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combat bad or do I suck?
ethion
Member UncommonPosts: 2,888
I'm just returning to eq2 after being gone a long time. As a 47 swashbuckler I'm finding combat to be extremely mindless random button pushing... No real strategy just push all the buttons. So am I clueless of is there some strategic element I'm missing?
I started eq2 at launch and played for several months. Eventually at 47 I was feeling like I'd seen most everything and some buddies pulled me off to wow. So I played wow for like 3 months before finding it boring. Then I bumped around playing various games till getting into the vanguard beta. With beta and release I played vanguard for maybe a year and a half.
The point being wow and vanguard have really aclimated me to a more complex melee combat system then what I'm seeing in eq2. Seems like all of my combat abilities are unavailable for quite a long time so the choices when fighting are 1. What order do I initially use to do all my combat abilities. 2. then just keep hitting them as once become available. 3. I tried using the combat wheel solo but it ended up killing me cause I couldn't manage it and keep up all my combat abilities.
So in the end if feels like I'm just hitting a lot of buttons without really any thought processes nore do I see any opportunity for strategy?? Is there something I'm missing here or is that it? Not that this is a deal breaker I'm still having fun with quests and new content.
By comparison wow has various things like build ups using more basic abilities and finishing attacks and a small energy pool you constantly run into that limits just button mashing. So in wow there is a bit more strategy in that you have to pay attention to build ups, energy levels to time your attacks, and finally differing finishers depending on the situation.
Vanguard is somewhat similar in that you have starters and finishers and the need to watch energy although vanguard even has some extra tradeoffs in that some abilities are multi chained where each step is more powerful but on a timer so if you don't have the energy you might not be able to finish the chain and vanguard has various types of reactionary or situational attacks that become available during combat. For example an attack that follows a parry or things like that.
So I'd like to know what long time players think and if I'm missing something or is this just a known limitation of the game? I was kinda under the impression that combat had changed a while back to improve it but it doesn't seem largely different to me...
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Ethion
Comments
Funny you should mention that. I came back to EQ2 for like a week and a half before I turned right back away from it lol. I just noticed that all I did (as a swashy myself) was press buttons, and hardly any of my dps came from auto attacks. Because of that, I basically was a sword and board swashy. The best combat system I've seen yet is Vanguard because you can actually use your auto attacks as a dps booster (as a DK who uses a 2 hander) by timing your abilities. Recently though, due to Vanguard going absolutely nowhere (maybe perhaps in the negative), I'm playing Hellgate, and the combat there is really good. It's great to not have to worry about skill mashing and just swing a sword (or shoot a gun). So yea dude, I know where you're coming from. We need something new.
Just by the above quote, I would suggest that you give EQ2 a bit more time because I think you are missing some important things. Read some of the class boards on the SOE site. There should be no reason at all that you cannot manage to utilize the combat wheel and still be able to use all your combat abilities.
Unlike WOW and some other games, a lot of what is needed to be successful in EQ2 is not just laid out in front of each player when they first sign on. Now, don't get me wrong; some of it surely is, but there is a lot more to the game (and combat) than just pushing buttons. You just have to do some work to understand it and become proficient with it. The Sony boards (and places like EQ2wiki and TenTonHammer) are great places to start.
Good luck with the game and I hope you come to enjoy it as much as the rest of us do!
Well I'm definitely not a novice or clueless or liking a simple system. As I said my issue isn't that eq2 is too complex but rather that it appears too simple.
The issue with pushing buttons is that I go into an attack. I sneak up on a mob and I backstab with catspaw I think. Then I hit it with a couple debufs that slow attack rates and decrease mitigation and agility. So far so good. Then I have a number of more generic attacks that do single hits or multiple hits with some other minor effects so I basically sequence through those attacks. This is so far not bad, however now is when it falls apart. At this point I have no more attacks I can use cause they are ALL grayed out. Then I wait a second or two and one ungrays, I hit it. then another and so on. I basically can keep all my attacks grayed out till combat is done. Doing anything else resulted in me dying or coming really close to dying when soloing a normal even con mob.
I tried doing the combat wheel to see if working that would help. No doing the combat wheel means that I have to use certain attacks to trigger the effect. The issue is making sure the right attacks ungray at the right time this means that I can't just hit every button as it ungrays I have to wait for certain buttons to ungray and the in lies the issue in order to do that some other buttons ungray first but I can't hit them cause I'm waiting for the "right button". Now that's possibly just a newbie issue and if I sit down and calculate the right sequence I can probably improve by hitting the right sequence to tighten up the timing of when the right button ungrays but till I can do that the combat wheel is hurting my dps and being a melee class lower dps equals death since I can't add more hp :P
I guess it would be nice if the shrunk the endurance pool and bumped up the regen rate and then decreased the timeout on all combat abilities then you might actually have to do some decision making when choosing what attacks to do?? Some of that does come into play in group battles where you actually might run our of endurance...
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Ethion
Welcome to the world of BUTTONMASHER-MOG's ( button masher multiplayer online games )
Thats basically all you do I guess. I havent played EQ2 long enough to judge anything, im not saying the game sucks or anything; what I AM saying is that these kind of games are getting boring (WoW, EQ2, LOTRO, etc) in which all you do is smash buttons.
My post is not meant to offend any players, this is just what I think.
The game DOES feel like a button masher...as when I started, that is what I did...then my energy ran out, could not heal...and well, after many, many deaths...I got to work then...
I studied the AA system more, worked on specific weapons to use, know when to use skills (like the Awesome Paladin kick...right when that spellcaster starts up)...
I now do not die on the right mobs, and sometimes can hold my own on heroics...
So, the problem is...it DOES take skill...and finding the right balance is the key
Good Luck!
i am about to be into my first month of gameplay, im not one to judge sience i havent been playing forever (28dirge). i used to play FFXI and EQOA, wich both of those had more of a stratigic fighting system, especiall FFXI, melle didnt have many ablitlys, but it focused alot on timing for weapon skill and magic bursting, wich i love that syatyem and hope more games try somthing lik ethat. to me i feel like im just going across the list of melee spells and just hitting them to do damage, though some are nice like the "you hafta be sneaking" or "behinf the mob" kinds of attacks. i do like the game, but dont really love it, its my first more button mashing style game im kinda getting into, so yah id hafta say it really is BMing style
That's more min/maxing, accouting and math than gameplay skill.
But that is what MMORPG combat is--maxiimzing your gear bonuses or your atteck chains to add up to the best advantage. So I guess technically it could be called a skill, but as much as I hate to say it, FPS games are more skill based in the physical sense.
You have to learn your Swashie's skills better. For instance did you know you have a stun attack? What does this tell you? Stun, move around behind your enemy and backstab a couple more times. Theres more to them than standing toe to toe pushing buttons. Theres also an AA ability that lets you spin them around gaining another oppurtunity to backstab again.
Then your AA build was ineffecient. There is a build for Swashies under the Fencer line i think that allows a huge increase to auto attacks.
I have a 70 swash with plenty of raid experience and I can tell you that while button mashing may get the job done on low con solo mobs it will not let you take down heroics or do respectable DPS in a raid.
First you need to consider the poisons you use. Vitality breach and gracelessness are essential for soloing, caustic and ignorant bliss for grouping and raiding.
A typical solo fight starts with backstabs, using the stealth/stun one first as it allows you to get at least two in before the mob faces you. Then debuff heavily with mit and agi/defense reductions, this will ensure that your subsequent attacks hit for max dmg. During a solo fight use your stun whenever its up so you can run to the back of the mob to get a backstab in. Walk the Plank in the AGI tree is also useful for this. To get the most out of raiding you need to co-ordinate your attacks with the other players, such as using inspiration when a brigand calls dispatch or dirge uses CoB.
There are a few good swashies and lots of average ones, skill makes all the difference. This is most noticeable at the endgame.
Thanks for pointing out the stun ability. That really does help some although I'd still put eq2's combat system below wow and vanguard in terms of strategy and player skill. Both of these games are far more complex in terms of making choices as you fight that can have a very large impact on how the combat goes.
But I think EQ2 is better then both of them when considering the whole picture. Content, Quests, Aliveness of the npcs in town, and general variety of things to do.
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Ethion
ethion:
Well I'm definitely not a novice or clueless or liking a simple system. As I said my issue isn't that eq2 is too complex but rather that it appears too simple.
I guess it would be nice if the shrunk the endurance pool and bumped up the regen rate and then decreased the timeout on all combat abilities then you might actually have to do some decision making when choosing what attacks to do?? Some of that does come into play in group battles where you actually might run our of endurance...
I call BS, and yes, you do like a simple system that beeps and flashes and tells you when and what to do. So you suck at EQ2 combat so you want to change it into WoW combat? No thanks. WoW combat is crap. Smash Bros gameplay with the flashing lights going, hit me, hit me. EQ2 actually takes some skill and a lot of study/prep to do it correctly. Tell me, why do I parse 2500 zonewide dps on raids and other swashies parse 500? Because they either are there for a free ride, or they're too stupid to know wtf they're doing.
I solo Nest everyday 65-70 heroics. I solo Poet's Palace, all heroics, in fact any player (any class) that can't solo PP by 70 shoud just quit the game. I'm sick and tired of grouping with morons with their head up their ass that don't know how combat works, especially by at least 50th.
Do you know what poisons you're using? Did you know you can use 3 different poisons at once? What's the most important stat/power/proc to a swashy when choosing equipment? Which stance do you use when soloing? Which CA's advance HO's? What does the damage mean on a weapon and how can you tell which one is better? If you can't answer those questions w/o logging in your character to look, then don't give me your stupid WoW combat crap.
Talemire:
I just noticed that all I did (as a swashy myself) was press buttons, and hardly any of my dps came from auto attacks. Because of that, I basically was a sword and board swashy.
40% of your dps comes from auto-attacks. That's almost half. Seriously, some of you are just not cut out for these games, they are obviously way above your comprehension. Do you know how much of your dps is from poisons? I didn't think so...
Oh, and btw, I do agree though that Vanguard DOES have one of the best combat systems in the genre (Just for the record). WoW combat is garbage though.
"Granted thinking for yourself could be considered a timesink of shorter or longer duration depending on how smart..or how dumb you are."
I'm not a big fan of Wow by any stretch but most of the things you point out are blatantly obvious and don't require any thought at all other then doing a little research or testing combinations of poisons and studying gear or just asking someone who is knowledgable in stats for swashbucklers.
However dising wow in these area's is also not very informed. Wow does have stats and poisons and a number of things to consider. And I'm not sure what the hell you are talking about when you say flashing lights and hit me hit me. Seems to me you are pretty clueless about wow combat.
The thing that makes wow combat interesting is that you can't just mash buttons but do need to consider things while you fight. As a rogue in wow you have standard stuns where you can run around and backstab. You have starting attacks and finishing attacks. You also have a very small endurance pool that refreshes pretty fast during combat but needs to be constantly managed to ensure you have enough energy to do things like being able to stun and attack. But then you add in being able to build up points that effect the power of finishers and add that you have several finishers and how you are playing a game where you really do need to think and make many choices. For example as a rogue when you build up points you can do a finisher that gives you haste for a time, or you can do a high damage frontal attack, or you can do a stun and run around and do a backstab finishing attack, or if a mob has high AC sometimes it is better to do a bleed finisher that bypasses armor. And any time you are doing something with stuns energy prep is a must.
Now I am far from an expert in eq2 as it has been a couple years since I played it but I'm definitely not stupid or inexperienced with these types of games. I've played probably every major MMO that has ever been released. So min maxing stats and poisons is purely mechanical and calculated. Using abilities in a defined sequence is also mechanical. Look up the abilities and do them in the order that makes sense. So as someone pointed out I do the sneak up, backstab, then run some debufs, and then start cycling through my damage abilities. Doing this approach it turns into a waiting game for buttons to light up then I hit them. Since I have no limits there is no downside to using every button as soon as it lights up. Now of course I am new and only lvl 47 so I don't have a bunch of AA or special attacks so I'm only evaluating based on my current skills.
The ability to stun was a good one I overlooked and didn't remember. It has been a couple years and as I recall that ability is kinda low lvl and has a cute name that doesn't jump out and say stun. But this does help some and it will probably make it so I can't keep up with my abilities refreshing which does mean I need to make choices. This stun ability will open up I think 3 other possible positional attacks I can choose from and the time to do the stun and positional attack will allow likely several other abilities to become available to use.
Frequently dps numbers in raids are effected by a number of factors and probably the biggest ones are gear and desire. Gear and ability upgrades will have a large impact on numbers and then desire, how attentive are you paying attention to damage. In eq I used to parse and post raid dps numbers for the entire guild. Prior to going public many people were frankly slacking and once I started posting results and announcing the top people after boss fights the entire guild increased overall dps by 20-30%.
So knowing tricks to squeeze out extra dps is great but if it is just mechanical then there is no skill involved it is just a matter of knowledge.
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Ethion
Well, I played eq2 almost 3 years, but combat has NEVER been the strong side of eq2, no. So yes I feel your gripes about EQ2 combat being quite a button mashing. Mysteriously some RPG players seem to like it like that. I would always have like a less static and sterile combat system, something that makes me feel more like combat and less like playing chess. Its still VERY much rooted in turn based RPG combat ideology, and I guess it will always be.
Mob stands glued in front of you, heroes stay static in position and you CLICK CLICK CLICK all your abilities in your hotbar from F1 to F12 all over.
The FUNNY thing is: once SWG had a similar combat system. DOZENS of arbitrary abilities, differing only in the flamboyant names, but 99% of player mashed them all through over and over. Until SOE felt to make a more dynamic, demanding combat that this turn based sharade. But you can see how that was appreciated. Roleplayers had to *gasp* AIM at their targets and THINK what skill to use and not just mash all 256 attacks all over.
Tbh, I always prefer to have fewer attacks that MATTER than dozens which are just FIRE SPELL 1 - 50 in 50 different names but all are the same. Vanguard has a pretty decend combat, at least leagues better than EQ2. (which is SOMETHING from my mouth to say!)
But then, RPG combat, wether single player or online, has never been known for strategic creativity. *snicker*
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Yeah I just hope SOE does for vanguard as well as they did for EQ2 following launch. If they do so then at some point Vanguard will become the ultimate game... But alas now it has some great ideas but is so lacking in quality and content that it is hard to stay into it.
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Ethion
I can't say much because of NDA, but RoK will see some changes in combat in EQ2. Maybe they took a lesson from other games...
ethion:
The ability to stun was a good one I overlooked and didn't remember. It has been a couple years and as I recall that ability is kinda low lvl and has a cute name that doesn't jump out and say stun. But this does help some and it will probably make it so I can't keep up with my abilities refreshing which does mean I need to make choices. This stun ability will open up I think 3 other possible positional attacks I can choose from and the time to do the stun and positional attack will allow likely several other abilities to become available to use.
Don't know why you typed all that just to say this, but at least you're thinkin'. As a swashbuckler, whether soloing or group, you should be all over the place. Position, position, position. I find myself constantly moving around to use CA's.
"Granted thinking for yourself could be considered a timesink of shorter or longer duration depending on how smart..or how dumb you are."
Most abilities don't have a .5 sec cool down most are like 5 seconds at best and most are longer... If they had a .5 sec cool down the whole combat system would be broken cause a swashbuckler could spam through attacks and do massive damage. Games like wow and vanguard allow you to have a short cooldown form many abilities but use a very small energy pool to limit you. So in wow you can do like 3-4 hits then you are out of energy which recharges fast. So in wow you tend to focus on short sequences then wait a bit or do something that doesn't use much so you can setup for another big attack. To some degree vanguard is similar.
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Ethion
The above poster is right. Scouts have the most complicated battles, as they rely on a lot of positional damage. One of my alts is a 58 ranger and he has some ranged and melee CAs that require to be flanking or behind. I start with a stealthed range attack, get one or two more range attacks while he runs in. By this time, an even con is down to yellow or orange health (more if I set a rooting trap). Then, start heroic op (wheel), stun to activate the chain and run around and use my "backstab" Combat Art. By this time, he is pretty much dead and I am almost untouched.
As this was my first scout character in EQ2, it took me about 4 months to master the technique, and I have been playing the game since launch and already had 2 years under my belt. If you start the game using a scout, expect to spend some time perfecting your technique, as different mobs need to be treated differently.
I must say that EQ2 needs a combat revamp. Of course, nothing like the butchery of SWG, but something to make it need a brain. The combat is skilless. Sure, as a swashy you can stun and run behind to backstab, but that's about it. You basically have 15 skills that simply do damage. EQ2 did a lot of things perfectly, but classes/combat/PvP was not one of them. The classes feel bland just like the combat. Specifically the necromancer, it feels nothing like a necromancer should.
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You need to also consider the types of resist of your opponent. Most classes gets 2 or more types of elemental attacks, while many attacks do the same things or almost the same things you have to consider the type of resist that your opponent has. For example using heat/fire damage on things that are resistant or immune to heat/fire is a no-no. Also in high levels mobs can do status effects on you that causes a variety of effects, you have to time your counters/cures as a priest. The chain wheel is one of the most important aspect of combat you need to master it in order to defeat tough heroic opponents, while simple button mashing will work for low level enemies, the heroic ^^^ opponents require a measure of skill and know how of the game's battle chain wheel system to be successful.
I had a 57 swashy in full mastercrafted, in combat you really only have to press buttons, theres no real strategi to it... but somehow I enjoyed EQ2 very much the time I played it. Maybe it was because the people I played with was kind and helpful. The graphics were awesome too but they are really not optimized since my friend with a 8800 card and a really good processor etc cant run this game on highest settings without performance issues