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Tab-Targetting PLEASE...
Qallidexz
Member Posts: 253
My fellow DAoC warriors! So many games nowadays are moving towards the "free-form" targetting system (not to be confused with real-time combat, which is a different thing, and you can have both tab-target and real time), but I remember the glory days, where tab-targetting was all there is. Some of the newer MMO'ers tend to get it into their heads that no tab-targetting is somehow "better", because it takes more "skill". Well, running through people, jumping around them, strafing side to side, all that is just an annoyance, as the true MMO fans know, those who played DAoC, real skill comes from knowing what to do, and when to do it (spell-wise, and ability-wise) not from trying to run through your opponent (hense the /face, and /stick commands had to be implemented).
Free-form targetting does not make for fun combat, tab-targetting makes for fun combat, but without tab-targetting, it's just little kids who are used to playing Call of Duty, jumping around their opponents, and over their heads, to gain an advantage, because they're not smart enough to figure out which spells they need to cast and when, or capable of figuring out what abilities to use at the right times, so they just jump around a lot. Let's avoid this in CU, and get back to the good ole' days, you with me?
Comments
Yea, but it doesn't actually help, that's my point.
I personally vote for tab targeting; innovation is great, but not in the targeting system. The solution to the ADD children that jump around and act stupid in video games these days is /stick and /face, both of which were implemented and worked extremely well in Dark Age of Camelot. Check out youtube, you'll love it.. I promise.
EDIT:
I will admit that running around and killing line of sight is a valid strategy, but being absolutely obnoxious is a different story all together. The same people that want action targeting will be the first ones to rant and blow up CU's official forums about the inability to kill targets in mass RvR due to client/server lag differences. At least if you're tab targeting the latency issues are minimized.
The problem is no mmorpg has really took a step toward actually GOOD action game combat.
GW2, Half assed, it's like they wanted to go action combat, then decided "but we don't want to not be the usual mmorpg so lets half do it, one foot in and one foot out. It DOES have tab targeting, I don't get where you got this from but GW2 still uses this, and it's terrible. The only thing "actiony" about GW2's combat is that you don't have to use tab target and you will hit what you are facing. The "dodging" mechanic is floaty as hell and doesn't work most of the time.
Tera - Better then GW2's combat, but still, hotkey based usual mmo style combat, by far much better dodge/block mechanics though and it "feels" a lot better as far as psuedo actiony compared to the ususal mmo combat system.
In my own personal opinion, I would like to see CU set itself apart. To have combat that's not built around "mmorpg generic combat , tab-target hotkey focused" but actually try something that other mmo's only "half-way attempt" and don't follow through with.
Melee combat especially. There's soooooooo much that can be done out there that's much more "fun" and involving to play then your usual "target, push hotkey a, hotkey b, etc over and over and over" in a formulatic rotationt to maximize damage output.
A little gem of an action game made back in 2001 called Severance (aka Blade of Darkness) had one of the most fun, and in-depth melee combat systems I ever played. Even more fun then the likes of popular well known action adventure games like Die By the Sword, Rune, and the Jedi Knight series.
The combat was actually centered on using a "lock on/targeting" however it was a soft lock, and the "lock on" did not work like your usual "lock on = you hit," rather the way it worked was that it helped you keep your orientation toward your enemy, but when you did an attack, the animation played out in the specific direction you were facing. Enemies could dodge, block, etc and if they were quick enough you'd miss. This worked against enemies too, you'd learn moves, see them about to come and dodge. It felt very "natrual" and allowed you to circle your enemy and combat played out (and looked) a lot more realistic and evenly paced, unlike your usual melee action games with people strafing around swinging their weapons wildly with no context of their enemies.
Defense was a huge part of the melee combat in Severance. You HAD to learn to ddodge (or block) at the right times. You could not just "spam" attacks, you would die quickly. It rewarded good quick thinking and a good sense of strategy and tactics.
The moveset of Severance was based on both the character you played as (It had a dwarf, knight, barbarian, and Amazonian) and also on what weapon you used. Each weapon had it's on unique move list, much like a fighting game might have a move list. Learning your moves and figuring out how they worked were paramount to know how to attack and what to do.
I coudl just imagine CU with this kind of detail and combat. With the different races having their own unique combat moves for ocertain weapons, etc.
Here is a quick youtube video showing the combat somewhat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tbcZvGSgVk
keep in mind, it's an older game (was actually one of the first games to use dynamic shadows/lighting, even before doom 3) and it's a little rough. I promise you though, if anyone likes melee combat action adventure games (like Rune/Die by the sword/Jedi Knight) you'll love it if you can give it ai try, it takes a litlte bit to get used to but once you get intot he combat it's hard to find something that comes close.
For range combat, I'd actually perfer to have no "tab target" system, rather have a full open aim system, where you aim your bow or spell and hit what you aim at, with bows and such having to account for dropping and moving targets, etc.
To me that would be the most fun combat.
If you have played the popular indie action rpg, Mount and blade, it had GREAT range and mounted combat (though melee on foot was no where near as good as Severance, imo).
With melee combat like Severance, and range combat like Mount and Blade, I think it'd be something extremely marvelous and it would set itself far and above any other mmo's "combat."
I would wager though CU will probably end up going with the more traditional mmo style combat,t hat's what people are used to, it's more of a pipe dream for me to see an mmo that actually takes the full leap into that kind of combat rather then half way doing it.
^ totally agree...would deal with GW2 style tho
It's not "innovation" it' ssimply offering something that games have been offering.
Let me ask you a question, lets say you were playing an archer. Now as usual in most mmos you'd simply tab-target an enemy, mash yoru hotkeys for your various attacks and kill someone.
For archers it usually goes something lilke this:
target enemy:
Use "ability" that slows them or roots them in place
Use damage ability
/kill them.
That's just a generic example of how most archers in mmo's play out.
Would that be as fun if the game was full non tab target for range and you actually have to aim yor shots, but ont he flip side the arrows and things could do a LOT more damage and actually allow for "headshots" and things to do more dmg then shooting someone in the foot?
Where instead of having an ability you press to "slow" someone, you actually can just AIM at their leg and hit them with an arrow to knee (sorry I had to
) and it slows them?
I mean imagine it, on the open battlefield during ai huge RVR fight, you are standng there with your bow and you see someone charging at you on horseback (if mounts are in, I hope) and as he's galloping his horse straight for you , you have time for one shot before he closes the distance and runs you through. So you nock your arrow, take aim, taking into account the speed and movement he's going, then you let your arrow fly and it flies straight into his neck and you see his body slump over his horse and tumble to the ground as the horse rides past you.
That's far more "fun" to me and epic, then "tab target, slow, cycle the hotkey abilities as usual."Exactly...like an FPS or Elder Scrolls game ( in 1st person) ....it's just plain more realistic...having 2 or 3 active combat skills? hell ya, cuz really, we want this genre to move toward the realistic, cheers
I have heard people say that tab targeting is in their opinion fun.
I don't know why exactly. My experience has been that tab targeting is frustrating and feels unnatural. My expectation is that I should hit what I am aiming at not what a locked on feature decides where my action directed to. It makes me feel like there is a ceiling for improvement that I quickly hit and then lose interest because there is nothing left to learn and no room to polish your skill. Granted GW2 hybrid is better and games like Perpetuum make point and click more fun but it is still not as good as an action based combat imo.
I understand bandwidth is an issue but most likely as service gets upgraded and tricks of the trade in programming are more widely used to reduce problems as well as cloud computing becoming more accessible, we will not see as much issue with an action based combat mmo.
I find Tera is a good example because to me it feels like WoW with action combat so the fun factor is easy to compare. I stopped playing WoW because there was no way to continue improving. I hit the ceiling and the content additions seemed irrelevant at that point.
Of course I'm an old school pong and space invaders gamer.
But to each his own.
I started of playing tab-target based games and was never a fan of FPS games, but after Darkfall, it opened my eyes.
I thought i was a decent MMO player until i started in Darkfall, but quickly realized i had to up my game by a lot and i'm glad i did, becaues that MMO produced by far the best MMO moments in over a decade of playing MMO's.
So I hope CU and future MMO's will choose to go with aim based combat instead of the out-dated tab target system, gamers have evolved, so it's time more companies evolved their combat also, because its pretty dreary to play tab-target these days for myself.
would much rather tab based combat, surprisingly i find it less boring.
SKYeXile
TRF - GM - GW2, PS2, WAR, AION, Rift, WoW, WOT....etc...
Future Crew - High Council. Planetside 1 & 2.
I want to see combat that doesn't ignore terrain features.
(He swings his sword right through pillars, several times (0:30) in that video. And the blood-splatter's gotta go, thought Conan killed that idea for good.)
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
People will never understand this..
Well. since MMORPG penetrated the popular state on games, more and more people with different and actual "inside the box" mind are coming.
I don't find action based combat innovative.... tab targeting came after it and it's in some way, more innovative and different way to see a combat.
We should think that each thing is a different thing and we should separate both, and not think one is better then another.
On the contrary, one can argue if you want to aim go play a FPS game. A lot of people think action combat is an incredible innovation and allows tremendous scale over "skill > button masher" concept, but it reality it has nothing to do with this at all.
I'd love to know how many people that voice opinions on system mechanics actually understand anything about programming, network infrastructure, or game design itself. There's a plethora of reasons against action combat systems in truly mass combat games; it's fine in single player and a several group worth of active players, but if you're pushing one hundred plus players all utilizing combat spell effects, aiming would literally become hell due to network infrastructure and personal computer drawbacks for some users.
I'm not sure what gaming background you come from, but the whole "learn to not be terrible" and "L2P" is a terrible mentality. That goes for several of the other users that back up action target systems as their primirary reason as to why it should be implemented. This post shouldn't be referenced as an anti-action based system, but if you're going to suggested it, at least understand why it works and where it fails miserably.
I will never understand this argument of "being good" at aiming. I am quite good at FPS games and aiming and I find it honestly simple. I see no skill in trying to target your enemy and attack...is that really considered a skill? And if one actually does consider that a skill how does it lessen the "skill" of tab targeting games? There is plenty of strategic and tactical decision making that is involved in the "skill" of tab targeting games which separates a good player from a novice.
To sum it up - these are two different games both which involve different thinking and maneuvering techniques to excel. Are these necessarily skills? I would argue not. However, if we are going to label them as skills, their differences and setting make them incomparable in my opinion.
Cheers~