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Concerned about the lack of usable abilities... really concerned...
Since D3 introduced the "mechanic" on a global scale in gaming and quite a couple of games adapted this ... idea ... so did Neverwinter. And seeing this in an MMORPG is SO extremely unnerving.
What I am speaking of are only 5 to maybe 8 usable skills, which can not be exchanged in combat. With which you have to stick and are forced to use them in this tiny window of opportunity they provide. Making a skill-ful gamplay (excluding item stats and cooldowns) next to impossible.
MMOs always have been the type of games that brought more variety to gamers than singleplayer or simple multiplayer titles. Especially in terms of given abilities and skills to use in the gaming world.
And what kinda insane fractile is now jumping inside the mind of the Devs? Instead of providing More Variety after all those years, no... we dont want to expand, we want to go into the mad opposite dirction and give the players less abilities to use. Why on earth, Why??
Is this a new hidden strategy they have made up to navigate around balancing issues?
I am sure that I am not the only player who loves to have a wide variety of skills to use. It does not matter if some of them are used very rarely. But the fact that they Are used once in a while is a sign that having more than enough abilities is always better than having only as much as you can count on both of your hands.
The whole idea of where the trend seems to go makes combat and especially PvP so Super boring and repetitive.
I dont know about you out there, but I play MMOs pretty much since their existance and I only find myself installing and playing a title for a few hours, just to deinstall it again after just a few days. Simply because most of them are sooo easy and sooo tediously designed... agh!
Yes and thumbs up to 80% of what I have heard about WildStar so far, but I am really Really concerned about the lack of variety of skills to use in combat.
Do you play MMOs for more than 5-8years? Then I am looking forward to your reply. Ciao
Comments
Skill bloat is just as bad. Skills created for no good reason, just to pad out the skill lists and make it look like you have a ton of groovy skills. Best example I can think of is Rift, although SWTOR on a Sith Warrior suffered from this as well at go-live.
The continuing simplification and Consolification of all games inevitably leads to less abilities. Having said that, simple is not always bad. Fighting games have simple abilities like Punch, Kick, Block and an 8-way joystick. But you can combo those together into a staggering amount of different character actions that require a lot of training/practice (first time I rocked an Akira Stun Palm of Doom in VF2 I was well chuffed). Action MMO's could take a leaf out of that book.
MMO's have tried the combo style in the past, but they screwed up and made it group combos which doesn't work as well.
Hopefully Wildstar hits that happy medium where you have a manageable but still well rounded number of skills and reason to regularly use a variety of them.
I feel your pain op... as an L2 veteran the lack of skills is really disappointing,annoying and boring. My only guess on why most mmorpg's these days use this lame system so they can make their life easier..
Less skills = less balancing issues = less work
Also getting into a mmorpg is easy when you have only 5 skills to master,but its also easy to leave... in this age of "fast money grab mmorpg's" this kind of system works for them.
(most mmorpg's developers today see that most mmo's dont last much... so why try? why waste money and time? )
Basically clicking away text windows ruins every MMO, try to have fun instead of rushing things. Without story and lore all there is left is a bunch of mechanics.
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EQ had 8 usable spell slots and 6 usable hot-slots with 9 pages of extras for activate-able abilities such as "Kick" and "Tracking".
This isn't a new concept by any means what so ever. The difference is, in EQ a lot of spells were "Ranks" so you'd have 9 copies of a more powerful, more mana consuming ability that was the exact same. Also, aside from Monk, Paladin and Shadow Knight - there weren't really 9 pages worth of useful non-spell abilities. Then again, Paladin and Shadow Knight each only had 1.
In WoW, certain classes had abilities you just didn't care to even put on your bar. Other classes such as Mage had 3 bars of useful abilities. I think games should start dividing skill thresholds based on complexity to play and not just as a general arbitrary rule. I loved having so many situational abilities on my Mage in WoW... like Slow Fall, Frost/Fire Ward, Shields, AoEs, Direct Damage spells... My Ret Paladin had a bar, maybe a bit more so a limited skill option wouldn't matter to me.
Anyways, Skill Bloat and Skill limit is to the point where it should be balanced based on Class rather than having a universal number that is just there for the sake of being there. Classes with limited skills would have more uses for their skills, where classes with a lot of skills would be reactionary and about knowing what tool to use where.
Unfortunately the best we can hope for with this cool game, is skill flexibility.
People think it's fun to pretend your a monster. Me I spend my life pretending I'm not. - Dexter Morgan
I agree with Stromm.
Why do I as a player absolutely need to have hotbar after hotbar of abilities just to feel skillful? surely it's the developers who need to come up with some other mechanic other than placing a mirade of skills before me which maybe named something different from each other but in essence do the same thing.
Lets not forget aswell that when your dealing with 20 or 30 abilities you've got to put them somewhere on your screen, the clutter then encourages various addons to help you deal with them, in PvP battles your suddenly smashing your keyboard trying to find that 1 special ability to save your ski but it's hid amongst all the other abilities.
Keep it simple but keep it fresh, add in various combo's with the skills you have.
Less is more, I certainly disliked it when I had to keep memorising different spells after buffing ppl in Everquest 1, just because I had a book full of spells that did so many different things but only a handful of spell slots, it was a real PITA and took forever to complete, I just wish they had combined far more buffs into a single spell.
You can keep your mass of skills, I want 1 hotbar that doesn't get in my way and contains the skills that I know I need to compete.
I read your entire post and aside from this one sentence that I quoted, I'm not exactly sure what this has to do with WildStar. Help me clarify what perspective you're viewing this from...
A) You've played a handful of horrible games with a limited number of abilities, are assuming that it is a trend, and you're hoping WildStar is NOT like them.
C) You're basing the assumption of a limited number of skills on authorized released information from developers of a game that is still in development.
So! My assumption is that it's A, and in that case I apologize for your poor choice in video games thus far but I've been playing games with so many skills lately that I can't even find space for them because multiple action bars have yet to be implemented. So it's not the genre, it's just luck of the draw... and you happened to draw a poor hand of games. =(
both pve and pvp got super boring and repetitive the day developers stoped being creative in order to cater to grind lovers.
Nothing wrong about having 8 abilities on screen as long as i have a big pool to choose from at any time that are not attached to level brackets.
I'm all for it, I have bin playing mmo's since UO and always hated the "evolution" of the hotbars , it became really ridicules whit 6 hotbars 60+ icons/skills
I don't need that many skills to play "my"game, as long as i can customize the skills I want to use (play style) I'm more then happy whit 6 power and a dodge or two.
its bin done a dozen time by Asian action game for years and several times by western mmo's ( the chronicles of spellborn in 2008 had a good mechanic build around it) , its a long proven control mechanic for action type mmo's games
naturally there people who are so used ( and a bit stuck) in the old tab-targeting + mega hotbars that they will have a hard time adapting to the new breed of mmo's
personal I love it.
This just seems so dull... kinda reminds me of another guy who commented on WildStar's combat telegraphs by saying, "I don't want to move around, I want to be the hero." And although the two of you have nothing in common... I couldn't imagine a game where both of you got what you wanted; a game that required no moving and featured only six abilities.
That sounds like the most boring game... ever. o_o
I also love the idea of a hotbar with a few skills. What's not to like? At low levels you learn these skills and you learn how to use them well because you will use the same rotation of skill nr 1 - skill nr 2 - utility skill 3 - repeat over and over and over all through the game. So you don't even have to think about your options. After a few levels it's pure muscle memory action.
It also ensures we can't really customize our characters much. This is great because when you see a cleric or guardian or whatever walking around you know exactly what he is capable of because they are all mostly the same.
Also when leveling you don't even have to think about how you raise your character. Because.. well your skills scale.. no worries about higher lvl content! I feel secure because I am guided through the game like my mom is holding my hand while walking through the park.
I say yes to simplification. Let de devs decide what I play and how I play. They are better at it.
Anyone else tired of learning piano key amounts of spells? Anyone that played a Marauder on SWTOR knows what I'm talking about... Q1234ERFGVCXZ, ; alternators: Shift, Ctrl, Alt. F1-4 and using all of them for your different spells. And WoW never has enough action bars with all the different macros you can setup. Not to mention the useless spells you don't bind or only use in pvp/pve.
At what point is 'enough' spells for you? Personally I think it's high time MMO's evolved to a combo system/chain attacks, where in your current spells change on what spell you previously have used or depending on your spec... But maybe I'm just tired of learning 25+ spells for 6+ classes for the pile of MMO's I've played.
Actually, the devs have said there will be a limited number of skills on the hotbar. I believe it is set at 7 right now. You can see a low level stalker with 6 of 9 slots available in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_haEZDgkIZk
A dev talks about the limited number around the 5:25 mark of the video
Since that was released in February, they released patch notes (M30) that mention the number of class abilities available at a time was reduced from 9 to 7. See the notes here:
http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/news/m30_patch_notes.php
That said, I have no issue with there being 7 available at a time. I have a minstrel in LOTRO with 5 hotbars of skills, of which I use no more than 6 to 10 in the majority of fights. I've been playing TSW where the limit is 7 (or 8) and I can deal with that fine. As long as skills can be used while moving (which it appears they can be in Wildstar), then I'm happy.
In all honesty and with all due respect, that sounds terrible. That's purely my own opinion, and you have every right to yours. But to me that sounds so bad that your post almost reads as sarcasm to me. Sorry.
I believe Wildstar has 7 abilities plus a path button so far that I am aware of, so 8 total. These abilities are not your only abilities as you have many more that can be swapped in and out situationally.
The way they are designing combat with movement being priority I am not sure you want much more than this when you factor in sprint/dodge and jump/double jump. I also read somewhere that when disarmed you actually have to go and pick up your weapon. And that when dazed your abilities actually swap locations etc. So still a lot going on and its way to early to tell if they have to few skills.
"Its better to look ugly and win than pretty and lose"
And here I stopped reading...
A) I have played literally all available titles to this moment. Both offline and online. Happens when you are an enthusiast and love what you are doing. We are not speaking about an assumption here. Diablo 3 provided for the very first time a restricted skill based system to a wide range of players. Period.
- why am I mentioning this, when we even had games with even fewers skills? Because we have already tasted how good variety feels like. Now taking more and more variety back is like taking candy from a child. It will only result in anger and frustration. The universe is expanding -
C) I am quoting a dev from a previous WS-video on how the skills and skill-bars work and he said, that he personally uses multiple sets (of skills in the skillbar and probably also talents) when playing. He said one for PvP and one for PvE. His own words. And you did not see more than 5-7 skills to use at the same time in no video or screenshot to this day. If you want to check it out, search youtube and TotalBiscuit.
At least One and a Half full skillbars were always available in 95% of all previous MMORPGs. I am not saying this because how it was in the past, the future must be, no.
To me, this whole restrictive attitude is a step backwards. I always stated that it is CRUCIAL for new MMO releases to provide even MORE variety for the players than the MMOs before. But yet, no real dev listened. That is why most MMOs lose 70% of their entire playerbase in the first month.
No genuine ideas, no outstanding profit. Always will be and always was like that. If one copies what already exists, one can not hope for more gain than the initial game one copied from. Only less. Common sense.
I hope this didnt sound too harsh, I simply prefer to stay neutral these days. And if truth hurts, truth hurts.
Ciao
TSW has probably one of the best skill-systems, but it lacks alot of other things unfortunately...
Only having six active and six passive skills isn't that bad at all, and it gives players alot of freedom to build their own setups. That's imho how every MMO should do it, so that you can't see on the first glance what you're up to, especially in PvP. It also forces players to be creative and think out of the box for changing tasks and situations and it adds alot of freedom without being forced to have several twinks to fill all the roles.
I'm all for single-character-accounts, where every character has access to all skills, only constrained by the amount of skills you can put into your deck.
OH... and switching skills (decks) on the fly is also a very bad design imho, as it takes away all the tactical aspects of such a system.
Wildstar will be fun for a while until you have your four twinks maxed out, but after the required 3-6 month it'll be time to move on to the next game, just like with all the other themeparks outthere.
You want a bloated skill system, go play SWTOR. But please, for the love of god. Don't make the developers listen to you and ruin all the other MMOs with useless bloat as well.
We're finally getting BACK to a more meaningful skill/spell system where it isn't a lot of stupid 3second debuffs and stacks of charges or whatever other silly thing developers decided was depth.
I'd rather have four meaningful skills I can swap in and out for a unique combination than 30 spells that just amount to a boring "rotation" to achieve optimum success.
6+ races, 6+ classes, 20 unique abilities to each class is a good number in my opinion.
When we get to more than 20 it starts being too situational (meaning you'll only use it once every other tuesday), or in some cases completely useless abilities.. I do feel that there needs to be more than just 4-8 abilitites though..
I don't know, maybe 15 abilities would be enough too.. It's a little too shallow with 4-8, that 4-8 fits well in ARPG like diablo or mobas, not in full on mmorpg's.
I dont think enjoyment comes from a higher total amount of "live" skills you can have at once, more the way they interact and compliment each other so that you can form cunning builds. I think GW1 really got it right in this respect.
If you have a total of (for instance) 8 skills, and those 8 skills are all you can ever use and they never change, this gets boring quickly. If you have a huge array of skills to choose from, but can select any 8 at a time, this promotes the creation of builds that utilise the way the skills interact with each other with interesting effects that sometimes even the devs havent thought of, and creating these builds is a skill, and enjoyable in and of itself.
Of course, this means that the devs have to spend a lot more time balancing the way the skills work and interact with each other, having to not just think "Skill X does Y", but "Skill X does Y, Skill X does Y and Z when used with skill A etc"
Edited to prevent flame war
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
Skill has always come from the ability to move and being able to anticipate your opponent ( be it commuter or player ) not the ability to push a single button on your keyboard.
You may like a skill bar full or different abilities. It does add some flavored to combat. Most games that have bloated skill bars also end up with rotations that maximize dps and a pvp system that's horribly unbalanced because of all those skills.
Like everything about this game I'm waiting till I play it before judging if something is good or not. I don't want hype to raise my expectations too hi ::)
Actually you can change your skills in GW2. For one you get a second weapon to swap to in the middle of a fight which gives you 4 more weapon skills to use. Also in between fights you can change your utility skills however often you want.
Elementalists actually get 4 attunements to sweap between each with 4 unique skills and effects. And this happens in the middle of fights. So for them that's actually 20 skills right there that are active. And trust me, they have to use them all.
Yeah, kinda missed the point of the post...
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
Not really, since you said "if you have 8 that never change like GW2" when in fact you have a lot more which you can change. What am I missing here?
How can I miss the point, when your point was false and therefore invalid.
You can't just make things up to prove a point. And then expect no one to call you out on it.