@keithian: I hope so too, it is my main reason to post. To generate enough momentum that they HAVE to push forward in the games.
Of course, GW2 set the bar for animations VERY high. Just let a character stand idle. See how he fiddles with the staff. Or how a small Asura reacts entirely different to carrying a heavy sword because with his short legs he struggles much more with balance! How an idle character may look around, examines his hands... there are a million details in the animations in GW2.
And it goes with so many details. Like, going into the deepest dungeon, I can just open the AH inventory and sell all my stuff. Viola gone.
Or in open PVP: I just see a blue dot, a player with commander tag. Maybe I remembe his name, which is connected to the tag, I know he was good so I know, hey let's go there and follow him! Easy to the fun.
Or that I can be totally relaxed getting the iron ore, because a) I find iron on the minimap and b) nobody steals it. It will wait for me.
ALL THESE WONDERFUL CONVENIENCES. And ESO dropped 10 years back in so many of these. It just grinds my gears. WHY? Why does EVERY damn MMO company act like they made the first MMO! Like we learned nothing in MMO making in the last 10-12 years!
Sorry. It is "I wanted this to be great" that so makes me sad and mad atm. Yes it's all small things, details. I HOPE they work on it. Really. I want this MMO to be good.
A lot of people also hate these conveniences. GW2 went overboard on dumbing down essential MMO mechanics. Their combat animations are also horribly generic and feel as out of sync as in ESO.
hmm and only 5 skills, based on your weapon and the fact that you can only switch to another at higher levels really makes the combat complicated. RIGHT. If GW2 is dumbed down, then ESO combat is the pre-school version of combat. Without any feedback or anything from the combat, it makes the game lifeless and not very immersive.
As proof that this is not NDA-breaking, this review talks about how there is absolutely no combat feedback in the game. There are no numbers telling you how much you're hitting a mob for, etc.
This seems extremely counter-intuitive. One one hand, one can say "well,the game is not for power-players, it's not for people crunching numbers to figure out best ability loadout. We leave this out because we want immersion!"
I can totally buy that setup.
But.. if that's they way you're going, then why are you giving us all these abilities that have tiny number differentials. Example (taken from this site):
Ability 1:
+5% damage when invisible or crouched.
Ability 2:
Targets in front of caster take 1 magic damage per second for 10 seconds.
Ability 3:
+30% attack speed (heavy and light)
If you don't want people crunching numbers and trying to figure out DPS, why the hell are you giving us these abilities that result in miniscule increases that would ONLY be evident if you COULD see the actual numbers?!
I mean, if it's about immersion and not about crunching numbers, should the abilities just read "Increases damage when invisible", "Damages target in front of you".
The way the have the game set up, you basically need to get an excel spreadsheet and manually calculate what you're doing with every single skill in order to figure out which one is best. How the heck is this any more immersive than having combat numbers log available? I mean, the game is obviously making these calculations, so the numbers exist, they're just not available to players.
Anyone else think that they need to pick a side? Either go for immersion and get rid of these tiny numbers or keep the numbers and let us see the actual results of using them in combat. The in-between state is like the worst of both worlds - you still HAVE TO think about numbers and make decisions, yet you don't have enough information to make those decisions well.
Your assumptions are that you need to see the numbers to notice the damage improvement. You do not. You can watch the life bars go down faster or slower. I like what they are encouraging. Play the game, not the numbers. I don't play mmo's to see how many numbers I can make explode out of a mob. If I wanted to number crunch all day I would have gotten a job in a heavy math related field. When I play a game I want to play. I understand that some people take pride in making bigger numbers, unfortunately not every game in the world is meant to be universally liked.
If we are going based on what has been publically released, they are supporting addons. I suggest rather than complaining about a problem you can start by helping solve the perceived problem by supporting or building addons for the game. I wish the NDA was down to say more...
I am not sure at what point gamers decided to go from adapting to a game's playstyle to demanding everygame fits their playstyle, but I doubt that developers have the extra sensory powers to determine what every player in the world expects from a game.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
hmm and only 5 skills, based on your weapon and the fact that you can only switch to another at higher levels really makes the combat complicated. RIGHT. If GW2 is dumbed down, then ESO combat is the pre-school version of combat. Without any feedback or anything from the combat, it makes the game lifeless and not very immersive.
You only have to get to level 15 for weapon switching.
They are actually very similar. They both allow weapon switching and dodging.
To be fair I can understand the reason behind showing for how much you hit in games such as WoW - it can be helpful there i.e for raiding and because of other game mechanics.
However in case of TES games I never really saw the purpose of that. The difference between killing and getting killed is how fast health bar goes down regardless if you hit or are being hit for X, 10 * X or 1 000 000 * X. And TESO is no different here really.
Huh?
How fast the HP bar goes down is directly a result of damage number values - it's all there - it's just not shown.
If you get hit for X=30 dmg - and you have 100hp = 1/3 HP bar roughtly, 10x= 1 shot dead. It makes a huge difference knowing the exact numbers. If you know that a boss hits for 300dmg and your tank has less than 300HP with crap mitigation, you know not to try period.
I honestly don't understand your argument at all.
Players did raids/dungeons successfully in MMOs before there were dps meters.
Kind of sad that players now a days cannot function in a game without third party software telling them how to play.
Originally posted by nerovipus32 I suppose you want a dps meter in there also? So many people calling ESO a clone and yet they complain when it's not following the traditional EQ/WOW mechanics. The irony is delicious.
There isn't really anything ironic about it. Good entertainment is always a narrow path between the all to familiar and the all too strange.
Look at it this way: WoW was doubless a very succesful formula. As with all great succeses, there are those who try to make money by blatantly copying it, and those who try to make all purposefully the opposite. Both are trapped in the idea of their predecessor; they are essentially slaves of the idea. The one by copying it, the other by artificially avoiding it. Those are the two failures you'll see. Making a MMO all too much like WOW or one trying to reinvent the wheel.
ESO did the latter. They were so afraid avoiding "being like WoW", they made too many things different for the sake of, especially in the MMO department.
As to the OP's topic: yes, alone from looking at the many videos you can see how "floaty" combat feels. I do not think real collision detection would be needed, but some more "oomph". If you played Age of Conan, and hacked your axe into an enemy, you know what I mean. That was "oomph", impact. GW2 also manages to feel like you do actual combat, because the animations are VERY detailed.
Just stand on a slope with an ESO and a GW2 char: the ESO char will have 1 foot sunk into the graphics and the other floating above it; in GW2 both feet are corrently planted on the slope or the stairs. These are small things, but all big things are made up of many small things. And the result is: floaty combat and unrealistic feeling of movement.
ILLUSTRATION:
This is how a GOOD game makes characters stand, like GW2, on a slope:
This is how a bad game does it. The example is AION, because I am not allowed to post my ESO pics, but trust me that ESO makes it the same way:
That is one example, but overall these sort of neglected details make the combat aninmations of ESO horrible. They are no realistic, they pay no attention to detail. I could list a hundred examples of body movement in ESO vs GW2. But one example IMO stands for many.
I am going to call BS on this one because first of all this first picture you have from GW2 is not on a slop at all it is a slight incline. Anyone who knows anything about art will know that if it is a slop then the knees will bend and the legs will spread.
You claim that you are using a Aion picture and to say trust you on the fact that ESO character stand the same way. Well I say BS again because your second picture has nothing to do with ESO simple fact: All ESO character have a hunch in their stance which means they will automatic bend their knees and spread their legs apart to compensate for the hill incline. You are so wrong it is a shame you even put this crap up here expecting anyone to believe this. Even the picture you have above concerning the GW2 character is way off compared to ESO characters. Why? Because on any incline weather it be a slight or deep incline the knees will bend. I see neither picture showing this.
Plainly check out any picture online about ESO and you will see there are very few pictures that shows characters standing straight up most of the time they are in a bent position. Wow dude stop it with your lies.
@keithian: I hope so too, it is my main reason to post. To generate enough momentum that they HAVE to push forward in the games.
Of course, GW2 set the bar for animations VERY high. Just let a character stand idle. See how he fiddles with the staff. Or how a small Asura reacts entirely different to carrying a heavy sword because with his short legs he struggles much more with balance! How an idle character may look around, examines his hands... there are a million details in the animations in GW2.
And it goes with so many details. Like, going into the deepest dungeon, I can just open the AH inventory and sell all my stuff. Viola gone.
Or in open PVP: I just see a blue dot, a player with commander tag. Maybe I remembe his name, which is connected to the tag, I know he was good so I know, hey let's go there and follow him! Easy to the fun.
Or that I can be totally relaxed getting the iron ore, because a) I find iron on the minimap and b) nobody steals it. It will wait for me.
ALL THESE WONDERFUL CONVENIENCES. And ESO dropped 10 years back in so many of these. It just grinds my gears. WHY? Why does EVERY damn MMO company act like they made the first MMO! Like we learned nothing in MMO making in the last 10-12 years!
Sorry. It is "I wanted this to be great" that so makes me sad and mad atm. Yes it's all small things, details. I HOPE they work on it. Really. I want this MMO to be good.
A lot of people also hate these conveniences. GW2 went overboard on dumbing down essential MMO mechanics. Their combat animations are also horribly generic and feel as out of sync as in ESO.
It's like gay marriage. Allowing gays to marry doesn't take straights anything away.
Same here. Allowing these conveniences doesn't rob you of the chance to just play without them. Don't like name tags, minimap and auction house? Well don't USE them.
Fall behind. Get dropped by groups, and rendered irrelevant to any of the competitive aspects of the game.
Be serious. That kind of argument might work on a single-player game, but it dies once the game goes multiplayer.
Originally posted by nerovipus32 I suppose you want a dps meter in there also? So many people calling ESO a clone and yet they complain when it's not following the traditional EQ/WOW mechanics. The irony is delicious.
There isn't really anything ironic about it. Good entertainment is always a narrow path between the all to familiar and the all too strange.
Look at it this way: WoW was doubless a very succesful formula. As with all great succeses, there are those who try to make money by blatantly copying it, and those who try to make all purposefully the opposite. Both are trapped in the idea of their predecessor; they are essentially slaves of the idea. The one by copying it, the other by artificially avoiding it. Those are the two failures you'll see. Making a MMO all too much like WOW or one trying to reinvent the wheel.
ESO did the latter. They were so afraid avoiding "being like WoW", they made too many things different for the sake of, especially in the MMO department.
As to the OP's topic: yes, alone from looking at the many videos you can see how "floaty" combat feels. I do not think real collision detection would be needed, but some more "oomph". If you played Age of Conan, and hacked your axe into an enemy, you know what I mean. That was "oomph", impact. GW2 also manages to feel like you do actual combat, because the animations are VERY detailed.
Just stand on a slope with an ESO and a GW2 char: the ESO char will have 1 foot sunk into the graphics and the other floating above it; in GW2 both feet are corrently planted on the slope or the stairs. These are small things, but all big things are made up of many small things. And the result is: floaty combat and unrealistic feeling of movement.
ILLUSTRATION:
This is how a GOOD game makes characters stand, like GW2, on a slope:
This is how a bad game does it. The example is AION, because I am not allowed to post my ESO pics, but trust me that ESO makes it the same way:
That is one example, but overall these sort of neglected details make the combat aninmations of ESO horrible. They are no realistic, they pay no attention to detail. I could list a hundred examples of body movement in ESO vs GW2. But one example IMO stands for many.
I am going to call BS on this one because first of all this first picture you have from GW2 is not on a slop at all it is a slight incline. Anyone who knows anything about art will know that if it is a slop then the knees will bend and the legs will spread.
You claim that you are using a Aion picture and to say trust you on the fact that ESO character stand the same way. Well I say BS again because your second picture has nothing to do with ESO simple fact: All ESO character have a hunch in their stance which means they will automatic bend their knees and spread their legs apart to compensate for the hill incline. You are so wrong it is a shame you even put this crap up here expecting anyone to believe this. Even the picture you have above concerning the GW2 character is way off compared to ESO characters. Why? Because on any incline weather it be a slight or deep incline the knees will bend. I see neither picture showing this.
Plainly check out any picture online about ESO and you will see there are very few pictures that shows characters standing straight up most of the time they are in a bent position. Wow dude stop it with your lies.
In GW2 most objects stick out past what you can see on screen so its easy to be floating beside the object in mid air. You can even merge with the walls so your feet are encased in stone. What was this about GW2 doing it right?
hmm and only 5 skills, based on your weapon and the fact that you can only switch to another at higher levels really makes the combat complicated. RIGHT. If GW2 is dumbed down, then ESO combat is the pre-school version of combat. Without any feedback or anything from the combat, it makes the game lifeless and not very immersive.
You only have to get to level 15 for weapon switching.
They are actually very similar. They both allow weapon switching and dodging.
ESO has more depth in the amount of skills.
hmm - maybe my math is bad - 5 is more than 10? WOW!!
Dodging in ESO awful - it feels like you have lead-filled shoes. Same with the whole combat system, it is lifeless to me. Heck, TSW and TERA are better than this game in that respect.
Maybe it's awful because you suck at it? I found it really useful and used it a lot.
hmm and only 5 skills, based on your weapon and the fact that you can only switch to another at higher levels really makes the combat complicated. RIGHT. If GW2 is dumbed down, then ESO combat is the pre-school version of combat. Without any feedback or anything from the combat, it makes the game lifeless and not very immersive.
You only have to get to level 15 for weapon switching.
They are actually very similar. They both allow weapon switching and dodging.
ESO has more depth in the amount of skills.
hmm - maybe my math is bad - 5 is more than 10? WOW!!
Dodging in ESO awful - it feels like you have lead-filled shoes. Same with the whole combat system, it is lifeless to me. Heck, TSW and TERA are better than this game in that respect.
Maybe it's awful because you suck at it? I found it really useful and used it a lot.
hmm and only 5 skills, based on your weapon and the fact that you can only switch to another at higher levels really makes the combat complicated. RIGHT. If GW2 is dumbed down, then ESO combat is the pre-school version of combat. Without any feedback or anything from the combat, it makes the game lifeless and not very immersive.
You only have to get to level 15 for weapon switching.
They are actually very similar. They both allow weapon switching and dodging.
ESO has more depth in the amount of skills.
hmm - maybe my math is bad - 5 is more than 10? WOW!! With GW2, they tried to make the skills usable as they learned having too many skills, like in GW1, many were useless or very situational.
Dodging in ESO awful - it feels like you have lead-filled shoes. Same with the whole combat system, it is lifeless to me. Heck, TSW and TERA are better than this game in that respect.
If you think dodging is awful then maybe you need to go back and play something more of your speed since you can't simply handle ee,ss,aa,dd,ww lol. You may want to go and play Pac man that maybe your skill level lol
hmm - maybe my math is bad - 5 is more than 10? WOW!! With GW2, they tried to make the skills usable as they learned having too many skills, like in GW1, many were useless or very situational.
Dodging in ESO awful - it feels like you have lead-filled shoes. Same with the whole combat system, it is lifeless to me. Heck, TSW and TERA are better than this game in that respect.
Originally posted by Osmanthus I think the NDA is still in effect. However, I will say that the premise of the OP is incorrect.
Nothing in my post is under NDA. I've listed my sources for the information and aside from the commentation clearly tellingyou that htere is no combat feedback, you can clearly see this from every video of combat available online. (I also played beta myselt, but i'm not including any additional - under NDA - info in my posts)
That may be true but for us to correct your OP (and it is wrong on most points) we would have to break NDA.
I hope you get into beta so you can correct yourself.
hmm and only 5 skills, based on your weapon and the fact that you can only switch to another at higher levels really makes the combat complicated. RIGHT. If GW2 is dumbed down, then ESO combat is the pre-school version of combat. Without any feedback or anything from the combat, it makes the game lifeless and not very immersive.
You only have to get to level 15 for weapon switching.
They are actually very similar. They both allow weapon switching and dodging.
ESO has more depth in the amount of skills.
hmm - maybe my math is bad - 5 is more than 10? WOW!! With GW2, they tried to make the skills usable as they learned having too many skills, like in GW1, many were useless or very situational.
Dodging in ESO awful - it feels like you have lead-filled shoes. Same with the whole combat system, it is lifeless to me. Heck, TSW and TERA are better than this game in that respect.
Post a pic of you dodging in real life like the flash and then I will accept what you have to say.
Something tells me you would be tanking with your face.
A min-maxer does not need combat feedback. Any good min-maxer can work it out through reading skills/buffs without needing the answer presented to them.
It's mainly to show off to others. Look at my crit dps/heal, uber awesome.
Well, it's cheaper than growth pills......
Yeah and neither work.. You just look a knob head lol
I have 4 fully leveled characters in GW2 (All at least with Karma gear and 1 with Twilight, and it's a great game... but dodging really does work the same. Maybe it was a laggy stress test... maybe you forgot you had to have decent stamina left to dodge, maybe you didn't dodge 6 times your body height in length like you had Jackie Chan in your pocket.... I have no clue what you mean by like lead boots, I found it the exact same as far as responsiveness.
If you didn't mean responsiveness you need to specify what you are talking about because that's the only thing we can infer from your vague analogy.
Originally posted by Osmanthus I think the NDA is still in effect. However, I will say that the premise of the OP is incorrect.
Nothing in my post is under NDA. I've listed my sources for the information and aside from the commentation clearly tellingyou that htere is no combat feedback, you can clearly see this from every video of combat available online. (I also played beta myselt, but i'm not including any additional - under NDA - info in my posts)
That may be true but for us to correct your OP (and it is wrong on most points) we would have to break NDA.
I hope you get into beta so you can correct yourself.
I've played two weekends of beta. Everything i point out from those videos is confirmed by my own experience. The skill descrptions in the skill calculator also seem correct, although i obviously haven't verified every single one.
The facts of my OP are:
- The game does not tell you how much you've hit (or healed or drained or whatever) a mob for. (This seen in videos)
- Your weapons and skills DO have numerical values that have an impact on those hits (which you don't know the value of) - the specific skills referenced are taken verbatim from the skills calculators available online.
- If you want to prove fact 1 wrong, all you need to do is direct me to a video/screenshot of a the game actually showing combat numbers. No NDA breach required.
- If you want to prove that the skill calculators don't have the true skill descrptions... well... i guess you'd need to break NDA, but you can probably find some REAL skill descriptions in the review videos (this woudl be pretty farfetched though).
Combat is clearly on display in many videos. Surely you can find one that supports whatever point you're trying to make. I KNOW the skill calculators are correct with regards to the examples i'm using. At least they were. But if you think the site i'm referencing is wrong, find another skill-calculator site that has skills phrased differently.
Originally posted by TalulaRose
Players did raids/dungeons successfully in MMOs before there were dps meters.
Kind of sad that players now a days cannot function in a game without third party software telling them how to play.
Really? Name one major MMO in which players can't find out how much they hit a mob for.
Also, I'm not talking about damage meters or 3rd party software, I'm talking about "your sword attack hits goblin for 8 points of damage" - something that has been present in pretty much every MMO.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
I also now played 2 x weekend beta - and I like the game very much - IMO its 50% Skyrim and 50% MMO - time will tell if the PvP &/ RvR will push it more in the MMO direction (only made it to level 9 in the beta - had to try different char's)
Well on the topic.... lack of combat information is my single biggest annoyance with ESO - at first I also hated the fact that I did not get any EXP information - but I slowly convinced myself that was a good thing, as watching the exp bar, for me, can take away some of the joy of playing
But combat information is different - I made a new bow at level 8 - went from 16dmg to 22dmg (on the tool tip) - that is some 37,5% dmg increase (all other equal) - I then headed back to the wilderness to try my new bow out - couldn’t see much of a different - sure it wasn’t the same mobs as before - so hard to compare - but call me silly or not, i actually like heading back out with my newly crafted weapon, try it out - see those numbers get bigger - it's part of my joy of getting stronger / progression.
Fine it’s not default so you have to "turn it on" - so all the die-hard Skyrim fans can leave it off, and the die-hard MMO fans can turn it on - and the rest of us, can decided when or how much we want to see
This will by no means ruin my play experience - I already got my Imperial Edition - and know I am gona love it the first few month - hope it will have lasting power - time will tell
but call me silly or not, i actually like heading back out with my newly crafted weapon, try it out - see those numbers get bigger - it's part of my joy of getting stronger / progression.
I don't think that's silly at all. Whether or not those numbers are directly on the screen or hidden in another pane that you can bring up, to me it's also such a huge part of having fun in a RPG. Omg, new bow, sneak attack now hits for 80 instead of 70!
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
@keithian: I hope so too, it is my main reason to post. To generate enough momentum that they HAVE to push forward in the games.
Of course, GW2 set the bar for animations VERY high. Just let a character stand idle. See how he fiddles with the staff. Or how a small Asura reacts entirely different to carrying a heavy sword because with his short legs he struggles much more with balance! How an idle character may look around, examines his hands... there are a million details in the animations in GW2.
And it goes with so many details. Like, going into the deepest dungeon, I can just open the AH inventory and sell all my stuff. Viola gone.
Or in open PVP: I just see a blue dot, a player with commander tag. Maybe I remembe his name, which is connected to the tag, I know he was good so I know, hey let's go there and follow him! Easy to the fun.
Or that I can be totally relaxed getting the iron ore, because a) I find iron on the minimap and b) nobody steals it. It will wait for me.
ALL THESE WONDERFUL CONVENIENCES. And ESO dropped 10 years back in so many of these. It just grinds my gears. WHY? Why does EVERY damn MMO company act like they made the first MMO! Like we learned nothing in MMO making in the last 10-12 years!
Sorry. It is "I wanted this to be great" that so makes me sad and mad atm. Yes it's all small things, details. I HOPE they work on it. Really. I want this MMO to be good.
A lot of people also hate these conveniences. GW2 went overboard on dumbing down essential MMO mechanics. Their combat animations are also horribly generic and feel as out of sync as in ESO.
It's like gay marriage. Allowing gays to marry doesn't take straights anything away.
Same here. Allowing these conveniences doesn't rob you of the chance to just play without them. Don't like name tags, minimap and auction house? Well don't USE them.
Fall behind. Get dropped by groups, and rendered irrelevant to any of the competitive aspects of the game.
Be serious. That kind of argument might work on a single-player game, but it dies once the game goes multiplayer.
Exactly, not using these "conveniences" you end up handicapping yourself. ESO has done a job of staying away from these cheap mechanics that many new MMOs abuse.
It's the same way wither, though, man. What you're asking for is access to the numbers. You know as well as I do that at that point, the game no longer is about the game.
The game is about whatever you want it to be. Pretty much every MMO in existence has numbers and people still play any way they want - i know countless people who don't care about numbers.
Plus, it's not like numbers have been completely taken out of ESO, there are still TONS and TONS of numbers. The people who want to min/max will still min/max. That same dumbass who kicks people from group for doing less than 200 damage, will now kick people from group for carrying a weapon that is below 70-100 rating The same person that spends days looking at his parses will build a spreadsheet and calculate his damage based off those numbers that ARE available in ESO and if he chooses to be elitisit and throw it in your face, he will.
If you're trying to build a game entirely without numbers, you need to build it entirely without numbers - and not halfway as ESO has gone.
Watch this crafting video just posted in another thread - there are 300 different ways of squeezing out every possible maximum number out of the weapon you're creating. If the game somehow means for us to not care about the damage we do, then why have this extensive system of getting higher number weapons?
I' It forces rebalances based on metrics.
So instead of a rebalance based on metrics such as "curved sword hits for 10, while straight sword hits for 12", you'd rather have rebalances based on random bitching like "oh, it feels like i can't do as much damage with my curved sword! I don't know for sure, but seems like it. I swear, my curved sword looks like it takes one third of the mob HP bar, but the straight one takes one half. Although i might be critting, i have no idea."
All I'm saying is that this sort of feature in any capacity will never lead to good things.
Well.. experience tells me different. Every single one of the best 10 or 20 MMOs that i've played has had combat numbers. Is it theoretically possible that ESO will be the first great MMO not to? Sure, it's possible. Is it likely? I doubt it.
As far as leading to good things - me getting better at playing my character and having more fun playing the game is at least ONE "good thing."
If the same thing will happen anyway... then it will happen anyway. This doesn't really help the argument that numbers need to be there in the first place. Numbers didn't exist in any of the TES games since Morrowind. Many RPG's get away without showing numbers. SImply put... you don't need them. Oh... you can want them, sure. Just like I can want an MMO that does a lot of things different. This is simply a non-issue, as you've put it, things that happen with numbers present... will happen anyway.
As for balance based on metrics, I don't think you really understood what I was saying there. Balancing on metrics is fine - as long as they are internal metrics. Giving people the numbers is exactly what causes the bitching in the first place. This is exactly what happened in SWTOR and plenty of other games. In SWTOR, people bitched non-stop about Scoundrel's ability to kill Sorcerers in about 3-6 seconds. The uproar was so huge, within 2 weeks of Live... the Scoundrel class was nerfed.
The problem was that the issue had absolutely nothing to do with the Scoundrel abilities or anything else about the class in the first place. I remember writing a huge essay about this back when this happened, explaining in detail what was actually going on and how the nerf to the Scoundrel class would ruin the entire game. Of course, 80% of the player base simply wouldn't listen, because back then... Sorcerer was the #1 class to play - because it was LIGHTNING!
Anyway, the whole issue with the Scoundrel being able to do this was that they were able to min/max various consumables that stacked critical damage. And it wasn't just Scoundrels doing it either - everyone was doing it. Never mind the way Expertise worked at the time. My point is, people were explaining via-number crunches vs time exactly how much damage was taking place and when. Because this was occurring, people freaked out, and literally shut the forums down with complaints. Being able to see a huge 6000K Damage suddenly pop-up on screen goes a long way for selling an idea rather than an abstract meter of red.
EA had no option but to shut the class down and cave to player demand, instead of actually resolving the problem. This lead to an immediate class redesign across the board, because it was all designed to work together. Screwing up that engine caused the whole thing to collapse. One month after Live - and they're already going into serious redesign, because now class balance was totally borked beyond repair without going back to how it was originally, and nerfing what actually needed to be nerfed instead - consumables.
And why did all of this happen? Because of player bitching thinking they had the problem solved with their number crunches... and really... they had absolutely nothing. What they had was evidence of a problem - not evidence of THE problem. This same evidence would have been apparent without the numbers present. But it would not have been so definitive in the player base mind had the numbers not been there.
Ever wonder why SWTOR failed? It's because of this very issue, 2 weeks after the game went Live. Because they had to redesign all the classes immediately... everything else in development was put on hold. And because a lot of the game really needed that development time... people left. This forced them into F2P.
You don't have to take my word for it - I'm sure you have your own magic formula for why it happened. But, the reality is - that is what happened. And this is why the player base does not need access to the numbers. If players hadn't have had access to such definitive numbers, the whole issue would have been more abstract from the word go. This would have allowed the dev internal metrics to be processed accordingly, resulting in a more correct fix to the issue. The funny thing is... right after the nerf to the Scoundrel class (which screwed up the entire game balance in both PvP and PvE), they actually did the right thing.... they nerfed the consumables, like I told them to. But they didn't change Scoundrel back - and that was the end. I actually jumped ship after the first month because of this. I already knew what was coming... they'd spend all their development time working on class balance, and never would get around to fixing everything else - just like SWG. And as far as I can tell... that's exactly what happened.
Yeah, well... the 10-20 best MMO's you've ever played likely weren't that good to begin with, and were probably carbon copies of WoW anyway, which is probably in that list somewhere.
But in the off-chance that I'm wrong - I'll say this. Because ESO doesn't use TAB targeting, auto-aim, or random dice mechanics in the background... there's no need for you to really worry about how much damage you're doing on screen. The weapons tell you how much you're doing. The abilities tell you how much you're doing. The passives tell you how much your abilities are increased. And if you swing your sword and connect to the target... the guess work is pretty minimal.
Really, man... this is a non-issue. I promise you.
Now this is a post worth reading on the subject.
However. How do you tell what other people are doing when you are in groups ? I can't see their spec I can't see their numbers. I can see what they are doing during a fight but probably need to record that fight to be more certain what they did during the fight.
Also, off the top of my head (ie without thinking especially deeply about this) we know people are susceptible to confirmation bias (they notice certain outcomes more than others and then place a false probability of those outcomes occuring that doesn't reflect actual events but their perception of those events eg I think I am criting more often .because I pay more attention when i do crit than when i dont ).
Without stats players will be more subject to confirmation bias in groups - which isnt necessarily a bad thing becasue they may need to address other issues such as being more social and getting on with people - because they cant rely on pointing to consolodated damage meter type stats to persuade people they are a valuable team member.
Yeah, well... the 10-20 best MMO's you've ever played likely weren't that good to begin with, and were probably carbon copies of WoW anyway, which is probably in that list somewhere.
I've actually never played WoW, I was already playing EQ2 and WoW was pretty much identical in terms of features. Since WoW had no original features of its own, i don't really believe in the term "WoW clone", although i do understand the term (and it applies as much to ESO, as it does to most AAA games launched in WoW's wake, regardless of tiny differences). So you're not wondering, my approximate Top 10 list would be:
Anarchy Online (had numbers, pre-WoW)
Star Wars Galaxies (had numbers, pre-WoW)
EVE Online (had numbers)
Shadowbane (had numbers, pre-WoW)
The Secret World (had numbers)
Lord of the Rings Online (had numbers)
Everquest 2 (had numbers, pre-WoW)
City of Heroes/Villains (had numbers, pre-WoW)
Age of Conan (had numbers)
Tabula Rasa (had numbers)
You're welcome to give me a list of YOUR top 10 MMOs and detail how many of them had no combat feedback available.
Also, you may want to look more into ESO. Some of the things you believe about the game are outright wrong. (Like lack of tab-targetting and auto-aim, both of which are in-game - both of which i think are a good thing imo, i'm just pointing it out).
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
Comments
hmm and only 5 skills, based on your weapon and the fact that you can only switch to another at higher levels really makes the combat complicated. RIGHT. If GW2 is dumbed down, then ESO combat is the pre-school version of combat. Without any feedback or anything from the combat, it makes the game lifeless and not very immersive.
Your assumptions are that you need to see the numbers to notice the damage improvement. You do not. You can watch the life bars go down faster or slower. I like what they are encouraging. Play the game, not the numbers. I don't play mmo's to see how many numbers I can make explode out of a mob. If I wanted to number crunch all day I would have gotten a job in a heavy math related field. When I play a game I want to play. I understand that some people take pride in making bigger numbers, unfortunately not every game in the world is meant to be universally liked.
If we are going based on what has been publically released, they are supporting addons. I suggest rather than complaining about a problem you can start by helping solve the perceived problem by supporting or building addons for the game. I wish the NDA was down to say more...
I am not sure at what point gamers decided to go from adapting to a game's playstyle to demanding everygame fits their playstyle, but I doubt that developers have the extra sensory powers to determine what every player in the world expects from a game.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
You only have to get to level 15 for weapon switching.
They are actually very similar. They both allow weapon switching and dodging.
ESO has more depth in the amount of skills.
Players did raids/dungeons successfully in MMOs before there were dps meters.
Kind of sad that players now a days cannot function in a game without third party software telling them how to play.
I am going to call BS on this one because first of all this first picture you have from GW2 is not on a slop at all it is a slight incline. Anyone who knows anything about art will know that if it is a slop then the knees will bend and the legs will spread.
You claim that you are using a Aion picture and to say trust you on the fact that ESO character stand the same way. Well I say BS again because your second picture has nothing to do with ESO simple fact: All ESO character have a hunch in their stance which means they will automatic bend their knees and spread their legs apart to compensate for the hill incline. You are so wrong it is a shame you even put this crap up here expecting anyone to believe this. Even the picture you have above concerning the GW2 character is way off compared to ESO characters. Why? Because on any incline weather it be a slight or deep incline the knees will bend. I see neither picture showing this.
Plainly check out any picture online about ESO and you will see there are very few pictures that shows characters standing straight up most of the time they are in a bent position. Wow dude stop it with your lies.
Fall behind. Get dropped by groups, and rendered irrelevant to any of the competitive aspects of the game.
Be serious. That kind of argument might work on a single-player game, but it dies once the game goes multiplayer.
In GW2 most objects stick out past what you can see on screen so its easy to be floating beside the object in mid air. You can even merge with the walls so your feet are encased in stone. What was this about GW2 doing it right?
Maybe it's awful because you suck at it? I found it really useful and used it a lot.
Seconded.
If you think dodging is awful then maybe you need to go back and play something more of your speed since you can't simply handle ee,ss,aa,dd,ww lol. You may want to go and play Pac man that maybe your skill level lol
Your math is bad.
ESO has over a hundred skills to choose from.
That may be true but for us to correct your OP (and it is wrong on most points) we would have to break NDA.
I hope you get into beta so you can correct yourself.
Post a pic of you dodging in real life like the flash and then I will accept what you have to say.
Something tells me you would be tanking with your face.
Yeah and neither work.. You just look a knob head lol
I have 4 fully leveled characters in GW2 (All at least with Karma gear and 1 with Twilight, and it's a great game... but dodging really does work the same. Maybe it was a laggy stress test... maybe you forgot you had to have decent stamina left to dodge, maybe you didn't dodge 6 times your body height in length like you had Jackie Chan in your pocket.... I have no clue what you mean by like lead boots, I found it the exact same as far as responsiveness.
If you didn't mean responsiveness you need to specify what you are talking about because that's the only thing we can infer from your vague analogy.
I've played two weekends of beta. Everything i point out from those videos is confirmed by my own experience. The skill descrptions in the skill calculator also seem correct, although i obviously haven't verified every single one.
The facts of my OP are:
- The game does not tell you how much you've hit (or healed or drained or whatever) a mob for. (This seen in videos)
- Your weapons and skills DO have numerical values that have an impact on those hits (which you don't know the value of) - the specific skills referenced are taken verbatim from the skills calculators available online.
- If you want to prove fact 1 wrong, all you need to do is direct me to a video/screenshot of a the game actually showing combat numbers. No NDA breach required.
- If you want to prove that the skill calculators don't have the true skill descrptions... well... i guess you'd need to break NDA, but you can probably find some REAL skill descriptions in the review videos (this woudl be pretty farfetched though).
Combat is clearly on display in many videos. Surely you can find one that supports whatever point you're trying to make. I KNOW the skill calculators are correct with regards to the examples i'm using. At least they were. But if you think the site i'm referencing is wrong, find another skill-calculator site that has skills phrased differently.
Really? Name one major MMO in which players can't find out how much they hit a mob for.
Also, I'm not talking about damage meters or 3rd party software, I'm talking about "your sword attack hits goblin for 8 points of damage" - something that has been present in pretty much every MMO.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
I also now played 2 x weekend beta - and I like the game very much - IMO its 50% Skyrim and 50% MMO - time will tell if the PvP &/ RvR will push it more in the MMO direction (only made it to level 9 in the beta - had to try different char's)
Well on the topic.... lack of combat information is my single biggest annoyance with ESO - at first I also hated the fact that I did not get any EXP information - but I slowly convinced myself that was a good thing, as watching the exp bar, for me, can take away some of the joy of playing
But combat information is different - I made a new bow at level 8 - went from 16dmg to 22dmg (on the tool tip) - that is some 37,5% dmg increase (all other equal) - I then headed back to the wilderness to try my new bow out - couldn’t see much of a different - sure it wasn’t the same mobs as before - so hard to compare - but call me silly or not, i actually like heading back out with my newly crafted weapon, try it out - see those numbers get bigger - it's part of my joy of getting stronger / progression.
Fine it’s not default so you have to "turn it on" - so all the die-hard Skyrim fans can leave it off, and the die-hard MMO fans can turn it on - and the rest of us, can decided when or how much we want to see
This will by no means ruin my play experience - I already got my Imperial Edition - and know I am gona love it the first few month - hope it will have lasting power - time will tell
Best
Trivan
I don't think that's silly at all. Whether or not those numbers are directly on the screen or hidden in another pane that you can bring up, to me it's also such a huge part of having fun in a RPG. Omg, new bow, sneak attack now hits for 80 instead of 70!
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
Exactly, not using these "conveniences" you end up handicapping yourself. ESO has done a job of staying away from these cheap mechanics that many new MMOs abuse.
Now this is a post worth reading on the subject.
However. How do you tell what other people are doing when you are in groups ? I can't see their spec I can't see their numbers. I can see what they are doing during a fight but probably need to record that fight to be more certain what they did during the fight.
Also, off the top of my head (ie without thinking especially deeply about this) we know people are susceptible to confirmation bias (they notice certain outcomes more than others and then place a false probability of those outcomes occuring that doesn't reflect actual events but their perception of those events eg I think I am criting more often .because I pay more attention when i do crit than when i dont ).
Without stats players will be more subject to confirmation bias in groups - which isnt necessarily a bad thing becasue they may need to address other issues such as being more social and getting on with people - because they cant rely on pointing to consolodated damage meter type stats to persuade people they are a valuable team member.
I've actually never played WoW, I was already playing EQ2 and WoW was pretty much identical in terms of features. Since WoW had no original features of its own, i don't really believe in the term "WoW clone", although i do understand the term (and it applies as much to ESO, as it does to most AAA games launched in WoW's wake, regardless of tiny differences). So you're not wondering, my approximate Top 10 list would be:
Anarchy Online (had numbers, pre-WoW)
Star Wars Galaxies (had numbers, pre-WoW)
EVE Online (had numbers)
Shadowbane (had numbers, pre-WoW)
The Secret World (had numbers)
Lord of the Rings Online (had numbers)
Everquest 2 (had numbers, pre-WoW)
City of Heroes/Villains (had numbers, pre-WoW)
Age of Conan (had numbers)
Tabula Rasa (had numbers)
You're welcome to give me a list of YOUR top 10 MMOs and detail how many of them had no combat feedback available.
Also, you may want to look more into ESO. Some of the things you believe about the game are outright wrong. (Like lack of tab-targetting and auto-aim, both of which are in-game - both of which i think are a good thing imo, i'm just pointing it out).
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO