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Fluidity of Control
tenthring
Member Posts: 173
I currently play wow (well, down to 5 or less hours week at this point), and I'm dissatisfied. As a PvPer, WoW blows. I've tried other PvP MMOs, notably guild wars. In theory I should love guild wars. No leveling, straight to the action, changing skills and strategies in-between fights. Unfortunetely, I don't like the way guild wars FEELS when I play it. I'm standing still for my spells, I'm immobile. When I do move it feels very bulky. Melee combat seems like your almost locked into another player. There is no fluidity of control.
By contrast, wow moves fast. Kiting a rogue on my mage is fun. Movement feels fact and natural. The game FEELS good.
Looking at WAR, it seems to have all the structure of an MMO that I want, but will it have the FEEL I want? Will it be fluid?
By contrast, wow moves fast. Kiting a rogue on my mage is fun. Movement feels fact and natural. The game FEELS good.
Looking at WAR, it seems to have all the structure of an MMO that I want, but will it have the FEEL I want? Will it be fluid?
Comments
Good Luck
If you can move while you cast its not a "natural" or authentic mmorpg.
Bunnyhopping , circle straife, jump spin attack,
those are not things I want in my mmo and dont want in war.
I have never played a game with worse pvp mechanics than wow, (for my tastes)
watching any pvp video with a rogue in it makes you dizzzy beyond compare. Most pvp mage videos involve not a single spell used which has a casting time and if a spell with a casting time is used, its sheep and scorch which are 1.5 sec cast spells. I dont like playing crouching tiger hidden dragon, I want to see a video game.
but then again , thats just my tastes. War felt ok to me, but the biggest parts of the combat system are still being debated by the devs. Those are things like.... allow people to straife while in combat or make you auto miss like in daoc. Allow bunny hopping while attacking? Use of stick and face commands? can you cast a spell while getting hit? Can you shoot a ranged weapon while getting hit?how about a spell hit?
The problem with Guild Wars might simply be the game engine which gives the game the clunky feeling of movement. Your character is stuck on paths and cannot jump, that makes the gameplay feel very constricted.
PvP in WoW promotes one central tactic - constant movement. If you stop moving, you are dead. Several very important game mechnics are the cause of this:
I never thought about it, but outthislife has a point, WoW is very reminiscent of FPS-style, constant movement action.
From what we know about WAR's game mechanics, it will probably not have the same feeling of WoW. WAR will have Collision Detection and it will not have stealth. Does that mean WAR's PvP combat will not be fun? Not necessarily, but it clearly is not going to have the same kind of leaping action we see in WoW. The early PvP videos confirm that.
I don't mind PvP combat where I can position myself and have time for tactics instead of jumping around and spamming one or two attacks. City of Heroes/Villains had a style of PvP that did not require constant movement (even though they had stealthers) but that did not mean it was not fun, it was just different from WoW. I think the same will happen with WAR, it will be different and still be fun. But FPS-style action? We'll have to see but it doesn't seem like it at the moment.
The example given above, a mage and a rogue in WoW. Most people who have played WoW know that a mage is referred to as a "glass cannon" because of the fact they do good damage and die quick. This concept is not new to the MMO community, but the fact that the WoW mage can cast spells instantly to help himself survive is. Frost Nova for example, gives the mage a buffer from someone who is trying to hit him through melee. The fact this spell can be casted instantly means the mage can be going to safety and in the process help himself survive better, as opposed to other games where the mage dies once he enters melee, and lacks a way out of it.
As someone who has played several MMO's, I am personally hoping they do less in line with DAOC style of fighting. To be fair, I didn't make it far into DAOC, but the reason for this was due to the fighting mechanics. I picked a caster character, and yet the ability to cast spells seemed impossible to do while getting struck. I do agree this makes the game more realistic, but also highly annoying for someone who has to cast spells, considering there was no way to keep out of melee range. In WoW, there are many abilities which have been added in order to add depth to the fighting, and added survivability. Even in Everquest, there were spells in place to help the caster stay alive, and the spells you had to stand in place for were quick casting without massive fails.
Compared to the other games I've played, I would consider Everquest to be higher in ranking than DAOC for playing style. Also in turn, WoW would rank higher than Everquest.
Everquest - 65 Beastmaster, 65 Monk, 60 Mage, 60 Paladin
WoW - 70 Hunter, 70 Warrior, 70 Paladin, 70 Mage
DAOC - 5 (caster), 4 (caster) <--don't remember the classes
PvP in WoW promotes one central tactic - constant movement. If you stop moving, you are dead. Several very important game mechnics are the cause of this:
I never thought about it, but outthislife has a point, WoW is very reminiscent of FPS-style, constant movement action.
From what we know about WAR's game mechanics, it will probably not have the same feeling of WoW. WAR will have Collision Detection and it will not have stealth. Does that mean WAR's PvP combat will not be fun? Not necessarily, but it clearly is not going to have the same kind of leaping action we see in WoW. The early PvP videos confirm that.
I don't mind PvP combat where I can position myself and have time for tactics instead of jumping around and spamming one or two attacks. City of Heroes/Villains had a style of PvP that did not require constant movement (even though they had stealthers) but that did not mean it was not fun, it was just different from WoW. I think the same will happen with WAR, it will be different and still be fun. But FPS-style action? We'll have to see but it doesn't seem like it at the moment.
I'm actually a big fan of collision detection. I think it gives tanks a roll in PvP. It makes terrain more important. It also makes close range melee combat less of a "dance" (see WoW rogue). Just having collision detection, though, doesn't mean you can't have a lot of movement. In fact I would say movement is essential. Standing still bashing eachother feels too much like a contest of who gets bigger numbers. Being able to manuever around tanks and get at casters should be a big part of the game. Right now if your a warrior you just charge straight past the front line and go for some squishy in the back, no one can stop you. That's why arena feels like nothing more then an assist train fest on some clothy.
I agree stealth is lame, good riddance.
PvP in WoW promotes one central tactic - constant movement. If you stop moving, you are dead. Several very important game mechnics are the cause of this:
I never thought about it, but outthislife has a point, WoW is very reminiscent of FPS-style, constant movement action.
From what we know about WAR's game mechanics, it will probably not have the same feeling of WoW. WAR will have Collision Detection and it will not have stealth. Does that mean WAR's PvP combat will not be fun? Not necessarily, but it clearly is not going to have the same kind of leaping action we see in WoW. The early PvP videos confirm that.
I don't mind PvP combat where I can position myself and have time for tactics instead of jumping around and spamming one or two attacks. City of Heroes/Villains had a style of PvP that did not require constant movement (even though they had stealthers) but that did not mean it was not fun, it was just different from WoW. I think the same will happen with WAR, it will be different and still be fun. But FPS-style action? We'll have to see but it doesn't seem like it at the moment.
I'm actually a big fan of collision detection. I think it gives tanks a roll in PvP. It makes terrain more important. It also makes close range melee combat less of a "dance" (see WoW rogue). Just having collision detection, though, doesn't mean you can't have a lot of movement. In fact I would say movement is essential. Standing still bashing eachother feels too much like a contest of who gets bigger numbers. Being able to manuever around tanks and get at casters should be a big part of the game. Right now if your a warrior you just charge straight past the front line and go for some squishy in the back, no one can stop you. That's why arena feels like nothing more then an assist train fest on some clothy.
I agree stealth is lame, good riddance.
But bunnyhops and running around in circles is just plain stupid and metagaming as far as I am concerned. If you want to hop around, you should be missing on your swings and getting hit everytime someone attacks you.
Which required you to think more and use actual tactics
A) Your playing a wizard. You see a snarling 8ft tall ogre running at you with a 2handed Axe. You stand there and hop around in circles using little spells on him while he is hitting you going blow for blow until he is dead
Personally, you're highly biased, so to proposed a question in which you will only accept the 1 answer you see fit, why bother asking the question?
To repeat:
"You're playing a wizard. You see a snarling 8ft tall ogre running at you with a 2handed Axe."
Immobolize from range, then blast the hell out of him before he ever gets close.
Because in 95% of the MMORPG's I have played you cant render a charachter immobile and also slay them. In UO i had to stay away from tanks, in daoc I was able to root them "before" they got to me or root them and have fun running away for the next 60 sec until i could root them again. I like the tactical balance between magic melee and ranged, so guess that makes me biased, this is why its just my opinion.
I am biased against mages being able to become involved in melee ranged combat with tanks and survive? I guess I am.
Im also biased that healers should have the best healing
Tanks shouldnt shoot better than ranged
hybrids shouldnt do primary jobs better than a primary
and role playing games where none of the charachters have "roles"
call me old fashioned.
Where I was aiming the comment was more towards this:
You dislike WoW's way of making each character more deadly and at the same time more survivable. The way I see it, the game has allowed every class to beat every other class in some way if they can find it out. Thanks to some of the instant casts, casters have a buffer against melee. I'm not saying instant casts are the way to make the game more even, but I do like the fact that any character I play while doing PvP can ideally kill anyone I come across.
I am aware WAR will be RvR but I still like the single player stance. Since my most common game style is solo. I very often enjoy the groups and instanced fighting, but I also greatly enjoy exploring the area by myself and killing whatever I come across (or at least getting the chance to) and not have to run away until death or boredom free me.
Well, I thought I was the only one concerned about game mechanics. I think I'll play it either way as I'm just dying to play another MMO. 2.5 years of WoW was enough. Time for a new game. I really just hope that the game play will feel smooth and I won't be bored to tears at the keyboard. I'm an old fps'er who likes swords on the side so I'm hoping it will be action packed.
If you have to stand still and cast everything then you can't do damage because people will just close on you and kill you.
If you have to stand still and cast everything then you can't do damage because people will just close on you and kill you.Than again, this game will not be wow. If it doesn't match your tastes, you might not want to play.
I didn't mean to imply that Collision Detection would remove the need for movement, only that it would cut down on the frenetic running around that is the trademark of WoW's PvP combat.
I agree when you say that movement with Collision Detection is still essential, but it's more of a tactical style of movement. We've heard from the devs that you will get bonuses for placement of your characters (getting behind an opponnent etc), so it sounds to me that movement will have to be more calculated in WAR. You will need to gauge where you are and plan several moves ahead to get your opponents at a disadvantage when you move.
From what I've done in WoW's PvP, the movement there is much more instinctive and fast-paced, there's not a huge amount of planning possible because you're so busy reacting. That's not to say that it's bad, just different from what I think we can expect from the PvP movement in WAR.
And no stealth is one of the things that really made me think that Mythic knows exactly what they're doing with this game:)
If you have to stand still and cast everything then you can't do damage because people will just close on you and kill you.Than again, this game will not be wow. If it doesn't match your tastes, you might not want to play.
Someone makes a post. Which makes you more of an ass:
A) Respond to it in a thoughtful manner.
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And yes, I'm all against having to stand still like an idiot while trying to deep-fry your enemies. It's boringly stupid, even after whatever you "MMOs originally didn't have that!!" crew say. Let's start evolving this genre, for once.
I had the chance to play WAR at one of the recent GamesDays, so hopefully I can shed a little light on the "fluidity of control" aspect.
First of all, I know someone mentioned bunny hopping and circle strafing. While playing/watching the PVP, I did notice some of this. The bunny hopping not so much, because I don't think it seemed to help any. There was one part where people were trying to get over a little wall or on little ledges that they were jumping, but I didn't see much of this.
Circle-strafing I definately noticed. At one point I was a Black Orc (with 3 shamans I believe on my team) vs. 4 Dwarfs (one or two hammerers, one might have been an iron breaker, an engineer, and I think one or two rune priests, I wasn't paying much attention to the casters). Seeing as I was the only "tank" on my team, and most of our fighting was on the top of a wall/dam type thing, I noticed that the two melee dwarfs would always try to get around behind me. I don't know if this helped them or not, but being able to put my back to the side of the structure helped quite alot in this area.
In PvP there seems to be quite alot of movement back and forth. I don't think I ever really saw anyone stopping when there were enemies around. I don't know if the casters had to stop while they were casting, but I certainly could move and do my attacks at the same time. I could move quite well with WASD and the Mouselook, but with all the constant moving it was sometimes hard to hit the right hotkeys.
Honestly one of the problems I'm having remembering the "fludiity of control" is that the combat was pretty intense so I was really focused on who I was fighting and what was going on that I didn't pay much attention to the way the controls worked. I do know that it was quite easy for me to pick up and get used to the control scheme, whereas some of the other people I watched (whom I would strongly guess had little to no MMO experience) struggled with it a bit the same way most people seem to struggle when playing MMOs for their first time.
It's hard for me to compare it to a game honestly, but I'd have to say that if you wanted a game to practice with, you might try WoW. That's not to say that the control will be like WoW, but simply that that's the only thing I can really think of right now that the "feel" of moving your character around resembles.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
From the most recent reports of people that have played the game at the Toronto GD, the beta client they're showing has no /follow and no /stick, but does have an auto face when casters cast a spell.
That's all subject to change many times before release though.
Look, Blizzard is a great company, always supporting it's players... but IMO comical bunny hopping doesn't belong in a MMO. It belongs in FPS's... Guild Wars does away with that... and a caster should need to be stationary to be able to cast a spell or prepare a buff/de-buff or summon something. And for those who say there is no movement in GW, movement and positioning is key to the game. Standing still gets you killed... very quickly. Furthermore, it comes to skill selection and how you chain these skills. The only downfall with GW I find in this respect is that you find yourself repeating combo's... the fun thing is finding combos with enough 'umf and still retain versatility.
I have high hopes for WAR... even if it does not reach my expectations I will enjoy it. There are only two things that will ruin my enjoyment:
1- immature players who exploit the game.
2- if it plays like WoW.
I have to admit, WoW is one of the most irritatingly fun games I've played... one that I will never go back to.
as far as fluidity goes... although I disagree with the tenthring on the lack of fluidity in GuildWars, I have to agree with him/her in the hope that WAR can maintain some sort of flow in games style. I can't wait....
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