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Where are the action combat MMORPGs that don't try to injure you by forcing excessive mouse usage?
Quizzical
Member LegendaryPosts: 25,499
Go back in time 20-30 years and mouse-free action combat games were ubiquitous. They were also 1- or 2-player games, as the Internet didn't exist in anything like its current form. The Legend of Zelda, Contra, Mega Man, River City Ransom, Bubble Bobble, TMNT, Crystalis and so forth. There were games with combat that wasn't really action combat, but they were very much the outliers.
So then games move to the Internet, and you can play with a ton of people. And instead of combat on par with what we had 20-30 years ago, most MMORPG designers seem to have decided that combat should consist of starting a battle, waiting for the mob to die, and then collecting on your loot and moving on. In the early days of the Internet when latency and bandwidth were far more restrictive than today, this may have made some sense. But today?
I thought that mixing the action combat of 20 years ago with the traditional MMORPG non-combat mechanics would be an obvious thing to do. Spiral Knights demonstrated that you can do such combat on today's Internet and do it very well. If you go back in time 13 years, Infantry demonstrated that you could have good action combat in a multiplayer environment on the Internet as it existed then, too. Neither of those are really MMORPGs, though.
And then what? Games like Guild Wars 2 and Champions Online move a little bit in the direction of action combat, with combat that is kinda maybe sorta but not really actionish. And there are some games that have decided that action combat should require constant, heavy mouse use so that you hurt yourself if you play too much and can't really risk playing at all if you have a real-life job that involves computers. Because no computer geek would ever want to play computer games, apparently.
Am I missing something? I've seen people complain about the trend toward action combat around here. But the actual games that have real action combat seem to be mostly missing, so I'm not sure which games such people are complaining about.
Comments
I agree. WS and GW2 certainly are not action combat; they do not even come close. The likes of ESO and Vindictus do come closer but still feel some ways off.
The only real action combat I have found in mmo's has been in Firefall and Defiance and these games are lacking in many other 'mmo' features.
Personally I do not mind tab-targetting but it has become somewhat old and over-used. However, I would take tab-targetting any day of the week over the horrible hybrid, telegraph dodging system that seems to be a poor excuse for action combat in many modern mmo's. I just hope that the arrival of FPS/ TPS gives mmo combat the shot in the arm it really needs.
For an old fart like me, I actually very much enjoy the pace and style of ESO's combat.
Anyone remember "Die by the Sword" I wonder how that combat model would work in an MMORPG.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
They are on consoles.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Why do people decide that "action combat" means "first person shooter"? Action combat predated first person shooters by many years. And the caveat of the thread title "that don't try to injure you by forcing excessive mouse usage" excludes most first person shooters.
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There's nothing actionish about WildStar at all, unless having to spam your basic attack key counts as action. It has the Guild Wars 2-style "you can roll to move fast", but without the underlying mechanic of "and you'll avoid damage while doing so".
There are a lot of action combat games for consoles, but not so many MMORPGs. And I'm not aware of any action combat MMORPGs available for consoles at all.
I didn't, I said that the hybrid system is a horrible excuse for action combat. That the likes of ESO and Vindictus still did not feel quite 'actiony' enough and that the only real 'action combat' I had found in an mmo was in shooters, namely Firefall and Defiance.
I'm in no way saying that FPS/TPS is the only action combat, just that it is the only example that I feel comes close enough in mmo's. I also have found no issue with mouse usage in these games.
What is ESO combat like? I looked into trying the game a while back, but couldn't find much information on it. The official web site was quite bad, basically saying, here's where you can buy the game, and here's some lore, but we're not going to tell you anything about game mechanics. Oh, and please buy it.
The big difference from today to 20-30 years ago is the transition from 2D to 3D. Back then a good old digital joystick with x- and y-axis and a few buttons was enough.. nowadays you either have to use mouse or the new gamepads with additional analog sticks to control and aim within a 3D environment.
And even those old games, exessively played, like e.g. Decathlon, could conflict serious injuries and destroyed many, many joysticks. Action gameplay involves most of the time a lot of controlling, be it moving or aiming.. with other words it is not really something easily avoidable. Best choice is a more tactical/strategical combat with less action, less moving/aiming, and with the less injury prone.
On the other side there is nothing wrong with a 2D Iso view and only 2D movement/aiming like Spiral knights with more modern graphics.. the graphic could be even 3D.. that doesn't matter, as long as you remove the 3rd dimension from moving/aiming, which is basicly the same as Iso 2D.
Sorry to misinterpret what you said, then.
As in my original post, Spiral Knights very much has action combat, but with a cap on four players in an instance, isn't really an MMORPG.
Maybe I should look into Vindictus. I tried looking into ESO once and couldn't find much information about the game.
It is basicly the same old tab target combat with the option to aim loosely or use the old tab target. It is not action combat.
I would recommend ESO if there is a deal on it (which I am sure there is). It is action combat and I certainly had no issue with mouse usage on it. All I would say is that the combat does not feel quite as urgent, visceral and- well, actiony- as Skyrim- never quite put my finger on why.
Can you explain what action combat is that isn't like a fist person shooter?
I can't envision it but then again you use an example like Spiral Knights and unless one has played it, it really doesn't explain what you are talking about.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
One ergonomics problem of mice is that if you use one a lot at work, then come home and use a mouse some more, you're asking for trouble. Extensive gamepad use at work is far less common than mouse use.
The other ergonomics problem of mice is that you're either moving your entire arm or else twisting your wrist awkwardly. Pressing down a button on a gamepad causes neither of those issues.
Spiral Knights is not an isometric view game. The graphics are 3D even if the underlying physics is 2D. But in most MMORPGs, the underlying physics either is 2D or has a small enough impact from the third dimension that it's effectively so most of the time.
Even if you want aiming in a third dimension, you could readily add buttons to move your aim up or down. TERA did this, for example, even though they made moving your aim left or right very awkward without a mouse.
The reason I made the switch from fps to mmo years ago was because my hands couldn't handle the constant clicking. I wouldn't recommend it the constant click click click when you are spending 4 to 6 hours or more at the keyboard. And how many of us hardcore players have spent 10 or 12 hours or even longer on a day off during a marathon session. Not good.
WASD movement, mouse controls camera or movement direction, left and right buttons are attack and block. The action bar is more akin to GW2. The only cool downs are with Ultimate abilities, all your other spells and actions you have to pace with Mana and Stamina use.
The pace is nice, you aren't button spamming. I feel that the combat is taken back more to the basics, it does not over complicate things.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I seem to remember that Spiral Knights was isometric but with mouse aiming and shooting.
Hybrid: WS and GW2 (certainly not action by an stretch of the imagination).
Action: ESO and Vindictus.
FPS/TPS: Firefall and Defiance (also action).
That is the way I see it.
I can't give a broad definition that encompasses everything that action combat could be, but there are a number of examples of older games in the original post. Pick any game from the SNES era or earlier that has combat at all and it probably has action combat and probably isn't first person, though there are some exceptions. A common approach was that you attack in whatever direction you're facing and hit whatever happens to be there.
What I really want is combat where what the player does while in combat (as opposed to what level and gear he has accumulated before entering combat) strongly affects the outcome, and in a sense other than "you can die if you decide to be really stupid".
Constant left and right clicking to attack... got sick of it by level 25 or so. I have never clicked so much in a game, the only thing to compare it to is right click to move in league of legends... that's how much clicking goes on... constantly.. every time you're in combat.
Is it hard-coded in that you have to use those controls, or do they give you the options to change them? More to the point, is the mouse just one way to move the camera, and you can move the camera with a keyboard or gamepad if you like?
The problem is the analog movement, which you need in actual 3D gameplay. Ok.. i don't know, if it is less a pain in the ass to use the gamepad analog sticks.. because whenever i play with it over a lengthy time it is more or less the same as with mouse.
I don't know, if Spiral Knight is actual 3D, or just 3D to 2D sprite conversion and under the hood Iso 2D.. however it does not matter.(because nowadays you actual make 3D render(more often than not) and then make your 2D animation spritesheet) The controlling is classic Iso2D, you don't have a analog movement only 8 directions (therefore a digital movement is possible and by far less injury prone) + a few button clicks for jump and some other actions.
And as you already said with Tera aiming in 3D you have to use the analog sticks or a mouse.. and both is in my mind excessivly used not really healthy. Maybe we should better differenciate analog vs. digital controlling, because it basicly comes down to this. IMHO.
But i do agree with you that for most MMOs classic limited 2D controlling(limited to only digital controlling) could be more than enough.. and i personally would really enjoy a Zelda like MMO.
Well, that's the type of combat I would want as well.
However, I don't know andy SNES games. So essentially you want something that is third person but 2 dimensional? Or "2.5" or whatever that is called?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
You can play first person and 3rd person. You can pretty much bind anything the way you like, not sure about the camera movement though (never tried) It is very much controller friendly. Think "Hexen" but much improved.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
That insightful comment cuts to the heart of the matter pretty well. I don't like thumbsticks, either, but it is at least a different motion from a mouse. What I really liked was the cycloid on the NES Max, but no controller seems to have used that since then. Varying your motions is the real key to avoiding injury.
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Isometric view is so named because a sprite will look exactly the same--and more to the point, be exactly the same size--no matter where it is on the screen, whether off in the distance or right up in front. A character looking "different" when facing a different direction is because it's drawing a completely independent sprite. If a game can transition smoothly from larger characters up near the camera to smaller characters off in the distance, and showing more of one side when on the left of the screen to showing more of the other side when on the right of the screen, it's using a 3D perspective viewpoint. You can't do that with sprites, and you don't do that with isometric view.
It is possible to have an isometric view together with 3D rendering methods. This is sometimes used for engineering or architecture purposes (to give a clearer view of the relative size of various things), but almost never for games. I've implemented it in my own game, and it looks weird like an optical illusion when you rotate the camera. Moving the camera without rotating it works fine, though.
So, that rules out tab targeting or pretty much the need for any kind of targeting. Unless you are allowing homing devices in your action game?
Can you still find a better sword? That's kinda one of the non negotiables in pretty much any of today's games. The levels can be worked around, though it'll be a harder sell. People like progression.
Maybe GW2 might be a good fit? It qualifies for the "hit what you are facing", for, dunno, about half the attacks you don't need to target anyone, you just execute the attack and if anyone is standing there you hit hem. Unless they block or dodge, or blind you, or stun you, or counter you in some other way. If you go into the sPvP mode your character is set to max level and everyone uses the same gear, so level and gear differences are non existent and skill is much more important.