework that chars ai a bit like when you make the npcs always attempt to use aoe powers when there are more enemies grouped together
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**This bunny was cloned from bunnies belonging to Gobla and is part of the Quizzical Fanclub and the The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club**
I like your concept. Even though I am admittedly lazy, this type of system would enhance the visceral feel of combat. I think what I'm looking for is a game that includes blocking attacks more often than current MMOs provide. This type of combat would make for more interesting play IMO.
(My son speaking to his Japanese Grandmother) " Sorry Obaba, I don't speak Japanese, I only speak human."
Thanks.
Yeah. I want a game where the combat feels a little more like real combat. Holding a sword and fighting someone else is a real rush, but the mechanics behind it is a lot more advanced than most people seems to think. It actually is a little like chess.
My idea is more of an example on how to solve it, me and a few buddies were talking if it would be possible to make a fun and more realistic combat system, some said it was impossible and a few of us made some ideas that should work. A good combat system should have the following rules:
* Strategy is the most important thing to win
* You can't win on spamming the same button
* All out attacks should be risky
* The resault off an attacks should be based on what both you and your enemy just did
* Block, parry and dodge should open up opportunities
Auto attack in itself is lazy game design; the time hasn't been spent factoring both skill and aesthetics into the equation; which is why you have the opposite which is twitch based combat.
You essentially have two extremes, where in my opinion the solution lies somewhere in between. To have a system in MMO's where you simply innitiated combat, then sat back and watched, as the OP suggested would become extremely dull and boring after the innitial thrill wore off. Gamers want to feel involved and attuned with their characters, not simply to be observers.
Actually, there is a game that has some classes like what the OP describes: Rift. Before you flame me, let me tell you that some combination of class trees mostly only require that you spam one macro with the ocasional finisher after you accumulate 5 points. What I used to do was set up autohotkey so that it would spam that button for me, so the only thing I had to do is press a finisher skill once every like 5 seconds, nothing more.
Obviously there are many class combinations that don't work that way, but there are some that do, mainly melee.
I never liked Rifts combat system but what you say is lamer than I thought it was.
Whenever you can win a combat by pressing a macro it tells me that the combat system really suck.
How about something like this?
At the beginning of combat, a window opens to allow the player to choose offensive and defensive maneuvers that have been gained through skill point accumulation. The player could also have preset choices saved to speed up the process. Once the player has completed their attack selection, click the finish key and combat commences. Based upon your choices (and those of your foe), combat then proceeds almost like a cutscene. If you are both standing after the first round, you have a chance to change your strategy or flee if your arse is being handed to you. I dunno, its worth a look.
(My son speaking to his Japanese Grandmother) " Sorry Obaba, I don't speak Japanese, I only speak human."
Yup it got boring after a while, but it might be what the OP is looking for, to each his own. Rift's combat system is almost identical to WoW's but the difference is that macros in Rift are set up in a way that you can place almost all your skills in one and just spam that (except for finishers). How it works is that the macro will execute the first available ability on a list, and since many abilities have cooldowns or are reactive (meaning you can only use them after a parry or dodge) then you set them up in order so that the reactive abilities are the first ones on the list, then the long cooldown ones, then the ones without cooldown; and you'll execute them each when its available.
So you just have to do an autohotkey script that spams that macro every 50 miliseconds and there, you got your "enhanced auto-attack". The only thing you have to worry about is doing finishers once you reach 5 combo points on the target (or 3 for warriors).
With some slight modifications it would work excllent for a real turned based combat system (like Atlantica and FF XIV).
It would however not work so fine for a semi turned based combat system like most MMOs have. Standing still and queing up attacks there would take away a bit of the point.
So good idea for the right game, Atlantica would be awesome with a system like that but not Wow.
This reminds me a lot of Ogre Battle 64. I haven't seen an MMO with this type of combat system yet however. It would have to be purety turn-based.
Hello Loke.
I can tell we agree on a lot of key aspects for an RPG combat system.
Im currently attending a bachelor education at a university, going for the "Technical Game Designer" master. I've always had a huge passion for games, and I intend to make it my living. I've wanted to do this since I was 3 years old.
As a hobby, I've been developing (on paper only) my dream mmorpg. It's an ongoing project with classes, storyline, skills, spells, items and everything in between.
I've yet to fully describe the way I want my combat system to work, and I'd like to bounce a few ideas off of interested people. I have the outline and framework completed, but I need to fill in the blanks to completely describe the way the system should work.
Should you (or anyone else with a passion for game systems) care to help me develop this project that, hopefully, will end up as a game eventually, I would appreciate it if you would send me a private message with details of how to contact you.
Regards,
Claes