I don't know what to tell you. I did it. And not just me, there were numerous posts/guides about it. Was the reason i made a mage tobeginwith. I even sold SM plvl runs because it was the fastest way to lvl 30-40 which enabled a lot of classes to get their beloved lvl 40 talent(shadow form for priests for instance was a game changer)
I'd find proof of it but as we all know it isn't easy finding video evidence given youtube wasn't created till 2005 and didn't really make it big till 2006.
If Blizzard ever delivers on vanilla WoW coming back, i'm sure you'll see plenty of videos of it pop up. It was the single best way to grind for money, mages were the kings of it. Until blizzard nerfed target cap and blizzard at least but that didn't happen till after BC if i'm not mistaken.
If you didn't go to Scarlet Monastery until you were level 30, then you weren't soloing mobs 10 levels above you. The only mobs in the entire Scarlet Monastery that were level 40 or higher were the end bosses of the Cathedral wing. I don't recall if those particular bosses were immune to slowing effects, but most were.
Scarlet Monastery had several wings of different levels, and the mobs in the lowest level wing were around level 30. I could certainly believe that you soloed at least portions of Scarlet Monastery, but you were almost certainly fighting mobs about the same level as you or substantially below your level, not mobs 10 levels above you.
Note that one of the wings has a recommended level of 26-36. That's not a bunch of level 40 mobs. With the way that recommended levels were scaled to the highest level mobs in the instance, that likely means that the highest level mobs for that instance were in the low 30s.
Certainly, I could believe that WoW has a number of skills that would be very useful in situations where the skill of the player (as opposed to level and gear) are the difference between success and failure. WoW had that in Vanilla, too. The fundamental problem in Vanilla was that, at least for PVE, WoW was tuned to strongly discourage players from attempting anything where the skill of the player could be the difference between success and failure. Instead, you'd progress much faster if you assume that everyone is terrible at the game and choose to go do content where you'll win anyway.
Guild Wars 1 did a very good job of providing a wide variety of gadget skills. Hardly any skills in the game were pure damage skills. Rather, it was commonly, do damage plus this other effect, or damage plus that other effect, and so forth. And, of course, there were a lot of useful utility skills that didn't do damage directly.
Don't blame the size of the skillbar. Guild Wars 1 had only eight slots on your skillbar, but still did a much better job of encouraging relying on non-damage effects than WoW (at least in Vanilla) did with 50. Or at least it did before they added the "PVE-only" skills that were insanely overpowered to ensure that players who were terrible at the game could still easily beat everything. Such skills were unusable in PVP because they'd unbalance it horribly--and they unbalanced PVE horribly for exactly the same reasons.
I feel like we may be conflating issues here, though, with regards to players not trying anything challenging. Tempting players into challenges is all about making sure the reward is worth the risk. Without the reward being sufficient, players won't take the risk no matter the combat system.
Devs have gotten that wrong for a long time now. Convenience is the name of the game, and if the players can't farm mobs with one finger, it's time to nerf the content. Opting for more challenging content largely yields no rewards worth mentioning prior to end-game. In extreme cases, there's not even quality options for more challenging content until end-game. For the leveling game, the bootleg method is still far and away the most popular: artificially pursuing content ahead of your level. That's an issue in and of itself.
I do blame the skillbar, because even if GW1 had a great system, WoW can (and I would submit today, likely does) easily surpass this due to the fact that they can add more tools to the player's toolbelt. The ceiling is objectively higher there for tactical options, even if it isn't always utilized effectively.
In Vanilla WoW, if you were good, you could kill mobs three levels above you. If you were terrible, you could skill kill mobs three levels below you. And killing the higher level mobs did offer greater rewards on a per-mob basis. The problem was that in the time it took to kill one mob three levels above you and then heal after the battle, you might be able to kill five mobs three levels below you.
Kritika demonstrated that you can incentivize trying higher skill levels by offering much larger rewards for it. You can breeze through everything on easy. Or you can get 4x experience on normal, 6x on hard, or 8x on insane. That makes it so that, if you're good enough to beat it ("hard" isn't very hard), playing on hard probably gives you better rewards on a per time unit than playing on easy.
You can do things like that if you go heavy on instancing, so that you can spin up an instance of whatever difficulty is requested on demand. That's harder to do in an open-world game.
In Vanilla WoW if you were good you could kill mobs 10 lvls higher than you. I remember going into Scarlet Monastery and soloing the trash mob in the dungeons on my frost mage with blizzard kiting.
Your memory is faulty. It's possible that you soloed the mobs in Scarlet Monastery, but not while they were ten levels above you.
Once in Vanilla WoW, I decided to see how far above my level of mobs I could kill. I used my paladin with excellent gear for its level and a heavy focus on healing and high spirit to ensure that I could survive for a long period of time. I cherry-picked mobs that were pretty weak for their level, and in an isolated place where I could fight just one at a time in peace.
I successfully killed a mob seven levels above my own. It took about seven minutes to wear it down. I tried killing a mob eight levels above my own. I think that I could have killed it, but if you pro-rate my damage rate, it would have taken around seventeen minutes. Several minutes into the battle, a much higher level player came by and quickly killed it, probably thinking that he was helping me out by making it so that I couldn't truly solo it.
The only way I could kill mobs that far above my level was with a strong healer with considerable mana regeneration to ensure that I could survive indefinitely. A mage wouldn't be able to survive several minutes of the mob pounding away with the greatly increased damage that mobs well above your level did. Nor would a mage be able to kite for long before running out of mana, especially with the much higher level mobs resisting a large fraction of your spells.
My memory was not faulty at all. You comparing a paladin to a frost mage for soloing ability is pretty laughable though. Frost mages had ice armor, blink, frost nova, blizzard(which not only dealt damage and slowed mobs, had a chance to freeze them with a talent point). You also had cone of cold, solid damage and yet again slowed mobs down. It was OP. Mages were the reason blizzard patched the game eventually and lowered the cap of mobs you could hit at one time.
It was as simple as gathering a bunch of mobs, frost novaing, blinking away and blizzard at max range and rinse and repeat till they get close, cone of cold and blink away again saving frost nova for emergencies. You only took max a hit or two once you mastered the kiting method.
It's amusing you could have done that with a limited hotbar of just 5 skills on it just like in any game that gets knocked for having a limited skill bar... your 5th skill wasn't even used - it was just your "oh shit" button.
On another note, Quiz' point about giving players OP'd abilities so that even shitty players could feel good about themselves while PVEing pretty well sums up the history of WOW's redesign through the years.
The one thing that came immediately to my mind is something that happened with Pallies during the last weeks of WOtLK just before the Cata launch. That's when they introduced Shield Throw for Protection Pallies. It was such a ridiculously OP'd bouncy AOE that I gave up playing in Ret spec and just did everything (except dungeons I wasn't tanking) using the Protection spec.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Quiz, you and Seph's post got me thinking about something else: do you guys think vanilla WoW would've benefitted from a shallower curve with regards to relative mob power? I.e., mobs 10 levels higher would only resist 80% of spells as opposed to, say 95% and, conversely, mobs equally lower would still resist 20% of spells as opposed to, say, 2%?
While I think that I would personally have enjoyed the game more with less dependence on level and gear, it would have undermined what the game was about.
In designing WoW, Blizzard basically set out to make sure that players couldn't get stuck. You spend time playing, you get stronger--even if you're awful at the game. Especially if you're awful at the game, as unskilled players pay good money, too. You don't lose experience or gear or whatever because you died that day or because the server crashed. (Vanilla WoW had the worst server stability of any game I've played this millennium.) No content will be hard enough that you get stuck, and even if you think you're stuck, a high level or stronger geared player can easily carry you through it. Quests will naturally take you from one area to the next so that you'll feel like you're making progress rather than grinding something stupid on a treadmill.
The sharp level curve was intended to make it feel like you were progressing faster. Before, this mob was really hard. You gain one level, and now it's not very hard. Another level and you don't even have to pay attention to kill it. One more level and you can take on two at a time and still win. That makes it feel like you're making progress and getting stronger really fast, more so than just gaining a level but it not seeming to make you much stronger. That was what WoW set out to do, and it was successful in bringing in a lot of players who hadn't previously played MMORPGs.
Again, good points. The natural follow up question is do you think that requirement for the facade (maybe not the right word, but failing to find another at the moment) of progress still stands today? Or could a shallow curve tab-target game do well in today's market?
It all depends on how good the game is. Going back to the era around when WoW launched, Guild Wars 1 did pretty well for itself as a tab-target game with minimal progression. I'm of the view that there's always room in the market for another great game, and never a need for another bad one.
It would be a mistake to think of it as a few headline features being all or even primarily what determines a game's success. If that were so, then we'd see knock-off games be far more successful. How good a game is depends more on the many thousands of small touches than on a few headline features.
Fair enough. I know there's been talk around here about a desire for MMORPGs with flatter power curves, and naturally flatter power curves for mobs would be part of that.
All other things being equal, I would prefer a lot of unique, quality games to a lot of similar, quality games.
My memory was not faulty at all. You comparing a paladin to a frost mage for soloing ability is pretty laughable though. Frost mages had ice armor, blink, frost nova, blizzard(which not only dealt damage and slowed mobs, had a chance to freeze them with a talent point). You also had cone of cold, solid damage and yet again slowed mobs down. It was OP. Mages were the reason blizzard patched the game eventually and lowered the cap of mobs you could hit at one time.
It was as simple as gathering a bunch of mobs, frost novaing, blinking away and blizzard at max range and rinse and repeat till they get close, cone of cold and blink away again saving frost nova for emergencies. You only took max a hit or two once you mastered the kiting method.
It's amusing you could have done that with a limited hotbar of just 5 skills on it just like in any game that gets knocked for having a limited skill bar... your 5th skill wasn't even used - it was just your "oh shit" button.
On another note, Quiz' point about giving players OP'd abilities so that even shitty players could feel good about themselves while PVEing pretty well sums up the history of WOW's redesign through the years.
The one thing that came immediately to my mind is something that happened with Pallies during the last weeks of WOtLK just before the Cata launch. That's when they introduced Shield Throw for Protection Pallies. It was such a ridiculously OP'd bouncy AOE that I gave up playing in Ret spec and just did everything (except dungeons I wasn't tanking) using the Protection spec.
True enough, vanilla WoW didn't do the best job of making use of its skillbars. That's one thing I have to give credit to Blizzard for through all the changes- more skills find more usefulness today than they did back then.
But Quiz's point, I would contend, sums up the evolution of MMORPGs in general. That really surpasses the tab vs. action argument. Giving the Uthgard server a try is a vivid reminder of just how far "player power" has come in general in MMORPGs.
Combat really doesn't have anything to do with the RPG part but it is of course a bad thing when it is such a large part of the game and it is so similar to most others. However, it wasn't better in 2005-2010 when almost every game borrowed Wows combat system instead.
I don't think there is anything wrong with action combat as such even if I think it needs to improve it's group mechanics. The real problem is that the games steal so much ideas and gameplay from eachother that most games from any period after 2004 feels just like any other game from the same era.
There are other fun ways to handle combat and more games should try to explore them instead of just doing what everyone else does. Mechanic wise there are very few games from the last 10 years that stands out from the rest and that is a bad thing.
But if a good game is action based, trinity based, turned based or use something entirely different matters little to me as long as it is fun. Sadly is the exact same system set in a slightly different world as I have been playing for years rarely that fun. It might be for new players to the genre but we don't get enough new players to warrant the number of similar games.
If we want a MMO that people bother to stay months or even years in, it needs to stand out from the rest. If 2-3 weeks is all they are going for then fine but I have a feeling the rather expensive development cost means people should stay longer then that.
I just watched that new game on Twitch..Lirik's channel and i saw a very good reason why i don't like action type and especially somersaults.Dude was standing right in front of a wall and did a somersault into the wall,it looked absolutely retarded. Often i see players somersaulting all over the place for no reason,it looks so stupid to me i can't even watch anymore.
Really tough for a game to put the ROLE back in since i have seen very few EVER do the ROLE part well enough.
First of all it has to MAKE SENSE and altaholic designs do NOT make sense.Being we are talking about MMO's we also need to see the ROLE played out in a group,instead what i see is mostly single player designs pretending to be groups,meaning players still act like they are alone even though in a group. There is almost NO player>player interaction from a PVE side of design,the usual player to player is in pvp form,so yeah there has been VERY few games ever get the RPG done right to bring it back.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I believe that it may work combining utility skills with action combat. Even utility skills with a smaller hotbar. GW1 is a good example for having only 8 skills but still there were classes like interrupt ranger.
As for utility skills: you could utilize a combo system to have only 2-3 buttons use damage skills, while the other 5-6 are utility skills. With combo system I mean pressing 1 changes slot 1-3 to skills A,B,C while pressing 2 to D,E,F. A mixture between GW2 and with Bless seems to do with its combat system. But allowing attack skills only on slot 1-3 and the combo slots.
Next is splitting them into combat skills and others. So you may have a hotbar where only non combat related skills can be placed, e.g. levitation, under water breathing, travelling buffs, floating light source, create minor food, enchant weapon, detect good/evil, holy/unholy aura and so on (Meridian for example had a lot of these)
I don't know what to tell you. I did it. And not just me, there were numerous posts/guides about it. Was the reason i made a mage tobeginwith. I even sold SM plvl runs because it was the fastest way to lvl 30-40 which enabled a lot of classes to get their beloved lvl 40 talent(shadow form for priests for instance was a game changer)
I'd find proof of it but as we all know it isn't easy finding video evidence given youtube wasn't created till 2005 and didn't really make it big till 2006.
If Blizzard ever delivers on vanilla WoW coming back, i'm sure you'll see plenty of videos of it pop up. It was the single best way to grind for money, mages were the kings of it. Until blizzard nerfed target cap and blizzard at least but that didn't happen till after BC if i'm not mistaken.
If you didn't go to Scarlet Monastery until you were level 30, then you weren't soloing mobs 10 levels above you. The only mobs in the entire Scarlet Monastery that were level 40 or higher were the end bosses of the Cathedral wing. I don't recall if those particular bosses were immune to slowing effects, but most were.
Scarlet Monastery had several wings of different levels, and the mobs in the lowest level wing were around level 30. I could certainly believe that you soloed at least portions of Scarlet Monastery, but you were almost certainly fighting mobs about the same level as you or substantially below your level, not mobs 10 levels above you.
Note that one of the wings has a recommended level of 26-36. That's not a bunch of level 40 mobs. With the way that recommended levels were scaled to the highest level mobs in the instance, that likely means that the highest level mobs for that instance were in the low 30s.
The link says it right there. Armory and Cathedral with Cathedral going up to 45. It doesn't matter if there wasn't a ton of lvl 40 mobs, there were some that went up to 40 and no they weren't only bosses.
Yes, bring rpg back to mmorpg combat, but expand it to be more realistic. Something like the warhammer fantasy pen&paper combat where everyone doesn't have wizard/mage-like skills.
Talking about games where thousands of players exist simultaneously in a single instance and mechanics related to such games.
Resists for mobs in WoW higher than you were quite bad I too am sceptical about that story too. Big embellishment going on. Pity that so many of us played WoW so we know bs when we see it.
I too am a bit puzzled about using the term RPG, as you seem to be just fed up with the effect action combat has had on MMOs. I just see it as part of the "easymode lets base everything on what soloplayer games are like" approach to MMO design.
I am a fan of alternative to 'tab and trinity' because I think every genre benefits from diverse gameplay. But its implementation has generally given us less than what we had before.
There is also a fundamental question that we need to answer about combat in MMOs, do we want it to involve any sort of skill? Or is it just a system mechanic to achieve quests and so on. From the PvP angle without some skill being needed a combat system would seem rather lame, but from the point of PvE skill is not so important. The problem with having too much skill in MMO combat is that we would be turning MMOs into some sort of MOBA or shooter, which I doubt players want.
My biggest "No" to action combat is that it almost completely negates the importance of character advancement. I don't mind tab-target combat at all, if it is choreographed nicely.
I've come to the realization today that action combat MMORPGs have run their course for me. Active dodge/block aside, I'm ready to get back to the RPG part of the MMORPG. Action combat seemed like an objective improvement in the beginning, but it's become limiting in terms of the RPG aspect of MMORPGs. With action combat, we've seen a decline in skills being used that aren't "attacks"; control mechanics are largely an afterthought, tacked onto damage-dealing attacks, or almost completely gutted due to the prevalence of AoE in these action combat games. Similarly, debuffing/buffing has been hit hard, being almost completely rolled into attacks of some sort in many action combat MMORPGs.
This has contributed to the homogenization of classes. Now, everyone gets to be DPS, because DPS is so ubiquitous in action combat MMORPGs (due to the aforementioned almost complete focus on damaging attacks and very little to no focus on alternative combat skill usage) that not being able to DPS efficiently means not realistically playable.
I think this issue you are describing has more to do with how the game treats "roles" rather than with the combat system. For example GW2 plays out very differently than something like Tera or ESO, because the latter two games are based firmly around having healers, tanks, dps, (often with the tank also doubling up as cc/debuffer), while GW2 doesn't have such strongly defined roles.
The problem I have with games like WoW is not the tab targeting (GW2 is also basically tab targeting), its that the combat is just boring. DDO on the other hand is an another older game that offered quite a lot of tactical options and felt much more "RPG" than WoW etc, and that was a hybrid tab/action combat game.
But sometimes I wonder why there is so broad a gap in the way we experience games; for example, I have played ESO fairly steadily for the last year or so and have only played characters who heal, tank, or disrupt. Sure they can deal some damage as well, but nothing like a straight dd can. That's why when I read passages like the one you wrote above I just think "??? I don't get it, are we even playing the same game?"
How do you guys feel? Do you think action combat has been a strict gain for the genre, or do you feel there's been a detrimental trade-off that's fundamentally affected the entire philosophy behind MMORPG combat systems to achieve "action combat"?
While action can be fun, I also feel it stripped the "RPG" from games, MMOs and single player. It's no longer my character swinging the sword or dodging to the side, it is me the player. I enjoy auto-atack, myself
As for action combat's effect on the genre, it depends on what you look at. The numbers show a definite positive, if that's what you want. For many (millions), action combat improved the gameplay, making it more interesting and engaging.
But what it did do was make socializing fall near to the edge of oblivion. Yes, one can still socialize if they want, but not during combat, unless they use a voice chat program of some kind. Your fingers are just too busy to type in a chatbox.
I will end that when I played EQ, I was floored when I first saw a Cleric, in the middle of a fight, sit and meditate to gain their mana back. It still throws me for a loop when I see it, but then I'm reminded that, yes, this is RPG combat to me
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
My biggest "No" to action combat is that it almost completely negates the importance of character advancement. I don't mind tab-target combat at all, if it is choreographed nicely.
Action combat isn't the cause of that, it's the players demanding to feel awesome at level 1 onward instead of their character growing via "level up". That DA2 BioWare dev was 100% accurate when he said "People want to be able to press a button and have something awesome happen" yet he got laugh by the web for it.
I do agree with the OP, well not the RPG part because everyone seems to have their own definition of RPG these days and mine isn't tied to how combat works, but I do agree that action combat as currently implemented in MMOs isn't that interesting in term of build perspective or tactics. Although, I personally always put the blame on PvP and player's demand for fairness resulting in abilities homogenization and the removal of long hard CC and buffs because they were "unfair" and the devs not bothering to split the PvP and PvE skills.
We need turn based combat in MMOs. Then I can finally drive and PVP at the same time.
Isn't driving PvP?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
It all boils down to tastes. I prefer slower paced games because I'm a slower paced thinker with slower paced reactions. My primary focus is to play games to relax and divert myself from reality. Faster paced gaming to me is stressful, hectic and unforgiving in regards to mistakes and turning things around after you make them. I don't view combat mechanics as outdated or new and fresh, they are either compatible or incompatible to my preferences. In reality, tab target is no more outdated than action combat, both have existed since the advent of gaming.
All any of us care about is whether the industry is going to cater to us on a regular basis or not and the current trend is against gamers like me. I'm not interested in playing old games that I've already invested years into, I want a nice influx of new games to look forward to and that simply is not the case currently for people like me. Pantheon is one game out of dozens that have released recently or will in the near future that I can look forward to and I find that saddening.
I don't think being a RPG depends on the type of combat. RPG is playing the role of a character.
Even back at the time of the "old first big three", UO, AC1 and EQ, you had AC1 with more action oriented combat (you could dodge projectiles and spells) while EQ had heavily level/gear/stats dependent combat.
The title was more tongue in cheek than anything else. But, for example, in most action combat games, you don't miss if your reticle is on target. That is less RPG, more action.
An example of where devs leaned on the action portion to forego adding any RPG systems is active dodge. Active dodge can be used in both tab-target games and action games, and they have far greater potential than what they're being used for now, yet we don't much see them being used uniquely at all. One idea is to have dodge increase a defense during the roll, simulating a character that's harder to hit while dodging. I.e., dodge rolls give you a +40 reflex defense for the duration of the roll. Talents/specs would be able to add additional effects or increase the defensive boon for the roll. This can add some player skill without completely removing RPG systems from that part of combat entirely.
Yet, we don't see this being used even in the action combat games already using dodge to give it extra depth or RPG function; we see devs instead opting for invulnerable frame systems ala Dark Souls. Dodge rolls result in "invulnerability" for the duration of the dodge. That system is pretty standard and, I daresay, fairly lazy, as invulnerable frame dodge systems are pretty common and straightforward systems. Both GW2 and ESO use that system, and neither make it any more interesting than "you can't hit me while I'm dodging!" ESO deviates slightly in that channeled attack aren't dodgeable, but that's pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of the system.
I don't think being a RPG depends on the type of combat. RPG is playing the role of a character.
Even back at the time of the "old first big three", UO, AC1 and EQ, you had AC1 with more action oriented combat (you could dodge projectiles and spells) while EQ had heavily level/gear/stats dependent combat.
The title was more tongue in cheek than anything else. But, for example, in most action combat games, you don't miss if your reticle is on target. That is less RPG, more action.
An example of where devs leaned on the action portion to forego adding any RPG systems is active dodge. Active dodge can be used in both tab-target games and action games, and they have far greater potential than what they're being used for now, yet we don't much see them being used uniquely at all. One idea is to have dodge increase a defense during the roll, simulating a character that's harder to hit while dodging. I.e., dodge rolls give you a +40 reflex defense for the duration of the roll. Talents/specs would be able to add additional effects or increase the defensive boon for the roll. This can add some player skill without completely removing RPG systems from that part of combat entirely.
Yet, we don't see this being used even in the action combat games already using dodge to give it extra depth or RPG function; we see devs instead opting for invulnerable frame systems ala Dark Souls. Dodge rolls result in "invulnerability" for the duration of the dodge. That system is pretty standard and, I daresay, fairly lazy, as invulnerable frame dodge systems are pretty common and straightforward systems. Both GW2 and ESO use that system, and neither make it any more interesting than "you can't hit me while I'm dodging!" ESO deviates slightly in that channeled attack aren't dodgeable, but that's pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of the system.
Actually that's a myth. There is no such thing as 100% invulnerability dodge window in ESO. You can test this very easily: just aggro a pack of mobs and dodge roll constantly as long as your stamina allows - you will get hit.
Additionally there are different types of dodge besides the basic roll dodge: there are abilities that give you dodge chances without dodging (e.g. shuffle) as well as many gear sets and CP passives that modify the basic active roll dodge by giving you extra things like +speed or + stamina or even some that affect the mobs near you when you dodge. The system is a lot deeper than you think
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I don't think being a RPG depends on the type of combat. RPG is playing the role of a character.
Even back at the time of the "old first big three", UO, AC1 and EQ, you had AC1 with more action oriented combat (you could dodge projectiles and spells) while EQ had heavily level/gear/stats dependent combat.
The title was more tongue in cheek than anything else. But, for example, in most action combat games, you don't miss if your reticle is on target. That is less RPG, more action.
An example of where devs leaned on the action portion to forego adding any RPG systems is active dodge. Active dodge can be used in both tab-target games and action games, and they have far greater potential than what they're being used for now, yet we don't much see them being used uniquely at all. One idea is to have dodge increase a defense during the roll, simulating a character that's harder to hit while dodging. I.e., dodge rolls give you a +40 reflex defense for the duration of the roll. Talents/specs would be able to add additional effects or increase the defensive boon for the roll. This can add some player skill without completely removing RPG systems from that part of combat entirely.
Yet, we don't see this being used even in the action combat games already using dodge to give it extra depth or RPG function; we see devs instead opting for invulnerable frame systems ala Dark Souls. Dodge rolls result in "invulnerability" for the duration of the dodge. That system is pretty standard and, I daresay, fairly lazy, as invulnerable frame dodge systems are pretty common and straightforward systems. Both GW2 and ESO use that system, and neither make it any more interesting than "you can't hit me while I'm dodging!" ESO deviates slightly in that channeled attack aren't dodgeable, but that's pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of the system.
Actually that's a myth. There is no such thing as 100% invulnerability dodge window in ESO. You can test this very easily: just aggro a pack of mobs and dodge roll constantly as long as your stamina allows - you will get hit.
Additionally there are different types of dodge besides the basic roll dodge: there are abilities that give you dodge chances without dodging (e.g. shuffle) as well as many gear sets and CP passives that modify the basic active roll dodge by giving you extra things like +speed or + stamina or even some that affect the mobs near you when you dodge. The system is a lot deeper than you think
If that's the case, someone should alert the game wiki/sites, as Elder Scrolls wiki doesn't mention anything about attacks getting through for ESO, nor does ESO Academy. In fact, ESO Academy very clearly states you can't be attacked while dodge rolling.
My personal experience has been that dodge rolling does just that. You sure you aren't just conflating a hit that lands before the animation ends with "no invulnerable window"? Most games don't have the invuln frames last the entire dodge animation.
EDIT- Nor does the fextralife wiki mention anything about attacks coming through dodge like you describe. They do mention you have to time it right, which only means the invuln frames are limited, not that there's still a chance for normal attacks to cut through the dodge roll. Also, are you sure you aren't being hit by channeled attacks? Those aren't prevented by dodge roll invuln windows.
I don't think being a RPG depends on the type of combat. RPG is playing the role of a character.
Even back at the time of the "old first big three", UO, AC1 and EQ, you had AC1 with more action oriented combat (you could dodge projectiles and spells) while EQ had heavily level/gear/stats dependent combat.
The title was more tongue in cheek than anything else. But, for example, in most action combat games, you don't miss if your reticle is on target. That is less RPG, more action.
An example of where devs leaned on the action portion to forego adding any RPG systems is active dodge. Active dodge can be used in both tab-target games and action games, and they have far greater potential than what they're being used for now, yet we don't much see them being used uniquely at all. One idea is to have dodge increase a defense during the roll, simulating a character that's harder to hit while dodging. I.e., dodge rolls give you a +40 reflex defense for the duration of the roll. Talents/specs would be able to add additional effects or increase the defensive boon for the roll. This can add some player skill without completely removing RPG systems from that part of combat entirely.
Yet, we don't see this being used even in the action combat games already using dodge to give it extra depth or RPG function; we see devs instead opting for invulnerable frame systems ala Dark Souls. Dodge rolls result in "invulnerability" for the duration of the dodge. That system is pretty standard and, I daresay, fairly lazy, as invulnerable frame dodge systems are pretty common and straightforward systems. Both GW2 and ESO use that system, and neither make it any more interesting than "you can't hit me while I'm dodging!" ESO deviates slightly in that channeled attack aren't dodgeable, but that's pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of the system.
Actually that's a myth. There is no such thing as 100% invulnerability dodge window in ESO. You can test this very easily: just aggro a pack of mobs and dodge roll constantly as long as your stamina allows - you will get hit.
Additionally there are different types of dodge besides the basic roll dodge: there are abilities that give you dodge chances without dodging (e.g. shuffle) as well as many gear sets and CP passives that modify the basic active roll dodge by giving you extra things like +speed or + stamina or even some that affect the mobs near you when you dodge. The system is a lot deeper than you think
If that's the case, someone should alert the game wiki/sites, as Elder Scrolls wiki doesn't mention anything about attacks getting through for ESO, nor does ESO Academy. In fact, ESO Academy very clearly states you can't be attacked while dodge rolling.
My personal experience has been that dodge rolling does just that. You sure you aren't just conflating a hit that lands before the animation ends with "no invulnerable window"? Most games don't have the invuln frames last the entire dodge animation.
EDIT- Nor does the fextralife wiki mention anything about attacks coming through dodge like you describe. They do mention you have to time it right, which only means the invuln frames are limited, not that there's still a chance for normal attacks to cut through the dodge roll. Also, are you sure you aren't being hit by channeled attacks? Those aren't prevented by dodge roll invuln windows.
It's much more than just channeled it's also any ground AOE effects of which there are many, as well as several damage abilities (being able to dodge out of the Warden's Dive was just added with Summerset - a nerf PVP wardens are still whining about ) As a matter of fact about the only thing it dodges reliably is light and heavy attacks but even that is not 100%.
From the 4.00 patch notes on the PTS:
Adjusted the ability to dodge various abilities and item set procs:
The following can now be dodged:
Death Stroke
Summon Shade and its morphs (only the pet’s attacks)
Maw of the Infernal (only the pet’s melee attacks)
The following now cannot be dodged:
Arrow Spray and morphs
Overload and morphs (Heavy Attack only)
Noxious Breath
Puncturing Strikes and morphs (snare only)
Razor Caltrops
Eternal Hunt
Defiler
Hand of Mephala
Kra’gh
Poisonous Serpent
Roar of Alkosh
Sellistrix
Sheer Venom
Spawn of Mephala
Stormfist
Thurvokun
Tremorscale
Twin Sisters
Widowmaker
Like I said, you can test it easily by aggroing a pack and roll dodging constantly- some hits will get through.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Comments
Scarlet Monastery had several wings of different levels, and the mobs in the lowest level wing were around level 30. I could certainly believe that you soloed at least portions of Scarlet Monastery, but you were almost certainly fighting mobs about the same level as you or substantially below your level, not mobs 10 levels above you.
For reference, here's the wiki page:
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Scarlet_Monastery_(original)
Note that one of the wings has a recommended level of 26-36. That's not a bunch of level 40 mobs. With the way that recommended levels were scaled to the highest level mobs in the instance, that likely means that the highest level mobs for that instance were in the low 30s.
On another note, Quiz' point about giving players OP'd abilities so that even shitty players could feel good about themselves while PVEing pretty well sums up the history of WOW's redesign through the years.
The one thing that came immediately to my mind is something that happened with Pallies during the last weeks of WOtLK just before the Cata launch. That's when they introduced Shield Throw for Protection Pallies. It was such a ridiculously OP'd bouncy AOE that I gave up playing in Ret spec and just did everything (except dungeons I wasn't tanking) using the Protection spec.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
All other things being equal, I would prefer a lot of unique, quality games to a lot of similar, quality games.
But Quiz's point, I would contend, sums up the evolution of MMORPGs in general. That really surpasses the tab vs. action argument. Giving the Uthgard server a try is a vivid reminder of just how far "player power" has come in general in MMORPGs.
I don't think there is anything wrong with action combat as such even if I think it needs to improve it's group mechanics. The real problem is that the games steal so much ideas and gameplay from eachother that most games from any period after 2004 feels just like any other game from the same era.
There are other fun ways to handle combat and more games should try to explore them instead of just doing what everyone else does. Mechanic wise there are very few games from the last 10 years that stands out from the rest and that is a bad thing.
But if a good game is action based, trinity based, turned based or use something entirely different matters little to me as long as it is fun. Sadly is the exact same system set in a slightly different world as I have been playing for years rarely that fun. It might be for new players to the genre but we don't get enough new players to warrant the number of similar games.
If we want a MMO that people bother to stay months or even years in, it needs to stand out from the rest. If 2-3 weeks is all they are going for then fine but I have a feeling the rather expensive development cost means people should stay longer then that.
Often i see players somersaulting all over the place for no reason,it looks so stupid to me i can't even watch anymore.
Really tough for a game to put the ROLE back in since i have seen very few EVER do the ROLE part well enough.
First of all it has to MAKE SENSE and altaholic designs do NOT make sense.Being we are talking about MMO's we also need to see the ROLE played out in a group,instead what i see is mostly single player designs pretending to be groups,meaning players still act like they are alone even though in a group.
There is almost NO player>player interaction from a PVE side of design,the usual player to player is in pvp form,so yeah there has been VERY few games ever get the RPG done right to bring it back.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
GW1 is a good example for having only 8 skills but still there were classes like interrupt ranger.
As for utility skills: you could utilize a combo system to have only 2-3 buttons use damage skills, while the other 5-6 are utility skills.
With combo system I mean pressing 1 changes slot 1-3 to skills A,B,C while pressing 2 to D,E,F.
A mixture between GW2 and with Bless seems to do with its combat system. But allowing attack skills only on slot 1-3 and the combo slots.
Next is splitting them into combat skills and others.
So you may have a hotbar where only non combat related skills can be placed, e.g. levitation, under water breathing, travelling buffs, floating light source, create minor food, enchant weapon, detect good/evil, holy/unholy aura and so on (Meridian for example had a lot of these)
1997 Meridian 59 'til 2019 ESO
Waiting for Camelot Unchained & Pantheon
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
But MadFrenchie that's what I thought these forums were all about!!??
I am a fan of alternative to 'tab and trinity' because I think every genre benefits from diverse gameplay. But its implementation has generally given us less than what we had before.
There is also a fundamental question that we need to answer about combat in MMOs, do we want it to involve any sort of skill? Or is it just a system mechanic to achieve quests and so on. From the PvP angle without some skill being needed a combat system would seem rather lame, but from the point of PvE skill is not so important. The problem with having too much skill in MMO combat is that we would be turning MMOs into some sort of MOBA or shooter, which I doubt players want.
I think this issue you are describing has more to do with how the game treats "roles" rather than with the combat system. For example GW2 plays out very differently than something like Tera or ESO, because the latter two games are based firmly around having healers, tanks, dps, (often with the tank also doubling up as cc/debuffer), while GW2 doesn't have such strongly defined roles.
The problem I have with games like WoW is not the tab targeting (GW2 is also basically tab targeting), its that the combat is just boring. DDO on the other hand is an another older game that offered quite a lot of tactical options and felt much more "RPG" than WoW etc, and that was a hybrid tab/action combat game.
But sometimes I wonder why there is so broad a gap in the way we experience games; for example, I have played ESO fairly steadily for the last year or so and have only played characters who heal, tank, or disrupt. Sure they can deal some damage as well, but nothing like a straight dd can. That's why when I read passages like the one you wrote above I just think "??? I don't get it, are we even playing the same game?"
As for action combat's effect on the genre, it depends on what you look at. The numbers show a definite positive, if that's what you want. For many (millions), action combat improved the gameplay, making it more interesting and engaging.
But what it did do was make socializing fall near to the edge of oblivion. Yes, one can still socialize if they want, but not during combat, unless they use a voice chat program of some kind. Your fingers are just too busy to type in a chatbox.
I will end that when I played EQ, I was floored when I first saw a Cleric, in the middle of a fight, sit and meditate to gain their mana back. It still throws me for a loop when I see it, but then I'm reminded that, yes, this is RPG combat to me
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I do agree with the OP, well not the RPG part because everyone seems to have their own definition of RPG these days and mine isn't tied to how combat works, but I do agree that action combat as currently implemented in MMOs isn't that interesting in term of build perspective or tactics. Although, I personally always put the blame on PvP and player's demand for fairness resulting in abilities homogenization and the removal of long hard CC and buffs because they were "unfair" and the devs not bothering to split the PvP and PvE skills.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
All any of us care about is whether the industry is going to cater to us on a regular basis or not and the current trend is against gamers like me. I'm not interested in playing old games that I've already invested years into, I want a nice influx of new games to look forward to and that simply is not the case currently for people like me. Pantheon is one game out of dozens that have released recently or will in the near future that I can look forward to and I find that saddening.
An example of where devs leaned on the action portion to forego adding any RPG systems is active dodge. Active dodge can be used in both tab-target games and action games, and they have far greater potential than what they're being used for now, yet we don't much see them being used uniquely at all. One idea is to have dodge increase a defense during the roll, simulating a character that's harder to hit while dodging. I.e., dodge rolls give you a +40 reflex defense for the duration of the roll. Talents/specs would be able to add additional effects or increase the defensive boon for the roll. This can add some player skill without completely removing RPG systems from that part of combat entirely.
Yet, we don't see this being used even in the action combat games already using dodge to give it extra depth or RPG function; we see devs instead opting for invulnerable frame systems ala Dark Souls. Dodge rolls result in "invulnerability" for the duration of the dodge. That system is pretty standard and, I daresay, fairly lazy, as invulnerable frame dodge systems are pretty common and straightforward systems. Both GW2 and ESO use that system, and neither make it any more interesting than "you can't hit me while I'm dodging!" ESO deviates slightly in that channeled attack aren't dodgeable, but that's pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of the system.
Additionally there are different types of dodge besides the basic roll dodge: there are abilities that give you dodge chances without dodging (e.g. shuffle) as well as many gear sets and CP passives that modify the basic active roll dodge by giving you extra things like +speed or + stamina or even some that affect the mobs near you when you dodge. The system is a lot deeper than you think
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
My personal experience has been that dodge rolling does just that. You sure you aren't just conflating a hit that lands before the animation ends with "no invulnerable window"? Most games don't have the invuln frames last the entire dodge animation.
EDIT- Nor does the fextralife wiki mention anything about attacks coming through dodge like you describe. They do mention you have to time it right, which only means the invuln frames are limited, not that there's still a chance for normal attacks to cut through the dodge roll. Also, are you sure you aren't being hit by channeled attacks? Those aren't prevented by dodge roll invuln windows.
From the 4.00 patch notes on the PTS:
Like I said, you can test it easily by aggroing a pack and roll dodging constantly- some hits will get through.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED